Counterpoint (34 page)

“What we need is a good distraction”
suggested Carla.

“You’re right” muttered Max “I think I
know how. Do you think you could pick them off with your gun at his
range?”

“It’s a bit of a long shot, pun
intended,” she replied. She pulled her gun pressed a button and the
L.E.D. displayed five more shots left. “Not much safety margin, 2
misses, and we’re in trouble,” she added. Max proceeded to explain
his plan.

Carla settled down to wait whilst Max
made his way back to get Matt.

At his first opportunity, Max rubbed
dirt on his exposed skin. The sweat formed a muddy camouflage.

Now he ran across open ground along the
edge of the jungle, ready to duck for cover if necessary.

Near the base of the hill where Carla’s
truck flipped over, one working truck remained. Max checked it
would start, turned it round, and left it.

Quickly he made his way back to get
Matt. With his feet released, Matt jogged ahead of Max at the end
of a rope, found in the truck. Max also had Matt’s loaded pistol
and knife to control him.

When they reached the truck Max
strapped Matt in the driver’s seat using the seat belts, and tied
his hands to the top of the steering wheel and feet back to the
seat frame. Then he looped the remaining rope from Matt’s left
hand, out of the side window, across the back of the cab and in
through the other side window. He tied off the end to Matt’s right
hand. Max could now steer the truck in safety from behind the cab.
Using a screwdriver Max adjusted the engine idle speed to about
1500 RPM. Then he wedged tools under the clutch, brake and
accelerator pedals so Matt could not use them if he got his feet
free. Finally, he gagged Matt with pieces of Hessian cut from
filthy sacks found on the truck bed.

To start off, Max sat up with Matt, he
needed more steering control than the rope provided until he
entered the camp. Then he planned to climb into the back of the
truck.

With the help of the downward slope,
the truck started with the ignition key and starter motor, running
in third gear. They trundled at a lively pace back to camp along
the track. Matt found it was pointless to struggle, when he tried
to knock the gear lever out of gear with his knee, Max gave him a
pistol-whipping across the cheekbone.

As they swung around the last bend into
the camp, Max shouted, “Time to drive horsey style.” Max climbed
out of the cab window and into the bed of the truck. Matt struggled
again, but could not override the pull of the ropes, but managed to
knock the gear lever into neutral. However, the truck still rolled
on down the gentle gradient, to the river. As expected, the four
guards took cover and focused on the approaching truck. They held
their fire until they could identify the driver. To help them, Matt
sat still so they could see his face, he did not want them to shoot
first and be sorry later. When they realised it was Matt, they
stood up and broke cover. Carla aimed, and starting with the
nearest and rearmost man, shot each through the base of his skull.
Each victim dropped almost soundlessly to the ground, unseen by the
others. The rapid, Phut, phut, phut, phut of the silenced gun was
lost in the background noises of the jungle. Carla’s special
high-velocity bullets, designed to fragment into diamond hard,
razor-sharp segments had smacked into the skulls like a cricket
ball hitting a car windscreen. The splintered bone pushed into the
brain, forming a large dent in the skull. Hair and flesh sliced
away like a grated orange skin.

With the guards dead, Carla broke cover
and ran towards the truck. Max climbed back into the cab and yanked
on the hand-brake, bringing it to a skidding halt, back wheels
locked on the dusty, earth track.

They left Matt tied to the steering
wheel and checked out their transport home.

Two large launches were tied up to the
jetty, well stocked with provisions and fuel. Although only one was
required to get to Kinshasa, they decided to take both in case of a
break down. No point in taking unnecessary chances.

“I had better do something about the
bodies,” suggested Max.

“Let the animals have them, ” replied
Carla indignantly, you keep an eye on Matt.

Anxious to get to civilisation as soon
as possible, Max took the first watch with Matt at the helm. Carla
washed and went to sleep.

With the other launch in tow, a steady
15 knots was as fast as they dared go. There were bits of trees,
clumps of floating vegetation and animals in the water to avoid.
The plan was to work Matt to the point of collapse with his limbs
tied to parts of the boat. He could move freely, but not far.
Neither Max nor Carla left him alone for a moment. They knew Matt
would do his best to avoid wrecking the boat because he knew they
would leave him to sink with it and continue in the other boat.
Escape though was always on his mind.

On the second day, they were travelling
against the current, towards Kinshasa, Carla had just finished her
watch and woke Max.

“I’ve been thinking” she said, “We must
be extremely careful how we deal with this situation. If we go
breezing into town with Matt as our prisoner, report the killing of
the survey team and our part in killing the mercenaries, we are
going to be headline news. Our covers will be blown, and The
Organisation will be in the spotlight. We will be prime targets for
Matt’s employer as well as The Organisation. You know what they are
like”

“Humm! I think you are right.”

“If we make contact with Sam first and
explain what happened, they can clear up the mess,” she
suggested.

“What about finding out whom Matt’s
employer is and making him pay for his crimes?” Queried Max “Will
Sam deal with that?”

“No” she replied solemnly, “The
Organisation won’t waste resources on that, or risk exposure
themselves.”

A wave of frustrations swept over Max.
“All these innocent people killed and no one punished for it. Go
and have your rest my love, I’ll mull over what you said and see if
I can find a way round it.”

Matt had heard the conversation and
wondered what they would do with him now. If they were not going to
hand him over to the authorities, then there was no point them
keeping him alive. They were not likely to just, let him go. Escape
became a greater priority now. At least if he was in the hands of
the authorities, he stood a good chance of getting away with his
crime. He had escaped from tighter situations, in the past.

Max considered how they would present
themselves to the various authorities. Their passports, visas, etc.
had been destroyed. They were foreigners, didn’t speak the
language, had killed, the issue of self-defence to be proved and
had no papers or money. They were in big trouble!

