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Chapter 8

 

 

I need to stay calm and think.

Geraldo has obviously been planning this for months. He's obviously smarter than I thought and has had time to anticipate the obvious pit-falls: 

  • What if I didn’t go through with it or Diana rejected me? Then I don't get the next four thousand and he is clear to try again later with another 'agent'.
  • What if I got caught? Then I'm in this predicament. He simply denounces me as a little cheat he once knew, using my inside knowledge to attempt to blackmail his wife with my Camera-clock.
  • What if I kept the card and used it to blackmail Diana myself? That's his greatest risk. How could he deal with that?

 

Damn! It probably doesn't even record! That way he avoids me using the pictures myself and simultaneously removes the risk of the card falling into other hands should I lose it somehow. All he needs is a second hidden camera that I know nothing about. So there must be another video camera in this room. And I’m truly stuffed. 

A cold realisation sweeps over me. It's me he's going to kill! I know too much. That’s why his alibi has to be strong. It's to avoid suspicion in a later Police murder investigation. I'm the only other person who knows the real identity of Diego, his wife's mystery lover and future blackmailer. Ghostly Diego won't start blackmailing Diana with those scandalous and, for a political candidate, very compromising images, until I'm dead.

He can't leave me around to be found by an investigator and wreck his plans.  And if the blackmail starts before the investigation of my death, it gives him a motive. That's why he made absolutely sure that there was nothing to connect me with him. Should they look for some reason, investigators will confirm that he left before Diana met me and returned, after I flew out.  

He obviously arranged all this to coincide with him judging the tango talent show on TV in BA and is very likely taking dance partners to nightclubs tonight, and somewhere tomorrow to be seen in public. His bed partners will further secure his alibi. 

There's no evidence he's seen me for nearly twenty years. He's gone to a great deal of trouble to demonstrate that he could not have known, or even care, about his wife's one night stand with some unknown gigoló. He's eliminated any obvious connection or any motive for killing me, forestalling any suspicion falling on him, when I'm found dead.

What can I do? I need to get away. But if I run now, Diana will immediately call Security. That's assuming I can get away from her. And I'll have to run, literally. This hotel is in the back-of-beyond and I don't have my rental car here, it's back at the falls.

***

Geraldo's plan is crystal clear to me now and I try to tell Diana.

"Can't you see it's not me who's the future blackmailer, it's Geraldo. I wouldn't have said anything if it was my plan."

Diana seems uncertain.

"You're a self-confessed liar. Why should I believe you any more than I trust Geraldo?"

Good! There's slight note of doubt in her voice. She's starting to think Geraldo might be behind this. She's examining the clock like an expert. She's the most competent and alluring woman I've ever known.

"Sit on that couch!” she orders. “I'm going to take the memory out of this clock and see what’s been recorded. Then I’ll decide what to do with you."

She’s got a card reader in her luggage! She immediately understood the fake clock. She must be quite tech-savvy. She’s hooking the reader up to the USB port on the TV... 

This could be my way out. Geraldo must've considered the risk that I would keep the recording for my own purposes, to sell to the highest bidder. In that case the memory card is bound to be blank or unusable. It's the Achilles heel in his plan. If there's no evidence that it actually recorded anything, it might persuade Diana that I'm right about Geraldo and she might just let me walk away.

On the other hand, that will confirm that there is another, better, camera in this room. In that case Geraldo will expect to have some quality blackmail evidence involving me. So, when I get to the locker there'll be no money. He'll attempt lure me to somewhere, with a promise of my second payment, then kill me.  So that's what the second payment is for. It's the bait in his trap. He couldn't care less about the memory card.

Geraldo's been much cleverer than I thought him capable of. I always thought he was a 'pretty boy' but dumb as a post. Yet he's ensured that I'm totally incognito here as his 'secret agent' and, as instructed, I've been careful to cover my tracks. No one knows where I am; or will miss me for weeks. If Diana goes to the police, when the blackmail starts, and shows them enough video for them to recognise me, I will already be dead, miles away, in back-alley, like that tramp. Even if my corpse is recognised and some smart detective links me to the blackmail, Geraldo would still in the clear.

