“Confessions” Serial, Tech Wars 20
After having visited twelve cafés and restaurants, Johannsen’s men struck it lucky on the thirteenth. Although Americans had visited the other places, none answered the sparse general description that the searching men had been given. There were old American couples, a husband and wife with four children, a young surfer on his own and so on. At the thirteenth café, they saw two Americans, a man and woman in their thirties, both slim and tall. One of the team sat down at a nearby table and activated a tiny microphone in place of a button on his sports shirt, which enabled him to hear the couple’s conversation easily. They were speaking in low tones and clearly did not want anyone else to hear what they were saying.
Sally spoke first. “Any idea when Peter’s leaving?”
Andy shrugged. “In the next few days, I guess. Arthur’s done the videos and is nearly through the Business Plan. He’s completely hooked on the system.”
“You think he might leave with Peter?”
“Quite possibly. Peter’s prepared to adapt the Prof’s existing program to our system.”Johannsen’s man had heard enough. He folded the newspaper he had been reading and drained his cup of coffee. He got up, paid and left the café without a glance at the Americans and went over to the car where two more team members were waiting for him. “Found them. Don’t know if they’re walking or driving back to where they’re staying so we must be ready for both. From what the man said, someone named Arthur may possibly leave with another named Peter in the next day or so. We’ll have to move in on them tonight or tomorrow at the latest.”
• • •
Peter Warren and the Professor sat together working on a laptop. Peter was touching the keys. A schematic appeared on the screen. They both stared at it for some moments.
Arthur let out a long breath. “Incredible. That’s taken the bugs out of my system.”
Peter smiled. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. You would never have gotten near this with the current One-to-Many technology. From my side it’s very satisfying to see how we can adapt your program and through ExoTech make it far more effective. I’d say you’re ready to go to marketplace. However, I may have to ask you to hold back until we launch phase four of ExoBrain for the public.”
Arthur frowned. “How long is that going to take?”
“A few months – but for the meantime I have a suggestion.”
“Which is?”
“That you come back with me to my operating base and join our team. We could use your obvious skills and experience in the IT game to strengthen our group of techies. We need to recruit at least another ten people to accelerate the completion of the final phase. I think you’ll find it challenging enough to keep you from becoming frustrated before you can launch your Supply Chain program.”
Arthur thought about it briefly. “Sounds good to me,” he replied. “When do we leave?”
“How about the day after tomorrow? I just need to be sure that our … vigilantes are fully capable of using ExoTech to expedite the tracking of the criminals they’ve been chasing.”
“I’ll be ready.”
• • •
Johannsen’s instructions were simple. Kill the man and the woman as well as anyone else found with them. His team had tracked Sally and Andy back to a large Cape Dutch mansion. The couple disappeared inside and had not reappeared. Two of the team remained near the house to observe any movements of the couple or anyone else in the house. Max, the team leader, returned to the city to collect another three men and lethal Heckler and Koch submachine guns for each man as well as plenty of ammunition.
A few minutes later, the observers climbed into the lower branches of a large oak tree on the far side of the road from where they watched two middle-aged gentlemen come out onto the stoep and engage in a long conversation. A younger, elegantly dressed man then appeared and had a few words with the two but remained standing.
Max decided not to take any chances that the occupants of the house were all about to disperse. Even though the young couple had only mentioned the names of the two other people who would very likely leave together, it did not mean the first two would remain where they were. Their movements so far suggested that they were not short of funds. He contacted his lookouts and told them to be ready for the rest of them to arrive exactly at midnight. They would watch the house for another hour and then move in.
• • •
Zoltan’s men had, coincidently, decided to move in and kidnap Arthur Erskine on the same night, the Hungarian leader’s team, numbering five men, assembled at Freddie September’s home under the command of Bolaz. They swapped their Uzis for the more efficient Scorpion EVO 3, climbed into Freddie’s panel van that he used for his various other nefarious businesses and headed for Hout Bay, arriving just after midnight. Both teams left their vehicles in different places along the road near Jauncey’s house. Both teams cautiously moved towards the house. The place was surrounded by a three-meter-high wall with barbed wire running along the top. The gate leading to the driveway was made of solid steel bars with a sophisticated electronically operated lock.
Both teams had decided to use ladders to climb the wall and blankets to cover the barbed wire. Having approached the place from opposite directions, they chose different sections of the wall to climb. The wall angled away on one side so that the two teams climbed the wall without any sight of each other.
• • •
Inside the house, everyone had gone to bed except Jauncey who was a night bird. He was still reading in his study when the alarm went off. It was a quiet alarm, designed to warn the house occupants but not inform any invader that they had been detected. There was a soft alarm signal in every room of the house. Jauncey quickly moved to the control panel of the alarm system and watched the infrared cameras as they picked up two groups climbing the wall some thirty yards apart. One set of men dropped rope ladders and the other group simply descended on ropes.
Jauncey pressed a button that signaled to the local police station that there was a problem. A voice quickly answered, “Is there a problem, sir?”
“Yes. About a dozen men have just climbed my wall and are inside the property. They seem to be heavily armed. I need help. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
“OK, sir, I’ll have a squad with you in about ten minutes tops.”
“Thanks – but try to make it sooner.”
Jauncey pulled another switch. Four blindingly bright spotlights came on and flooded the front lawn with light.
Then all hell broke loose!
The two teams abruptly became aware of each other. Both sides immediately thought that the house occupants had been lying in wait for them. It was uncertain who pulled the trigger first but seconds after the lights came on a cacophony of machine gun fire rang out. Bodies began to fall. Jauncey, who had switched off the infrared system and activated normal CCTV cameras, watched in amazement as the two groups attacked each other in a fury.
By the time the police arrived, only two of Johannsen’s men were standing and both were wounded. Every one of Zoltan’s team were either dead or incapacitated. As the police poured onto the property, the two standing men wearily dropped their weapons and surrendered.
The sound of battle on the front lawn had woken the rest of the household. Sally and Andy rushed to Jauncey’s study, hearing voices on a radio. Peter followed by Arthur also appeared, converging on Jauncey to find what had happened.
Jauncey, for once in his life, was completely confused.
He looked at the others. “Don’t ask. I’ve no idea what in the hell’s going on.”
Andy suddenly broke out laughing.
“I know exactly what’s happened.” The others looked at him wide-eyed. “We’ve had two separate teams looking for us. By some miracle they both arrived here at the same time. Both sides thought the other was some protection group we’d put together and – Wham!!!
There was dead silence for a moment before the laughter grew and all of them enjoyed a release of tension as the truth of Andy’s words made sense.
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.