The Big Drive

1995...322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡawBDnov2vS
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The telephone call came when I was down by the big circular pool chatting up the two sexies I had cut out of the herd. I didn't think my chances with them were very high. They were of an age that regards any man of over 35 as falling apart at the seams; but what the hell; it was improving my Greek.

I looked up at the angular face of the waiter and said incredulously, "A phone call? For me?"

"Yes, sir. From London, in fact." He seemed impressed.

I sighed and grabbed my beach robe. "I'll be right back," I promised, and followed the waiter up the steps towards the hotel. At the top I paused. "I'll take it in my room," I said, and cut across the front of the hotel towards the poolside cabana I rented.

Inside it was cool, almost cold, and the air conditioning unit uttered a monstrous roar. I took a can of beer from the refrigerator, cracked it open, and picked up the telephone. As I suspected it was Beauregard. "What are you doing in Greece?" he asked. The line was good; he could have been in the next room.

I drank some beer. "Since when do you give a shit where I take my vacations?"

"You're at least in the vicinity of the right continent. It's a shame you've got to come back to London. What's the weather like down there?"

"It's hot. What would you expect in the Mediterranean?"

"It's raining here," he said, "and a bit cold."

I'd got used to the British by now. As with the Indians and Pakistanis there is always an exchange of small talk before the serious issues arise but the British always talk about the weather. I sometimes find it hard to take. "You didn't call me for a weather report. Now, what's all this about London?"

"Playtime's over, I'm afraid. We've got a job for you. I need to see you in my office the day after tomorrow."

I figured it out. Half an hour to check out, another hour to Knossos to turn in the rented car. The afternoon flight to Athens and then the midnight flight to London. And the rest of that day to recover. "I might just make it," I conceded. "But I'd like to know why."

"That's too complicated right now. See you in London."

"Okay," I said grouchily. "How did you know I was here, by the way?"

Beauregard laughed lightly. "We've got our ways, Drake, we've got our ways." There was a click, and the line went dead.

I replaced the handset in disgust. That was another thing about the British---they were always flinging quotations at you, especially from Sherlock Holmes and Alice in Wonderland. Or Winnie the goddamn Pooh!"

I went outside the cabana and stood on the balcony while I finished the beer. The Mediterranean Sea was calm and the few palm trees there were fluttered in a light breeze. The girls were splashing in the pool, having a mock fight, and their shrill laughter cut through the heated air. Two young men were watching them with interest. Goodbyes were not needed, I thought, so I finished the beer and went inside to pack.

A word about the company I work for. British Aerospace is about as British as Shell Oil is Dutch---it's gone global (hey, it is the '90s), which is why I was one of the many Americans in its employment. You can't buy a jumbo jet from B.A., nor even a lear jet, but if you want to launch a satellite or maybe a module for the new International Space Station, then we're the ones. We're at the heavy end of the industry.

Nominally I'm an engineer but it must have been ten years since I actually built or designed anything. The higher a man rises in a corporation like ours the less he's concerned with purely technical problems. Of course, the jargon of modern management makes everything sound technical, and the subcommittee rooms resound with phrases drawn from critical path analysis, operations research, and industrial dynamics, but all that bullshit is discarded at the big boardroom table, where the serious decisions are made by men who know there's a lot more to management than the mechanics of technique.

There are lots of names for guys like me. In some companies I'm called an expeditor, in others a troubleshooter. I operate in the foggy area bounded on the north by technical difficulties, on the east by finance, on the west by politics, and on the south by the sheer quirkiness of humankind. If I had to put a name to my trade, I'd call myself a political engineer.

Beauregard was right about London; it was cold and wet. There was a strong wind blowing which drove the rain against the windows of his office with a pattering sound. After Greece it was bleak.

He stood up as I entered. "You have a nice tan," he said appreciatively.

"It would have been better if I could have finished my vacation. Now, what's the problem?"

