BULLETPROOF

~ 1 ~ 

 Thirty-five-year-old Jackson Tyler was quite adamant about the things he felt were right and the things he knew were wrong. And he had structured his life around those beliefs. 

His country of birth was America, But he left it in 2024, when one of the things he knew was wrong manifested in the re-election to president of a man he considered to be evil. He knew this because, like all Americans, he had lived through the man’s first term, which was an abysmal failure, in Jackson’s opinion. This time, he wasn’t just incompetent, but downright scary.

Bit by bit, over about three months, Jackson divested himself of his real estate holdings, which included several houses, which he’d had renovated and had been renting out. He sold his 48-foot yacht for about half of what he originally paid for it five years earlier. He sold the home in San Francisco, where he had grown up, for just under four million. He gave away most of his business wardrobe to Goodwill. 

At the end, when everything was gone, all he had in terms of earthly possessions were the clothes he was wearing, a suitcase full of his favorite DUDS, his laptop, iPad, Kindle and phone. He also had a new identity for himself, should the need arise, which he’d had crafted for him by a forger he met through a less-than-reputable fellow he had gone to school with named Davy Ferris. The rest of what he had was in the form of stocks, bonds and cash, the total of which was somewhere in the neighbourhood of twenty-two billion US dollars, the bulk of which he had inherited, from both his father and his grandfather, was already safely stashed in Zurich.

Jackson had been an independent market trader since he finished UCLA with a degree in business. He also did a relatively small bit of insider trading when the info came his way and therefore felt the need to have an alternative identity should the shit ever hit his fan. He wasn’t sure he would ever need the new identity, but these days, he deduced, it was all about better safe than sorry.

On arriving in Miami, he checked into one of the large hotels on the beach strip. He wandered around for a couple of days, just to make sure he wasn’t having second thoughts, which he wasn’t, then booked a flight to Naples, Italy.

The only ongoing real income he would have was from his financial interest in several software products that an old friend of his from UCLA was in the business of developing. Since he knew very little about software, he was as content to be a silent partner, as was his friend.

This revenue, along with his investment cash and market gains, he had transferred to another current created at Deutsche Bank Easy in Naples, Italy. This account’s balance was currently a little over two hundred million. The paperwork for absolute confidentiality set him back about a hundred thousand euros, paid to his very agreeable banker who assured him it would not be a problem. He was able to do all that by phone and email from San Francisco while he was waiting for the sale of his house to close.

When he arrived in Italy, he checked into the Renaissance Naples Hotel Mediterranean. 

From there, he spent the next two weeks travelling around the city by cab or on foot, visiting galleries, buying some new casual clothing and growing a short beard.

He ate well and kept trim by jogging at least five miles a day or working out in the hotel gym. He met a number of beautiful women at the hotel and in the surrounding neighbourhood, so there was no shortage of casual sex to be had. He was surprised at how many Italians in Naples spoke English. He drank only good wine and water. And all the time he was there, he thought about what he would do with the rest of his life.

Aside from his software royalties, he had detached himself from all connections to America. He was leaving behind no close friends or female relationships. His father and mother had divorced when he was in college and she had disappeared from his life with a massive amount of settlement cash. His father had suffered a heart attack and died at the age of fifty-five when Jackson was still at UCLA. He was about as alone in the world as he could be.

Every evening, Jackson watched the news on his laptop and saw that his country, and a great many others in the world for that matter, were going to hell in a handcart. He went through a range of emotions about the situation in the world, thankful that he wasn’t on the receiving end of any of the violence and suffering that was occurring as a result of the massive inequity in wealth on one end and poverty on the other, and not just in America. The more he thought about it, the more it slowly cooked itself into anger, which he worked very hard to control.

 Over time, however, his anger dissipated, and after about four weeks or so, of touring around central Italy, he found himself looking for a place to settle down, and perhaps start playing the market again, providing, of course, the market was actually still worth playing. 

~ 2 ~

Jackson was sitting in the bar of his hotel, ostensibly to pick up a woman for sex. He had no trouble picking up women, because he was a good-looking man and a pretty high-level persuader, with all the confidence that truly wealthy people tend to have.

He was sitting at the end of the bar with a good view of the entire room. It was a slow night for women on their own. But his philosophy was such that things either happened or they didn’t. It made no real difference to him because tomorrow would be a whole different set of circumstances. 

After half an hour, a couple glasses of wine, and fifty pages of the John Sandford novel he was reading on his Kindle, a man entered the lounge and took a seat at the bar, one seat away from him. He ordered a double scotch rocks. 

The man was well-dressed and good looking, in Jackson’s estimation, but there was a roughness about his features. He sported a neatly trimmed beard and short brown hair. His eyes were dark brown and his face had the leathery look of someone who spent a lot of time in the sun. He then ordered a Dos Equis and drank it from the bottle. After a substantial slug of the beer, he looked over at Jackson. 

“Nice night.” the man said. 

“Yes indeed. Quite warm. ” Jackson replied. 

The man offered his hand. “Tim Wakefield”. His accent was definitely British of some sort.

Tyler shook his hand. “Jackson Tyler.”

“You’re a Yank. The concierge told me there was a Yank staying here.” Wakefield said.

“Guilty…but not anymore. I believe the term is ex-pat.”

“Where you from, Jackson Tyler?” 

“California. San Francisco.”

“Silicon Valley? You have that look.”

“Did some business there. How about you?”

“England. Sheffield. I’m treating myself to a dago holiday. Some business? Hardware, software?” Tim asked.

“Some software, venture capital, with a friend who’s a genius app developer. Mostly just playing the market.

“What brings you over to this side of the pond?”

“Tryin’ to do as little as possible for a while. Sooner or later, I’ll start looking at the market and some investment opportunities over here. From a lot of the reading I’ve done, your country looks like it might just be ready for a bit of a turnaround, especially if they can get back into the EU. The investment business is all about spotting the good things before they happen.”

“It’s nice that you have so much faith in Britain. I’m sure there are about thirty or forty million people who will appreciate that.”

Jackson chuckled. He was on his second glass of wine and he found Tim’s remark kind of funny.”

“You’re a Brit. What do you think about that?”

“Kinda depends on what sort of business you’re talkin’ about. There’s a lot of smart, enterprising people there. Sadly, none of them are politicians. Which has a lot to do with why the country’s got its head stuck so far up its ass.”

Jackson said nothing for a good thirty seconds. Then he turned to look at Tim. 

“You have the look of a soldier, Tim. Am I right?”

“You are indeed.”

“What did you do in the forces?”

“Sniper. Best job goin’ mate, blowing bad guys all to hell. Great sport.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Tyler mused, “So why Italy?”

“Awww….best looking women in the world here. Bar none. Plus I like the galleries.”

“Oh, an art lover?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could say that.” Tim took another slug of his beer.

“So the British forces. Must have taken you to Afghanistan.” Jackson said.

“For a while, yeah. But I’m no longer in the military.”

“What do you do now?”

“I work in the private sector.” 

“More like a mercenary?” 

“Not more like, mate, but exactly like. Much better money, much more serious action. Mostly north and central Africa. No shortage of bad guys there.”

“That’s some kind of life.”

“I started in the British forces. Did my hitch. Then one day after I was home, I got a call. A Yank like you. Said he was in the market for a good sniper and he heard I was one of those. I didn’t have anything serious tying me to England so away I went. Got to erase a lot of bad people. It was quite…satisfying. So that’s my story, what’s yours?”

“I come from a wealthy family. But I’m the only one left. I was thinking about buying a yacht. A big one that I could live on and just cruise around for a while. I had a fairly big boat in the US, so I know how to handle them. But to tell you the truth I’m a little leery about the world in general and the US for damn sure. After the asshole president started crashing  the market, I sold out and got out.”

“From all I’ve read and heard about America, that was probably a choice that a lot of people would have made if they could have afforded to.”

“Well, I could and that’s exactly what I did. So tell me, are you just takin’ a break or do you have another gig coming up?” Jackson asked.

“You know, I’m kinda playin’ it by ear. Everybody who needs to know knows who I am now. Maybe they call, maybe they don’t. My sister has been puttin’ my money to work for me. In fact, I talked to her a couple days ago and she said I could retire comfortably any time I felt like it.”

They spent the next little while shooting the shit. Mostly it was Tim telling Jackson about his various exploits. Neither man got really drunk, but they had a great time talking together. 

After an hour or so, and no female action to speak of, they decided to go for a walk down by the pier where all the yachts were tied up.

“So how much are you worth, mate?” Tim asked. “If you don’t mind me askin’.”

“Hmmm. You know I never really thought about it, because it was always a fuck of a lot…ummm, I’d say somewhere in the area of twenty plus billion US.”

“Well, with that kind of money, you can do anything you want.”

“I’m open to suggestions. Be nice to find something that’s, you know, just gettin’ started. Throw some money at it and make it grow. I did that in the States, and it’s still paying dividends.”

They walked along for a while past the 90-foot yachts bobbing beside the large pier. When they got to the end of the pier they sat down on a bench and looked out at the moonlit Mediterranean.

“I went to school with this bloke.” Tim said. “He wasn’t exactly a mate at the time, but he was a good guy. About seven years later, when I was home, I ran into him. Turns out he’s a fuckin’ genius, very big in laser technology. Won a full scholarship to a tech school called Silverstone up north and west of London. Did a lot of work on industrial lasers. Ended up owning a few very high-value patents.”

“So what happened to him?”

Tim shook his head. “Nothing. He worked with some laser tech company and then after about two or three years, he moved back home to Sheffield. With his patent money, he paid off his folks’ house and bought a house of his own just outside of town on about 30 odd hectares. Converted his garage into a lab and went to work on developing laser-based weaponry, rifles and pistols.

“I ran into him in town. We had a pint and got to talking and he hired me to do some testing for him. He had developed couple of different laser rifles and pistols, but he was no shooter. Personally, I think he was kind of afraid to fire them himself. He has a good-sized estate with a small lake, trees and pathways down to a beautiful little stream. So I went out and got a couple of sights, a range finder and some second-hand mannequins. He fabricated removable mounts for the sights, then we started testing out the three rifles and two pistols he had designed.”

“That’s interesting. How were they powered?”

