Devolution

‘What happened sir?’

Turning to face the Adonite officer, Jacobssen felt a sudden rush of suspicion, and feelings of dread. He struggled to trust this man whom he had known for some time, and a crazy notion of conspiracy entered his thinking. Further developing the theory, Adrian formed the idea in his head that the Newtonian driver must have deliberately deactivated his A.C.S. and collided with him. Only his men would have had access to his RV so it must have been one of them, an insider, who collaborated in the staging of this accident. But why? Money most likely. It was always about money, wasn’t it?

‘Sir?’

‘Sorry, Kev. This car ran into the back of me.’

‘Wow,’ said he and a couple of other officers who had joined them in unison. ‘An M.V.A? I have never seen or attended one.’

‘They’re so rare,’ said another.

‘It was no accident’ stated Jacobssen, bringing an abrupt end to the excited schoolboy interchange.

Kevin McNalty was the next most senior officer on the scene and a close personal friend of Jacobssen’s. He wore a look of concern, a familiar look which comforted Jacobssen, and mollified his paranoia.

‘You think he deliberately rammed you? Why?’

‘To set me up for an attempt on my life.’

‘Seems kind of elaborate don’t you think, Adrian?’

‘What better way to kill someone and get away than to stage a diversion which will draw a crowd and have them focused on something else. The crowd got out of control after a while. It’s human nature and the conspirators allowed for this fact in their planning.’

‘Conspirators?’

Jacobssen nodded to his friend while noting the look of slight disbelief on his face.

‘Sir we caught a guy, a skinny Deist kid, leaving the scene armed with an electrogun. Unfortunately before we could arrest him he died.’

Jacobssen remembered the bee sting he felt during the melee and that the assassin of Senator 15 outside the Hibiscus club earlier that night had also mysteriously died before he could be questioned.

‘How did he die?’

‘No idea. He just collapsed.’

Jacobssen’s eyes fell to the ground for a moment as he thought.

‘We also have several people,’ continued McNalty, ‘who have suffered electrogun injuries. They all say they were standing close to you when they were hit. No one saw where the kid came from but it seems he got very close to you and it seems as though-’

‘You see how the swell of the crowd worked in the assassin’s favor. I was the target. There’s no doubt about it,’ said Jacobssen.

‘So the death of the two senators and a failed attempt on your life are all linked? Why? You got some idea of a possible motive for that?’

‘Without a doubt, Kevin. Without a doubt. Move that car off the road and continue to question witnesses. Get as many statements and opinions as you can.’

‘We already got the guy though,’ repeated a junior officer.

‘Do what you’re told!’ snapped Jacobssen. ‘I’m more interested to know if there were others in this rent-a-crowd who may have been either directly or indirectly involved. I especially want to know what happened to the driver of the transport who rammed me. Someone must have seen where he went.’ Jacobssen paused and looked at the young man. ‘I would definitely call him a person of interest, wouldn’t you?’

He nodded his understanding and returned to work as Jacobssen climbed back into his RV, and fired the engine by voice command before saying to McNalty. ‘I’m going to get this vehicle checked out. Obviously the A.C.S failed on both vehicles. If this was a deliberate act designed to set me up for an attempt on my life, and like I said, I’m almost certain it was, then I can understand why his transport safety mechanisms failed, but what about mine? He would not have had access to my RV. Why did my A.C.S. fail?’

‘Sabotage?’ asked McNalty in surprise. ‘But how?’

Jacobssen shook his head and stared at the dashboard.

‘I don’t know but look at the obvious first of all. The only people with the opportunity to fiddle with police vehicles are police personnel.’ A dramatic pause as he looked up at McNalty. ‘Anyway, you finish up here. I’m going back to the house to have it examined.’

‘There’s no one there. It’s after midnight.’

‘Okay,’ said Jacobssen smiling, ‘I know that. Pick me up from the house when you are done, I’ll wait for you. And take that other vehicle back as well. We’ll need to have a very close look at it’

‘Okay.’

Leaving the cabin of his vehicle one last time before he left the scene, Jacobssen looked around, desperate for one last clue, or something to stir his mind. Perhaps in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of the driver of the other vehicle, or someone else who may have been hanging around. It was a certainty that none of these people were acting alone. That stranger. The feeling of fear rose again in his chest and banged at his temples as he sat down and drove away. He was a wanted man, a target. When whoever had masterminded these assassinations found out and they probably already had, that Jacobssen was alive, they would try again. When? Where and how? He simply could not think about that, he had to find out who was responsible. He had to concentrate on doing his job. Stabbing, nagging thoughts attacked his mind continually and like never before in his career, in his life, Jacobssen began to doubt himself.

It was not rational at all and totally unlike him to feel so…what was it paranoid? Or genuinely imperiled? This was going to be the biggest case of his career, but right now he felt inadequate, like a school prefect elected president of the republic. Leaving the city limits the Northwestern Freeway stretched out in front of him beckoning him, calling him. He pressed the accelerator a little harder after disengaging the autodrive, and soon he was flying through the night. Fleeing. Escaping.

Like a brick between the eyes, the realization hit him and Jacobssen removed his foot from the accelerator and gently placed it on the brake. He watched the readout fall as his vehicle lost momentum and when his speed had returned to the safe and legal limit of 80 kilometers per hour, he U-turned, ordered on the autodrive and headed back to the dangerous city. Running away? He had never done that before. Never even considered doing it. Jacobssen wrote it off as an aberration. He knew he was a better man than that. Stronger. Too much of a man to run away from trouble. Too stubborn? Too stupid? What was the difference?