The CEO of Halliwell Pharmaceuticals towered over most men and he had a personality to match. His nose was sharp, accentuating his arrogance, and his grey eyes were steely. Richard Halliwell was in his fifty-fifth year, and his reddish hair was greying but a fortnightly visit to his office by Romano, his personal hair stylist, kept that hidden from the outside world. For a long time now Halliwell had also been putting on weight and there was a flabbiness around his paunch. The weight-loss pills hadn’t worked, and despite the irritating urgings of his personal physician, he had not visited the well-equipped gym in the basement of the Halliwell Tower since he’d opened it five years earlier. Two years ago he’d had a facelift from one of the most expensive plastic surgeons in Los Angeles. The flab and wrinkles had been stretched out and, apart from a slight tightening around the eyes and the extremities of his square face, Halliwell was confident the rest of the world was none the wiser about that either, although there was one other physical attribute that he’d never been satisfied with and he’d always struggled to keep those insecurities at bay.
Halliwell swiveled in his chair to face the floor-to-ceiling windows of his vast office complex which took up the entire thirty-seventh floor of the Halliwell Tower. Halliwell’s office afforded sweeping views of Stone Mountain National Park and the world’s largest low relief sculpture on one side of the mountain cliff – the 30-metre high granite carvings of the Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson on horseback. He gazed unseeingly towards the evening lights of Atlanta’s central business district. Obsessed with the threat from the Chinese and driven by a deep belief in the superiority of the United States of America, he again contemplated the implications of the report. The population of Atlanta was a mere 470,000 and in the whole of the United States there were only nine cities with a population of more than a million. According to the report on his desk China’s population was rapidly approaching the one and a half billion mark. The population of Beijing and its surrounds was nearly fourteen million, a staggering 27.3 per cent increase over the last decade, and aside from Beijing, China boasted more than 150 other mega-cities. Halliwell had sent a copy of the analysis to the Vice President.
The report had been compiled by some of the most astute business, economic and security researchers in the United States and their findings only confirmed Halliwell’s fears. The analysts were all predicting that in two decades, perhaps less, the yuan would take over from the dollar as the world’s principal currency. More importantly, the Chinese were beginning to make huge inroads into world trade markets, and the biggest single threat to the international dominance of Halliwell Pharmaceuticals now came from the Orientals. Richard Halliwell’s demeanor was cold and calculating. If something wasn’t done to stop these slant-eyed little bastards in another twenty years, perhaps less, they would take over from the United States as the most powerful nation on earth. Oil prices had already gone through the roof because of China’s insatiable appetite and Washington was doing absolutely fuck all about it, he reflected angrily. The media might see terrorism as the biggest threat to the American way of life, but Dr Richard Halliwell had absolutely no doubt that the Chinese juggernaut was a much bigger threat than any backward towel-headed terrorist. Halliwell had already resolved that the Chinese must be stopped permanently. Nothing less was at stake than America’s pre-eminent place of leadership in the world. For Richard Halliwell a world led by the Chinese was unthinkable.
As the black, bullet-proof Cadillac DeVille made its way along Route 20, shadowed by just one black Suburban secret service van, Vice President Bolton’s thoughts turned away from the al-Qaeda video threats to the long-term menace posed by the Chinese. He switched on the reading light in the back seat and extracted the Halliwell analysis from his leather briefcase. Sinking back into the soft leather upholstery, he began to re-read the executive summary. This analysis, he reflected, matched the top-secret reports he’d received from the State Department, Treasury and the Department of Defense, but the White House was totally consumed by the war in Iraq and mid-term elections. The warnings on the Chinese were very clear, but like the CIA and FBI warnings on al-Qaeda before September 11, they were being ignored.
Richard Halliwell glanced at his diamond-studded Rolex as one of the dozens of lights on his Commander telephone console flashed. Simone, his well-endowed secretary, would normally have answered it but he’d made sure she’d taken the night off.
‘I’m on my way,’ Halliwell grunted. The palm trees flanking the mile-long drive that led to the white security gates at Halliwell were softly lit by hundreds of floodlights and the palm fronds were waving in a light breeze. The guardhouse had been alerted to the tripping of the security sensors near the big Halliwell logo that adorned the sandstone entrance just off the highway and the night vision cameras were tracking the Vice President’s progression up the drive.
Richard Halliwell pressed the button for the lift that had been installed for his personal use and the doors opened immediately. At the moment Vice President Bolton had his uses, he reflected, as the lift plunged smoothly down towards the marble entrance foyer below, but Halliwell knew that Vice President Bolton’s burning desire for the White House would eventually confront his own and that might require action. As the lift doors opened, Halliwell stepped out and reflected on the Kennedy assassination in Dallas. No one could be protected absolutely.
‘I don’t like this,’ the team leader of the Vice President’s personal protection detail muttered, as his partner parked their van close to Halliwell Pharmaceutical’s imposing main entrance. Special Agent Brown watched closely as the Vice President shook hands with Richard Halliwell and then he scanned the areas of darkness on either side of the headquarters building with his night-vision goggles. Normally, on a visit like this, they would have maintained close personal protection and accompanied the Vice President to the outer office of the person he was visiting. Tonight the Vice President had insisted that would not be necessary. The visit was a personal one and Vice President Bolton was determined that it be kept low key. Not even the President knew he was here. Above all the visit was to be kept from the media. From time to time there had been heated speculation in the media as to whether or not the Vice President’s association with Halliwell Pharmaceuticals included substantial shareholdings, forcing Chuck Bolton to send a personal explanation to Capitol Hill.
His shareholdings in American companies were indeed substantial. His soothing announcements always followed a similar tack; he believed in supporting American enterprise, but he’d assured both the House and the Senate that all of his shares had been placed in an ‘arms length’ trust. That part of his remuneration from Halliwell could easily be checked but there were more substantial benefits. Bolton was confident that even the most dedicated journalist would find those special bank accounts hard to trace.
CHAPTER 8
K halid Kadeer’s forward scout caught the movement down the track again. He quietly clicked his safety catch to the ‘off’ position and rested his gloved hand lightly on the trigger of his Kalashnikov and waited, scanning the ground below. If he revealed himself to the infidel the forward scout knew from bitter experience that the servants of the Great Satan would retreat but in their place the B52 bombers would appear overhead, their vapour trails reflected in the moonlight. A whistling sound would herald a rain of death, tons of high explosive shattering the peace and beauty of the Hindu Kush. At first light the helicopter gunships would appear like a swarm of angry wasps combing the hillsides for any sign of life. Suddenly three pinpricks of light appeared in quick succession. It was the simple pre-arranged signal from a Taliban sentry. Kadeer’s scout reached for his pencil torch to reply.