A Disruptive Invention

by Peter Shackle

  The others nodded and they left to go home.

  Chapter 26

  Back at the Russian consulate, Adrik Rumenik squirmed as he talked with his boss over a secure line to Moscow. His boss was frustrated with him. “Adrik, it is great that you found out about this new silent helicopter development. But now that we know it exists you owe it to our homeland to get all the details. I want it now! I have given you the services of Igor. If you cannot get the details then I will find somebody who can! Understood?”

  The phone line clicked off. Adrik sat at his desk and thought about the conversation which he had just had. His boss was mad at him, and had made it quite clear that his advancement in the diplomatic corps was going to be seriously threatened if he did not send back information about this new threat. His boss was concerned that the advent of a silent helicopter on the battlefield could have devastating repercussions. Perspiration dripped down his face, even though the room was cool and dry. “Igor, we need to meet about the Electrolev situation,” he called into the office intercom.

  Igor arrived a few moments later, smiling reassuringly and carrying a stick-on moustache and beard in his hand. “Don’t worry, I have a plan!” he reassured Adrik. “I been watching Electrolev close, and they are very security conscious at present. But their weak spot is security guards - hired contractors. The staff can have no idea who the guards are. So tomorrow night we will get you into the building disguised as the night guard. Only you have the education to know what the plans of an aircraft look like. Take this little document camera. Once you are alone in the building for the night, you can browse through the building with it. Maybe if there is a good system of passwords it might take some trouble to get into the computers, but at worst you may have to copy out some hard drives to get all that you need. Take this gadget too. You just plug it into a computer and it will copy out the entire contents of any hard drive inside. If anything goes wrong, nobody must live who see your face. So you will have this in your pocket.” He took out a laser sighted Glock 19 from his pocket and laid it on Adrik’s desk.

  Adrik recoiled. “I can’t stand to hurt anybody – surely it’s not worth that!”

  “Adrik, I know that you ranked top of the diplomatic corps class of 2009 in firearm training! I talk to my boss too about this silent helicopter. If we don’t deliver the goods then we will both be looking for a job! Don’t worry, I will deal with the real guard and give you a nice uniform and the guard’s car. All you do is walk in and introduce yourself as guard. When you done I meet you in Ralphs round the corner, we dump the car and it’s over. We both get promoted! Take this moustache and beard – I have chosen the color to nicely match your hair.”

  Chapter 27

  At four in the afternoon the next day Hippy opened the door of the garage attached to his little ranch. He backed his tan colored 95 Corolla down his short driveway as he did every day when he went to work at Electrolev for the night. This time he had to pull up short, because there was a large silver colored sedan parked right across his driveway. The hood was open and a squat man with a goatee beard and moustache was delving into the engine compartment. Hippy put his car in park, leaving the engine running, and got out to speak to the man. “Hey man, I’ve got to get to work and you are blocking my way!”

  “I almost got it going again – if you can help for few seconds I’ll be out of here.” replied the man in a strange European accent. “Just hold this for a moment?” he said, thrusting an air filter cover into Hippy’s hands. Then while the guard stared wonderingly at the exposed engine compartment, the car owner swiftly went around him moving towards the open trunk of the car. As he went by Hippy he appeared to clumsily bump into him.

  “Ow – that hurt” cried out Hippy. Then in no more than a second his eyes rolled up and he crumpled down onto the grass. Without a moment’s hesitation the man picked up Hippy and dragged him into the back of the silver colored sedan. He quickly slammed the trunk and the hood, and another driver who was sitting there all along smoothly drove off in the car. The man with the goatee beard climbed into Hippy’s car, which had the engine still running, and pausing for a second to operate the garage door closer he drove off smoothly down the street after the silver sedan which was already disappearing from sight.

