Déjà Vu: A Technothriller (14 page)

There was a non-compliant buzz. A man’s voice said, “Your computer has blocked access to the following potentially unsafe statement: ‘Jobanique, Ms Brandt would like you to fuck off’. For more information concerning expletives, call for Help.”

Saskia said, “Tell him I’ll call back.”

She donned a black trouser-suit with a white shirt. She upturned the collar. She brushed her shoulder-length hair until it assumed a reasonable shape. She applied some eye shadow. Put on some nice shoes she had found in the wardrobe. They fitted perfectly. She applied a little more makeup: lip gloss, red nail varnish. She looked at her nails and remembered her Russian nickname. The Angel of Death.

She opened the curtains around the apartment and the windows too. The gloom left with a bow.

“Computer, call Jobanique.”

“Certainly.”

The apartment rattled with the sound of ‘Greensleeves’ played on a mouth organ. After ten seconds, a voice said, “Jobanique can speak to you now,” and her boss appeared on her white, bare wall. The computer drew some curtains to enhance the image.

Saskia said, “Hello.”

Jobanique said, “Hello.”

“I like your ‘hold’ music.”

“Why thank you.”

“Shall we?”

“Lets,” he said. Then his head turned, like a newsreader moving on to a new story. “A man has escaped custody. He is a wanted criminal. A murderer. It is a matter of global security. I have been asked to handle this case personally.”

“I see.”

“My assistant has completed its meta-analysis. It’s trawled through years of information, picked up impressions here, guesses there, the occasional fact. It has produced a psychological profile based on the frequency of certain trait-based behaviours and put them into a model.” He shrugged. “I find them useful sometimes.”

“Go on.”

Jobanique put the lid on his pen. “His name is David Proctor. Look at the photo. This was taken in Oxford, England. It was published five years ago in the local newspaper. His hair is whiter now. Some background, then: our man is born in France in 1971 to Amelie Lombard, a language student, and Duncan Proctor, a student of human nature and alcohol, in the middle of Duncan’s year abroad. Duncan and Amelie have known each other for over three hours when David is conceived. Duncan panics. He goes back to university to complete the final year of his degree. We don’t know what he studied. Both Amelie and Duncan are nineteen at the time.

“That Christmas, Duncan flies back to France, finds Amelie and proposes to her. There is no clear reason for his change of mind. Amelie’s parents are disgusted and oppose the marriage, but Amelie is adamant. She wants him. They return to England and marry. For the next ten years, both of them fall in and out of various jobs. There is no evidence to suggest the home was unhappy. The young David’s school reports are average. They move house almost constantly. Duncan Proctor manages to hold down a job with a computer company in Reading as a marketing assistant.

“Meanwhile, young David’s school marks imrpove. In 1982 he scores a maximum mark on his primary school leaving test. There is a dramatic scene at the school: the headmaster calls him a cheat in front of David’s parents. The headmaster is verbally and physically assaulted by Duncan. David then wins a scholarship to a school for gifted students called Two Trees. The school is in Kent and he refuses to go. David and his father have the first in a series of serious arguments. In the event, Amelie convinces David that he should go. He does. Diary entries indicate that David was extremely unhappy in his first year.”

“You read his diaries?”

“And his report card. He was a troublemaker in that first year. It was only in the second year that he began to improve, following the mentorship of a maths teacher. He excelled in the sciences, particularly physics. He learned Latin and Persian. According to his physical education teacher, he had poor hand-eye coordination, frequent bouts of asthma, though none serious. However, there are some reports that he entered the cross-country team in his final year and won an inter-school medal.”

“Is this relevant?”

“In 1987, he left Two Trees for a university course in artificial intelligence at Durham. He married Helen Cassidy in his second year. They were both aged eighteen. They made repeated attempts at children –”

“Artificial intelligence?”

“The development of virtual or physical machines designed to display behaviours consistent with human intelligence in the solution of particular, well-defined problems. For more radical researchers, a long-term goal is to reproduce the human mind within a man-made machine.”

“I see. Back to the children.”

