Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and have just borrowed them for my – and your – pleasure.
FATAL HARVEST
Steed shows off his roots.
Emma does some weeding.
Chapter 28
It was late afternoon and the last guests were leaving Expefarmax. Above them, a small aircraft tore the greying sky at low altitude. For the last hour, descriptions of the vehicles leaving the grounds had been broadcast to squads of anonymous cars ready to pick up their trail. At the ministry, the information was being filed and cross-referenced as it streamed in. Mother was rubbing her hands.
-o0o-
Phermagott and Emma Peel had retired to his office when he had proposed a celebratory toast.
"Cheers to a productive afternoon, Mrs. Peel," he raised his glass to hers. "You did very well. Not that I had any doubt." He added somewhat teasingly, "Major Steed, however, did not seem to care much for the opportunities we were offering today."
"Perhaps some of your predictions," suggested Emma innocently, "sounded too good to be true?"
"Ah! But would the Major come to that conclusion by himself?" He raised his glass. "I find it supremely interesting that he had brought along someone knowledgeable enough to help him make that judgment."
Emma snorted. "Really? The Steed I know is a shrewd man, experienced and well connected. Is it any surprise that he would seek more than one professional opinion before making an investment?"
The scientist rocked on his heels and began to smile. That is, if you could call a smile the rictus slowly lifting his face.
"Her name", he said nonchalantly, "is Alison MacKay. Graduate of the Royal Agriculture College, works and lives in Hurley. My chief scientist tells me that she was a delight to chat up. It was no trouble at all to find out everything we needed to know in order to follow her home."
"Follow her …?"
He nodded. "Put yourself in my shoes. The information released this afternoon was highly confidential. We had to impress on Miss MacKay the need for discretion."
Emma took a careful sip. Phermagott couldn't feel her insides lurch, but the small, involuntary arching of an eyebrow didn't escape him.
He started pacing, moving well away from where she stood. Silence stretched between them, too wound up not to snap.
"Mrs. Peel, I take great pride in my record. Not only as a scientist but also as manager of a cutting-edge business venture. I have no doubt that we will deliver on the claims I choose to make." There was a distinctly sorrowful note as if she had reproved him aloud.
"Patents, I believe, are still the legal way of protecting intellectual property." Her words were deliberately cutting. There seemed no point in meekness. "There is a great leap between those and what I saw on offer this afternoon."
"We were fund-raising," admitted the scientist, "and there is some basic investing psychology at work. As you well know, an investor who puts up a substantial stake in a venture is likely to show more patience. Particularly if the prospect of returns is attractive."
"Those claims were exaggerated and certainly unethical. I can't understand why you even risked letting me hear this." She walked to the bar, put down her glass and crossed her arms. "I can't possibly lend my name or my time to this type of activity. If I had anything in writing, you could easily lose your public research funding."
Suddenly, his voice was right behind her, the light scent of his expensive aftershave mingling with her fragrance in the air between them.
"Of course, Mrs. Peel, I understand your position. And I respect you for it. But I think that you underestimate your value."
A pause. "Fund raising is essential to success, but I also put great stock in protection. Being investigated by the Secret Service, especially if the final report is sanctioned by someone with your reputation and leaves us smelling roses, is a formidably valuable insurance policy." Phermagott allowed himself a smug smile. "It was an extraordinary coincidence indeed to find out that you had worked a few times for the Secret Service."
The expression of denial that swept across Emma Peel's face was the reaction he had expected. He ignored it.
"If your investigation clears us, the Secret Service will not have the credibility to take another crack at us for many months, years even. Unless, that is, the Director and Assistant Director of an entire division admits to crass incompetence or collusion. And that would be nearly unprecedented. In fact, the ministry is more likely to do everything possible to stop anyone else from nipping at our heels. By the time wounds are licked, we will have made major political allies, in government and in other circles. Enough to secure privileged access to very broad markets for our products."
"And what makes you think that I would go along with this charade?"
"That voice, Mrs. Peel", purred Phermagott with deep malice, "is certainly one of your most seductive assets… High-fidelity recording happens to be one of my hobbies and I have taken the liberty…"
He went to his desk and pulled out a drawer. She saw the tape recorder. As he switched it on, Emma's mind grasped with full force the notion of where everything was headed.
