“Confessions” Serial, Tech Wars 2
An hour or so after the attack, a chopper arrived to remove all the electronic gear from the trailer and to extract the three men. Having made sure that no one was still watching the trailer or lurking nearby, the men were delivered as promised to enjoy the epicurean delights of the nearby coastal town.
Brett, Sven and Malcolm finished their meal at the Swakopmund Brauhaus in the center of town, amongst picturesque nineteenth-century houses, modelled on dwellings still to be found in many of Germany’s villages on the edge of the Baltic Sea. The curious combination of north German architecture surrounded by the sands of the Namib Desert gave the town a unique atmosphere. Local restauranteurs had long taken advantage of the subsequent tourist trade. As Brett finished his Eisbein (pickled ham hock), washed down with excellent local Hansa lager, he grinned at Sven and Malcolm.
“This almost compensates for our days in that goddam trailer. By the way, I was impressed by your seeming reluctance to hand over the codes and data to the baddies. Very convincing.”
Sven and Malcolm grinned. They were now beginning to enjoy their adventure after their moments of terror in the bullet-riddled trailer.
“A small plane will take us to Windhoek to connect with a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt where we split up. It’s better if I don’t know where you’re based. Somehow, they’ve found out I’m a New Yorker, which is not good. Whether they have my actual identity I’ve no idea, but if they should track me down, they may try to get your destinations from me. I don’t think you’d like that!
Sven shook his head. “No way, but it sounds as though you could be in serious danger.”
Brett chuckled, “Story of my life. Don’t worry. I’m more comfortable on my home turf.”
Malcolm frowned. “What about tonight? You sure they didn’t track us?
I know Danie who headed the team that fetched us. He’s ex-Special Forces. and knows this region well. If he says we’re clear, I believe him.”
“So, that’s the end of it for us, then?”
“Yeah, except the Professor told me to tell you that if we were successful in fooling the baddies he’ll have programming jobs for you if you want them.”
Sven leaned forward. “Where’s he based, then?”
Brett shrugged. “No idea. At a guess I’d say somewhere in North America.”
“So how d’you communicate with him?”
“Through letter drops and burn phones.”
“Letter drops?”
“Specific pre-arranged hiding places where messages can be left. We use burn phones at certain times only. The only time I could be certain the mission was real was when I received fifty percent of my payment from an offshore bank.”
“You’ve done this kind of thing before, then?”
“It’s what I do!”
• • •
Zoltan paced up and down in his luxury Basilika Monnalisa apartment in Budapest. He’d been conned and he didn’t like it. He still didn’t know where the Professor was based nor exactly when they would launch the new version of an Artificial Intelligence system. He’d been tricked into revealing his hand by a woman who had offered to tell him where he could capture the materials of the new development. He had been convinced when he’d heard that they were being stored in a remote corner of the oldest desert on earth. Industrial sabotage had reached a level where secret data could be stored almost anywhere on the planet, far away from major cities such as London, Berlin or New York.
The Professor was obviously playing for time, which probably meant that he had encountered a glitch in the system delaying its launch. If Zoltan could lay his hands on the real data, he was confident that his IT experts were as good as any on the planet. He could very likely sort out the glitch and launch ahead of the Professor. Now he was no closer to hijacking the system than before. The informant had disappeared. He had shown his hand by attacking the trailer in the Namib. The only remaining link to the Professor’s team was the man in the trailer whom he identified as a New Yorker. It had, in fact, been a complete guess. The man had a New York accent. Zoltan had lived there long enough to recognize it.
The man had looked startled when he had linked him to the Big Apple, which seemed to confirm his origins. Zoltan still had him on camera, as he had recorded their attack. Now, perhaps, he could track the man down and force him to reveal the Professor’s real base. He would start at Windhoek airport by getting one of his team to pose as CIA and insist that the man was a serious political agitator. Hopefully, he would have been captured on camera when moving through passport control, failing which he would arrange further checks at both Frankfurt and Kennedy in New York.
Nobody made a fool of Zoltan without suffering serious consequences!
• • •
The Professor sat on the patio of his ranch and stared gloomily at the magnificent view of the snow-covered mountains in the distance. The salmon-rich Russian River ran across a corner of his property. His horse paddock ran in front of the ranch house. Normally, the sight of five thoroughbred horses frolicking in the paddock would bring a smile to his lips. He had just spoken with his technical team. What had been described as a minor glitch with their new system was turning into a major problem. The Professor had been confident of launching his “Erskine Estimator” that week, but the techies had confessed that they were still having problems.
Arthur Erskine had created an AI system that hugely simplified and speeded up the entire supply chain element of any commercial production. It would save industry millions, provided his tech team could eliminate the one remaining bug in the system. He also wondered why criminals had chosen this particular idea. They were either hoping to steal it and market it themselves – or perhaps they had a darker motive. With his system, Arthur realized they could very likely manipulate supply chains and siphon off goods. If they were politically motivated, they could even disrupt deliveries and cause economic chaos. His system would have to be carefully encrypted and kept away from the bad guys.
Sometimes, Arthur wondered if anyone would ever reach the ultimate AI goal. Major corporations had spent millions of dollars in futile attempts to achieve a fully functional AI machine. Something always seemed to get in the way, but it had long been recognized as the pinnacle of computing science.
The Professor’s ruminations were interrupted by Amanda who stepped onto the patio carrying a tray with a plate of sandwiches and a large mug of coffee. “You never had lunch,” she said in a mildly reproving tone.
Arthur smiled at her. “You’re a star.”
Amanda put the tray down and turned to go. Arthur put out a hand to stop her. “Sit with me for a while.”
The young woman nodded, took a seat and waited for her boss to speak. He took a bite from a sandwich, made an appreciative noise and finally looked at her. “Am I completely nuts?”
Amanda giggled and shook her head. “Not completely – but you do live in your own universe a few levels above that of us mere mortals. Your team understands this but I’m not certain that the rest of the world does!”
Arthur sighed. “Putting out that decoy system for the Hungarian to trip over was a kinda wild thing to do.”
“Maybe, but it did prove that he’s prepared to be pretty ruthless to get what he wants.”
“I could’ve gotten Brett and those youngsters killed.”
“Possibly, but as you’ve said, he’s after the tech data. It wouldn’t make sense to harm them once they handed the materials over.”
Arthur shrugged. “I suppose but my plan was to just hold them off for a few days. Now I don’t know how long it’ll take the techies to sort out this glitch.”
“It’s like a game of chess, Professor. Your move didn’t pay off, so look for a new one.”
Arthur picked the cup of coffee and took a sip.
“Thanks. I needed a positive response. I’d like to speak to Brett can you give him a message to call me.”
Amanda stood up. “On it, boss.”
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.