  At five o’clock that evening, Hippy’s car turned into the parking lot of Electrolev and Adrik, complete with beard and moustache, emerged resplendent in Hippy’s uniform. He walked into the reception and introduced himself to Julie. “Hello there, I’m from the Soderman security agency. Hippy has a bad cold today and I’m here as his replacement. I’ve never worked here before so you had better show me where everything is.” Adrik was carrying a plastic supermarket bag which appeared to have his break time meal in it.

  Julie was anxious to get home; she was tired and hungry at the end of the day. She had on her mind to get milk and tomatoes from the supermarket for the family evening meal. “Well, the main thing you need to know is where all the keys are, here. You can see the main gate to the yard from the camera here, and this button opens and closes it. Once more or less everybody has gone you can close the gate and then this is the only way people can get in and out. This button buzzes the lock on the front door to let people in, and you can see who it is on this camera here.” She gestured to a small TV screen on which you could see the employees streaming out. “Over there on the desk is a list of emergency contact numbers in case anything happens. Around eleven each evening the cleaner turns up and you need to let him in, and keep half an eye on the cleaning. That’s about it; I guess that your replacement turns up around midnight, right?”

  Adrik nodded enthusiastically: “Yes, that’s right.”

  Julie gathered her pocket book and headed for the front door. “You have a nice evening!”

  Inside the offices, Tony was in his room with text books spread out all over his desk and side table. A huge white board took up one side of his room, and it was covered in inscrutable physics equations using Greek letters and calculus symbols. Tony was standing in front of the chalk board with a marker crayon in his hand, and seemed to be writing in an extra term to one of the equations.

  At that moment Judy breezed into his office, carrying a briefcase and wearing a leather jacket. She looked like somebody all set to go home at the end of the day. “Honey, how about taking break and coming home to dinner?” she said, enticingly.

  Tony was totally possessed by the equations on his white board. He was miles away. He pointed to the squiggles on the board. “This extra term which relates gravity to a moving charge has been missing in conventional theory, and that is what represents our fifth force. The wonderful thing is that under all normal circumstances its integral comes out close to zero – which means that it normally makes no difference. This is why nobody has noticed it for the last hundred years. Yet it has been there all along – doing nothing and making no difference until John came along and did the complete absolute opposite of what every electrical engineer has done for the last century. I think this is the secret of how an anticoil works.”

  Judy nodded sympathetically. She understood the general idea that the physicists had to get a handle on how the anticoils worked, but all the details that Tony was going on about were just techno babble to her. “I’m going to do a Kung Pao San Yan tonight!” she said, temptingly sliding her arm around his waist.

  “I’m sorry, but this is at a really critical point,” replied Tony. “Could you just put some aside for me in the fridge and I’ll microwave it when I come home? - I’m convinced that with just one or two more transformations I’ll have a design equation for an anticoil!”

  Judy snorted quietly and marched out of the room.

  Gradually the offices became quieter as everybody went home. Adrik, who had been sitting quietly at the guard station dutifully not drawing attention to himself, was feeling increasingly nervous. His Nextel had buzzed which meant the office was trying to check in with him, and this represented a threat of discovery. He ig
nored it. His palms were sweaty and his mouth was dry. He walked slowly round the premises, looking out for helicopter technology. As he came to the doorway of the main hallway his attention was caught by the sight of Sarit Venkitaman the IT manager. She fiddled around for a few moments in the computer room opposite Tony’s office, looking at some screens and typing something in from a keyboard, and then he saw her come out and close the glass door of the computer room behind her. She did not notice Adrik standing still in the shadows at the end of the hallway. Adrik heaved a sigh of relief. The last employee had gone home, and there in Sarit’s computer room was a bank of tape drives and a fireproof tape vault box. Adrik relaxed. He was already thinking ahead to his coming week with Lara in Moscow and to a glowing future in the diplomatic corps. He walked back to the guard desk, watched Sarit leave on the monitor screen for the back yard, and then operated the switch to close the automatic gate.

