Chapter 9

The armored sedan carrying me to meet with the Chief of MI6 entered a heavily guarded, underground garage. We were driven what seemed like a long way until the vehicle stopped next to a set of steel doors where several heavily armed men waited. The vehicle was barely stopped when the door flew open and I was rushed beyond the doors and into an elevator that sped upwards.

After the cryptic comment about our business empire being well placed to ‘assist’ the Crown, my escort never spoke again. Neither did he join me in the speedy elevator. In fact, nobody did. When the car finally stopped I was met by a very attractive woman and ushered into a well-appointed conference room, where I recognized Chief Younger from his many newspaper photos.

To the right of the chief sat an older woman, who looked angry, or terribly frustrated. She did not appear to be happy to see me for some reason. With the two, but standing away from the conference table was a selection of aides, or assistants. By the tableau that greeted me, they would be playing no part in the coming discussion.

Chief Younger walked directly to me and stuck out his hand in welcome. “Good morning Lord Terrance,” he said. His voice was not carefully cultured like so many upper crust Brits. His was what I thought of as normal, and therefore more trustworthy.

“Good morning, Chief Younger,” I replied just as sincerely.

The Chief waved towards the conference table. “Why don’t we get comfortable, so that I can share some facts about a dilemma our government is facing, and then ask you for a favor?” Even though he phrased it as a question, it was more of an opening gambit to relax me. It did occur to me that he might be setting me up for the kill.

Once we were seated, again without the underlings who stayed back and took copious notes, the head spy came directly to the point. “Lord Terrance, we need your help.” I loved his forthright and frank nature. There was nothing better than getting things out in the open. The chief seemed to have no fear of offending, or scaring me off, so I settled back in my seat and waited for him to continue.

“Our problem comes from a small group of high tech industrialists in India that are using subtle and not so subtle means to disrupt our power grids and damage the British economy. It looks like a strictly economic attack, with no political agenda. Obviously we have gobs of people looking into any other agendas that might have been missed, but their behavior seems to be all about taking us down a peg so that their... ‘sponsors,’ if you will, can move up a peg.

“Where do you come into this saga, right? Well, Lord Terrance, you happen to own controlling stock in a US company that, if it were to abruptly pull their financial support out from under them, without giving them time to prepare for the sudden inconvenience, we believe that their ability to perform acts of mischief with our power supply would be severely curtailed, and the knowledge of our stern intentions to be left alone in that regard, might be enough to warn them off of us permanently.”

While he spoke the video boards behind him showed highly accurate photos of places and people. Without explanation I could only guess at their relationship to Mr. Younger’s problem, and rather than leap to agree, I chose to wait for him to sink the hook deeper.

“If you follow the film we made just for you, Lord Terrance, you will see many of the people that are behind the malicious mischief that is bedeviling us. I can give you their names and where they come from, along with a detailed briefing on everything from their education to their taste in women’s clothes, but what you really need is information about your holdings and how you can help us put these people in a box they will be frightened to escape from for a very long time.”

He showed me video of power plants going off line, hospitals losing lighting, and cities struggling with insane traffic problems due to loss of traffic lights. The people behind each hack were shown alongside the acts of economic terror that they participated in, and eventually the screens all coalesced into a photo of the headquarters of a company outside London that Deirdre and I mostly owned, between us.

“Lord Terrance, Shafter is sitting at the intersection of breaking technology. Your company bought large, but not controlling stakes, in the companies that bankroll the people behind our difficulty. If our forensic investigators are right, all you need do is call the directors and give them one hour to withdraw all financial support from the three companies that are squarely in the middle of this, and then use your voting power to fire eight executives, spread across three companies, and all the funding going into their little cabal comes to a screaming halt.” The list of names replaced the photos on the Chief’s video board.

Having made his plea, Younger sat back and waited for my reaction. After spending so long getting up to speed on Chasen’s empire, I knew that Younger and his team had it right. The three companies all would collapse if I withdrew all funding. We would lose a few million pounds, and maybe as much as a hundred million, but probably not that much, but it would happen exactly as Chief Younger predicted. The question was, how much was I willing to lose to help the crown out of their current problem, and how hard would it be to recover those funds once things returned to a more normal place?

The Chief beat me to the answer I sought. “Lord Terrance, the crown will guarantee all out of pocket expense, and return to you all loses, if you help us. We are truly in need and short of violence, which would have to be the next step, this is our only good option.

“Please consider helping us.”

I mulled their problem over for a short time, and then asked, “Mr. younger, I need to speak to one of my staff. Is it possible to use my mobile phone in here, Sir?”

For the first time since I stepped into the room, and underling stepped forward and placed a unique phone in front of the Chief. “Lord Terrance, this building is a bit too ... evolved for a standard mobile phone to make, or receive calls. I took the liberty of having a new phone activated, that will work inside our headquarters, and it is a phone that is virtually impossible to record.

“Please take it with our blessing. You will find that our electronics experts have cloned your phone numbers and other data into its chip, and it is ready for your use. We want you to keep it as a gift for hearing us out.”

I took the phone and tapped in a name. The name and phone number of the director I wished to call popped up immediately and when I touched ‘call’ the circuit was closed and it rang almost instantly. I did not have to wait in line to speak to my staff. Chasen was far too pressed to be kept waiting. When he called, people jumped to do his bidding. It had better be that way now.

Chief Younger chased his staff out and withdrew to give me privacy. He needn’t have bothered. Once I understood the problem and the solution was presented, I was happy to oblige my grandfather’s home government. “Mr. Clarke, this is an important call. You are about to undertake a very important task on my behalf. You will not ask questions. I will not be answering any. What you will do is precisely what I tell you, and you will do it personally while I wait on this phone.