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organisations working in Indonesia. Hospitals, village Page 205 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html clinics, schools, water purification projects. Everything.' The Australian thought fast. 'It'll be years before the Banda field is producing, Chris.' 'That's exactly what I said, but he's willing to set up a starter fund - a big one.' 'How big?' 'Fifty million US dollars.' Honicker snorted. 'You know the size of Indonesia, Chris. Something like 5,000 large villages. That sort of money wouldn't keep their child welfare clinics in band aids.' 'Per annum until the field starts production.' 'It's still noth--' 'It's better than nothing!' Christine came close to shouting. 'It means that money goes directly to where it's needed and not through government ministries. That's how governments work! You give aid to one ministry which means that their budget gets cut which means that more money is available to the defence ministry to buy arms. That's been the whole history of aid to poor countries. Well this is a chance to break that mould.' They argued for ten minutes, heatedly at times. 'Okay . . . okay,' said Honicker, realising that he was getting nowhere. 'When do you have to give Shief a decision?' 'By the end of the year. Thirty-one days.' 'No, listen, Christine. I'm seeing you on the seventeenth of this month. Don't decide anything until we've had a chance to talk.' As soon as the conversation with Christine Rose ended Honicker called Houseman's office and got an immediate 247 appointment to see him. Thirty minutes later he was with the mole-like private secretary, both of them listening to a recording of the telephone conversation. 'She's playing a dangerous game,' Houseman observed when the recording was over. 'Playing one off against the other. There's always a chance that one of the players might drop out.' 'This isn't a game for Christine Rose,' said Honicker evenly. 'Shief has realised what sort of deal would appeal to her and has come up with the goods.' Page 206 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Houseman nodded thoughtfully. 'Perhaps one of the players ought to be neutralised.' The enigmatic comment puzzled Honicker. 'You mean us?' 'What I mean is that it's time for us to think about fighting dirty. Provided you're up to it, of course.' Wednesday, 2 December Lesseps kept his word when he promised Claudia Picquet to work 'all the hours that God made' to complete the initial work on the Sabre 005 documentation. He became a familiar sight in Shed A, clutching his memopad, crawling in and over every centimetre of 005. His work station in the paperless office had disappeared under a mountain of drawings, change notes and test specifications. To Claudia's pleasure, he had succeeded in meeting most of his targets. 'Excellent work, Mr Lesseps,' she complimented when checking his progress report. Lesseps thanked her. He could now meet her searching gaze without inward flinching. 'But I could work much quicker if I had full security clearance for access to the entire database,' he said. 'Having to go through different department heads for information is very time-consuming.' 'Of course, Mr Lesseps. I'll have your security status 248 upgraded right away.' Lesseps smiled and gave a little bow. 'Thank you. It will be a great help.' At the end of a further five minutes of discussion Claudia Picquet took her leave, promising Lesseps that the question of his security clearance would be attended to immediately. She kept her word. Lesseps checked his terminal two hours later and discovered that several data levels that had hitherto been greyed out were now available to him. He spent a few minutes familiarising himself with the previously closed menus and discovered that he now had access to pages of confidential reports relating to the Sabre test programme. He found what he was looking for. To his immense relief, 005's space test flights were finished - the spaceplane was fully certified to begin commercial operations. His fingers stopped moving on the keyboard and he stared at the EAA approval certificate displayed on the monitor. So when was 005's next trip into space? The answer was obvious but he had to be certain. He called up the flight schedule page and there it was: Page 207 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Friday, 18 December - the world's first fare-paying suborbital flight. London to Sydney. Take-off from Heathrow at 10.00 a.m. He checked the Shed A shift schedules and determined that only six instrument calibration personnel would be working on Sabre 006 between 16:00 and midnight on 10 December -- the day before British Airways took delivery of 005. On that evening Shed A would be virtually deserted. It was cutting it fine, but the evening of 10 December would be the best time to drop Joe's spanner in the works. 249 Thursday, 10 December [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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