“Need I remind the members that what is discussed and the information to be revealed in this chamber, must not be divulged to any person outside of you individual governments or those cleared to level seven,” started the chair of ESAM in opening the meeting. The members consisted of the heads or deputy heads of every member nation of the EU, and every seat was filled because a level one meeting classification had been issued by ESAM, the highest possible priority. “We are about to be briefed by ESAM agent Mr. 'A', who will be sharing information obtained from one of the two Crete bombers, who has been keen to cooperate, Mr. 'A' the floor is yours.”
Agent 'A' had flown in from Athens that morning on a security flight and had transferred from the airport in a security LIMO with a full guard contingent of four agents. He was one of Europe's top agents and bore the rank of lieutenant general, 'A' had served his time, first in the Israeli army and later trained with MOSAD, still regarded as the best security service in the world. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a serious problem,” said 'A'. You will all know that the two Crete bombers were apprehended and convicted under both Greek and EU laws, the male bomber has proved to be very helpful, but sadly the female has resisted all encouragement. The information gained from the male bomber and information we gleaned from a sole survivor of the Irani missile base after the Israeli attack on the missile base, have confirmed each other, and the sleeper agents that Israel has activated across the Arab world has painted a rather serious picture.”
“We can now tell you that Iraq and Iran have recently joined forces following the failure of the UIS to persuade Israel to provide recompense for the raid that destroyed the missile base and the associated training facility. As of last week, Iran has activated thousands of agents across the western world, these are not intelligence agents people, these are aggressors trained at the base that was destroyed. We are not sure when, ladies and gentlemen, but it seems that an attack on Europe and the US seems to be imminent. If there are any leaks of this knowledge, we fear that will instigate the attack, so total secrecy must be maintained. When any attack materialises, it is our assessment that the other member states of the UIS will align with Iraq and Iran, with the possible exception of Kuwait and Dubai. You will now see some video of the salient points of the interrogation, so that you can make your own assessments, after that I will take any questions you may have.”
The chamber light dimmed and the wall-screen flickered to life. A series of numbers filled the screen for a few seconds to be replaced by a clock stamp with a date, that shrank to the bottom right of the screen. The scene showed a sparse room with a table and three chairs.
After three seconds two guards appeared with a third person, who was obviously the bomber, and the guards attached a device to the bomber's belt and the table, and then moved out of view. Two men then entered from the opposite direction, the men wore suits and placed some papers on the table before being seated. The members watched a series of interviews, which lasted over two hours, and after the screen went blank there was a stunned silence in the chamber for several minutes. The chair of the meeting then announced a short comfort break, after which the delegates would go into session to discuss the situation and decide on a common response, which would then be taken back to their individual states. It was expected that the session would continue for many days, if not weeks.
Owen Guillam arrived in the cool of the early evening breeze off the Atlantic, he had been invited for the weekend by Rick Pickles. The yacht was certainly a luxury one, with long, sleek lines in white and pale blue, stretching out to almost forty meters in length. The superstructure was topped by a large scanning dome and a bristle of communications antennas. Space had been reserved for his LIMO just twenty meters from the gangway, and as Owen alighted from the craft, Rick Pickles bounced down the gangway with two other men, who were dressed in sailor's uniforms. Rick strode up to Owen with an outstretched hand, Owen took his hand, which Rick shook vigorously.
“It is so good to meet you at last Professor Gwillam,” Rick said as he nodded to the two sailors to get the luggage from the LIMO, “quite a bit of luggage for a weekend, Professor.”
“Owen, please,” responded the Professor, “as to the luggage, I brought the prototype of the suppression-field generator with me, I thought you may want to see it in action, Mr. Pickles.”
“That's great, and I am only Mr. Pickles to those who owe me money, call me Rick.”
“Thank you, Rick,”said Owen.
“Come on,” said Rick, “let's get you settled in, then we can relax and get to know each other over a few drinks.” Rick followed the two seamen up the gangway, followed by Owen. They entered the yacht via a hatch in the side of the hull and Owen was immediately impressed with the sheer luxury. The passageway they entered was panelled with glossy walnut with hidden lighting between the wall and the ceiling, and the carpet was so thick as to loose the soles of his shoes completely. Owen was taken to a cabin on the starboard side of the yacht, that now overlooked the marina and out to the Atlantic, no portholes here, Owen thought, just wide windows.
“I'll let you get settled and freshened up, Owen and when you are done, come on up to the stern lounge deck, for some drinks,” said Rick as he retreated through the cabin door.
Half an hour later Owen left his cabin and wondered how you found the after-deck in this floating palace. He turned right outside of the cabin and found a set of stairs around the first corner. At the top he found himself in the dining room, with a girl setting the twenty place table, 'how many people are on this boat', Owen thought. The girl directed Owen to the after-deck, which he found within two minutes.