“Rechargeable NiCad batteries. His own design.Very powerful good for at least fifteen minutes of continuous firing with easily interchangeable cartridges. He had about three dozen of the cartridges custom-manufactured at the time. Had a deal with some weapons company. Wouldn’t say who.”

“How did the laser guns perform?” Jackson asked.

“The rifles, two of them, his earlier versions, not so well, but the third one, really compact and powerful, it was fuckin’ deadly accurate. I was literally cutting the mannequins in half from about five hundred metres, sometimes even seven or eight hundred. He told me the beam would carry at least 1200 metres before it started degrading. But the real beauty was there was no sound other than a bit of a hum. He had built a dampener of half-inch rubber around the hilt of the rifle and the handles of the pistols. They absorbed almost all of the sound. You could be standing ten feet away from this gun and barely hear a thing. The pistols were quite compact and had a range of about 400 metres and they both worked beautifully.”

“So what did he do with these guns?” Jackson asked.

“That’s just the thing. He was scared shitless to do anything or tell anyone about them. He liked his life nice and quiet, and if the armed forces or organized crime ever got hold of these ideas, they would likely have made his life a living hell.”

“Yeah, I can see how that would work.” Jackson said. Then he turned to Wakefield and said. “So why are you telling me all this?”

“Well, you said it yourself. It’s a business that needs developing.”

Jackson rubbed his eyes, then his face. He was a little more drunk than he would normally let himself be. But even though his brain was just in second gear, he realized that Tim was making a lot of sense.

Of course, over the years, he had sat in rooms with plenty of people who swore up and down they had the next big thing. And all they had was a slightly tweaked version of the original big thing. But nevertheless, he had to admit that he found the idea quite interesting.

When was the last time you talked to this fellow?” Jackson asked.

“It’s been about a year and a bit.” Tim said. “He may very well have moved on to something else. But if he hasn’t, you know, it might be just worth chattin’ him up. Could be a worthwhile investment opportunity.”

Jackson was not prone to making decisions on the spot. He much preferred to let an idea roam around in his head for however long it took to manifest itself into a thing he could act on. He looked over at Tim, who he had known for all of a couple of hours and said. “Let me think about it.”

“Sure thing.” Tim chuckled. 

They got up and started walking back to the hotel. It was late and the moon was almost full and high in the sky over the Mediterranean. 

“I’ll be heading back home in about four days.” Tim said. “If you’re still interested, you could come with me and I’ll introduce you to Arthur, that’s the bloke’s name.”

“Four days sounds just fine. I’m close to being Italied out.”

“And if you’re still lookin’ for a boat, I have someone who can help you find exactly what you want.”

“Well, aren’t you the well-connected bloke.”

“Yeah, I suppose I am.”

~ 3 ~

Tim and Jackson spent the better part of the next four days hanging out and wandering around the city together, taking in the museums, galleries, churches and restaurants. They split up at night whenever one or the other or both found some female companionship. The subject of laser weaponry never came up. They were both more interested in the amazing art they were looking at. But while he was doing all of that, Jackson was thinking about this Arthur guy up in Sheffield.

On morning of the fourth day, Tim rode the elevator down with his suitcase to check out of the hotel, and sitting there in the lobby with his own suitcase and shoulder bag was Jackson.

“I thought it over, ripped it apart six ways from Sunday and haven’t been able to poke any holes in it.” Jackson said. “So let’s go meet your friend and see what’s what. I still have one or two key questions.”

Six hours later, they were driving out of Heathrow airport in London in a rented BMW and heading north to Sheffield.

They camped out overnight at Tim’s house, a nice cottage a few streets off the main road. 

That evening, Tim called Arthur Field, who was very glad to hear from him. Tim told him that he had met someone he thought Arthur should get to know.  So the next morning, they drove south just a mile or so outside of the city and came to a large estate house at the end of a long paved drive. 

Off to the side was a separate building that had three sets of garage doors. They walked around to the side of the smaller building and stepped into a beautiful-looking workshop. The far end was all tooling machinery. Along the side wall was a set of deep, floor-to-ceiling shelving, filled with sheets of wood, plastics and laminated material. A little further along, there were thin sheets of metal about three inches wide. There were also one-metre squares of what looked like high-density foam, no more than about a quarter inch thick. There was welding equipment and an assortment of metal crafting power tools all neatly organized on shelves, There was even a good sized 3-D printer.

 At a rectangular table in the centre of the space Arthur Field was perched on a stool on the far side. There was a laptop open in front of him, and he was doing some heavy-duty keypunching. He looked up for a moment, then raised his hand, and quickly went back to the work he was doing. About fifteen seconds later, he stopped and slid off the stool. He walked over and he and Tim exchanged a man hug. Then Tim said. “Arthur Field, this is my friend Jackson Tyler, an ex-pat Yank.”

‘Good to meet you, Arthur.” Jackson said as both men shook hands.

Arthur was about medium height and quite thin. His hair was short and well cut and he wore wireless glasses. He was wearing a short white lab coat and had a pocket protector stuffed with pens, sticking out of the breast pocket. 

“Glad to meet you, Jackson.” Arthur said. “I can understand the ex-pat. Who would have thought that Trump idiot could even get elected dog catcher,” Arthur said and shook Jackson’s hand. 

“Yeah, well that pretty much explains why I left. I couldn’t live in a country that dumb.” Jackson said. Then he looked around. “This is some kind of workshop you have here.”

“Thanks, I do work hard to keep things neat. Can’t stand messes you know, and I only outsource when absolutely necessary, so there’s lots of equipment. Tea?”

Both men nodded and Arthur picked up his cell phone. 

“Hello love. I’ve got two visitors. Could you bring us some tea? Thanks.”

“Don’t tell me you got married.” Tim said.

“Well, sort of.” Arthur said. “I advertised for a housekeeper a little less than a year ago. And Miranda showed up. We hit it off right away. She’s been here ever since.”

“So are you married?” Tim asked. 

“No. We’re living in sin, I’m afraid. I just couldn’t see all the paperwork and other bullshit involved with getting married and neither could she. She loves it here. We’ve bought horses and I had a small stable built out behind the house. But she’s free to leave whenever she wants.”

Tim explained how he and Jackson came to meet over in Italy, that Jackson had more money than god and was on the lookout for good business opportunities over  “So I thought I’d bring him round and you could show him what you’ve been up to.”

Arthur looked at Tim. “Just how much did you explain?”

“Not a whole hell of a lot,” Tim said. “After all, it’s been more than a year. Who knows what you could have come up with in that time.”

Arthur took Jackson on a little tour of the workshop, explaining that it was basically set up to be a self-contained pilot creation facility for the laser weaponry he was working on.

Ten minutes later, a woman who looked to be in her late twenties pushed the door open. She had short, dark brown hair and glasses. But her face was lovely. She was wearing a riding outfit and carrying a tray with a teapot and three mugs on it, along with sugar, milk and a small plate of cookies, which she set down on the large work table.

“Miranda, this is my old mate, Tim Wakefield and his mate Jackson Tyler, a Yank. And a very rich one at that.”

Pleased to meet you.” she said. 

Arthur got up and walked over to Miranda. “Thank you for the tea, darling.” Arthur said and he kissed her on the cheek. 

“Tim was my tester in the early stages.” Arthur said. “He’s brought round his mate to see what I’ve been up to.”

“That’s nice.” Miranda said. Then she turned to Arthur. “I just came back from a ride. So I was going to go do some shopping in town. Will the gentlemen be staying for dinner?” Her accent was London and quite refined.

Arthur looked at Tim and Jackson. Then Tim said to Miranda. “Well, if it's no trouble.”

“None whatsoever,” Miranda smiled, and left the workshop.

“Miranda loves to cook. And we don’t get all that many guests, as you can well imagine.” Arthur said.

They all sat down at Arthur’s table and Arthur poured the tea.

“So what have you been up to, Tim? It’s been quite a while.”

“Oh, you know. Mostly up and down the Nile. And all the while I was thinking, if only I had one of Arthur’s lasers. My job would be dead easy.”

Arthur laughed. “Good pun, mate. Dead easy.” Then he turned to Jackson. “And what about you, Mr. Tyler? You hardly look like the mercenary type.”

“True enough.” No, I was in investments. Come from a very wealthy family. That’s the kind of game you can play anywhere and since I have grown kind of disillusioned with my country, I thought, why not try somewhere else. When I met Tim over in Naples and he told me about you, I thought, now that’s a business worth finding out more about. So here we are.”

“Well to be honest with you.” Arthur said. “It’s not really any sort of business. It’s just me puttering around in my workshop. Truth be told, I have been kind of shy about turning it into an actual business.”

“That’s totally justifiable.” Jackson said “According to Tim, you really value your privacy. But suppose I told you that wouldn’t have to change much.”

They talked for the next half hour about a couple of different ways they could set up the business that didn’t involve Arthur having to leave his workshop all that often. The idea Arthur liked best was closed circuit TV. He wouldn’t have to go anywhere unless he wanted to and he would have Tim to make sure that everything went smoothly if he did go anywhere.

“I understand the type of personality you have, Arthur.” Jackson said. “Because I was sort of the same way when I first started out in business. But once I realized that I could be protected wherever I went, my fear just slowly vanished. Eventually, the protection vanished too.”

Arthur didn’t really know how to respond to that. So he said nothing and just sipped his tea. 

“So you want to take the two weapons I have developed and have them mass-produced? And who exactly would you sell them to?”

“That will depend on their capabilities. Tim hasn’t seen you in a year, and I know that a lot can change in that time.”

“Indeed, it can.” Arthur said. “As a matter of fact, I’ve spent the better part of the last year working exclusively on one aspect of both weapons.”

“You’re kidding.” Tim said, because he knew exactly what Arthur was talking about. “Have you cracked it, mate?”

Arthur just smiled. “I have indeed.”

Jackson looked a bit puzzled. 

Then Tim said. “Before we parted company, I told Arthur that the weapons were almost perfect. But what he needed to work on was a ‘stun’ setting, which neither weapon had.”

“It was the longest year of my life, Tim, because I had to virtually rebuild the weapons from scratch. But after eleven months, I finally figured it out.”

“Ahh. Good for you, mate.” Tim said.