  Adrik settled down at the guard desk. He knew from the notes Igor had provided him that he was expected to stay at the desk mainly and to patrol the building about once an hour. Now that he had spotted the computer room with the tape drives and backup tapes, he realized that this was going to be the key to his future career. He was still tense for fear that the security office would follow up the unreturned call and feared that Sarit or somebody else might have forgotten something and come back, so he was reluctant to make his move immediately. Dipping into the supermarket bag which he had brought with him, he enjoyed the meal which he had prepared for himself. He was just munching into the apple which was his dessert when he saw a big spider climb up the side of his desk and on to his papers there. Taking a tissue from his pocket, he carefully enveloped the spider in the tissue and carried it out to the front door, which he momentarily opened in order to drop the spider on the doorstep outside. He watched with satisfaction as it scurried away.

  After closing the door, he decided that this was the moment he had to act, and he took out some wipes from his lunch bag and carefully wiped off any surfaces around the guard desk that might have had fingerprints. Then he pulled on latex gloves and made a bee line for the computer room. Opening the door, he went across to where the tape backups were, and starting with the tape vault box, he put every tape he could find, including the ones in the backup drive bank, into his plastic supermarket bag. He was quite oblivious to Tony still poring over his white board in the room opposite. Suddenly Tony seemed to wake up from his dream and became aware of the guard in the computer room. “Hey - what do you think you are doing?” he demanded.

  “Look up there,” said the Adrik pointing to the ceiling at the end of the office. Instinctively Tony glanced to the end of the office, and in that split second Adrik pulled out the laser sighted Glock 19, set the laser pointer on Tony and pulled the trigger. Tony crumpled to the ground amidst a pool of blood. With his pulse racing, Adrik continued picking up every tape cartridge in sight. He paused and looked at Tony’s bleeding body for a moment. He leaned over and looked at Tony’s face. For a moment Tony’s eyes flickered and he was looking into Adrik’s eyes. Adrik pulled out the Glock 19 again, but then he looked into Tony’s eyes and put it away in his pocket. Acting on an impulse he picked up Tony and slung him over his shoulder. Carrying Tony and the supermarket bag, he staggered out of the front door with his face as white as a sheet. With a trembling hand he tossed his guard’s Nextel radio onto the lobby seat as he went out through the door.

  Chapter 28

  The next day was chaotic at Electrolev. Steve had been called in the middle of the night when the relief guard from the security company could not get in. When Steve arrived at the building, he had been the one who found the blood in Tony’s office and called the police. Now he was positioned in the front entrance turning away most of the employees, telling them that Tony had been attacked and kidnapped and that the company was closed for the day. Judy had found out what had happened when she got a phone call from Steve at 1a.m. that morning. At first she could not believe what Steve said was true, and then she had dissolved into helpless tears.

  Steve was talking with Police Lieutenant Witham in the front Lobby when the officer’s police phone rang. “Oh no, that’s all I need – follow standard procedures and keep me informed!” said Witham into his phone. He turned to Steve:

  “There has been a murder – I wonder if there is a link here – did you ever hear of Julie Redbridge?”

  “She’s our receptionist,” exclaimed Steve. He had been up all night with hardly any sleep and was shaken to the core with these dramatic events. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “Somebody shot her in the head as she left her home this morning,” said Witham. Then he thought for a moment and came back with: “Didn’t you say that you had a night guard all night? Well he has vanished too, then.”

  “I saw his tan Corolla in the parking lot this morning,” said Steve. “I did not think anything of it at the time.”

  Witham called out to one of his men: “Smith – check out a tan Corolla in the parking lot – it goes with the night guard who vanished last night.”

  Smith went out into the backyard where several police cars were already parked. Pulling on latex gloves so that he would not contaminate any evidence, he went first to Hippy’s car and checked that the doors were locked. He peered in through the windows and inspected the empty passenger compartment. Pushing a button on the radio on his shoulder, he said: “Xtango 44 I need a locksmith at the Electrolev plant immediately. Have him ask for Officer Smith.”

  “10-4,” came the terse reply.

