“Confessions” Serial, Tech Wars 13
Arthur stared gloomily at the magnificent scenery surrounding his Alaskan home. Looking out from his bedroom on the first floor, the towering snow-capped mountains on the horizon were bathed in the soft pinks of the early morning sun. Normally, it would have lifted his spirits but after a sleepless night worrying about his new program for improving Supply Chain systems, he felt flat and depressed. Brett’s disappearance hadn’t helped either.
His reverie was interrupted by the ring tone of his cell phone lying by the side of his bed. He quickly stepped back from the windows and picked up the phone. Would it be further bad news about gremlins in the system? Would he perhaps have some good news at last? It proved to be the latter and not what he expected.
Brett’s cheerful voice greeted him for the first time in a while. “Hey Prof, how’s it going?”
Arthur felt a mixture of relief and anger at Brett’s long silence. “Thought you’d disappeared for good!”
“Mea culpa. Had a bit of a situation. In fact, we still have.”
“Where are you?”
“Er, we’ve just come ashore from a yacht that smuggled us out of a tricky spot. We’ll be flying out of the US later tonight.”
“That really explains things!” Arthur grumbled sarcastically. “First of all, who’s we?”
“Sandy, the lady in my life. I’m helping her sort out a problem and some bad guys are after us.”
“OMG, are the baddies connected to Zoltan?”
“No, different bunch.”
“So now you’ve got two lots of villains chasing you.”
“Correct. We’re moving out of the US for now and getting some help from a pal of mine. Hopefully, I can sort all this out quickly and still help you with your Supply Chain program launch.”
“That’ll be great.”
Arthur’s response was flat. Brett immediately sensed that something was wrong. “Hey, you still got problems with the program?”
“Yes and no. The program’ll work OK but it’s still way too complex. The programming’s a monster. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a big improvement on anything else out there. It’ll make me a lot of money but I’m becoming seriously worried about the future of technical development in computing.”
“How d’you mean?”
“The complexities are staggering. It feels as though we’re all pushing against a barrier that’s becoming denser and denser. Eventually, it could become a solid block and we will have reached the limits of technical advancement.” Arthur cleared his throat. “Look, you catch me on a bad day. I still plan to launch in a few weeks. When d’you think you’ll be available?”
“Not sure. It depends on how things work out on this end. I should know in a couple of days, once we’ve gotten together with my pal.”
“OK. Where’re you heading?”
There was a long silence. “Sorry, Arthur, rather not say. I know I’m on a burn phone but you never know anymore …”
“Got it. Just let me know as soon as you can.”
“Will do.”
• • •
After the yacht spirited them out of Montauk, they sailed to Canarsie’s Midget Squadron Yacht Club, disembarked and took a cab to a house in Brooklyn, where “Joe” had arranged for their first change of identities. A man called Bud welcomed them and took them inside where they were subjected to some very basic changes in their physical appearance. Sandy did not object to her hair color being changed to a dark auburn, but was less happy about the device that she had to put in her mouth. It covered her excellent teeth and gave her a set of uneven and protuberant molars, radically changing the shape of her mouth. Bud assured her that this was a temporary arrangement and that a much more acceptable disguise awaited her once they had reached their destination. Brett was given a horrible little moustache and pads inside his cheeks that made his face look much fatter. They were photographed, then given some coffee and sandwiches while they waited for their new passports under the names of Marie and Edward Evans.
Another cab took them to JFK airport where they boarded a flight to Africa. The jumbo jet took them in comfort on the long flight to Cape Town where “Joe” had arranged for a Range Rover to be at their disposal. Brett, now known as Ed, had been given the address of their new safe house. After hurriedly shopping for new clothing, they left the airport and headed toward the city. Cape Town nestles beneath the magnificent massif of Table Mountain. Once they had travelled across the rather featureless Cape Flats, with its sub-economic housing and collections of tin shacks, using a GPS, they veered away from the city itself onto De Waal Drive, past the impressive University of Cape Town, and headed for Constantia where some of the most luxurious and much-prized mansions in South Africa were interspersed with vineyards clinging to the side of the mountains.
They climbed higher and higher until the road flattened out in an area called Constantia Nek as it crossed over the spine of the range which bisected the Cape Peninsula. The range of mountains starts with Table Mountain itself overlooking the city and ends with the Cape Point Nature Reserve, some fifty miles away. They descended the winding pass into the fishing village and harbor of Hout Bay on the Atlantic side.
Ed finally pulled up outside a gracious old Cape Dutch homestead, encircled by pine trees and glorious shrubs of bougainvillea and rhododendron, with a number of different species of protea, the national flower of South Africa, which were being cultivated in the rocky soil.
“Marie” and “Edward” emerged from the vehicle. Marie wore a brightly colored, fancifully designed African kaftan and sandals. Ed wore white slacks and sported a Mandela-style jacket. They had definitely gone African for the occasion.
As they looked around admiring the glorious garden and the old farmhouse with its distinctive Cape Dutch gables, a Maserati swept into the driveway and stopped next to the Range Rover. The tall, elegant figure of “Joe” emerged, wearing an all-yellow ensemble with matching yellow shoes and an outrageous cravat.
“Sandy here only knows you as ‘Joe’; shall we keep it at that?”
The other man smiled and shook his head. He turned to Sandy. “Jauncey Peyton the Third, at your service.”
Sandy looked at him in disbelief. Did anyone really give their children names like that anymore? Perhaps it was just another of the quirky clandestine moves practiced by the group that Brett belonged to. Anyway, this was no time to get into that. If the guy continued to help them, she could see some prospect of at least surviving – if not actually winning – the battle against the baddies. She felt that she should express some appreciation for their escape from the yacht club.
“Our rescue sure was spectacular. When we saw the laundry van arrive, we both figured we’d end up in laundry baskets.”
“Which is exactly what we hoped the baddies would think. Fortunately, they fell for it and it created the diversion we needed.”
“Expecting to be bundled around in a laundry basket, then sailing out in style aboard a luxury yacht was definitely a change for the better.”
Sandy decided that she liked Jauncey, if that was really his name. He was tall, like Brett, but slim and well proportioned. He wore his auburn hair long and carefully styled. He had a long thin face with a prominent nose and intense dark eyes.
He looked to have stepped straight out of the cast of “The Great Gatsby.” Despite his effete appearance, Sandy suspected he had an underlying physical as well as mental strength. Obviously, he was equipped with a wry sense of humor. Brett watched Sandy weighing up his friend and decided that the two of them would probably get along fine.
Brett turned back to Jauncey. “Right. Time to tell you our story and why we feel that you could be an invaluable ally … if you feel it fits in with your plans.”
For the next two hours, Sandy, with Brett’s additional comments, rolled out their story, starting with the awful death of Sandy’s father.
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.