In the Company of Ghosts by Stephen A Hunt Page B

Cayman Reef Resort, we could have been doing that a decade ago.’
    ‘That’s not a waste in my book, chum, that’s a lifestyle aspiration.’
    ‘ControlWerks is about changing the world, it is about doing something, being the best in any goddamn market we choose, or creating new ones from scratch. The buy-out funds will fire most of our staff and milk our portfolio of patents like a milch cow. The day after any take-over, the only innovative thing coming out of ControlWerks will be the patent infringement claims. If that happens, I might as well put a noose on and jump off my desk.’
    Groucho jabbed a thumb in Werks’ direction. ‘I’d lend him my book about tips on suicide, but I suspect he won’t be bringing it back.’
    Agatha sighed in Groucho’s direction and rubbed her chin. ‘Your firm means that much to you, Mister Werks?’
    ‘It meant that much to both of us,’ said Werks. ‘It’s our legacy to the world.’
    There was a knock at the door, and Rugby man admitted a South American-looking member of staff carrying a silver tray weighed down with a coffee, a plate of biscuits, a pot of tea, and a steel jug steaming with hot water. With the tray’s contents distributed, Agatha dipped into her handbag again and removed what looked like a normal plastic teaspoon and a square tea bag. The teaspoon didn’t change colour when she dipped it into the water. Pure water, then, unadulterated.
    ‘You have a favourite brand?’ Werks asked of Agatha. ‘My kitchen probably has it. You won’t believe how specific our clients and partners in India are when it comes to tea.’
    ‘Sadly, my queer little tastes are rather ossified,’ smiled Agatha.
    ‘India, eh. Are you doing any business in China or Russia?’ asked Doyle, sipping from his cup. ‘Business that might make their foreign services add you to the “not so helpful” list, the kind of party animal who gets served a radioactive Polonium-210 cocktail rather than a Truffle Martini?’
    ‘Our low orbit tourism arm, SpaceWerks, is run out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, but there’s nothing about our operations in Russia to upset anybody. That really is a cash cow. And without us, it’s a business with no wealthy Western tourists turning up at the launch pad to pay for all that expensive rocket fuel. We have a wide range of manufacturing deals with China, and we launch a couple of communication satellites each year from their country. But our Chinese operations are run in conjunction with a local equity partner, Lucky Tiger House. Our friends at LTH ensure all the right party officials are fed and watered at sufficient intervals; that indigenous pork barrels are suitably oiled. If ControlWerks gets taken over and used primarily as a patent troll, China’s factories will lose the majority of our business. China and Russia’s secret service might conceivably send agents to protect us, but never to target us. Their local interests have too much to lose.’
    ‘And the billionaire boys had no warning that someone was gunning for them? Either before your brother died or after?’
    Werks shrugged. ‘We’re featured in the Fortune Five Hundred every year, of course we receive death threats. All too regularly. Usually they’re of the order of: “You and your brother slip into my brains at night and steal my software designs: give me every last dollar or I will destroy you.” The people who send then in can barely string a list of demands together without using crayon, let alone slip past my firm’s security detail. Nothing credible or specific in that line has been received, not to my knowledge. I’ll have my head of security e-mail you with copies of everything unpleasant sent to us for the last five years.’
    ‘Talking of which,’ said Doyle. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have any idea where Luke Wilder has happened to relocate? He was the senior guard on your London team.’
    ‘I might recognize him if I saw him, but the name means nothing to me, I’m