Her own words, uttered in such confidence on Sunday morning, were ringing anew. Selectively lifted from their scripted answers, phrases had been meticulously transposed to the businesslike pace of a meeting that had, of course, never happened. Judicious editing and the splicing in of new questions had infused the result with entirely unintended meanings. The result, she admitted as a flush spread to her cheeks, was devilishly misleading.
"Copies have been prepared, of course, and are ready to be delivered to selected members of the Ministry of Defense and Home Security. Much more damaging and reliable than a leak to the press, don't you think?"
"It will be unmasked as a fake." She was proud of her calm tone, but she knew her eyes must be blazing. If there was any justice in the world, Phermagott would have shriveled on the spot. Instead, he glided across the room, refilled and held both their glasses in a show of civility.
"Mrs. Peel, I've no illusions that our little montage will stand up very long to the scrutiny of serious experts but I am confident that it can confound any routine analysis of a voice print." He shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Top-flight expertise takes time and money, and competition is, well, so stiff. You know, as well as I do that merest doubts can exclude a company from bidding on sensitive contracts. They may even lead to the suspension of deals already signed…"
He turned around, staring in space as if in wonder, "And how many first-rate engineers will gamble away a promising career by staying with a firm in faint odour of scandal?..."
The memory of Steed's reaction, on Sunday evening came back to her with full force. She had naively trusted Mother, he had feared the worst. She remembered phone calls, his leave from her on Monday morning and his return the next one. Unflappable but preoccupied, as she had often seen him, but that had only been the surface. What hellish hours had he put himself through?
"What about Alison MacKay? And Steed? Are you buying them or blackmailing them?"
"I prefer to rely on psychology whenever possible. However, it's my experience that honest, first-rate minds are quite difficult to suborn. Guilt would plague someone like Miss MacKay, I fear. And suicide or a confession would have eventually drawn unwelcome attention to us. I may be too quick to judge but it's my appraisal that Miss MacKay could neither be bought nor blackmailed. Which left elimination. A very sensible solution if the Secret Service will turn a blind eye."
"And why would I be less likely to confess or blow my brains than Miss MacKay?"
Phermagott's expression turned amused and curiously tinged with respect. "For one thing, you are a much tougher, far more experienced businesswoman."
He finished draining his glass in a single, long swallow. "And to be blunt, genetic engineering or agronomy is not your career. Not only do you have many other interests, but one might say that your loyalties are divided in more ways than one."
Emma realized that she didn't care at all for this conversation. Not only was the nasty suspicion rising in her that Mother had led her entirely down the wrong path, but the conversation was getting uncomfortably personal. It was rather like being stripped. And her interlocutor seemed eerily aware of her discomfort.
"Ah, Mrs. Peel, I mean no slur on your character. I simply judge that you could come to terms with a compromise if you felt you had safeguarded something more precious. The enviable reputation of your company, the honour of your family."
She had grasped all that, she wanted desperately to fast forward as if his voice was nothing more than a recording. Her thoughts were now running to Steed, the one protagonist who had not yet been mentioned in this elaborate plan. Heavens help them, had Mother been foolishly, horribly wrong?
Again, it was as if her thoughts were being read.
"It does not matter much to me what happens to Major Steed as long as he doesn't prove too difficult." His voice turned wistful. "He is certainly not an easy man to read. To be truthful, from what I know of him, I would have given the fellow a wide berth under almost any circumstances."
"A bit late for that, though, isn't it?" she pointed out haughtily. "After this afternoon, he knows as much as I do. His elimination would not go unnoticed. And he is certainly not easily intimidated."
"But," and Phermagott's voice was now dangerously gentle, "he seems to care somewhat for you. And, perhaps, you for him…"
The impulse to shut her eyes tight was overwhelming. Warner alone couldn't have had access to so much, such private information. There had to be a connection with someone in the Security Service itself. And Steed would have his own idea about that. If they weren't going after him, there might still be a way out of this insanity...
"You will find that I am not adverse to a little bargaining when the time comes to seal a deal, " chuckled Phermagott. "And I have a proposition of a rather different nature to put to Major Steed. He will want to hear your opinion of it, I am sure. So, perhaps we should move downstairs and discuss it with him."