“Hi Owen,” Rick welcomed him, “please sit, what's you poison?”
“Scotch and dry, if you don't mind,”replied Owen. Rick poured the amber liquid into a glass and brought a bottle of dry ginger to the table where Owen had taken a seat. “You not drinking,” Owen asked.
“No I don't drink alcohol,” explained Rick, “it's been nearly fifteen years since I got on the wagon. I wasn't an alcoholic, but it started to interfere with business, a couple of bad decisions when I'd had a few.”
“Very sensible,” commented Owen, as Rick returned to his soda. “Have you had any thoughts about the suppression device?”
“Let's leave that until tomorrow, Owen, I never mix business with pleasure, and I just want us to get to know each other, and hopefully be friends.“
“Fair enough,” stated Owen.
The two millionaires, or one millionaire and one billionaire, just sat and chatted until eight o'clock when the girl he had met earlier in the dining room came and announced that dinner was ready. Owen and Rick retraced Owen's steps to the dining room, where eight other people were waiting. Rick introduced his wife, Margaret, his two children Louise, a teenager and Lauren, who looked about ten or eleven. The five others were Ricks brother and finance advisor, a man called Herbert Hess, who was introduced as an investment advisor and the younger girl's god-father, Rick's P.A. Thelma, his wife's P.A. Shirley and the ships captain, Roger Glazier. The meal and the evening passed pleasantly enough and Owen excused himself just before midnight, and retired to his cabin.
The following morning Owen awoke to the vibration of the ship's engines. It was already eight, late for Owen, and he immediately rose, showered and dressed, just in time for the ship's public address system to announce that breakfast was being served in the dining room. Again Owen found his way to the dining room, where he opted for his usual full-English breakfast. Breakfast lasted over an hour with the conversation taking up most of the time, and was followed with coffee on the after-deck, where talk turned to business.
“Seeing as how you have brought a prototype device with you, it may be good if we started off with a demonstration,” suggested Rick.
Owen returned to his cabin to collect the home-made device and brought it back onto deck, where Rick suggested that they go to the bow, away from any interruption. When they arrived Rick's brother, Ron, and Herbert Hess were already there. On the forward deck several fire-arms had been laid out on a tarpaulin, together with a nautical flare gun. Owen opened the carry-case and took out the suppression field generator and connected the power source.
“Smaller than I had expected,” commented Rick.
“This is just a prototype,” Owen explained, “it has a range of about one hundred meters, I think I can reduce the device considerably if we can go into production.”
“Are there any side-affects,” asked Hess.
“Not as far as I know, in fact you cannot even detect the field, we think it emits a passive detection field and the suppression element only engages for a fraction of a second when the potential energy discharge is detected.“
“OK, gentlemen, shall we see what it can do,” said Rick, “I think we first need to test all of these fire-arms, just to make sure they are working.” There were six guns on the deck, a standard rifle, an automatic AK49, a hand pistol, a RPG, a hand-held energy weapon and an EMP weapon. In addition to these there were a stick of industrial plastic explosive and a nautical flare gun. Ron, took each weapon in turn and fired it, each one operated correctly and all four men seemed satisfied. “OK Owen,” said Rick, “switch you magic box on, and we'll see what happens.”
Owen placed the device on a hatch cover and pressed the power button, nothing seemed to happen, “Is that it,” asked Ron.
“Let's hope so,” said Owen, “No fireworks, but the indicator light suggests that its working.”
Ron chose the AK49, Rick grabbed the pistol and Heir Hess took the energy weapon. Rick was first to pull the trigger, nothing happened, he tried again without any result. Both Ron and Herbert started too, trying to fire their weapons, without any effect, the other weapons were taken up and they proved equally dead. Ron then took the ferry-pistol pointed it low toward the sea and fired, again nothing happened, and an attempt by Rick to detonate the plastic explosive on the deck, a risk that Owen would not have taken, thankfully failed. “Right,”said Rick, “that seems to have proved your device works, you can switch it of now.”
Owen crossed the deck where the plastic explosive was left discarded, and threw it over-board, it splashed-down about twenty meters from the boat. Owen crossed to the device and turned off the power, the plastic explosive detonated immediately drenching all four in spray.
The other three were shocked by the explosion, “The field does not kill the detonator,” explained Owen, “with explosives, once the field is switched off, it will still detonate.
The remainder of the morning was taken up with a detailed discussion about the design, manufacture and marketing of the Suppression Generator, A deal was agreed that after Owen had finished the miniaturisation of the device, one of Pickles' corporations would take over the ascetics design and would then market the device within the military and security industries. The afternoon and the following day were used up in relaxing whilst the boat cruised the Florida Keys, an area Owen knew well, having an holiday home in Florida close to Cocoa Beach. On their arrival back at their port of origin Owen decided to spend the week at his holiday home instead of returning to Manchester.