Jackson chuckled. “You know, after Tim told me about your weapons, that was the only question I had that he couldn’t answer. Because that would be what we Americans call the deal breaker.”

“Arthur,’ Jackson continued, “I’m not going to try and persuade you to let me help you create a business out of this. But as I was thinking about it, it occurred to me that this would be something that any law enforcement person, on any level right up to intelligence would love to have. So while I was thinking about it in Italy, I called an old schoolmate of mine who works in the US law enforcement at a pretty high level, and I asked him about the utility of a small laser weapon with a stun setting. His only question back to me was how many could he get hold of and when, not how much it would cost. Just how many and when. I asked him about the numbers he was thinking of and he told me that just in the US alone it would be way up in the tens of thousands.”

“My God. Really?” Arthur said.

“Yes sir,” Jackson said. “Between the police, private security firms, the intelligence community. etc., we’re talking a rather huge market.”

After that, they got around to discussing the weapons.  Arthur got them out the rifle to show them. Tim picked it up and said. “It seems to be a bit smaller than I remember it.”
“Well, that was 18 months ago, Tim. I’ve been working on making it as compact as possible. I have also made it modular, so it can be taken apart and carried in a briefcase if necessary. 

Arthur deftly took the gun apart, and pulled out a small black case from a lower shelf on his workbench. He opened it and placed the gun into the three recesses in the dense foam inside the case. Then he took the rifle back out and put it together in just a few seconds. He lifted up the top layer of moulded foam to reveal a cache of a dozen elongated, rectangular-shaped objects.

“These are the rifle’s power cells.” Arthur said, and he showed them just how to load and unload the weapon. 

“Each cell powers the weapon for eighteen minutes of high-velocity beam and and twenty-four minutes on the stun setting, which is a lot considering you could cut the average human being in half in about two seconds. The case is completely waterproof as well. I added that feature in case I ever had to toss the guns into the pond, you know if the government lads ever came sniffing around. I have six sets just like this in all, five are safely hidden away.”

He then reached into a drawer and pulled out the pistol. At first Jackson thought it looked like a kid’s squirt gun in the shape of a German luger. It was only about five inches long and maybe four inches high. At the side of the barrel was a switch with a large circle, a small circle and the word ‘OFF’ stamped into the carbon fibre casing. The trigger was a curved piece of plastic that was nestled into the handle of the weapon.

“I scrapped the bigger pistol. It was a little unruly and inelegant.” Arthur said. He picked up the gun. “You can very easily switch from the full laser setting to the stun setting with your trigger finger. I’ve also reconfigured the power cell to fit into the handle of the weapon. It’s good for twelve minutes on full laser and twenty-two minutes on the stun setting.” 

Arthur handed the pistol to Jackson. 

“It’s surprisingly light.” Jackson said who then handed it to Tim, who agreed. 

“It’s light, but the polymer structure makes it extremely hard to damage by accident. To prove the point he took the pistol from Tim and dropped it onto the concrete floor, where it simply bounced and then settled. He picked it up, activated the stun setting and shot it at the floor. It worked perfectly. 

“While I was figuring out the stun setting, I was also experimenting with different polymers for the casings of the weapons. My 3-D printer allowed me to try several different polymer combinations. This one was obviously the best.”

“Arthur, mate, you have more than outdone yourself.” Tim said.

“Well, let’s face it, Tim. It’s really all I’ve been working on. And I have to say it was really quite fun.”

“I agree Tim.” Jackson said. “These are awesome weapons… light, compact and with the stun setting, I believe even people in your country might even consider equipping the local police forces with them to replace bulky tasers.”

 Jackson took the pistol from Tim and looked at it more closely. “Something I have wondered about was the actual effect of being stunned by something like this.”

“Unlike conventional tasers,” Arthur said, “Which these could easily replace, the jolt to the nervous system is much less severe. The stun is really just enough jolt to allow whoever’s using it to get control of the person he or she is trying to incapacitate. People come out of it relatively quickly, less than a minute. Obviously, I haven’t done any live testing, but I have studied the science behind the effects of conventional taser weapons and this is much milder and shorter in duration but every bit as effective. So I would say that, relatively speaking, it’s a great deal less likely to cause any appreciable neural damage.”

Jackson just shook his head. “You are sitting on a gold mine here, Arthur.”

“Yes, I suppose I am. But I’m not close to destitute, I simply have enough revenue to live quite comfortably and afford to experiment with laser technology.”

“But Arther,” Tim said,” This is exactly why I brought Jackson to meet you. He’s been looking for a business to build from the ground up, and I would say that this fits that description to a T.”

“While I was thinking about this idea over in Italy,” Jackson said. “I did a little looking around at businesses in this country, many of whom would easily make great partners for manufacturing, shipping, sales, marketing, the whole operation in fact. What’s more a lot of these businesses would bend over backwards to be part of a potentially global enterprise.

“I know you don’t care about the money, but the service you would be doing to your country’s economy and law enforcement would be quite substantial.” 

Arthur was stunned. He had never really met anyone quite like Jackson before. This was a man with capital, market savvy, and salesmanship all rolled into one. Then he looked over at Tim, who he had always thought of as a protector and saw that he could easily organize a weapons training program that would lessen the risk of accidental killings or injuries. 

Arthur had a formidable scientific brain and even though he was a timid soul at heart, he realized the opportunity that Tim had brought him and Jackson had laid out for him was considerable.

“I must admit I am a little overwhelmed by all of this.” Arthur said. “Of course, I can see it quite clearly. But…I just never envisioned doing anything beyond, you know, development.”

“Come on, mate,” Tim chided. “Somewhere in the deep crevasses of your brain, you had to believe that this could be something useful to the world. Otherwise  why would you have put some much time and energy into it?”

It was at that precise moment that Arthur realized that Tim was right. It felt like someone had opened a large window in a dark room and Arthur was looking out and what he saw was the whole world beyond the estate where he was hiding.

Arthur smiled at Tim. “You’re absolutely right, mate. I’ve been toiling away in this cave and in the process, I actually created something useful.” Then he looked at Jackson. “If Tim says you’re the real deal, Jackson, I say, let’s give it a shot.”

They all shook hands and agreed to move forward with all possible speed. 

“OK. Jackson and I have to go to London to find him a boat to live on. And I think we should talk to Gina, and see who she knows who could help us.” Tim said.

“How is Gina, by the way?” Arthur asked.

“She’s fine, mate.” Tim said. “Got her own thing going. She finds things for people. I think she can find a lot of things for us.”

“Please give her my regards.” Arthur said.

“Will do.” Tim said.

“Wait a minute.” Jackson said. “Who’s Gina?”

“She’s the girl who’s gonna find you a boat. And find us some pieces to this business. She’s also my sister, mate. You’ll love her.”

Arthur gave Tim a case with the rifle and the pistol in it along with a spare power cell for each weapon.

They drank their tea and talked some more about the business they would put together. Then Arthur gave them a tour of the property. 

The manor house looked to be at least a century old. But it had been fully restored it. There was a small stable out back that housed two black horses and all the riding gear and feed. About thirty metres or so behind the stable was a beautiful pond with a large dock built into it. There was a table with an umbrella and four chairs. The pond looked to be fed by a small stream running from the forest further back and was crystal clear.

“We had the pond dredged and emptied about fifty  truckloads of sand and coarse gravel into it, which made it ideal for swimming.” Arthur said. 

Before long it was suppertime.

They then walked back to the house and pitched into making the salad, getting the table set and uncorking a bottle of really fine Chablis.

During a pleasant and quite delicious dinner, Tim and Jackson found out that Miranda was the daughter of a high ranking MP in London and a rich industrialist. She tired of all the social obligations she had and one day just ran away. She relocated in Sheffield and answered an ad for a housekeeper and cook that Arthur ran in the online Sheffield Tribune. One thing led to another and she and Arthur became roomies.

“Miranda’s a writer of children’s stories under a pen name.” Arthur said. “Her cheques come to a post box in Sheffield here under her own name and her publisher is the only person in London who knows approximately where she is. Her father understood, since she had left him a long note, imploring him not to search for her and so far he hasn’t done so. They keep in touch by email.”

Miranda and Arthur seemed very happy. Both had their own little worlds and the world that they shared, which appeared to be quite enough. Arthur’s industrial patents paid him close to a million pounds a year. He and Miranda had talked a bit about children, but both felt they were too self-absorbed, at this point at least, to be parents.

Later that evening, Jackson and Tim left with Arthur’s best wishes and the two lasers. They were planning to head south to Plymouth, where they would hopefully find the boat they were looking for

~ 4 ~

Tim and Jackson spent the night at Tim’s house and were off the next morning. Jackson had decided not to go through a broker of any kind because that would jack the price up by at least 20%. This, according to Tim, meant a trip to London.

Jackson had never been to London, and he couldn’t believe how massive the city was. To get where they were going, which was to a street called Eliza Cook Lane on the east side of the city centre, took a good hour once they had entered the city. It was a rather pleasant area just south of the Thames River. They pulled into a parking space and got out. They walked down the street a few houses and then entered one of them with a key Tim had.

“Gina.” Tim shouted. There was no answer, but there was some singing coming from the second floor. Tim went up the stairs, with Jackson following. He opened the door of one of the rooms and there was a woman sitting in front of a large computer screen. Tim rapped hard on the open door which startled the woman, who swung around in her chair. When she saw Tim, she shucked off the headset she was wearing, got to  her feet, ran over and wrapped her arms around him. 

“Where the fuck have you been, young man?” Gina Wakefield said.

Tim laughed. “Here and there. Now, I’m here.” Tim said stepping aside. “This is my mate, Jackson Tyler. He’s a Yank. Jackson this is my sister, Gina.” 

Gina held out her hand. She looked to be younger than Tim, which would have made her somewhere in her very early thirties, Jackson reckoned. She was about five foot six and had long dark hair that was pulled back in a tight pony tail. Her skin was quite a bit darker than Tim’s. But her face was classically beautiful.”

“Where’d you run into this bloke, Jackson?” Gina said gesturing to her brother.

“Italy. I’ve recently left the States.”

“Don’t blame you. It’s turning into the same kind of shithole we’ve dug over here.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see any family resemblance,” Jackson said.

“Different mums.” Gina said. “My mum’s from Mumbai. Tim’s was a Brit.”