  Smith then went to the trunk of his patrol car and pulled out an object like a flat balloon known as an air wedge, plus several long metal rods. He walked across to Hippy’s Corolla and started pushing the air wedge little by little in between the driver’s door and the body of the Corolla at the back top corner of the door. Then he started pumping away at a rubber bulb which dangled from the air wedge. Little by little the steel door started bending away from the body to make an air gap. Once it was more than an eighth of an inch wide, he pushed an angled steel rod in through the opening and skillfully maneuvered it until he could press the door unlock button. Then he grasped the door handle with his gloved hand and opened the door. There was nothing of remark inside the car. At that moment a white cargo van pulled into the Electrolev yard. It had the words “Keymasters Locksmith” painted in huge letters over the side. The driver slipped out to the ground and said to Smith: “I’m Pedro Sanchez the locksmith. I’m looking for Officer Smith.”

  “That’s me,” replied Smith. “I need you to open the trunk of this car. This is a crime scene and I want you to put on these latex gloves so that you don’t contaminate any fingerprints.”

  Pedro pulled out some tiny stick like tools from his shirt pocket and immediately stuck them into the trunk lock opening of the Corolla. He seemed to be pushing them back and forth and twisting as well from time to time. After about two minutes of this activity the trunk suddenly popped open with a loud click.

  Pedro stood back. Smith shouldered him out of the way. He peered into the trunk where the body of Hippy was curled up. He skillfully pressed and prodded the body, and quickly came to the conclusion that it was long since dead and cold. “Holy crap!” he muttered – “another murder!”

  Pedro interrupted him. “Could you just sign here please?” he said, proffering a clip board to Smith who quickly signed it.

  “Thank you that will be all.” said Smith, dismissing him.

  Smith ran inside to tell Witham the news.

  Back inside the building, John had just turned up. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  “There have been attacks.” Steve replied. “Tony was shot and apparently kidnapped from his office last night, Hippy has been killed nobody knows how, and Julie was shot as she left her house this morning.”

  John’s face turned white. “Let’s go in and talk,” was all he was able to say.

  Inside in Steve’s office the two sat t
ogether, stunned for a moment.

  John mumbled incoherently about the injustice of it all for a few moments. Then finally he asked: “Has anything been stolen?”

  “Not as far as I can tell – everything seems normal to me.”

  Steve was trembling a little from the stress, as he reached into his desk and pulled out the business card for Colonel James Harper. “I think we had better give this guy a call, maybe he can help us with security.”

  John, white as a sheet, nodded weakly.

  Steve called Harper using the speakerphone in the office and told him everything he knew that had happened. “This is so tragic,” exclaimed James. “I am truly sorry for your loss. I’ll be there about midday with some security for the company.”

  True to his word, Harper arrived at 11.55 a.m. with a Humvee containing two guards in camouflage uniforms and peaked caps and armed with M16 rifles. They looked as if they seriously knew how to use them. One was stationed behind the front desk, and one in the back yard. Harper, Steve and John sat down in the conference room. They had hardly sat down when Judy arrived, her face tear stained. Her clothes were crumpled and she looked wretched. “I could not bear to be alone anymore,” she said, “this company is like the only family that I have in the USA and it is comforting to be here with you all.”

  Steve said to her: “As well as Tony being attacked and kidnapped, Julie and Hippy were murdered last night. This is a very serious situation. That is the reason why Colonel Harper has got these security guards here.”

  “Oh no!” responded Judy, with tears rolling down her face.

  James Harper was feeling deeply concerned. If the truth be known, he had anticipated exactly this situation, but he had thought that Steve’s razor wire and interlock doors would have protected them for two weeks. Obviously he was wrong, and far larger forces were unleashed than even he had been thinking about. “My guess is that this was an attempt by a foreign power to get hold of the Electrolev technology. They were not trying to especially assassinate the Electrolev personnel. I reckon that those people who were killed must have got in the way somehow. I will bet that all they were after was information. But that they wanted at any cost. Are any computers missing?”