He carried a stiletto in the Barrio.  He was the knife man. I was the brains.  So, I can expect his stiletto in my guts very soon! Madre de dios! I can imagine walking in a dark, deserted place. An arm is suddenly around my neck from behind. And his stiletto is driving upwards, through my guts into my heart.

Except I've now told Diana. Fingers crossed, that might be enough to stop him if she confronts him. I just need her to have insufficient evidence of blackmail for her to call the police. She might then decide not to initiate unwanted interest in her private affairs.

 

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Travel

The Greatest Dining Experience Ever in Bangkok

A short story

 

The Bangkok Sky-train, that repetition of great, grey megaliths of ferroconcrete looms above us.   

All along the main roads, under the overhead railway above, small igloo tents and market stalls provide a carnival atmosphere to Bangkok.  It’s like a giant school fete - except that people are getting killed – half a dozen shot and a couple of grenades lobbed-in to date.

Periodically, as we pass along the pedestrian thronged roads, closed to all but involved vehicles, we encounter flattop trucks mounted with huge video screens or deafening loud speakers. 

Read more: The Greatest Dining Experience Ever in Bangkok

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Atomic Bomb according to ChatGPT

 

Introduction:

The other day, my regular interlocutors at our local shopping centre regaled me with a new question: "What is AI?" And that turned into a discussion about ChatGPT.

I had to confess that I'd never used it. So, I thought I would 'kill two birds with one stone' and ask ChatGPT, for material for an article for my website.

Since watching the movie Oppenheimer, reviewed elsewhere on this website, I've found myself, from time-to-time, musing about the development of the atomic bomb and it's profound impact on the modern world. 

Nuclear energy has provided a backdrop to my entire life. The first "atomic bombs" were dropped on Japan the month before I was born. Thus, the potential of nuclear energy was first revealed in an horrendous demonstration of mankind's greatest power since the harnessing of fire.

Very soon the atomic reactors, that had been necessary to accumulate sufficient plutonium for the first bombs, were adapted to peaceful use.  Yet, they forever carried the stigma of over a hundred thousand of innocent lives lost, many of them young children, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The fear of world devastation followed, as the US and USSR faced-off with ever more powerful weapons of mass destruction.

The stigma and fear has been unfortunate, because, had we more enthusiastically embraced our new scientific knowledge and capabilities to harness this alternative to fire, the threat to the atmosphere now posed by an orgy of burning might have been mitigated.

Method:

So, for this article on the 'atomic bomb', I asked ChatGPT six questions about:

  1. The Manhattan Project; 
  2. Leo Szilard (the father of the nuclear chain reaction);
  3. Tube Alloys (the British bomb project);
  4. the Hanford site (plutonium production);
  5. uranium enrichment (diffusion and centrifugal); and
  6. the Soviet bomb project.

As ChatGPT takes around 20 seconds to write 1000 words and gives a remarkably different result each time, I asked it each question several times and chose selectively from the results.

This is what ChatGPT told me about 'the bomb':

Read more: The Atomic Bomb according to ChatGPT

Opinions and Philosophy

A Carbon Tax for Australia

 12 July 2011

 

 

It's finally announced, Australia will have a carbon tax of $23 per tonne of CO2 emitted.  This is said to be the highest such tax in the world but it will be limited to 'about 500' of the biggest emitters.  The Government says that it can't reveal which  these are to the public because commercial privacy laws prevent it from naming them. 

Some companies have already 'gone public' and it is clear that prominent among them are the major thermal power generators and perhaps airlines.  Some like BlueScope Steel (previously BHP Steel) will be granted a grace period before the tax comes into effect. In this case it is publicly announced that the company has been granted a two year grace period with possible extensions, limited to its core (iron and steelmaking) emissions.

Read more: A Carbon Tax for Australia

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