16 AUGUST 1988
BATH, ENGLAND
I should have been wise enough to see the trouble brewing, but I was not.
With perfect hindsight, of course, it is all so clear. Even as far back as 1994 when the foreign ministers of the European Community voted to allow the Eastern European nations to join them.
The emergency meeting in Brussels was filled with angry voices for many days. It had been called by the French foreign minister, Pierre Belroi, in order to resolve this thorny issue of permitting the impoverished former communist nations to join the far wealthier EC.
Since the European Community had officially begun, in 1992, there had been growing tension over the question. France and Germany wanted all of Europe—including, eventually, even Russia—to become part of a single, integrated economic group. Britain, traditionally suspicious of the continental powers, feared that by admitting the poor nations of the former communist bloc the Western Europeans would be placing undue strains on their own economic future.
At the meeting in Brussels the vote went 11-1 in favor of the French and Germans, with Britain the sole dissenter. The British foreign minister, Sir Derek Brock-Smythe, pleaded with his fellow ministers to nullify the vote, saying that he feared Britain would pull out of the European Community altogether if the decision was not reversed.
The vote stood. Furious, Brock-Smythe returned to London. Although he represented his nation’s position as strongly as he could, it was clear that Brock-Smythe was at odds with the xenophobes in his own government. While he was not especially fond of having the Eastern European nations join the EC, he was clever enough to realize that Britain’s economy would stagnate if she were not part of the Community.
As Brock-Smythe predicted, Parliament reacted violently and Britain quickly cut all ties to the European Community. Brock-Smythe publicly damned the decision; he said it would be ruinous for Great Britain.
Privately he took other actions.
—From the diary of Fabio Bianco, CEO, Trikon International
The mist was heavy enough to drive the tourists into the shops and pubs, but not so heavy that walking was unpleasant for a man accustomed to English summers. Sir Derek Brock-Smythe crossed Pulteney Bridge, his patent-leather elevator shoes tapping smartly on the stone pavement, his double-breasted chalk-stripe suit maintaining its razor creases despite the humid air. Bath had been the city for natty dressers ever since Beau Nash established it as the capital of polite society in the seventeenth century. Sir Derek, the nattiest of all despite his diminutive stature, was perfectly at home in his weekend retreat.
Harry Meade, not so dapper, lumbered ten paces behind. He was sweating beneath his black turtleneck and tweed sports coat, and his shoulder holster dug into the sheath of burly muscle curving under his armpit. His feet were swollen in his rubber-soled Clarks; he had been walking most of the day.
Sir Derek descended the stairway on the east side of the bridge, gallantly tipping his bowler to a pair of elderly ladies making their way up the stone steps. Meade passed the stairs, lingered momentarily at the head of Argyle Street as if wondering whether to continue away from the city center, then turned back and followed Sir Derek’s path. If anyone had noted the pair of them they would have thought of a husky prizefighter trailing after a dapper tap dancer.
Sir Derek stood with one hand balled into a tiny fist and the other drumming its manicured nails on the top of the stone parapet. The Avon was swollen from several days of rain and skimmed across Pulteney Weir without breaking into foam, so silently that he could hear the soft strains of the waltz being played by the band in the gazebo on the green across from the cricket field. Meade took up a position five feet away and studiously avoided looking at Sir Derek. Across the river, the market shops were crowded. A sightseeing boat moved south with the current. It would be forty minutes before the queue for the next departure began to form.
Meade pulled a bag of stale bread from his jacket pocket. He nervously tore a slice and tossed the pieces into the water.