“Okay, that explains that. I was a little weirded out at first.”

“A lot of people find it odd when they see us together.”

“Gina.” Tim said, “Is the smart one in the family. “Programmer, writer, hacker, graphic and web designer, you name it, she does it. She’s gonna help us find a boat without a lot of, you know, paperwork. And she can help us with the business as well.”

“Yes I can” Gina said. “But first I’m in need of a cuppa.”

Jackson looked a bit puzzled.

“Tea, mate.” Tim said. “That’s Gina’s petrol.” 

They all went down into the kitchen. Tim and Jackson sat  down while Gina made the tea.

“Tim tells me you are gonna finance Arthur’s laser weapons.” Gina said.

Jackson laughed. “How did you know that?”

Gina reached into the back pocket of her jeans and took out a phone. “I’m sure you have these in America.”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, we do.”

“Tim called me last night. Said you guys had been to see Arthur and that you are lookin’ for a boat. As usual, he wasn’t big on details. 

Gina poured the boiling water into the teapot. “Hope you like Earl Grey?”

“I don’t know Earl Grey from a hole in the wall.” Jackson said. “But so far the tea I’ve had here has been great.”

“Good.” Gina said as she got out some sugar and some milk from the refrigerator. Finally, she brought everything to the table, sat down and poured out the tea.”

“I’ve been doing some research. Tim did tell me you were filthy rich so I started looking around at fifty-foot-plus cruisers for private sale.”

“Any luck?” Jackson asked.

“Oh sure. There’s always somebody who got themselves overextended, underestimating maintenance and fuel costs. People are just getting stupider as time goes by. I have three nice choices for you. I also know a bloke down in Dover, who will show you all three, and for a very reasonable fee, will go over the boat you choose with a fine-toothed comb, tell you everything you need to know about it and fix anything that needs fixing.”

“You sound like a very well-connected person, Gina.” Jackson said.

“My Company is called ‘A-To-B’. What I do is find things that people are looking for but are too busy or don’t know where look for it themselves. It’s a lot of fun. It really helps to know your way around the Internet,” Gina said. “And how to drive a hard bargain.”

“Finding things for people.” Jackson said. “That sounds like an interesting type of business. I assume there’s a price attached to your service.”

Indeed, but I’ll be giving you the friends and family discount.” Gina said.

“I do love a bargain.” Jackson said, and, as he did he realized how likeable this lady was, not to mention exotically beautiful. “So how do you charge for this service?”

“Depends.” If they’re looking for a person and I locate them and can confirm it, there’s a flat fee of 25,000 euros. Most of the people who use this service consider that a bargain. I check them all out online, of course, and always get payment in advance. If I don’t deliver, I refund half the payment.”

“So right now, I owe you how much?”

“Fifteen thousand. Family and friends discount. There'll be more when the three of us figure out just who you need to get Arthur’s business up and running.”

“And if I don’t like any of the three boats you found?”

“I keep searching, but it doesn’t cost you any more.”

“That’s a pretty honest way to do business.”

“We’re an enterprising family, right, Tim?”

Tim had drifted off into space somewhere, but he quickly slipped back. “Right.” he said.

“My money is in Italy and Geneva. Does that matter?”

“What bank?” Tina asked.

“The money for the boat is at Deutsche Bank Easy in Naples. But the bulk of my capital is with the Mirabaud Bank in Zurich.

“No problem. I’ll get hold of Deutsche Bank and you can authorize my payment for the boat search from my computer. I assume the sellers will also accept a cash transfer from your bank to theirs. I’ll be happy to do that for you as part of the package.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Jackson said.

They chatted some more. Tim got Gina up to speed on Arthur, who Tina went to school with in Sheffield and believed even back then that he was a genius.

Jackson was curious about Gina’s business and why she chose to live in this part of the city. She told him that she settled on this area because she was working in government, but the tedium and fending off sexual advances from horny politicians got to be too much. She was talking to a friend about it and it was she who suggested the idea of starting her ‘finding’ business. Gina had all the programming skills to get herself a good presence on the web, and only about three months after she started she was going great guns. Everything from round the world travel deals to finding one-of-a-kind  jewelry and art to pointing people in the direction of vintage automobiles and boats, houses and, of course, people, they were looking for. On top of that, she was a pretty shrewd investor with her own capital and her brother’s.

Thanks to her prodigious brain, she was able to build her business into a million euro plus a year venture. This enabled her to buy the house they were sitting and a mint condition 1967 Jaguar XKE roadster, which was sitting in a rented garage nearby. 

She was even able to locate some underground weapons sellers for her brother when he needed a certain type of rifle for a certain job in a certain place.

They were quite the pair, these Wakefields. They were very close because their parents had died in a plane crash while they were on their way to a holiday in Indonesia. So they inherited a rather large house in Manchester and an investment portfolio that Gina grew from a million and a half pounds to around six million within two years, just playing the market in her spare time.

Gina and Jackson had a lot in common in that they were both very good with computers, money and the market. But if Jackson had stayed in the US, with the way things were going there, it would have been quite a frustrating life. Because he could see nothing but a completely rough ride for the US market for the next four to six years at least. Besides, he really did want to see some of the world, and while this was about as weird a way as he could imagine, he was keen to make it happen. 

Tim could see the good chemistry between his little sister and Jackson and he was pleased about that. Because he knew that Jackson was the real deal, not some good-looking parasite, like so many of the lads that Gina had been with over the years.

At about six, they all went out for dinner, at Gina’s local called The Bradbury Arms, and Jackson had the best hot roast beef sandwich he had ever had. They drank a few beers and talked some more. After a while, Tim noticed a couple of guys he knew sitting at the bar and wandered over to chat with them. 

“Did Tim talk you into all this investing with Arthur business?” Gina asked. 

Jackson took a deep breath. “No. Not really. He just told me about it and sensed I was looking to add a little spice to my existence and not just be some rich ex-pat seeing the world in a limo. But once I saw what Arthur had developed, that’s really all it took for me. The market for what he has, just in law enforcement alone, is worth multiple millions.”

Gina chuckled. “You know all about us. So what’s your backstory, Jackson?”

“I’ve been in the investment business ever since college. It had always been the family profession. But then, when there was no more family except me, and I started to see the country goin’ to hell, I thought it might be nice to live over here, get a big boat and see some of the places I never had time to see while I was committed to the business.”

“Well, I hope you’re makin’ the right decision.” Gina said.

“I’m as sure about this as I am about anything. And I reckon, with Arthur’s thing it will only take a ten or twelve million, if that, to get it all up and running.”

“Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it already.”

“Yeah I have. But I’m finding this all quite fascinating. After fifteen years, basically staring at the market on my computer, it’s a refreshing change.”

“Let’s just hope it stays that way for both of you. Tim’s the only family I have left. This should hopefully keep him out of Africa and places much worse.”

“No ma’am, we’re not heading down the Nile to kill bad guys. Tim’s also got a fairly big part to play in this when it comes to demoing and selling the weapons to potential customers.”

“True enough.’ Gina said. “But the weapons business is not without its innate dangers.”

They had a great evening with Gina, got a little drunk on Guinness, but made it to the Savoy all in one piece.

~ 5 ~

The next morning they were off to Dover, after a one-hour meeting with Gina where they decided what kinds of businesses she should be looking for. 

The guy they were going to meet at the Dover Pier was named Billy Jenkins. He was a tall, lean man with the look of a seasoned sailor about him. All three boats Gina had found for them were in the Dover area. They were all large cruisers. 

Billy was an affable and very knowledgeable boat person, having worked in the Dover Marina for the last decade, before which he spent twenty years at sea, first with the Royal Navy and then on his own fishing boat.

At the end of a long day of looking at boats, Jackson finally settled on an three year old Aquila 70-foot Power Catamaran. It was the luxury version and looked to be in mint condition. According to Billy, it was far and away the best of the lot. It was very spacious and equipped with everything you could want, plus three separate below deck sleeping areas.

They were asking 4.7 million euros for it, and Billy told them it was a bargain, because the people who owned it were rich and stupid. They never really took it anywhere, just sat around on it drinking martinis and entertaining other rich assholes on the weekends. He also told them that buying basically the same boat new would run him about 8.2 euros.

Jackson loved the boat. It had a lot of room to both live in  comfortably and run the laser weapon or any other kind of business from. 

Billy and Jackson came to a financial arrangement for Billy to tune up the boat and get it ready to take out. Billy told him it could be good to go in about three days. He then gave Jackson the address and phone number in London for the owners. Jackson said he would arrange to get together with them and make the purchase, then Billy could get to work tuning and prepping the boat.

They drove back up to London and took Gina out to a posh dinner to thank her for the good work she did. Jackson also tipped her an additional five thousand euros. And while he didn’t say anything about it, he found himself quite attracted to her. It had been a long time since he had felt that way about a woman. But she was hard to read, so Jackson just decided to take things nice and slow. 

Tim and Jackson spent the night at The Hyatt Regency hotel. The next morning, Jackson had just called the boat’s owner to arrange payment, when Tim got a call that changed their plans.

~ 6 ~

The call Tim got was from Arthur’s companion, Miranda, who told Tim that Arthur was in the hospital and needed his help. Miranda was at a loss to tell Tim what had happened because she found Arthur on the floor of his workshop badly beaten and just barely conscious. She immediately called an ambulance that brought him to the hospital in Warrington. He had a lot of bruises and a couple of lacerations, but nothing was broken and there was no internal bleeding, at least according to the emergency room doctor who examined him. Just to be safe, he was being kept heavily sedated. Miranda told Tim that the only thing he said while they were on the way to the hospital was ‘Call Tim.’

Tim told her they were in London and would be there as soon as they could. 

“What was that about?” Jackson said after Tim had disconnected.

“Somebody broke into Arthur’s workshop and beat the crap out of him.”

“Jesus. Is he gonna be alright?” Jackson asked.

“Miranda didn’t know. But we have to go, mate.”

Jackson paused for a minute to get his thoughts together. 

Then he called Billy, and told him he had something important to do before he bought the boat, but to call the owners and tell them he wanted to boat and would get together with them as soon as possible.