"You Yanks are always in such a hurry," complained Beauregard. That was good for a couple of laughs. You don't run an outfit like British Aerospace by resting on your ass and Beauregard, like many other Brits in a top-ranking job, seemed deceptively slow but somehow seemed to come out ahead. The classic definition of a Frenchman as a guy who comes behind you in a revolving door and steps out ahead could very well apply to Beauregard.

The second laugh was that I could never break them of the habit of calling me a Yank. I tried calling Beauregard a Limey once, and then tried to show him that Liverpool is closer to London than Wyoming to New England, but he never caught on.

"This way," he said. "I've got a team set up in the boardroom."

I knew most of the men there, and when Beauregard said, "You all know Denis Crumbley," there was a murmur of assent. There was one new boy whom I didn't know, and whom Beauregard introduced. "This is Brian Tipton, our man on the scene."

"Which scene?"

"I said you were in proximity to the right continent. It's just a matter of you getting there." Beauregard pulled back a curtain covering a notice board to reveal a map. "Mochi-Jojeji."

My jaw dropped almost to the floor. "You gotta be kidding!"

"I can't 'kid' you, Blake," Beauregard replied. "We're planning to send an unmanned capsule using our newest mobile launch vehicle to the International Space Station. The only way to get to the designated launch site----A little middle-of-nowhere hamlet called Sutovo---is through there."

"So?" I asked, sarcastically.

"Well, we have a contract with Russia to actively facilitate the International Space Agency's regional air/space travel goals through a recently completed highway that links Sutovo, that's in Shamajar, to the Zarmanian capital, Dunin, southeast of the territory. That's about 800 miles. They reckon they can transform the space launch industry by steadily increasing capacity, and increase mobility, thereby decreasing costs. They're hoping to get a bit of the Chinese business too. But all that's in the future."

The pointer returned to Sutovo. "Informational infrastructure today is extremely expensive to build, and in thirty years we will probably approach the limitations of fiber optic cables. Today, a traditional geostationary communications satellite costs upwards of $500 million and takes 5 years from build to launch. There was talk about constructing a network of satellite dishes in Dunin, and transmitting data to Europe. The realities of the high-tech industry have made that an uneconomical proposition."

Beauregard shifted the pointer further north, holding it at arm's length. "Up there in Shamajar, where the badlands meet a vast coniferous forest, is where ISA intends to base a fleet of mobile satellite launchers. Such vehicles will be powered not by gasoline, but by water."

Everyone present had already heard about this, but still there were murmurs and an uneasy finger shifting. It would take more than one set of fingers to enumerate the obvious problems. I picked two of them at random.

"How do you power something by water?"

Crumbley stirred. "We replaced the spark plugs with a device called a water splitter. This is essentially a fuel cell that 'splits' the water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. It is subjected to an electrical resonance and combusted back into water vapor in a conventional internal combustion engine to produce the net energy needed to power the vehicles."

"Gonna be awfully hard to power that thing, with a drought going on in that part of Asia."

"We've solved that problem," Chandler chimed in. "We put down boreholes and trapped plenty of water at six thousand feet." He grimaced. "Coming up from that depth, it's pretty warm, but there's a series of cooling units built into the chassis that will take care of that." Chandler was on the design staff.

"And as a spinoff, we can spare enough for local irrigation and consumption, and that will help to put us across to the locals." This from Public Relations, naturally.

"The drought in Central Asia is going to continue for a long time yet," Beauregard said. "If the Shamaris can be the first people in the region to harness the water splitter, then there'll be endless electricity for pumping whatever water there is and for irrigating. They can sell their surplus power to neighbor states, too. Azerbaijan is interested in that already."

It made sense of a kind, but before they could start making their fortunes out of satellites and their so-called "water-splitter" they had to get something going over there. I went over to the map and studied it.

"I see some potential troubles with the transport. There's the big stuff like the satellites and the multi-stage rockets. They can't be assembled on-site. How many satellites?"

"Five," Beauregard said. "And there's no need for multi-stage rockets. They're already assembled. The mobile launcher itself fires them into the sky. That's the miracle of our new rigs."