James soon set up his computer
equipment in a small industrial building. A large timber framework
with clear polythene sheeting stapled to it formed the room in the
building that housed the equipment. The computers were held in
racks, not the average home PCs, but complete systems in shallow
metal drawers, interconnecting wires at the back, switches and
twinkling lights at the front. The system required just one
keyboard and three large monitors to start up with; they were in
the small office nearby.

James had wondered if this system,
whatever it was, would even work. The original programmer could not
know what equipment would be available to run his programme, so it
must be self-configuring.

The final moment had come, all the
equipment was switched on, and the discs were loaded in the
specific order dictated by the program on the third monitor screen.
Almost at once, messages were displayed on the main monitor
requesting certain manual alterations to the connectors to specific
computers. Then, with all DVD data ROMs and the massive capacity
hard drives whirring and clicking, the monitors showed the progress
of installation and configuration proceeding satisfactorily. After
about six hours, all the screens cleared and asked the question,
“Who are you?”

James typed in his full name and
pressed the return key.

The screen now displayed, “You are a
new user. Do you require help to use this system?”

y/n

James pressed y.

After a short overview of the
principles of the system, it then proceeded to elicit questions
from James to which he gave answers.

It appears the system generated its own
operating system based on the processors used. It was not only a
vast store of knowledge but was creative in how it used it. It was
able to reason, and deduced like a human might, but much faster and
more consistent.

The following day when James carried
out a simple experiment, he was amazed at the results. A photo
taken from a magazine was scanned into the system. The question,
“Where was this photo originally taken?” Produced not only the
correct geographical location, but concluded with the camera lens
details, height of the photographer and referred to the page and an
article the photograph had been cut from. This had been deduced
from information on the internet and a rare orchid shown in part of
the picture.

After many other experiments, James
decided to try and get something useful out of the system, and fed
commercial software into it for re coding. Again, the results were
staggering. A perfectly workable product was returned, only a
quarter of the original size. After a lot of testing, it appeared
to be bug-free and blindingly fast. After more experimentation,
James found ways of directing the process to incorporate many new
features in the product. He then offered the product free on the
Internet for testing and comment.

In no time at all, reports came back,
no bugs, but a wish list of new features. Some features must have
been dreamed up by crackpots, but some were intriguing and beyond
current technology in the public domain.

James set the system working on the
changes and after some fine-tuning, had a unique product ready for
his growing user base to test and use.

It was soon after that, big trouble
came knocking on his door!

Exhausted though he was, Matt Stone
managed to keep a clear mind, alert to any opportunity that could
help him escape. Out of desperation, he appeared to go berserk. He
rammed the throttle wide open and aimed the careening launch at the
far bank of the wide river. He reasoned that his two captors would
instinctively try to subdue him, rather than get their feet wet if
he managed to wreck the boat. He wanted them to get close to him so
he could fight back. Taken completely by surprise Max and Carla
honestly did think Matt had gone mad. They had both pushed him
beyond reasonable limits of human endurance. No rest for two days
and nights, minimal food and water, and total humiliation, when he
needed to relieve himself. There was no way Max and Carla were
going close enough to be jumped by him and if he became worn down
and exhausted, he was more likely to be manageable, they
thought.

Matt yelled and cursed, swerved the
boat and appeared hell-bent on smashing up the boat and ending it
all. They tugged hard at his ropes, but he clung to the wheel as
though they did not exist. As the bank loomed close Max shouted,
“Carla, take the controls when I grab Matt.” Max leapt on the
crazed man and held him in a bear hug, trying to pull Matt away
from the wheel. Suddenly Matt went into attack mode and felled Max
with a single blow. Carla reached for the gun in her ankle holster,
but Matt backhanded her across the face and sent her sliding dazed
across the deck. Both Max and Carla were out of Matt’s reach, so he
quickly freed his hands.

Free at last, he planned to kill the
pair and sail into civilisation alone.

Carla was coming round and going for
the gun again. Matt’s fuddled brain saw only one option, and he
dived over the side, moments before the launch struck a submerged
tree and glanced off out towards the centre of the river. The
sinking boat rapidly lost speed as it filled up, the engine finally
cut out as it became swamped. Carla helped Max up and bundled him
into the towed launch as it drifted alongside. Finally, she
released the tow rope and leapt to safety as the water swirled
towards her along the deck. Moments later, only the top of the
cabin showed above the muddy water.

As she searched the bank for a Matt,
she shivered at the sight of the Crocodiles slithering down into
the water. Matt surfaced as they headed for him. The first
Crocodile closed his vicious jaws around his middle, the
razor-sharp teeth like a hundred daggers piercing his soft body,
the agony as they a bit even deeper into the flesh. She heard his
scream of terror as it pulled his head under the swirling muddy
water. Finally, the crocodile twisted and churned through the
water, his body like a frenzied propeller, spine snapping and limbs
breaking in death.

Max’s voice brought her back into
reality, “Carla!”

“Matt’s gone!” Was all she could
reply.

Just out of sight of Kinshasa, they
moored the launch and walked into civilisation. Max contacted Sam
and explained everything that had happened. Sam agreed to get money
and passports to them straight away. They stayed out of sight on
the launch overnight.

The next afternoon, the replacement
passports were delivered to Max, as promised, including a generous
amount of local currency. Although they were fake passports they
were in their names and genuine in that respect. That evening, they
were relaxing in their Jacuzzi, getting clean, before going to
dinner in the hotel Sam had organised. It was lovely to be
civilised again.

Three days later, they were in Sam’s
office, back in Italy, going over all that had happened.