Half an hour later, they were packed up, checked out and on the road heading out of London. Four hours later, they arrived at the hospital in Warrington. Miranda was sitting at the side of Arthur’s bed holding his hand. Arthur’s face was bruised and one eye was swollen shut. 

A few minutes after they got there, a doctor named James Courtwright came into the room to check on Arthur.

“What’s the story, here, doc?” Tim asked.

“Well, it appears he took quite a beating. He has bruises in several places but no broken bones or internal bleeding that we could see. So he’s quite fortunate in that regard. I’ve had to notify the police. They will be along as soon as he regains full consciousness and can talk to them. Right now, we’re keeping him sedated so he can rest and heal a bit. But he was worked over pretty badly as those things go. Are you family?”

“No.” Tim said. “Just good mates.” 

“Then you should probably hang around, I told the police that he should be awake around six this evening. They’ll probably want to have a chat with you as well.

When the doctor left, Tim went over to Miranda. “We’re going to go out to your house and see if we can figure out what this is about. We’ll come back in plenty of time to talk to the police. Can we bring you anything?” 

Miranda handed him the house keys. “You could bring my purse and my travel kit. The purse is in my studio, off the kitchen. My kit is in a cupboard in the main bathroom upstairs. In my panic, I’m afraid I just blanked and forgot totally about what I might need.”

“We’ll figure this out, darlin’” Tim said, barely disguising the rage he felt.

Miranda looked up at him. She was trying her best to be strong. But Tim could tell she was having a hard time doing it. He took her hand and she got up. She hugged him and started to cry. Tim held her for a few moments, then she pulled away.

“I’ll be alright.” Miranda said. “You go. See what you can suss out about this….Oh, and if it’s not too much trouble could you check on the horses? Just give them some feed, water and some hay for their stalls.”

All the while, Jackson stood at the end of Arthur’s bed wondering what the hell Arthur could have possibly done to deserve this kind of beating.

~ 7 ~

The doors to both the house and the workshop were unlocked. They went into the house and found Miranda’s purse, and her bathroom kit, which Tim shoved into the purse. They locked up the house and Tim tossed the purse into the backseat of the car. 

They then walked over to Arthur’s workshop. There was no sign that anyone had ransacked the place. Tim stood beside Jackson and stared at the space, and then walked through it. After about thirty seconds or so Jackson said. “They took his laptop. It looks like the only thing I can see that’s missing.”

They stood there for another minute or so, then they heard the sound of a car pulling in and coming to a stop. 

Tim looked out the doorway and saw two men in suits get out of a dark sedan and start walking toward the workshop.

“It’s the police.” Tim said. “Don’t mention anything about the missing computer.”

Jackson just nodded.

The two men entered the workshop, They were Detective Inspectors Jarrett Ross and Fred Willis.

Ross introduced himself and Willis then asked. “And who might you chaps be?”

My name is Tim Wakefield. This is my mate, Jackson Tyler. We’re friends of Arthur’s. Miranda, his lady, asked us to come out to the house and get her purse, and some other stuff and lock the place up.”

The two cops looked at Tim. “You look like some sort of military man.” Ross said.

“Ex-Special Forces.”

“How’d you get to be friends with the victim?” 

“Schoolmates.”

They looked at Jackson. “And what’s your story Mr. Tyler?” 

Jackson shrugged his shoulder slightly. “Mr Wakefield and I are friends. He was showing me around his home town and introduced me to Arthur. In fact, we had dinner with
Arthur and Miranda a few nights ago.”

“You don’t sound British and you sure as hell don’t look like an ex-soldier.”

“No, I’m American. I’ve been travelling. Met Tim in Italy and we came back to England here to buy a boat.”

“A boat. And what were you going to do with this boat?” Ross asked.

“We were planning to take it on a tour of countries in the Mediterranean,” Jackson said, lying through his teeth.

“So are you some kind of millionaire?” Ross asked.

“In fact, I am. Yes. Currently retired.”

Ross took a deep breath. Then he looked around the workshop. “This is quite a setup he has here.”

“Aye.” Tim said. “He’s an engineer. Specializes in laser technology.”

“So what do you think happened here?” Ross asked.

“I honestly can’t imagine. Arthur and Miranda are both quite reclusive.” Tim, said. “Arthur holds several high value patents. They pay him about a million plus quid a year. But he just likes to work in his lab here while Miranda takes care of the house and writes children’s stories. That’s about all I know.”

“Okay, well thank you for your insights. I trust you can account for your whereabouts last evening.” Ross said.

“We were in London. We had dinner with Tim’s sister, Gina, and stayed at the Hyatt Regency. We left for here after Miranda called this morning.” Jackson said.

Willis, the quiet cop, wrote down some stuff in his notebook. Then Ross said. “Okay, well, thanks for your  insights.”

“While we’re here, Miranda also asked us to check on the horses in the small stable out back and make sure they have enough feed.”

“There are horses?” Ross said.

“Yeah, two of them. They both like to ride.”

“Alright. But then you should both leave.”

“Will do.” Tim said.

They walked out to the small stable at the rear of the house. They filled up the horse’s feed and water, scooped some manure and then tossed some new hay on the floor of each stall. They then headed back to the car.

As they pulled out of the driveway, Jackson asked. “Do you have any idea who would do something like this?”

“As a matter of fact I do,” Tim said.

~ 8 ~

“His name is Garth Adamson.” Tim said. “He’s a local crook. Runs a small crew out of Manchester. They specialize in high-end residential breaking and entering, but also venture  into corporate work through his brother, David, who is the CEO of a good-sized software company called Cyclone. They have a few developers, but specialize in getting the jump on smaller entrepreneurs, by breaking in, stealing their ideas and putting out their own versions. They’re both the dregs of society.”

“That’s pretty slimy.” Jackson said.

“Yeah. Usually, the work involves either hacking or breaking in after hours and raiding computers. This physical stuff is new territory for them. Arthur must have surprised them.”

The break-in of Arthur’s workshop was indeed a contract job from an outside digital tech firm owned by Garth Adamson’s brother, David. Because Arthur rarely left his property, Garth Adamson knew there might be some physicality involved. Garth also knew that Arthur and Tim Wakefield were friends, so the idea of Arthur getting a little working over appealed to him, because Garth had hated Tim Wakefield ever since they were both teenagers.

After Garth’s thugs had rendered Arthur unconscious, they went through his workspace looking for a password for his computer. But because of Arthur’s prodigious memory, the password for the laptop was in his head and nowhere else.

The only thing left to do was take the computer and let his Garth’s brother’s nerds figure it out. Either way, it was a payday for him and his mates, Timo and Joseph, neither of whom were particularly tough, since they were mainly thieves but were more than capable of kicking the shit out of somebody like Arthur if he were to show up unexpectedly, which unfortunately, he did.

Tim knew Garth Adamson because Garth, at one time in the distant past, was sweet on Gina, who, of course, found him repulsive in the extreme. It was then up to Tim to nip the one-sided romance in the bud, so to speak. It didn’t take much more than a broken finger to get his point across to the young Garth. But ever since that day, Garth had carried his anger for Tim like an albatross around his neck, even though he was terrified to do anything about it. 

Garth grew hard and tough over the years, but never felt he was tough enough to take Tim on, which probably saved him from a serious beating or worse.

Tim and Jackson drove back to the hospital. Arthur was still out like a light. They found Miranda in the cafeteria having some dinner. They sat down with her Tim handed over her purse and her travel kit.

“We talked to a couple of coppers at your place so we’re not gonna hang around. I’ve a pretty good idea who did this.” Tim said. “It will take the police at least a couple of weeks to figure it out, but you can rest assured that we will take care of things so that these people will never bother you again.

“Arthur didn’t talk much about what he was doing.”Miranda said. “All I knew was that it was something to do with lasers. He tried explaining it one night, but it honestly all went over my head. But I never thought that it would turn out to be dangerous.”

“Everything’s dangerous when it comes to genius, Miranda.” Tim said. “Look. Call me when Arthur comes around. In the meantime, Jackson and I are going into Manchester and see if we can’t get his laptop back.”

~ 9 ~ 

Garth Adamson lived in a small house in a rundown part of Manchester. He made good money stealing software ideas  for his brother, and other stuff while he and his small crew were at it. But he was careful not to let it show because he had a sizeable juvenile record and was one of those guys the police kept their eye on. So he lived in a crummy house that was lavishly furnished on the inside, complete with a 40 inch plasma TV, a high-end computer system, expensive leather furniture, and the best phone money could buy, all bought through the dirty work they did for his brother.

Tim knew exactly where Garth lived because he had followed him home after he had called Gina a slut in front of her friends. That was when he had broken Garth’s finger as a way of letting Garth know that he should forget that Gina ever existed.

Jackson and Tim parked down the street. It was just after dark in a neighbourhood where few people ventured out of their homes at night.

“Look, mate,” Tim said to Jackson, as he reached into the backseat and grabbed the small case that Arthur had given them. He opened it and took out the small laser pistol, activated it and set it on stun. “You should stay in the car, just in case anything goes sideways and we have to be gone in a hurry.” Tim said.

Sure thing.” Jackson said, not at all keen on being anywhere where there could be guns in the hands of people other than Tim.

Hopefully, this won’t take too long.” Tim said. I’ll either come out with the laptop or the means to find it.”

“Knock yourself out.” Jackson said. “I’ll keep the car running.”

Tim got out of the car with the small laser pistol barely visible in his large hand. 

He didn’t bother to knock on the door. He just kicked it in. It opened onto a large living area. Garth Adamson was sitting on the sofa texting someone on his phone and was so startled that he dropped the phone onto his carpeted floor.

Tim looked around and saw that Garth appeared to be alone in the house.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Wakefield?” Garth screamed as he bent over to pick up his phone.

At this point, Tim kicked him in the face and he flopped back onto the sofa semi-conscious. Tim stomped on the phone then kicked it away under one of the easy chairs. Then he looked around and spotted Arthur’s laptop on the computer worktable on the far side of the room. Garth started to stir, and as he began to talk Tim hit him hard on the cheek with his fist, which produced a satisfying crunch that broke Garth’s jaw.

Tim hunkered down in front of Garth. He then brought his elbow down hard on his right kneecap. Garth was in so much pain that he couldn’t even scream.