"But they'll weigh three hundred tons apiece," I replied. "And I'll bet that highway you mentioned isn't even open yet."

"I think Mr. Harper has that sorted out," said Beauregard.

Harper was our head logistics man. He had to make sure that all was in the right place at the right time, and his department managed to keep our computers tied up rather considerably. He came forward and joined me at the map. "There are some good alternate routes."

I was skeptical. "In the former Soviet Union? Nothing that was built by political prisoners can be any good."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Of course, you haven't been there yourself, have you, Sam? Wait until you read the full specs. But I'll outline it for you and the others. Let's begin with our starting point, Zarmania. After the U.S.S.R collapsed, and Zarmania was fully independent, their first president was Bariz Yarhaienesaiel. Do you remember him?"

Someone put his pointer finger to his head and made a pwow sound. Then there was a brief uneasy laugh. Nobody at the top likes to be reminded of coups of any kind.

"He had the usual delusions of grandeur. One of the first things he did was to build a modern superhighway right from Dunin to the frontier town of Angharzeb. Halfway along it, here at Tarsaz, a Shamari town deep in the disputed territory, a branch goes north to Sutovo and from there---who knows? We shouldn't have any trouble in that department."

"I'm from Missouri---show me!"

Harper was annoyed and showed it. "I surveyed it myself with the Samaris' president, Ugurnaszirev myself. He's also the boss of the transport company, by the way. Look at these photographs."

He hovered at my elbow as I examined the pictures, glossy black-and-white aerial shots. Sure enough, there it was, looking as if it'd been lifted bodily from Los Angeles and dumped in the middle of a scrubby nowhere.

"Who's using it now?"

"Well, it does get quite a bit of use. The spur into the interior is under-used and undermaintained. The woods are encroaching in the south and in the north, there'll be trouble with sand drifts. The usual potholes are appearing. Edges are a bit warn in spots." This was common to most Soviet-era tarmac (the bosses pretended to pay the workers; the workers pretended to work) and hardly surprised me. He went on. "There are some bridges which might be a bit dicey, but it's nothing we can't handle."

"Are the Shamaris and the Zarmanians happy with that?"

"Perfectly."

Bullshit! Happy hosts are like happy farmers---more or less nonexistent. But it was I who listened to the beefs, not the hirers and firers. I turned my attention back to Beaumont, after mending fences with Harper by admiring his photographs.

"I think Mr. Dunn might have something to say," Beauregard prompted.

Dunn was a political liaison man. He came from that department which was the nearest thing British Aerospace had to the State Department or the British Foreign Office. He cocked an eye at Beauregard. "I take it Mr. Drake would like a rundown on the political situation?"

"What else?" asked Beauregard a little acidly.

I didn't like Dunn much. He was one of the "striped pants" crowd that infests Whitehall and Washington. Those pricks like to think of themselves as decision makers and world shakers but they're a long way from the top of the tree and they know it. From the sound of his voice, Beauregard wasn't too taken with Dunn either.

Dunn was obviously used to this irritable reaction to himself and ignored it. He spread his hands on the table and spoke precisely. "I regard the chances of a new war erupting between Zarmaria and Shamajar over possession of Mochi-Jojeji as very slim. The First Mochi-Jojeji War was, as you know, an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1992 to May 1994, in the enclave of Mochi-Jojeji in southwestern Shamajar, between the majority ethnic Zarmanians of Mochi-Jojeji backed by Zamaria, and the Republic of Shamajar. As the war progressed, Zarmania and Shamajar, both former Soviet Republics, entangled themselves in undeclared desert warfare in the badlands of Jojeji as Shamajar attempted to quell the secessionist movement in Mochi-Jojeji. A Russian-brokered ceasefire put a stop to the fighting in May of last year."

Some of the others were growing restive under his lecturing, and Beaumont cut in on what looked like the opening of a long speech. "That's good so far," he said. "At least we won't have to worry about being shot at."

I grinned. "Just lied to be devious politicians."

