Chapter 24
The small group had dived in cars, ready to take them away from the airport. Pieter had shared a car with Jonathan and Oona. Because Pieter had slept the whole flight, now and then shaken by a fellow passenger in the hope to stop the snoring, he had not been able to question them further about the past events.
“So the whole shooting was one big pantomime. Did you know, Oona, that he was using you for this? So that I would believe that some super secret conspiracy was going on?”
Oona answered poisonously: “no, I was not aware of that part of the story. But I am sure that Jonathan can explain it very clearly.” She turned towards him and looked at him challengingly.
Jonathan was a bit embarrassed. “It was the only way to ensure that Pieter would act with the necessary sense of urgency and escape to the outside world. I had to put all of this en scene to be as believable as possible, especially to the two of you. I had clear orders to bring both of you on this plane. So I though at that moment that using Oona was the best way forward as I knew it was going to surprise you. And vice versa, to you Oona I had to bring in Pieter as the bad guy. I was sure that you would never believe just like that that Pieter was being a spy or a thief. You would do everything to find it out yourself.”
“So what is your relationship with Ian Summerton exactly?” Pieter asked, “you said that you had to bring us in.”
Oona added: “apparently he needs some tropical virologist. You don't hear me complain. He bought off my army contract. No more patrols.”
“I have known Ian for some years now since he was conducting work with his organisation for the navy in the Far East. He had to advise on the future use of old, mostly forgotten camps. The navy was going through some serious cycles of rationalisation and cost cutting. It was his recommendation not to close Diego but to repurpose it to install a supercomputer. It was remote and safe. In times of peace, the computer would be part of a larger grid or cloud and be used to help all kinds of human research. You might have heard of the abacus network. In times of conflict, the computer would be able to deal with all military transactions of the US army. Don't forget that Diego is more secure than a fortress. An attack from the air, mainland or sea would be detected hours up front because of the distance, and would trigger the right defence. Ian needed someone to keep an eye on what was happening with that computer. Especially to know what kind of simulations they were running on it.”
Pieter shook his head. He still could not make the picture complete.
“But if this is an American computer than why did the Indians and the Chinese used it to run simulated attacks?”
Jonathan replied: “if the computer had a human body, I would have called it 007. Yes, it was also one hell of a robotic spy. We are not in conflict, but that computer could hack into other systems better than any human hacker or cracker in the world. It infiltrated in other systems and stored the information. That information was fed into our own simulation programs. Which basically made us each time one step ahead of the threat.”
Pieter decided to talk as soon as possible with Ian. He could feel that his former investigation had been right on track. But also that still a lot of the pieces of the puzzle had to find their proper place before he was going to grasp it all.
He wanted to ask some additional questions but the car already ramped up the hotel's driveway.
In the lobby he had been scouting around to see Jane and Jackie. He had just seen how their parents took their daughters in the arms. And how a tanned muscled man had firmly embraced and kissed Jane.
Pieter hesitated to make his way to them, but finally decided to follow Karum to the elevator and leave the family Hutton alone. It seemed that Jane was not making any effort to look for him and Jackie was too busy to tell her adventures to her father.
He should not make himself any illusions.
Everyone would go their own way.
All would return to normal.
* * *
The Abacus Equation Page 28