“You picked the wrong chap to beat up, Garth. On top of it all, I can see you haven’t delivered the computer to your brother or whatever lowlife scumbucket hired you to steal it from Arthur.

“Now here’s the thing.” Tim said. “I’m not gonna kill you, although I could do rather easily and with real pleasure. But I’m not gonna do that, but what you’re gonna do, in exchange for your shit life, confirm for me that you were doing this for your brother. 

Garth nodded.

“Okay, that was easy.” Tim got up and walked over to the desk and grabbed the laptop. “Now, if I hear of any more violence or theft planned or executed against Arthur, I will come back here and cut you into pieces and cremate you in your weed-infested back yard. Are we clear on that, Garth?”

Garth couldn’t talk so he simply, and painfully, nodded his head.

“Good.” Then Tim shot Garth in the chest with the laser and knocked him out cold. “Field test Number One” he said to himself as he left the house, got back in the car and dropped the laptop onto the backseat.

“Well, that didn’t take very long.” Jackson said.

“No. He still had the computer.” 

On the way back to the hospital, they stopped at a restaurant called Ocean Treasure and had some dinner. About two hours later, they were sitting at Arthur’s bedside. Arthur was a bit groggy but fully awake and filled with painkillers. The police hadn’t shown up yet.

“We got your computer, Arthur. The guys who were paid to steal it still had it.”

“How did you know who it was?” Arthur said, in a groggy voice.

“Let’s just call it an educated guess. But they won’t be bothering you again. I guarantee it.” Tim said.

“Arthur tried his best to manage a smile. But all he got out was a painful chuckle. A few minutes later, he was back asleep.

Miranda said, “Thank you for getting Arthur’s computer back. He’s rather meticulous about backing things up. But I swear he’d be lost without it. Not to mention what could possibly happen to all the stuff on it.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry. Just tell the police that when you found Arthur, you had to run to the house to call an ambulance and you took the computer with you, just to be on the safe side. Then you asked me to bring it to you when we went to pick up your purse.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“Good. We’re going to head out, but we’ll be back in the morning. You should try and get some sleep.”

“They’re bringing a bed for me a little later.”

“Aright. And please, Miranda. Don’t worry about a thing.”

Half an hour later that were back at  drove to Tim’s house sitting in the kitchen drinking scotch.

“Well it isn’t exactly what we had in mind a couple days ago. But I couldn’t let this go by.” Tim said.

“I totally understand. So what happens next?”

“Well tomorrow, we’ll go visit Garth’s brother and see if we can find out who he’s doing this for. Because laser tech is a far cry from what he does.”

“I’m finding this all quite fascinating in a weird way.” Jackson said. “Is this how you deal with everything?”’

“Pretty much. A couple years in the third world will fix that attitude in your head.” Tim said. “That and, you know, the kill or be killed thing.” Tim raised his glass and Jackson did the same. “Cheers, mate.” Tim said.

“Cheers.” Jackson said.

And he clinked Tim’s glass.

“Speakin’ of kill or be killed, I was wondering…do you think your sister would, uh, be interested in maybe going out with me? I find her very attractive and extremely bright.”

Tim chuckled. “Sure, mate. Give it a go. The worst that
 can happen is she tells you to go fuck yourself.”

“She wouldn’t do that, would she?” Jackson asked.

Tim just chuckled. “You’d be surprised what she’s capable of. But I think you’ve got at least a fightin’ chance.”

~ 10 ~

The next afternoon, they went back to the hospital. They found Arthur sitting up in bed and looking a bit improved. They talked for a little while and Tim told him, that they were going to see this all the way through. 

They didn’t stay too long because the doctor came in and kicked them out, insisting that he needed at least a couple more recuperation days.

So off they went to Manchester. 

The building where David Adamson’s company, Cyclone, was located had an underground parking garage. So they waited till around five o’clock and then entered the garage. His car, a high-priced looking Toyota, was parked in a space with his name on the wall. There were very few other cars parked close by so they just waited by the pillar two spaces down. About fifteen minutes later, David Adamson came into the lot. He opened up the car and got inside. A few seconds later, Tim got in on the passenger side and Jackson climbed into the back seat. 

Adamson looked at Tim. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Don’t remember me? Well, your little brother does.”

“Oh fuck.” Adamson said. Then he caught his breath. “What do you want?”

“Just the answer to a simple question.” 

Tim raised the laser pistol and put it up against Adamson’s temple. 

“The question is this. Who got you to get your slimy little brother and his mates to steal Arthur Field’s computer?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

With his free hand Tim gave Adamson a hard shot just above his ear. “That’s a question, mate. I need an answer or I am gonna blow a hole through your head with this cute little laser, then figure it out myself. Your choice.”

Adamson started to shake perceptibly. He didn’t say anything. Tim shifted the gun barrel to Adamson’s thigh. “Or maybe I should shoot you in the leg. Would that get you talking? How’s limping around on a crutch for the rest of your life strike you?” Tim said as he poked the barrel of the gun into Adamson’s thigh.

“Okay. Okay.” Adamson shouted. “You don’t have to shoot me anywhere. The bloke who wanted the computer, his name is Albert Soames.

“And where do we find this Albert Soames?”

“He’s got a company called Beamscope. They’re in Liverpool. Apparently, Arthur Field used to work for him. He told me that this Arthur left with a bunch of his proprietary data. He wanted it back.”

“You should know that your little brother and his goons goons laid quite a beating on Mr. Field. He’s been paid back in kind, otherwise it would be you who would getting the beating. So consider yourself fortunate.”

Tim raised the laser to Adamson’s temple. “No calls  to Mr Soames, right?”

“Right. No calls.”

“Good. Because I know where you live and if I find out you warned Soames, well, you’re gonna be very unhappy about that. Do we understand each other?” 

Adamson just nodded. 

Tim and Jackson got out of the car. Tim walked around the car and stuck his arm in the window on the driver’s side. He grabbed Adamson’s head and before he had a chance to react, slammed it into the top of the steering wheel. Adamson flopped back, out cold.  

Once they were in their car, with Tim driving, he asked Jackson to get out his phone and search for Soames. They started heading south. Jackson searched for an Albert Soames in the Liverpool Directory. He came up with one address.

Albert Soames was a divorced man in his early fifties. His business, one of the largest laser-based tool companies in Great Britain and Europe, was very profitable. He lived in a large house on a small crescent called Wantage View in an area of the city, which bordered the Bowring Park Golf Club.

Tim and Jackson arrived at the house a little after seven that evening. They rang the front doorbell and about fifteen seconds later, Soames, still wearing his business suit, answered. 

“Albert Soames?” Tim asked. 

“Yes. Who are you gentlemen?”

Tim raised the pistol and pointed it at Soames.

“In the house, Mr Soames.”

Soames took one look at the weapon, knew exactly what it could be, and did as he was told, because the man holding the it looked like he could easily take Soames apart with or without the gun. He looked at the other man who looked considerably less menacing than the large man, but that man said nothing.

They walked through the living room to the dining area where Tim sat Soames down in a chair. 

Once they were all seated. Tim said. “I’m a very good mate of Arthur Field, Mr Soames. I have it on solid authority that you hired David Adamson to steal his computer.”

Soames said nothing as Tim continued. “During this process, Arthur was badly beaten by the hooligans that your friend Adamson hired to do the job. This included his idiot brother, Garth, who has been taken care of and Mr. Field’s computer has been retrieved.”

“So have you come to kill me?” Soames said in a very small voice.

“No. I haven’t. You are a high-profile citizen in this town and there would be a serious police investigation. Instead, I  have come to warn you that Arthur Field is off limits to you. Period. If I should hear that you have not heeded this advice, I will come back and I will arrange your death in such a way that will focus attention on no one. An accident or a suicide. In either case you will no longer be of this world. Now, am I making myself perfectly clear?”

Soames just nodded. He was terrified and rightly so.

“Good. Consider yourself fortunate that I didn’t kill you tonight. I let my friend here talk me out of it.”

“I appreciate that.” Soames said gaining his voice back and looking over at Jackson.

“You will not breathe a word of this visit to anyone.” Tim said. “Not a soul. Because that would put me in a position to have to get rid of you.”

“Not a soul, I swear.” Soames said raising his right hand.

“Good.”

Tim and Jackson got up and started walking to the door. As they did Tim said. “Stay right where you are until you hear us drive away, then you can come and close the door. If I see you in the doorway trying to get our plate number, it will be the last thing you ever do.”

Soames complied and a few minutes later, Jackson and Tim were back on the road.

“You can be pretty fucking menacing when you want to.” Jackson said.

“Yeah, well, we do what needs to be done.” Tim replied.

They drove back Tim’s house with a stop on the way for a quick dinner. It was about ten PM when they finally arrived there. Tim called Miranda and was assured that Arthur was doing just fine, and that they were hoping to release him the following day or the next after that.

“That’s good news.” Tim said into the phone. “Give me a call when you get back home. We’ll come down. I want to talk to you both about some home security.

In the morning, Tim and Jackson discussed what would happen next. 

“I can hook Arthur up with some video surveillance. There’s a very good company here called ‘Eyes On The Prize’. It’s owned by an old mate of mine. They specialize in high-end home security systems and personal protection.

Jackson chuckled at the company name. “Eyes On The Prize….pretty clever.” he said.

“I’m reasonably certain that Soames won’t try anything again. So once that’s set up, we can be on our way.”

“Okay. About that.” Jackson said. ‘I was thinking I would drive down to London while you‘re doing all this. I noticed a beautiful Harley covered out back so you can get around. I thought I would see if Gina would like to have dinner with me.”

Tim slapped Jackson on the shoulder. “Go for it, mate. I’m pretty sure she’ll be interested.”

Jackson got his own gear together, and some of Tim’s and tossed it into the Lexus, then headed off to London after a quick visit to the hospital to see Arthur, who was feeling much better, but had bruises that would take a while to disappear.

Jackson said that he would be working with Gina Wakefield to put an organization together and told him not to worry about a thing, but listen carefully to the advice Tim would be giving him once he got home.

Arthur agreed he would do that. The two men shook hands. Jackson hugged Miranda. “Call Tim when they decide to release Arthur. He’ll go get your car and pick you up. And I’ll see you soon.”

