LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

specialists have disappeared, or been killed, and this LeClarc man was a target. It seems they pushed him off the ship for some reason. That’s about all really.”

      “Do you know why they wanted him, or the others?”

      “Not really. But if you would excuse me for a moment, I must order your coffee. Oh, do you have a photograph of Motsom? We still haven’t received one by fax.”

      He picked up the phone as Edwards rummaged through his briefcase, turning up a photograph stamped “Central Records 1986.” “The only one we’ve got,” he said, handing it to the captain.

      Edwards shuffled a few papers, waiting while the captain finished his call then asked, “What’s Motsom’s role in this?”

      Jahnssen put the phone down and perched on the corner of his desk. “We don’t know, but we do know that the main suspect, David King, was in touch with Motsom on the ship, and Motsom’s car is still at the port.”

      A polite rap on the door interrupted them and the officer delivering the coffee took the photograph.

      “He’s going to get some copies out to all our men. They’ll make enquiries around the port and the bars. Usual routine. Motsom must be here somewhere.”

      He was wrong. Billy Motsom had left town nearly an hour earlier.

      “Right,” said Superintendent Edwards, clasping his hands together and thrusting them high above his head, “let me explain.” Then, pulling himself upright in the chair he took a deep breath as if preparing to deliver an earth shattering revelation.

      “What we are dealing with is potentially more dangerous than the atomic bomb.” Exactly the same words the Minister of Defence had used to him at a cabinet briefing two weeks earlier. “Let me repeat,” he continued, pulling himself forward in the chair, “potentially more dangerous than the atomic bomb.”

      His arms dropped. He lowered himself back in the seat and his eyes gazed skywards in their sockets, checking his brain to see if he had missed anything. The captain, feeling an answer was expected, if not demanded, could only manage an astonished, “Aaaah.”

      Edwards brought his fingertips together in front of his face, and toyed thoughtfully with the end of his nose. “The fact is, these nine people, together with half a dozen Americans, potentially pose a threat to world peace.”

      The captain was way behind, though catching up. “So you are suggesting, whoever controls these people, whoever’s kidnapped them, could somehow use them to control the world.”

      “Far-fetched, I know, Jost, but precisely. Together they could hold the entire world to ransom. Even a nuclear bomb can only be targeted against one country at a time. Information can destroy the world.”

      The captain slid off the desk back into his chair, then laughed. “You’re crazy.

      Edwards, for once, seemed unconcerned. “I said exactly same thing when they told me, but think about it for a moment, Jost. Do you remember what happened a couple of years ago when half the phone systems in America went on the blink for a few hours?”

      The captain’s face was a blank.

      Edwards continued without awaiting an answer. “Chaos, absolute chaos: Stock markets tumbled; emergency calls went unanswered; banks ground to a halt; transportation systems crashed; air traffic snarled up— took nearly three days to sort out.” He paused, leaned forward and added, conspiratorially, “Not to mention the interruption to inter-governmental communications and defence systems.”

      “Do they know what caused it?” asked the captain, lamely.

      “Publicly they blamed it on a power failure, but,” he lowered his tone to a stage whisper, “the people at the Pentagon have other ideas—a trial run. Somebody accessed the computer system of the telephone company, screwed the whole thing up just to see what would happen.”

      The captain wasn’t convinced and risked Edwards’ ire. “This sounds, how do you say: Off the wall. I don’t believe a few computer people could do that.”

      “The right people could.”

      “But there are security systems.”

      Edwards sat back and dealt an ace. “Twice in the past three months the U.S. National Defence computer has been seriously compromised … Twice,” he added for emphasis.

      “But…” began the captain, losing confidence.

      “And,” continued Edwards without waiting for the captain to finish, “at least two communication satellites have been knocked off course in the past year alone.”

      “Yes, but as I was saying, were any of the missing people involved?”

      “We have no idea. We don’t know where they are or what happened to them.”

      “Inspector Bliss said two were dead,” responded the captain, attempting to weaken the superintendent’s case.

      Edwards slowly sucked in his breath, released it as an explosive “Pah,” and admitted, “We’re not sure now that they are dead.”

      “What about the woman who committed suicide? Bliss said she left a note.”

      His reply was guarded. “That’s true, there was a note …” Edwards hesitated as if holding onto something important, keeping Captain Jahnssen on a leash. “Dogs,” he added mysteriously. “I wasn’t involved in the case but apparently she lived on her own with a couple of Dalmatians and a snappy little terrier of some description. Anyway, it was about two weeks before a neighbour called the police, thought the woman was away on holiday, and when they broke in there wasn’t a lot left.”

      “I’ve seen a couple of cases like that.”

      “At the time nobody questioned it; they cremated the few bits that were left and the dogs were put down.”

      The captain figured out the possibilities. “So you think the woman they ate was a different woman?”

      “It’s possible. The same sort of thing with the bloke that smashed into the train—was it him, or was it some poor sod who had been picked off the streets and stuck into his car wearing his clothes?” He smiled wryly. “He was cremated right away, the train driver went up in flames with him.”

      The captain stuck his forefinger in his left ear, twisted it, and carefully examined the result before enquiring, “How sure are you these cases are linked?”

      “We’re not. In fact until we got a tip about LeClarc a few weeks ago we hadn’t even considered it. But, according to certain people, the biggest threat we face today is global destabilization. Whoever controls the telecommunication and computer networks effectively controls everything: commodity prices, money supply, what we see, what we hear, who talks to whom. Not to mention all our defence and transportation systems.” He warmed to his theme and continued as if he had worked everything out for himself. “You know what happened at the end of the last war?”

      Captain Jahnssen nodded obligingly, but his puzzled expression showed signs of information overload.

      “You know what happened to the German scientists and rocket builders? The Yanks snatched half of them and the Ruskies snatched the rest. Do you think anybody would have got to the moon if it hadn’t been for German scientists? Never.”

      “Yes, I know that, but what has that got to do with this case?”

      Edwards gave him the same look he might have given a ten-year- old school-kid with a snotty nose. “Brains” he shouted. “That’s what it’s all about. You don’t need to control the resources if you control the brains. The brains today are computers, and the way to control them is to control the programmers; they’re the rocket scientists now. Whoever has them is amassing an arsenal more powerful than all the world’s armies put together.” He relaxed slowly into the chair and closed his eyes. “I’ll have that Scotch now,” he said, his mission complete.

Скачать книгу