Dunn showed signs of carrying on with his lecture and this time I took the wind out of his sails. "Have you been out there lately, Mr. Dunn?"

"No, I haven't."

"Have you been there at all?"

"No," he said stiffly. I saw a few stifled smiles.

"I see," I said, and switched my attention to Tipton. "I suggest we hear from the man on the scene. How do you find things, Brian?"

Tipton glanced at Beauregard for a nod of approval before speaking. "The region is usually equated with the administrative borders of the former Mochi-Jojeji Autonomous Oblast, comprising 1,700 square miles. The historical area of the region, last I was told, encompasses 3,175 square miles, most of which is currently governed by the unrecognized Republic of Masasan, or, if you like, the Mochi-Jojeji Republic. Aside from a few rogue cross-border attacks that occurred over Christmas, I didn't come across much serious conflict when we were out there."

Beauregard actually smirked. Beauregard said, "Do you think the cease-fire will stand up under stress, should it come?"

Tipton was being pressured and he bravely didn't waver too much. "I should think so, provided no soldier or government official of either country is killed in a stray skirmish."

By that he meant that the palms held out by the rival nations should be liberally greased, a not uncommon situation with emerging nations. I said, "You were speaking broadly, Brian. What would you say if you had to speak narrowly?"

Now he looked a little uncomfortable and his glance went from Beauregard to Tipton before he replied. "It's said there's some ongoing ethnic unrest."

This brought another murmur to the room. To the average European, while international and even intercountry and intercity rivalries are understandable factors, the demands of ethnic loyalties seem often beyond all reason; in my time I've tried to liken the situation to that of opposing football teams and their more aggressive fans, but non-ethnic peoples seemed to have the greatest trouble in appreciating the pressures involved. I even saw eyebrows raised, a gesture of righteous intolerance which none at that table could afford. Tipton tried to bluster.

"No," he said. "The Zarmairians and Shamaris living in Mochi-Jojeji have laid down their weapons, at least for now."

I decided to burst his balloon. "Apparently you haven't seen it through, Mr. Tipton. Conflict of this kind is never finished with. Do you know what's happening in Bosnia? There's--what do they call it? ---ethnic cleansing happening there and that's almost next door. It's happening in Rwanda, and that's not even on the same continent. It now exists from the Balkans all through the former Soviet Union. And we know that it's hard to separate fantasy from reality, but we can't ignore either. Brian, who are the top dogs in Mochi-Jojeji, the majority ethnic group?"

"Oh, that'd be the Zarmarians. They make up 95% of the population."

"Then the President and most of the Cabinet of this so-called Republic of Masasan will be Zarmarian? The Civil Service? Leading merchants and businessmen?" He nodded at each category. "The Army?"

He shook his head. "Oh, Masasan has no 'army.' If fighting ever breaks out again, the responders will be the Zarmarian army. I will have to point out, unfortunately, that the Zarmarians are Christians, and the Shamaris are Moslems, so I can't rule out some religious strife. You'll need a sociologist's report if you want to go into details."

"Oh, great." I spoke. "Another Moslem country to stir up trouble in Asia. Just like the Bosnian Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, or the Palestinians and the Israelis."

Someone said, "You're presupposing conflict, Sam."

Beauregard backed me. "It's not unwise. And we do have some comments in the dossier, Ned. Your homework..." He tapped the bulky file on the table and adroitly lightened up the atmosphere. "I think we can leave the political issues for the moment. How do we stand on progress to date, Denis?"

"We're right on schedule," said Crumbly with satisfaction. He would have been pained to be behind schedule, but almost equally pained to have been ahead of it. That wouldn't show that his computers weren't giving an absolutely optimum arrangement, which would be unthinkable. But then he leaned forward and the pleased look vanished. "We might be running into a little problem, though."

There were no small problems in jobs like this. They were all big ones, no matter how small they began.