“There were none for several years. Aged twenty-one, David left to complete a PhD in artificial life systems at Dartmouth College, North-East United States. The degree was completed in three years. He did not like America or his career direction. He returned to England in the summer of 1994 and began a medical degree. He dropped out after three years and took a junior psychology lectureship at Durham. Then, one year later, he moved to Scotland.”

“To do what?”

“The following information was difficult to obtain. It was procured using the USA’s Freedom of Information Act. There is no such act in Britain, but America had a certain interest in the affairs surrounding David Proctor.”

“What affairs?”

“The West Lothian Centre. So code-named. A classified research institute. It was a public-private scientific think-tank funded mostly by the British government, partly by the American government, partly by John Hartfield.”

“Who?”

“Third richest man in the world. The aim of this complex was to investigate scientific ideas and applications deemed too radical for the academic environment. Such projects also had strong military ties. All were classified and still are. David remained at the research centre until 2003, when it was bombed by persons unknown. Suspects ranged from the Real IRA to remnants of the al-Qaida network. David was also under suspicion.”

“Why?”

“The bombers had inside information. The kind of information that David Proctor would have known. The centre of the blast was very close to David’s laboratory – he, and all other personnel, were at a musical recital when the bomb detonated. Additionally, in several memos, David spoke about concerns over the nature of his project.”

“Concerns?”

“About its application.”

“Would he have felt strong enough to destroy his own project like that?”

“It’s not clear. It counts in David’s defence that his wife was killed in the explosion. In the formal enquiry that followed, David was exonerated.”

“Tell me more about his wife.”

“Helen Cassidy. Born 1971. A research scientist. One child. Helen died May 14th 2003 from head injuries. No resources on this individual without another meta-analysis.”

“One child?”

“Just one. Jennifer Proctor, aged twenty. Born February 2003. Raised by her father following her mother’s death. A few years ago she was sent to a New York school for gifted children. Most information sources indicate that they were close before this happened, but they have since become estranged. There are no records of any communications in the past few months, except for one email last Sunday.”

“What was in that email?”

“You can get these details from the West Lothian and Borders police liaison office.”

“Where is Jennifer now?”

“There are no current records of her whereabouts. This is quite unusual. It is likely that she is involved with people who can conceal her identity from the US government.”

“Like who?”

“The US government.”

“Back to David. What are we chasing him for?”

“Police records indicate he is wanted for the murders of Caroline Saunders, a sergeant in the British army, and Dr Bruce Shimoda, a scientist. He is also wanted on several charges of terrorism. He is presumed dangerous.”

“Does he have access to a passport?”

“His accounts and credit cards have been frozen. His documents, both physical and electronic, have been confiscated.

His house in Oxford is occupied and under surveillance. Several of his close friends in Oxford are also under surveillance.”

“How did he escape?”

“Plucked from the ground by a glider while attending the funeral of a colleague.”

“Colleague?”

“Dr Bruce Shimoda. Proctor is charged with his murder. They worked together in the West Lothian Centre. Equal partners. Seventeen joint publications in scientific journals produced by the Ministry of Defence. All classified.”

“OK. I have enough of a feel for the man. I need to see the crime scene.”

“Do you feel that?”

“What?”

Jobanique leaned towards the camera. “The thrill of the chase.”

It was dawn when he awoke. His face, the only part not covered by the foil, was incredibly cold. His breath condensed in clouds. His legs were twisted and numb. His hands were tense balls of bone and sinew.

“And he’s alive,” David croaked.

At length, he struggled from the glider and collapsed upon the wet grass. The sky was overcast. It pressed on the hills. David managed to discern three or four farmhouses. Was he still in Scotland? How far had the glider taken him?

The closest house was about five miles away. Its owner probably owned the field as well. But more interesting was the wooden hut barely twenty metres away. It had been rotten luck to miss it the night before. The nose of the glider was pointed at its door. He pulled the space blanket closer around his shoulders and held it tight by his midriff.