~ 11 ~

Gina Wakefield obviously knew that Jackson was coming. He arrived late in the afternoon, just as she was closing things down. 

“So you’re interested in taking me out for dinner, are you?” she said.

“That was the general idea.” Jackson said.

“You know I’m not any sort of cheap date.”

“That’s OK with me. I’m filthy rich.”

“Yes, you are. I hacked your bank accounts. I reckon there’s about twenty-four billion give or take.”

Jackson chuckled. “You check out the financial status on all your dates?” 

“I’d be a fool not to.” Gina replied. ‘Besides, I have a feeling about you.”

“A feeling, eh?”

“Yep.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” 

“Maybe a little of both.”

“Okay.”

“But mostly a good thing.”

“Well, that’s reassuring.”

“Make yourself comfortable. I’ve already made reservations for 7:00. I’m just gonna go get dressed. There’s a bottle of wine in the fridge. I won’t be long.”

Jackson walked over to the hutch and found a bottle of white wine in the small refrigerator next to it. He opened it and left it to breathe. While he was waiting for Gina, he called the owners of the boat he wanted to buy and arranged to meet them the next afternoon. Then he picked up a newspaper that was lying on the coffee table. He scanned through it at a leisurely pace until Gina reappeared in the doorway in a beautiful black dress.”

“Oh oh,” Jackson said. 

“What?”

“Now I feel terribly under-dressed.”

Gina walked to the hutch and filled both glasses. She walked over and handed one to Jackson. “Cheers,” she said.

“Cheers,” Jackson replied.

“A billionaire never needs to feel underdressed in any social situation. In fact, it’s been my experience that the very rich always dress rather casually. It’s the social climbers, ass kissers and politicians that stuff themselves into suits.”

“I never thought much about it. Most of my work life was spent staring at computers. I tried to dress as comfortably as possible, which is to say my fashion sense is virtually non-existent.”

“That’s fine with me”

While they sipped their wine, they talked about what had happened with Arthur Field and the people who hurt him. Gina seemed to really enjoy the blow-by-blow descriptions that Jackson was giving her.

Gina poured a smaller second glass of wine for both of them.

“You know,” she said. “I believe that once the weapons business is on cruise control, you and Tim could start a kind of detection slash protection enterprise. The idea has come up more than a few times in my business: people who have been looking for someone to get back something tat had been stolen, usually something fairly priceless. I reckon you and Tim would be rather good at it. Look what you did for Arthur.”

“Well, what we did for Arthur wasn’t wasn’t exactly a team effort.” Jackson said.

“Sure, but you’re the cyber guy. Tim can barely send a text or email. I think you guys would be superstars in no time.”

“Well, we’ll see about that once we get Arthur’s business up and running. Speaking of which….”
“Oh, I have that all sussed. Won’t take long at all. The trickiest bits are going to be the various approvals that you would need to go through to be able to sell the weapons.” Gina said.

“Is that going to be a colossal pain in the ass?”

“Not colossal. But not completely painless either. You just need a good patent attorney, who I found, literally minutes before you arrived.”

Jackson chuckled. “When did you come up with this idea of Tim and I doing stuff together?”

“I’d say about ten minutes after I looked you up on Wikipedia. I didn’t say much about it at the time.”

“Well, I think it’s a pretty smart idea. Don’t know how Tim will feel about it.” Jackson said.

“We can talk him into it.” Gina said. “Besides, there’s another advantage for you that I hadn’t mentioned.”

“Oh. And what would that be?”

“That would be me.” Gina said with a smile.

“Well, now that you put it that way…”

Gina looked at her watch. Then she got to her feet. “Time to go.” she said.

Jackson got to his feet and Gina walked over and kissed him. It was not a huge kiss by kissing standards, but it was enough of a kiss to signal to Jackson what they might be having for dessert.

~ 12 ~

The next day, Arthur was released and Tim drove them home. 

Later that day, the people from Eyes On The Prize showed up and got Arthur’s office and house secured. Tim also worked with Arthur and taught him how to use his pistol, and insisted that he keep close by at all times. After Arthur’s experience, he was more than willing to set aside any fears he may have had, and took Tim’s instructions to heart. He told Tim he would even fabricate a dandy-looking holster for it.

Two days later, Tim left a much more confident and well- armed Arthur. He also left him with a bodyguard, named Jerome White, for at least the first couple of weeks until Arthur and Miranda were comfortable with their security systems.

For his part, Arthur agreed to send them a set of schematics for both weapons, which Tim and Jackson would need going forward, as they put the company together.

But as he was saying goodbye to Tim, Arthur said. “Don’t move forward with anything just yet. As I was going over the specs, I got a little niggle about something. It may change things a bit. Just don’t want you and Jackson going through the whole process twice. Give me a week to suss it out.” 

“You’re the boss, Arthur.” Tim said quite matter-of-factly, “Call us in a week and let us know what’s what.”

The next day Tim rode into London on his Harley. He was greeted at the door by both Gina and Jackson. He smiled at what a nice couple they made. 

Over lunch, they discussed the process of putting the business together. Tim explained about Arthur needing more time, so Gina made a few phone calls to put people on hold. 

Two days later, Gina drove Tim and Jackson to Dover, where they picked up the boat, paid Billy six hundred euros for the work it did to get it all tuned and ready. Then Jackson and Tim and took the boat back to London, 

Gina had found them a nice slip at the Trinity Bay Wharf. and told them she would install a server and create a satellite feed so that they could work anywhere in Europe and the British Isles. This meant they could travel whenever they felt like it or stay docked in their slip if the work was local. Their slip rental also included two parking spaces nearby so Jackson purchased a Lexus, very much like the rental he had been driving. The second spot was for Gina’s Jag or Tim’s bike.

When they got the boat to London. Gina and Jackson set  up a server and a communications system from their Trinity Bay docking post and in less than two days they were in business.

~ 13 ~

Four days later, Arthur got hold of them. 

They were sitting on the rear deck with some very nice scotch when Arthur called. Tim put his phone on the speaker so that he and Jackson could both listen.

“I know that you’re eager to be off and running with this project, but a few days ago I woke up with a thought in my head that I would like to share with you.”

“Go ahead, Arthur.” Tim said “You’re the boss here, after all.”

Arthur chuckled. “Yes, I suppose I am. Well, one of the issues that has been bothering me all, perhaps all along, is keeping this weapon out of the hands of the criminal element. So I started playing around with some methods of preventing that from happening.”

“And I assume you have come up with a solution or you wouldn’t be calling us.” Jackson said.

“That’s correct. I believe that without too much trouble and added expense, it would be possible to make each weapon operable only by the person to whom it is assigned.” 

Nobody said anything for about fifteen seconds. At that point a light went on in Jackson’s head. “Yes, Arthur. I see where you’re coming from.”

“We should be able to,’ Arthur said. “Insert a reader chip into each weapon. I’ve been talking to a chap named Errol Cummings, a very high-end app developer I know in Birmingham, and he believes he can design a chip and a fingerprint screen that can be programmed to make each individual weapon active, but only for the specific user. 

“Every user who is issued a weapon has it registered, using the weapon’s number, under his name and thumbprint. Once the weapon has been activated, it will only respond to that user. So we would have to build a sensor and the chip into each weapon. 

“It adds a bit to the cost and a bit to the administrative process for the organizations who purchase the weapons, but it failsafes the weapons quite effectively.” 

“Is there any way to alter the weapon’s programming, say in the event that the user retires, or god forbid, is killed or disabled?” Jackson asked.

“ Yes…by changing the user name and password in the inventory file, which is kept in a locked computer at the headquarters of whatever organization buys the weapons. The chip in the weapon would be built to respond only to commands from the inventory computer, which means the inventory computer has complete control of the weapon. This is also a failsafe, should the weapon be lost or stolen while it is switched on, because Errol and I talked about this for several hours and it was far and away the simplest safety measure. He can also add a locator function to the control chip so the main computer always knows where the weapon is. And Errol could also build a highly effective firewall to make the inventory file unhackable. It sounds more complex than it actually is. But Errol would will write out the instruction protocols and make himself, or one of his people, available to personally assist any organization that purchases the weapons. They’ll also train new installers, when and if we start selling outside Great Britain.”

“So I’m working on new master schematics right now. They should be ready in about two weeks once Errol has figured out things from his end. I’ll call you when everything is ready at my end. For me, it will just be a week or so more. In the meantime, Miranda and I are also going to be drafting a user manual that will go to each client organization, with each shipment. But I would appreciate it if Gina had a good look at it before we print or post anything. As I recall she’s quite a good writer.”

“She is indeed, Arthur. I’m sure she’ll be happy to do that.” Tim said.

“Sounds like you have solved a major problem.” Jackson said.

“Indeed. I’ll get hold of you when everything is good to go. Then we can start finding and making deals with a fabricator. But with what you know now you can probably  start looking for a law firm, and whomever else you need to make this into an actual business. I will go and meet with the fabricator we choose and work with him to create and test prototypes. 

“And by the way, Tim, thank you for Jerome White. Not only is he a great bodyguard, he’s also a very clever chap and quite interested in what we’re doing here.

“As long as you’re happy, Arthur.” Tim said.

“Oh yes. We’re doing fine. I’m still a bit black and blue but healing up quickly. Miranda sends her best. I reckon what I have left to do will take approximately three weeks in total. So you’re free to take that big boat of yours out into the ocean.”

“You know.” Jackson said. “That’s not a bad idea.”

~ 14 ~

The next morning, when Jackson was returning to the boat from spending the night with Gina, he found a beautiful-looking woman sitting in the galley sipping tea. She was wearing one of Tim’s shirts and very little else. She introduced herself as Johanna Foster, Tim’s friend. She had long natural red hair and a light complexion with a few freckles on either side of her nose. A few minutes later, Tim came into the galley.

“I see you’ve met the Missus,” Tim said.

Jackson was a little puzzled. 

“Johanna and I have been on and off for the better part of a decade. Nowadays, we’re apparently ‘on’ again.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you, Johanna.” Jackson said.

“Same here.” Johanna said. “I won’t be moving in, just in case you were worried about crowding. I have my own townhouse, not far from here. We’ll mostly be there. Tim just wanted to show me the boat last night and well, you know…”

Jackson smiled. “Well, make yourself at home. Maybe we can all take her out and really give her a shakedown cruise”

“Sounds like a plan, mate.” Tim said, and poured himself a coffee. 

