Virtual Reality Chapter 8
Aug 31 '05
The Bottom Line The penultimate chapter of my techno-thriller...
Please read the Prelude before you read this!
Chapter 8.
Fitzgerald and Webber had very nearly reached Fisher's trap when Fisher herself was caught. She had, perhaps rather foolishly, arranged for the MeFitronix company Cessna to crash land in Tunisia, near the Libyan border. The border guards were nowhere in sight. They had been dealt with. However, while Fisher was waiting in Libyan soil, the Libyan forces became alerted to her presence and took umbrage at it. More specifically, they distrusted anybody and everybody at the moment, especially those who would enter Libyan territory of their own free will.
While holding Fisher, who had been alone, wanting to savour the humiliation of her victim personally without interruption, the Libyan soldiers found two more business people run straight into them, apparently fleeing from some unknown force behind them.
There was nothing else to do for the soldiers but take them back to general Antreb. Maybe they were part of the conspiracy, maybe they were linked with the imposter that had been found.
Antreb was already in a foul mood, and he took no great pleasure in seeing the two women. Webber had tried to escape from the soldiers, and had been shot. The general was of the opinion, personally, that they were both involved in some way of the abduction of the Commander.
He had them put under the truth drug.
When he finds out the truth about the women, he finds it interesting, to some extent, and enlightening to a greater extent. However, in his present position, it wasn't really that useful. So he gave instructions for them to be taken outside, shot, and left for dead.
Useless, that it, unless maybe... He slightly altered the orders about the two women.
"I've cracked it!", proclaimed Canning.
"Again?", queried Kershaw. "But I thought you had no understanding of geopolitics?"
"Well, not much, but I do know a little about trade negotiations."
Hansen's ears pricked up at this. "Sounds interesting already, Ed. Keep talking."
"Well, unless I've very much mistaken, Tunisia have friendly relations with a number of countries, including, I believe, some of the world's leading suppliers of oil, coal, and other fossil fuels. Now, what if we told Libya that we were heading a consortium of companies, who were going to use Tunisia as a sort of go-between, for a worldwide trade deal that will make us billions of pounds? Do you think they would credit that?" There was just a hint of doubt in his voice, but this was quickly dispelled by Hansen's reaction, and the subsequent reaction of Antreb in Libya.
It was over.
Or so they thought.
In Libya, however, general Antreb was far from being convinced.
Fisher fell into consciousness with a painful jolt. She couldn't understand it, but she was still alive. Hadn't they just taken her out and shot her?
She checked her limbs, but yes, she was still here. On seeing her left leg, she recoils at the sight of some strange markings on her leg, like, like... well, almost as if she'd had an operation. She couldn't understand it, no more than she could understand her being alive. There was a faint pain in her leg, but nothing spectacular.
She started towards what looked like a road. To her surpassing relief, there was a car coming along, and the driver stopped and picked her up, and was amazingly going to the airfield in Egypt. The journey would be long, but not too uncomfortable.
In her dazed state, it never occurred to Fisher just how unlikely it was that someone should be there, willing to give her a lift, and going to a destination that suited her down to the ground.
It was all part of Antreb's master plan.
Fitzgerald woke as if from a sleep deeper than the deepest ocean, and, to her immense astonishment, found herself alive. She looked around, and there was no sight of Fisher. Maybe she was alive too, and had made it out of this hell-hole.
She became aware of a vague throbbing pain in her left thigh. Pulling down her expensive, designer skirt to investigate, she saw some odd markings that seemed familiar, and yet she couldn't place them quite. Still, never mind about small details like that.
Surprisingly, there was a road not far off. Even more surprisingly, there was a car coming down, which stopped to offer her a lift. After which astonishment gave way to sheer incredulity as it turned out that the diver was going to Cairo airport.
In her bedraggled state, she didn't see anything amiss about the implausible set of circumstances.
When at the airport, a long time later, Fitzgerald, as Fisher had done shortly before at a different airfield, phoned her company and got the company helicopter to come and pick her up. This, as with the getting through passport controls and the like, had been no problem to her. That was the result of having a company credit card with an upper limit of a hundred million pounds, which had not been taken off her, perhaps the most bewildering thing of all.
Once again, Libya contacted Hansen. This time, they were willing to offer help in the proposed plans for making a killing on the international fuel market. Hansen quickly dispelled Antreb's ploy by stating that the plans had already been made, and that the countries involved were, while being on friendly terms with Tunisia, hardly extending that same degree of friendship to Libya. Kershaw came up with the trump, though, by informing Antreb that there was only one politician in the whole of Africa or the middle east capable of pulling off all of the necessary deals. While this was true, it was extremely rare knowledge.
But Antreb knew all right. It stopped him in his tracks, and he gave up this tack of assault.
Soon enough he would have his real chance. This was just foreplay.
Caning noticed it first. Shortly after that Kershaw noticed, then finally Browning and Kalashni. Something was wrong. Here they were, on the very threshold of triumph, and Foster and Hansen were worried about something. Acutely worried.
But they kept silent.
Alexis Mendleson, the estranged sister of Alfred, had been prospecting the fertile civil unrest filled lands of Africa with her band of street fighters turned mercenaries, looking for trouble to make into more trouble for the side that didn't pay them, when she came across a very interesting discovery.
The "merchandise" that Fitzgerald had been hiding in the Tibesti mountains in Chad, (whose military dictator owed her a favour) was now exposed before Alexis.
Now, what could she do with a MIG and a couple of tanks to hurt her brother?
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.