His thoughts turned to the glider. Even though the day was overcast, it could be spotted easily. David had read about spy satellites with the ability to detect metal and other materials through cloud. He had to do something about it. He couldn’t fly away because a glider needed power to get it airborne, not to mention a runway and a pilot. Destroy it, then? No. The smoke would be seen for miles. He looked once more at the isolated farmhouses.

Clearly, he had problems. He walked over to the hut and gave it a summary stare. It was a wooden structure. Difficult to imagine its purpose. It was too small to store food. Perhaps it housed a snowmobile or a spare tractor, or engine parts. There was door on one side and a larger garage-like door at the front. The smaller door was padlocked but, interestingly, the padlock still held its key. A careless farm worker or an invitation to enter? He pulled off the padlock, held it as a weapon, and went inside.

“Hello?” he called. It was gloomy. There were a few tool-laden work benches. On one was a briefcase. To his right, the shed was partitioned by a hanging wall of sacking.

A loud beep came from one of the benches. He raised the padlock high. It was a laptop computer. Its screen flickered into life and displayed an impressionistic sketch of a woman’s face. It was an agent.

“Hello,” it replied.

“Hello,” he said. He put the padlock on the bench.

“Hello.”

“What do I do?”

The agent said, “Are you cold?”

“Freezing.”

“There is a flask of hot oxtail soup in the glider.”

“I had that last night.”

The agent nodded. Or, rather, its sketchy face bobbed up and down. “That explains why it has taken you so long to arrive. You should be aware that this significantly increases the probability of your apprehension.”

“Let’s get moving then.”

“Agreed. Under this computer is a pile of clothes. You may put them on. Please do not touch any of the other clothing in this storage shed.”

David threw off the space blanket and grabbed the clothes. They were all new. There were some expensive hiking boots, thermal underwear, jeans, T-shirt, over shirt, gloves, a heavy-duty sports jacket, scarf and woollen hat. “Why not take the other stuff?”

“It does not belong to you.”

He paused. “Oh.”

“Be sure to take your rucksack with you.”

He remembered the fake minister putting a rucksack on his back in the moments before the escape. He had forgotten all about it...though only his head and his legs had been wet when he woke up in the field the night before. He hadn’t put the facts together. The rucksack had protected his back. He shrugged; it was tiny and felt empty.

“Your rucksack,” said the agent, “contains important travel documents. They cannot be replaced.”

“Great. Now, listen to me. I can’t put on any of these clothes until I lose these handcuffs.”

“Agreed. At the end of this bench, underneath the canvas, is a circular saw. Have you used one before?”

David flung the tarp to one side and studied the saw. It comprised a metal cutting platform and a mounted circular blade. The assembly could be moved up and a down with a lever so that the blade passed through the groove in the middle of the cutting platform. The blade looked wicked. He reached around the back and fumbled for a switch. He found it and the blade whirred into life. Odd that a shed in the middle of nowhere would have a power supply.

He put his hands on the plate and stretched them apart to put the connecting chain was under tension. Next, using his chin, he pressed the lever that lowered the saw. The lever hurt like blazes. Garrel had pressed the same spot during his interrogation on Monday.

The blade met the chain and sparks poured onto the floor. Fortunately, the blade had a large housing designed to catch the sparks, so David did not cook his face. He noted the lucky escape and reminded himself to be more careful in future. Another part of his mind – perhaps that inner part with the immunity to cold, the part that had guided him the night before – reminded him that he had been making those mental notes since he was a boy, and had yet to remember one.

He rammed the lever home and the chain came apart. He turned off the saw and began to dress. Heat returned with every layer.

“What’s the plan, computer?”

“Beyond the partition you will find a motorcycle. Listen carefully –”

David turned white. “But I can’t ride a motorcycle.”

“That is why you must listen carefully,” the computer said. Its screen changed to show a cartoon motorcycle. “Observe. It has a key ignition. The keys are in the bike. Turn the key to the second position, then press the start button. The right-hand grip is the accelerator and its lever is the front brake. The left-hand lever is the back brake. Always use both brakes simultaneously. Clear?”