Friday, August 28, 2009

Season One, Episode Twenty-Nine: Operation Cirrus

Markus first measured up the notes with his nose. No funny smells. He turned the box around, and tried to make the dollar notes slide sideward. No such luck. He rattled the box around. He heard the distant noise of an engine. A quick look through the gaps in the wooden barn door showed him a farmer driving some kind of tractor contraption. Markus kept his eyes on the machine as it approached his hiding place. Instead of turning on to the space in front of the barn, the farmer kept to the road.
Markus didn’t look at the box again until the noise had gone. He crouched and pulled the top layer of the box off. The dollar notes were glued to the top. Underneath Markus found notebooks and newspaper and magazine clippings.
Some of the articles were dated 1956 and 1958. Markus went back into the car and switched on the overhead lights to read. Almost without exception, the articles came from the science pages of the newspapers. They dealt with clouds, warfare and the Soviet threat. A bunch of scientists had done tests in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Borneo, the Malay Peninsula, the Philippines. Markus didn’t understand what all the mumbo jumbo was about so he first looked at the pictures. None of them were press photos of the year. Just portraits of men standing around in front of planes, buildings, tables full of test tubes.
The jungle picture was interesting. It showed four men in tropical outfits, shorts, Australian-type cowboy hats but without the corks, standing in front of a bunch of palm trees. Touristy really. But according to the caption, these people had risked their lives and limbs to study cloud formation and rain deep inside the jungles of present-day Malaysia, as part of Operation Cirrus. The caption named them as, from left to right, Lassiter, Hu, Bentley and Veramus. The Three Elders plus one.
Markus stared at his father’s picture. He leaned backward and switched off the light.

The wind was blowing hard around the tall buildings. Like most plazas, this one had a fancy piece of art smack in the middle. They were blocks of colored glass, set up like walls where the public could pass between as if inside narrow alleys.
The professor clutched his briefcase to his chest as he took position in one of the colored alleys. Just as he was throwing a look at his watch, Camry came up in front. As the professor stepped back, he noticed Camry’s driver was standing behind him, blocking his only other exit.
‘Beautiful, this Lego stuff, isn’t it?’ Camry sneered. ‘Why don’t you come in the car with me and explain what you’re doing here and not in your lab?’

Markus switched the light back on to read the article. The British and U.S. governments had sent in the scientists to collect information about the weather in the Malay jungles. Rain, monsoon, clouds and cloud patterns, anything that touched on the weather was to be collected and to be passed on to their governments. The aim was to influence the weather so as to make it more amenable to the cultivation of profitable plants. Markus was halfway the newspaper article when he thought he heard a scraping sound.
He looked up and stared right into Riot’s eyes. The man stood next to the car with a gun pointing at his head.

NEXT: Markus finds out the truth in the final episode of Season One before September 15.

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Friday, August 14, 2009

Season One, Episode Twenty-Eight: 120 Dollars

‘I want to roast the little fella.’
Camry was sitting in the back of his 700 car. Looking sternly at his driver.
‘When you catch him, give him a neat shake before you leave him in my hands.’
‘He’s never gonna walk out on us again,’ said the driver.
‘Where will you find him?’
‘He’s a professor. He’s only got a couple of predictable places to run to.’

Four men at a table in an expensive hotel suite. The Brother Hotel? Maybe. Throwing down the cards. A guy with long ratty hair and scary tattoos. A biker without a bike. A Chinese man in a velvety suite with a wallet in obvious big Italian brand logo leather lying in front of him. A stylish white guy in a silk suit, like Pierce Brosnan but with a long wave of white hair over his head. And a bulky African-American guy, also in a suit. Inspector Mondeo.
‘You’re a cop, aren’t you?’ the biker asked.
Mondeo grinned.
‘You’re a cop, right?’
Mondeo shrugged like he was saying ‘What’s the matter with this guy?’ but he kept his mouth shut.
Pierce was the one who spoke instead. ‘He’s here to play the beautiful game with us. Stay relaxed and you’ll win.’
The biker calmed down.
The Chinese man called the game. He won. Mondeo took advantage of the break to walk off to the window and make a call.
‘No kidding. You’ve lost them. Again.’
He kept his facial expression hidden from his card partners.
‘What about our friend in the fancy car?’
‘Great. At least, one guy you didn’t lose today. Keep him in your sights and he’ll lead you to the professor. He’s the guy that counts.’
Mondeo put the phone away and brightened up his expression.
‘Gentlemen, are we ready for the next round?’
Pierce and the Chinese man nodded, the biker sneered.

‘You heard what I said. Stop the car,’ Markus Bentley repeated.
‘Sorry, Bent, but we need to move on if we want to get out of the hands of those people,’ Riot said, driving faster.
‘Who are they?’
‘They work for an enemy organization,’ Riot replied.
‘That’s convenient. But I don’t think you understood me. Stop the car.’
Markus produced a gun, which he directed at Riot but kept far enough from his head to be able to fire at Charlo’ in the passenger seat if needed.
‘Don’t leave us, Markus,’ she said.
‘So it’s Markus now and not Bent,’ he snapped back.
Riot parked the car by the side of the road.
‘Now what do you want here, Markus? There’s nothing here but the ocean and the mountains. I bet the next car passing here is those guys looking to hurt you.’
‘You misunderstood my message. I’m not leaving you. You are leaving me.’
Markus waved the gun at them.
‘Get out. Both of you.’
‘Markus,’ Charlo’ said. ‘You’re making a mistake.’
‘Not anymore. Out.’
Riot and Charlo’ got out, and so did Markus, standing on the left of the vehicle, keeping the gun on Riot.
‘Keep walking ahead, where I can see you.’
Markus got into the driver’s seat and roared away, leaving the two looking angry and abandoned.
‘Don’t worry, he left us our phones,’ Riot said, waiting until Markus rounded the bend before placing a call.
Markus drove for half an hour until he reached an intersection with a road going inland. He took that road and followed it alongside dry grass fields, patches of dry rock, and general abandonment. Until he came to a wooden structure that looked abandoned. He drove the car right into the building, obviously an old barn. Switched the engine off, and returned to the back seat, where he picked the box off the floor. The box from the Garden of Temerity.
He fiddled with the key for a minute before succeeding in opening the box. Inside sat two crisp brand new fifty-dollar notes and two equally clean ten-dollar notes.

NEXT: Markus discovers the secrets of the box in Episode Twenty-Nine before August 31.

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