“Confessions” Serial, Tech Wars 12
There wasn’t much the youth could tell them. A man had given him a hundred dollars, handed him a hotel pageboy uniform and the parcel. He was instructed to place the gift on the table where Brett Gibson and his lady were sitting and say it was from the hotel manager. He had insisted that it was just a prank and that a toy clown would jump out of the box The youth described the man as tall, heavy-set and with a black butterfly tattoo on his left wrist.
At that moment the door opened. Thomas stood there with two police officers. They stepped forward into the conference room with grim expressions on their faces.
“Mr. Gibson, these officers need to take statements from you and your fiancée. Then, of course, this young man here.”
As arrangements were made to question all of them separately, Sandy gloomily realized that she had precipitated this whole mess. She also began to think about what she and Brett would do next.
Brett offered to leave immediately if Thomas preferred but the manager insisted that they should not only stay as long as they needed, but he would not be charging them for their rooms. He clearly felt that his establishment had failed to fully protect one of its most valuable guests and he wanted to compensate for it.
Sandy, also, had her concerns. “Shouldn’t we disappear somewhere?”
Brett had shrugged, “Not until we can figure out how they tracked us. I reckon we’re as safe here as anywhere.
“And after that, how will the yacht club be affected?”
“Once we do leave, I doubt if they’ll have more guests like us any time soon.”
A few hours later, Sandy and Brett held a council of war in their suite. Sandy was still horrified about the violence that had been directed against her and Brett. And she was deeply concerned for Brett who was an innocent party. It was she who had stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong and nearly had it chopped off along with the rest of her. She was also mortified that upon being introduced into Brett’s exclusive world for the first time, she had brought a dark and malevolent element with her. Brett had dismissed it out of hand and even teased her.
“Look, you’re a very special young lady in your own right. You really didn’t need to impress me with this dramatic show of pyrotechnics …, seriously though, we’ve rattled someone’s cage.”
Sandy nodded gloomily. “They tried to kill us today. On your advice I didn’t give the cops the real reason why that was. I told them about my dad’s situation with the farm and some of the other injustices I’ve uncovered. But I didn’t mention the deaths of prominent businessmen and women. I’m beginning to wonder if that was the right thing to do.”
Brett sighed, went over to the fridge for a couple of beers. He handed one to Sandy and sat down opposite her in one of the comfortable armchairs next to the window that overlooked the yacht basin.
“This is where my friend “Joe” comes in. He has a network trained in undercover work. It’s hard to define exactly what he does – nor should I say more than necessary. Let’s just say that he targets the bad guys and sets wrongs right where he can.”
“A modern-day Robin Hood! That’s pretty well what we’re trying to do.”
“Exactly. I guess it’s a form of vigilantism, which may not be a perfect system … but it’s better than doing nothing.”
Sandy thought about that for some moments, then nodded. She had simply drifted into her own discoveries, without ever having previously considered that she was any kind of flag-waver. Having gotten to this point, however; and now that they had actually been attacked, she could certainly have some empathy with those who decided to take the law into their own hands. “So, we’re on the same page then?”
Brett nodded and took a burn phone from his pocket. He had a stock of them that he used whenever he needed to communicate with “Joe.” He dialed, put the cell on speaker and waited.
A man’s voice answered. “Our birth is but a sleep forgetting.”
To which Brett answered, “The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star.”
“What’s up?”
“I need your help on a matter that you would approve of. My fiancée is a computer geek, a very beautiful one, I must add. She’s uncovered some bad things … and we were nearly killed. A bomb went off …”
“I heard about that. What d’you need?”
“Two things. A safe house and a means of getting there.”
“Leave it to me. I’ll have you collected in about four hours. I’ll get the manager, Thomas, to let you know when we’re ready.”
“Right, thanks.” Brett turned off the cell and smiled at Sandy. She smiled back but looked puzzled.
“What was that bit about ‘a sleep forgetting’?”
“William Wordsworth, British poet. Just a code to confirm we are who we are. I hate to say this but the tiger you’ve caught by the tail is much bigger than you realize.”
Sandy shrugged. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall!”
Brett stood up and reached out for Sandy. She rose up into his arms. He held her tightly. “I hope you’re right, girl. I just hope you’re right!”
• • •
Johansen was terrified. He was just a cog in the wheel of an organization that reached so far above him he didn’t even want to think about what would come down on his head if he didn’t quickly resolve the problem of the O’Reilly woman and the Gibson guy. They were quickly shaping up to be more formidable adversaries than he had expected. He summed up the situation. The pair had sensibly stayed where they were at the yacht club rather than run off somewhere, knowing that they could easily be followed.
They couldn’t stay there forever. Sooner or later, they would try to move out. If they had any sense they would try to sneak out. He sighed. That meant he would have to assign a large team to make sure they couldn’t get away. Johansen made some calls and soon had a team heading to Montauk with instructions to cover all exits from the yacht club.
With heat-seeking devices, his men could detect any vehicle that had bodies in the back of a van or even in a trunk. They had instructions to hold up any vehicle they suspected of carrying the fugitives, remove O’Reilly and Gibson and let the vehicle go. He was way past issuing further warnings to the couple. His men would simply kill them and dump their bodies in the Hudson River.
A couple of hours later a laundry van arrived at the back entrance to the yacht club and disappeared into the underground service area. Johansen’s men watching waited for the van to reappear. About twenty minutes later, it drove up the ramp and exited through a rear entrance. One man pointed the heat-seeking device as the van stopped briefly at the security checkpoint before leaving the club.
“Two bodies in the back, Stan.”
“OK, masks on. The Boss wants it done clean. We take ’em, shoot ’em by the river and dump ’em.”
The van approached where the team had been waiting, some fifty yards from the club’s entrance. Two men with guns stepped into the road and aimed their guns at the driver. The van screeched to a halt. The driver who had raised his hands sat frozen and terrified. Two more men ran to the back of the van and opened the rear doors. They looked inside. Two elderly men dressed in the uniforms of the laundry group stared back at them, speechless.
After a quick search of the van, Johansens’ men made sure there was no one else hiding in the vehicle and left. Once they had gone, the driver radioed through to the hotel to say that the diversion had worked.
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.