Undercover Crisis

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Desmond Turner phoned as Carde and Clancy were having breakfast in the kitchen the next morning. He wanted to know what time he should show up for work. Carde laughed and explained the office situation. "Most of us work from home unless we really, really have to go in. It's kind of a ... uh ... hovel."

Desmond accepted the explanation easily and told Carde he was taking the bus to Toronto to resign from his current job. He asked Carde if the CEO had come to any conclusions about the attack a few hours before. Carde told him he would be reporting it to Barrie police that morning. He also told Des what he and Clancy concluded was the reason for the attack.

Carde was still worried that Desmond could back away from this new job after he thought more about the attack. He was wrong.

"Here's my two cents," said Desmond. Carde hit the Speaker button on his phone so Clancy could listen. "One of them said to hit me in the arm, not the head. That would mean to me they didn't want to kill me, just to put me out of commission. One reason to put me on the sidelines would be to delay the startup of your company. Not that I'm all that important," Desmond added quickly, "but people doing what I do don't grow on trees."

"That makes sense," said Carde.

Clancy chimed in. "But why would someone want to cause us a delay? What's the point of that?"

Carde shrugged. Then he realized he was on the phone. "We can't understand why a delay would help anyone. Can you, Des?"

There was a pause before Desmond answered. "No. I realize that quite a few people would like to stop your company altogether. You do something with 'AI' so they are against you. Hell, they don't know what Artificial Intelligence is about in the first place but they know they hate the concept. But, why they would want a delay instead of a sudden death is beyond me."

"If it is someone like that," said Clancy.

"Can you give it some thought," Carde asked the software designer.

"Sure, but for now, I have to get down to the city to tell my former boss I'm out of there. Too bad, they have a good cafeteria. See you Monday." Desmond disconnected.

"Back to work," Clancy told Carde, collecting his dishes and putting them in the dishwasher. Shortly afterward, he was on his way to Students For Personal Privacy.

Carde made a short call to Marion to see if she was heading up for a weekend at Jackson's cottage. She didn't think much of the rental house in Barrie. Then, he took his Audi down Highway 400 toward the building site. He wanted to see how much of a delay the fire had caused to the progress of his headquarters building.

Clancy Hogarth drove past the SFPP house, as he now thought of the place, at a normal speed. He didn't want to stand out although he doubted the inhabitants of the house were interested in passing traffic. Every time he had seen any of the students who lived in the bungalow, they had had their attention glued to their phones. In this, they weren't much different than 90 percent of all youth.

Several of the side windows in the home sported sheets with privacy-related slogans. One read "Hands off, Eyes off, Ears off." Another had only the word "Private" in blood-red with globules dripping from each letter. 'Dramatic,' thought Clancy.

On this drive-by, Clancy spotted a lawn sign. It was faded but he could make out an old-fashioned photo of a man with earphones. The caption was "Government is spying on us."

'True,' thought Clancy but so is everyone else. Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter and all the rest of the 'social media' so avidly followed by people like these students. 'If you don't want to be spied on, get off social media', Clancy lectured the SFPP in his mind. 'You're the ones keeping the spies in business by giving them - free - everything that happens in your lives.'