Crumbly said, "Construction is well advanced and we're about ready to take up the big launches. The analysis calls for the first big launch to be one of the weather satellites, but the Zarmarians are insisting that it be a communications satellite. That means that the weather satellite fitters are going to be sitting around on their asses doing nothing while a communications satellite just lies around because the receiving dishes haven't been set up yet." He sounded aggrieved and I could well understand why. This was big money being messed around.

"What the hell are they thinking?" I asked.

"Must be some kind of public relations thing they're trying to get going. A communications satellite is the biggest thing we're going to carry, and they want to make a thing of it before the locals get used to seeing a futuristic truck trundling around the countryside."

Beaumont smiled. "Both countries are paying for it. I think we can let them have that much."

"It'll cost us money," warned Crumbly.

"The project is costing them a hundred and fifty million pounds," said Beaumont. "I'm sure this schedule change can be absorbed: If it it's all they want changed I'll be very happy. I'm sure you can reprogram to compensate." His voice was as smooth as cream, and it had the desired effect on Crumbly, who looked a lot happier. He had made his point, and I was sure that he had some slack tucked away in his program to take care of such emergencies.

The meeting went on well into the morning. The finance boys came in with stuff about progress payments in relationship to cash flow, and there was a discussion about tendering for the ground stations which was to spread after the satellite launchings. At last Beaumont adjourned the meeting, leaned towards me and said quietly, "Lunch with me, Sam."

It wasn't an invitation; it was an order. "Sure," I said. There was more to come, obviously.

On the way out I caught up with Crumbly. "There's a point that nobody bothered to bring up. Why unload cargo at Dunin? Why not at Tarsaz? That's the junction at the of the spur road leading cross-country?"

He shook his head. "Logistics, old boy. Dunin has the most extensive intermodal transportation facility in the heart of Asia. It's a 1,200-acre multi-use development that handles nearly 4 million tons of river-barge cargo annually, along with 32,000 rail cars and 40,000 trucks. Tarsaz? Forget it! That place is back in the 14th century. The facilities there are primitive, and a rig like ours pulling into their city would be to them what a flying saucer landing in Hyde Park would be to you and me."

"Wow," I said, and that was that. I expected to lunch with Beaumont in the directors' dining room but instead he took me out to a restaurant. We had a drink at the bar while we chatted lightly about affairs in the former Soviet republics, the state of the money market, the upcoming elections. It was, only after we were at the table and into our meal that he came back to the main top."

"We need you to go out there, Sam."

This didn't surprise me, except that so far there didn't seem to be a reason. I said, "Right now I should be out at Balos Beach in Crete, in the region of Chania, chatting up the girls. I suppose the sun's just as hot in Central Asia. Don't know about the babes, though."

Beauregard said, not altogether inconsequentially, "You need to get married."

"Been there, done that. Don't want to do it again."

We got on with the meal. I had nothing to say and let him make the running. "Then you don't mind solving the problem," he said eventually.

"What problem? Crumley's got things running better than Desert Storm."

"I'm not sure what it is," Beaumont said simply. "But I know it's there, and your assignment is to identify it." He held up his hand to stop me from interrupting. "It's not as easy as it sounds, and things are, as you guessed, far from serene in Mochi-Jojeji under the surface. Sir Kay has had a whisper down the line from some of the old hands out there."

Beauregard was referring to our Chairman, Owner, and Managing Director, a holy trinity called Sir Kay Hooper. Feet firmly on the earth, head in Olympus, and with ears as big as a jackrabbit's for any hint or form of peril to his beloved company. It was always wise to take notice of advice from that quarter, and my interest sharpened at once. So far there had been nothing to tempt me. Now there was the merest breath of warning that all might not be well, and that was the stuff I lived for. As we ate and chattered away, I felt a lot less pissed off at having lost my Crete vacation.

"It might be nothing. But you have a nose for trouble, Sam, and I'm depending on you to sniff it out," Beauregard said as we rose from the table. "By the way, do you know what the old Russian name for Dunin used to be?"

"I can't say that I do."

He smiled gently. "The Frying Pan."

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