“Confessions” Serial, Tech Wars 9
Brett stared out of the window. Seagulls were wheeling around above the yacht basin. For a moment he wondered whether he would have preferred the less complex life of a bird … but quickly decided that his current incarnation was pretty satisfying – if only he could convince the woman he loved that a life together would work for both of them.
“As I said, my life was rolling along its predictable path. After college I paid lip service to working as a stockbroker, but my heart wasn’t in it. And it didn’t help that if I never worked again in my life, I’d still be wealthy.”
Sandy actually giggled. “Don’t think you’d be any good as a defense attorney.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions, young lady.”
Brett felt a sudden easing of tension. She was definitely listening and he hadn’t even gotten to the good part yet. “Anyway, one day a guy I’d been with at Harvard was waiting for me when I returned from sailing and was mooring my yacht. It just so happened it was right here at this club. We hadn’t been particularly friendly at college, and I had always regarded him as someone different …”
“Different how?” Sandy was beginning to buy into Brett’s story. Most of her had always wanted to believe in him but it was not in her nature to accept now blindly anything he had to say. If she were to believe in him again, it would have to be without reservation.
“Well … for one thing, he was highly motivated to succeed in everything. He was a good athlete and made the football squad more by hard work and determination than natural talent. For someone like me who was basically rudderless, I guess I was envious, not because of his success but because he set goals for himself. I hadn’t yet learned that skill.
“So, he was waiting for me and invited me to have a drink with him. I was pretty surprised and also intrigued. What in hell did he want with me? Then, I figured he was going to ask me to get him a job as a stockbroker.” Brett shook his head and finished off his beer. “Couldn’t have been further from the truth. He was there to recruit me!”
“What for?” Sandy wanted to know.
“I didn’t see it coming. We talked about what we had both done since college. He was vague about his activities and rather cleverly extracted far more from me …”
“But from what you’ve told me, you did next to nothing.”
Brett chuckled. “Yeah right, but what I did do, to be immodest, I did quite well.”
“Such as?”
“Sailing for a start. I was club champion three times. Got bored with racing and took up mountaineering. Climbed the seven highest peaks in the world, which is every serious mountaineer’s dream.”
“Don’t ask me to come climbing with you. I’ve no head for heights.”
“Don’t worry, been there, done that, got the T-shirt. It’s outta my system now.”
Sandy nodded. She was intrigued now but felt the need for a coffee. There was a coffee machine on a side table. She got up, went over to the machine, pressed all the right buttons and waited as two jets of dark liquid squirted into the mug she had placed beneath the nozzles. Brett also stood up and stretched. He resisted the impulse for a second beer. He watched Sandy as she focused on the task in front of her, no doubt buying some time as she mulled over what he had said so far.
He drank in every line of her lithe, athletic body with her golden hair tumbling down over her shoulders. She was one of those rare people whose good looks had not interfered with her capacity for being interested in other people and other things. So many good-looking men and women spent their lives trying to be interesting instead of interested. If she had a fault, it was her obsession with making a difference in other people’s lives, sometimes to the detriment of her own. This present quest of hers was a typical example. The trouble was that she had gotten him hooked on it as well. His only worry was that some seriously dark forces were already showing an unhealthy interest in what she had uncovered. He needed to know exactly what that was but first he had to make sure he had completely regained her confidence in him. So far so good, but the tough part came next.
Sandy turned around and looked at him. “Coffee?”
“Why not?” He would need a very clear head to thread his way through the parts of his life he could safely tell her about, leaving some of it for some unknown future time, if at all! Sandy headed back to him, handed him a coffee, then leaned forward brushing her lips against his cheek. He grinned. “That feels like a partial forgiveness.”
She grinned back. “Yeah, about … 20%.”
“Damn. Thought I would’ve scored higher, but I’ll take what I can get … for now.” They both sat down again. Brett frowned, “OK. So, here’s the tough part. Please understand that I’ve not discussed this with anyone else and it has to remain right here in this room.”
Sandy realized the seriousness of the statement and nodded. “You have my word.”
“Thanks.” Brett leaned back and considered his thoughts for a few moments. “First of all, he asked me what I felt about the state of the world right now.” I replied that it felt as though we were all tumbling down a large black hole into an abyss. He then asked if I felt that there was any hope for the future.”
“And you said …?”
“I replied that yes, I did have some hope … and please remember that this was in 2018, because despite all the yelling and screaming of the politicians, the schism between the so-called liberal left and the conservative right, there was a growing awareness by the man in the street that things had to change. I felt that we had been lulled into a sense of helplessness by the previous regimes, not only in the US but worldwide. I concluded nevertheless that I was neither a right-winger nor a leftie. I also had a feeling that the extreme left and extreme right met somewhere around the back and were equally destructive. Having said that, don’t get the idea that I’m sitting on the fence. I just don’t like extremism in any shape or form.”
“Now you’re stepping into my territory!”
“Which is exactly why we’re having this conversation right now.”
Sandy stared at him with a growing sense of relief. She wasn’t at all sure what he would say next, but she suspected that he had been leading a double life. A wealthy layabout on the outside … but what in the hell was he doing in secret? It certainly didn’t sound like the CIA or FBI or any of those initial-lettered secret groups.
Sandy decided to go for the jugular. “Let’s cut to the chase. What’s the secret activity that you were recruited into?”
Brett shrugged. “I can’t tell you the guy’s name. That would be breaking a pledge and I’m not in the business of doing that … so let’s call him Joe.”
“I feel sorry for the real Joe’s of this world. Their name’s been taken in vain so often that they must feel a certain loss of identity.”
“OK. How about calling him Polonius?”
Sandy giggled. “Let’s settle for Joe.”
“OK. Joe didn’t say much right away. I guess he just wanted to establish my take on planet Earth. He kept in touch. After a few weeks he started asking me to do things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Simple stuff really. He asked me to contrive to meet certain people and make it seem like it was just a social get-together. After we’d had a few drinks I’d then gently pump them for their viewpoints on certain issues. I would write up a report and send it to Joe.”
“Did he pay you for this?”
“He offered to, but I didn’t need the dough and anyway I felt that if I took anything from him, he’d have a hold over me, which I didn’t need.”
“Smart, but I guess it escalated.”
“Yup … Don’t worry I didn’t become a secret assassin or anything.”
Sandy sighed. “Damn. I was hoping that you’ve become a deadly shot from a thousand yards, a martial arts expert and capable of throwing a knife from twenty yards to pierce the heart!” They both laughed.
Then Brett continued. “Just to make your day, I do have some of those skills but they’re purely defensive.”
Sandy finished her coffee. She had clearly come to a decision. “You know what? I’ve heard all I need to know for now. I’m still curious but it can wait. I would prefer to tell you what I’ve uncovered – and hopefully your … defensive skills may protect us from those guys that were following me.”
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.