[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Scully's team had been able to activate several remote sensing facilities such
as the anemometer and barometer, and there was real hope that the
all-important TV camera would be working properly by the end of the week.
The demise of the nano-machines in the infected Kronos chips had been a blow.
Despite the misgivings of everyone else, Beverley was certain that a golden
opportunity had been lost although the revelation by Mace Pilleau and Leon
Dexter that the cells being rejuvenated were not conventional protein cells
but true neurons similar to those in the human brain had shaken Beverley more
than she cared to admit. She remembered Carl's words during her early days at
Nano Systems when he had
briefed her about the development of artificial intelligence. He had said that
the one thing that was missing from computers developed throughout the
Page 179
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
seventies and eighties was motivation. 'They're still basically the Turing
machines that Alan Turing denned back in the forties. The real change will
take place not when we build computers that can beat any grand master at
chess, but when we have machines that actually want to win. And when that
happens, they will no longer be Turing machines but intelligences in open
competition with us.'
His words had stuck in Beverley's mind all these years.
'Penny for them,' said Toby, sitting at bis computer terminal and not
appearing to take any notice of Beverley.
She dropped into an easy chair with the stuffing hanging out and kicked off
her shoes. With Toby she could relax, really unwind. She had been able to with
Carl but no more. It was something she valued and, in a curious way, it had
the effect of sexually attracting her to Toby even though he was several years
her junior. 'I was just thinking how nice it is being here with you,' she
admitted. 'I feel I just want to curl up in this chair, with you nearby, and
sleep for a week.'
'Can't have that,' said Toby, switching on the computer. 'Angie would
complain.'
A little pang of jealousy. 'Who's Angie?'
'Mrs Hopkins. Lady who keeps the place clean.'
Beverley glanced around at the mess. 'She does a lousy job.'
Toby nodded. 'You tell her that for me and I'll halve my fee for all this
messing about. Frankly, I haven't got the guts.'
His faint, mocking smile as though he were reading her thoughts prodded her
guilt like a sharpened stick. 'What's on your mind?'
'That wall map in your office. The one with the coloured pins.'
'Infected Kronos chips,' Beverley commented. 'I thought I told you.'
'A scattering throughout the world. But strange that most of them are here, in
southern England.'
'The highest density is around Guildford,' said Beverley. 'And
not so strange if the someone who knows how to infect the chips is going
around the area.'
'What about the inevitability theory? That a sufficiently advanced
microprocessor might take on a life of its own?'
Beverley closed her eyes. Until now she had not realized how tired she was. 'I
don't know what to think any more, Toby. All I know is that I'm convinced that
Marshall Tate is behind it all. So many things point to him.' The familiar
click of a Nano-pad being switched on made her open her eyes. He was plugging
a telephone lead into the Nanopad's communication socket. 'Now what are you
doing?'
'Groundwork for my courageous assault on the Eldorado.' 'Our courageous
assault,' Beverley corrected. Toby shrugged. He worked at the keyboard for a
minute and tilted the screen so that Beverley could see it. It was a mass of
Kanji characters. 'Some information I found on the database of the Science and
Technology Institute of Japan,' he explained. 'I was logged in to it and had
found something interesting just when you turned up.' 'Can you read Japanese
characters?' 'Nope.' He tapped on the keyboard and the menus changed to
English. 'This log-in is costing your company fifty dollars a minute. The
Japanese don't gi/e their information away.'
'Go ahead and break us,' said Beverley lightly. The feeling of being totally
relaxed returned and she revelled in it. It was wonderful. Toby Hoyle was as
unlike Carl as it was possible to imagine; she did not have to be constantly
on her guard for fear of saying something that might upset him; Toby did not
give a damn what anyone said about him. Despite bis icy nature, he was the
most well-balanced person that Beverley had ever encountered. She watched him
at work, picking his way skilfully through the complexities of the database's
structure.
"The specialist shipping menu was leading me somewhere,' Toby muttered. 'Ah.
Got it. Eldorado. A one hundred thousand tonne bulk carrier. Formerly the
Orient Conveyor. Owned by the Nippon Ocean Transport Corporation of Osaka and
Page 180
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
sold to Tate Leisure. Converted to a marine earth station and delivered
December 1997.'
'That doesn't tell us anything we don't already know,' Bever-ley observed. 'I
shall refuse to pay.'
'Oh yes it does.' He pointed to a menu.
Beverley squinted at the screen. 'List of equipment suppliers? How will that
help?'
'Might just have your name on here as the supplier of all those chips.'
'I doubt it.'
Toby gave a rare smile. 'So do I.' His fingers worked the keyboard. 'Catering
equipment suppliers; safety equipment; cleaning equipment; cabin fittings.
Nothing on the actual Bacchus gear.'
'Told you.'
'Security equipment. Now that could be useful.'
'More gen for your wicked little Nanopad?'
Toby smiled. 'Precisely.' He entered the command that copied all the data on
the contractors who had fitted out the Eldorado into the Nanopad's memory. The
computer-generated voice announced that the download was complete. Toby logged
out of the database. He looked up at Beverley but she was asleep.
30
Since 1970 ten people had been drugged and successfully smuggled out of the
United Kingdom against their will, and a further three attempts had failed,
the last being an attempt in the 1980s by the Nigerian government to extract
and bring to trial a diplomat wanted on currency charges.
In all instances the method of transporting the victims had been a crude
wooden packing crate in which the unfortunate victim was bound, gagged and
drugged, and shipped out of the country in the cargo hold of an aircraft.
During the height of the cold war in the sixties the KGB even designed a
soundproof crate for the purpose. Unfortunately for a number of their victims,
the Soviets overlooked the fact that many civil aircraft did not have
pressurised cargo holds with the result that a number of their reluctant
passengers suffocated in transit.
People stuffed in wooden cases and then deprived of air at normal atmospheric
pressure for hours at a time do not travel well.
The most ingenious kidnapping of all was not from the United Kingdom. It was
the Israeli operation in the 1960s to remove Adolf Eichmann from Argentina and
return him to Israel to face charges of wartime atrocities against the Jews.
It was a huge operation that employed over fifty Mossad agents. It involved
the setting up of several safe houses in Argentina, and the hiring of over
twenty vehicles. It culminated in the laying on of a special El Al flight [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]