“We have the better part of a month before Arthur will have everything ready for us to start talking to potential manufacturers.”

So it was arranged. Jackson, Gina, Tim and Johanna boat, which Jackson had named Sweet Marie, after a character in a Bob Dylan song,  They took it out into the channel and then down the coastline down to and around the Guernsey and Jersey Islands, stopping in various ports for fuel, wine, food and a bit of tourism.

One night while they were sitting docked in a Guernsey Island harbour, Gina reminded Jackson and her brother that they had not yet come up with a name for the company and that, in her experience, they couldn’t go much farther without one. 

After a few glasses of wine, they all started talking about names. It kind of became a game. They chatted for a good couple of hours. Gina checked out every decent name they came up with on her laptop to make sure it wasn’t owned by anyone. Finally, after they had exhausted all the obvious techie names, they started to talk about more abstract ideas. Two bottles of wine and about three hundred naming suggestions later, someone said ‘Bulletproof.’ and the conversation stopped. It was in fact, Johanna’s idea. Gina looked it up and found that no one was using it for any related reason. So with nods from both Jackson and Tim, she quickly registered both bulletproof dot com and bulletproof dot net. Gina texted the name to Arthur and early the next morning got back a thumps up. 

Gina said that when they got back home she would start working on a basic corporate identity package and register the company. They would also need a wordmark for the logo that could be engraved on the weapons, which is what she would work on first. After that she would create all the corporate identity material and packaging that was required.

They all talked some more and decided that there was nothing left to do but wait for the modified design specs from Arthur. 

Later that morning  next morning Jackson and Johanna were standing on the afterdeck drinking coffee. Both were a little hungover. 

“When we get back to London, Jackson said. “I’m going to give you my Amex card and I want you to go on a shopping spree. Twenty-five thousand pounds. Anything you want.”

“Oh Jackson, that’s hardly necessary.”

“Yes is it. Because the name was brilliant. And I could have paid a naming group about that same amount to come up with something less brilliant.”

“Johanna took a deep breath and then smiled and hugged Jackson. “You really are something.”

“No, I’m just another rich guy who believes that good ideas should be rewarded.”

‘Well, thank you, Jackson.”

“No, thank you, because that name is gonna put us on the map. I know it.” 

~ 15 ~

A week and a half after they got back to London, Arthur couriered Jackson with a new set of specs and weapon samples plus the draft for an instruction booklet, which Jackson gave to Gina to clean up, simplify and produce. She had already designed a gorgeous logo for Bulletproof and gave them a hard copy and design specs for them to show the three manufacturing companies she had recommended from the research she had done.

The interviews took three days up north of London and on the third day, they struck gold, because their last company Dafoe Technology Products stood out from the crowd. The owner Alan Dafoe, was an ex-Special Forces soldier like Tim, so they got along famously. 

Things went very quickly from there.

Once they had agreed in principle to a deal, Jackson and Tim came back to London and hired a legal firm called Delaney, Firestone, to create a supplier contract and confidentiality agreement. One of the partners, Joel Delaney, agreed to manage the process himself, because after Jackson explained what they were planning, he knew his experience in export trade would be the key to coming to terms with both the Commonwealth and European countries. Delaney, in turn, referred them to a man named Rufus Carlyle, a trade negotiation specialist who, along with his small force, could represent the company in all domestic and foreign sales.

Up north, Arthur, with his bodyguard, Jerome, travelled over to Wolverhampton and had a very productive meeting with Alan Dafoe. Just three weeks later, they had working prototypes, which performed exactly as Arthur hoped they would. 

Arthur had found a kindred spirit in the person of Alan Dafoe. During the fabrication process, Dafoe was able to estimate and fix a wholesale cost for the manufactured weapons, and the cost of all the initial tooling and electronics and moulding that would be required to create the prototypes. On top of all that, Alan Dafoe had created a number of laser-based products over the past several years and had an excellent reputation all over England and Europe. He also worked with a company that could produce the batteries they needed in the quantities they needed for approximately 35% less then Arthur was currently paying.

In short, things were going much better than anyone had imagined. Of course, the reality of the sell-through was a going to be completely different matter.

Jackson and Tim, had regularly scheduled meetings with Arthur via video conference. During this video conference Arthur reported that he was healing up nicely and approved of everything they were doing. He also told Jackson and Tim that Dafoe would be making a short run of 100 of each weapon for the sales force to use in their pitches.

Arthur also told them he had found a kindred spirit in the person of Alan Dafoe. They had talked for a couple of hours, with the specific intention of being able to fix a wholesale cost for the weapons. Arthur also told them that Dafoe Technology Products had excellent supplier and distribution bases, all of whom were willing to give Dafoe Tech fair pricing, based on the massive projected volume they talked about. This price, from one of his supplier, would also include the design of an injection-moulded single piece soft plastic case for both weapons and one spare cartridge and charger, for the pistol and the rifle, which is how they would be sold.   

While Dafoe was building the prototypes, Arthur had done some research on police organizations, security firms and the various branches of the military. The numbers were staggering. When he had conveyed these numbers to Alan Dafoe, he was floored but not intimidated. His only concern was for the availability of raw materials, which sent Dafoe and Arthur on a rather wide-ranging search. Two weeks later they had confirmed that the raw materials they needed were available but only on the condition that manufacturing operations be set up in several of the countries with the resources available, which Alan Dafoe’s people would only be too happy to do.

The only things left to work out were the training for a British and European sales force and the profit-sharing agreement between Arthur Jackson and Tim.

Since all three men knew how large the upside was to their business. They agreed on a 50/30/15/5 net profit arrangement. The fifty would be for Arthur, the thirty would be the ROI and profit for Jackson and the twenty would be for Tim, who would be responsible for the development of all training materials, including training of the sales force and the designated trainers in any of their customer organizations. The 5% would be for Gina would be in charge of all things digital, including the coding and training for the arms inventory computer that would reside in each of the various headquarters of the customer organizations. 

“We’ve got a lot of legal hoops to jump through.” Jackson said in a conference call with Arthur and Alan Dafoe, “But we have great lawyers. In fact, we have a pretty amazing team all round. 

The next day, Joel Delany, their lawyer, drew up a standard contract, which they debated a small bit, but to Jackson it seemed more than fair.

As he and Tim drove back to the boat, Jackson told him he was very pleased at the way things had come together so nicely.

They also understood that it was now up to the sales force to start selling the idea through to the various target audiences that Tim, Jackson, Gina and Arthur had identified. How that would go was anybody’s guess at this point. 

All they could do now was keep their optimism and their hopes high.

One morning, a few days later, Gina and Jackson, who had grown quite close, worked out just how much Jackson had spent on the development of the weapons to date. Jackson was surprised that this amounted to roughly five and a half million euros.

Jackson was both surprised and delighted by this number, which was mainly the front end of the manufacturing process taken care of. So he didn't anticipate massive expenditures beyond that, because once they got things going, the  manufacturing, shipping and training costs would come out of gross sales. And according to Gina, who was a genius about this, they would start turning a pure profit after the first fifty-four thousand pair of weapons were sold. 

~ 16 ~

Since there was nothing to do but wait for the sales cycle to start, Gina sat down with Jackson and Tim and had a talk with them about the nature of the business they could have together. 

Her idea was to call it ESP, which stood for Extremely Sensitive Projects. In essence, it would encompass anything that involved people through searching and recovering stolen property and investigating industrial espionage, for starters. She did not elaborate any further on that because she believed that if they made that much clear on the website, she would undoubtedly end up receiving queries in other areas that would fit their skill sets. She called it, letting the market expand the business model. 

Gina was pretty confident that finding more projects of that nature would not be any sort of hardship in a world as crooked as the one they were living in.

Two weeks later, they got their first query through Gina’s site. Jackson handled the details and once they had formulated a plan of action, away they went.

~ 17 ~

It was a year-long struggle and another three million euros of Jackson’s capital was spent on legal research and testing for approvals, which would allow them to even get the weapons on the market.  

Once those hurdles were crossed, another one and a half million euros were spent supporting the sales forces, creating instructional videos, and expanding the website, after they had managed to get a foothold in the European market. 

Having a combination sales and instructional tool was the best investment they had made. This allowed the sales force to run highly efficiently, and reach out the the various government agencies that handled weaponry and licensing for the entire countries, and do so with few people on the payroll.

Close to eighteen months later the weapons were sold through, starting with Ireland, then Scotland, Wales and finally England. Once the European manufacturing outlets were set up, in France, Spain and Germany, as subsidiaries of Dafoe Tech, the European countries started coming on board. Gina had created a pair of instructional videos and had them adapted to all the various European languages and posted everything on the website, which became the main online information tool for both weapons sales and training

This added another quarter million Euros to the outlay. But none of this bothered Jackson all that much because he had his ace in the hole, which was the United States, Mexico  and Canada, where the idea was very positively received and a lot of the bureaucratic red tape was cut. 

Once the operation in Great Britain was up and running and the sales people were focused on Europe, Arthur, Jackson and Tim travelled to Washington DC and presented the weapons, the demos, several testimonials and the case histories to the US Justice Department, which would be responsible for distribution to the various state justice departments, This really opened the floodgates. Arthur and Jackson returned to England after the Justice Department meeting and Tim took on the role of Bulletproof Chief Operating Officer for North America, and immediately began looking for someone to train as a replacement. A week later, Alan Dafoe joined him, and together they searched for a large enough manufacturer to meet what looked very much like it was going to be a massive demand.

They found a newly formed manufacturing hub in Detroit that was comprised mainly of precision electronics specialists. When Alan Dafoe showed them the plans and explained the demand, they simply smiled and indicated that, in typical American fashion, it would be a ‘piece of cake’. 

So they got down to business and within two days had a deal in place, and a contact person assigned to deal with Tim. Alan Dafoe and Tim spent the better part of three weeks while the tooling was set up, since they already had the moulds they would need, and all the raw materials required were sourced and delivered. 

They had an obscenely large advance from the US government that they used part of to bankroll the startup  North America operation. 

The company, called Futuricon, then assigned a distribution manager to interface with the Justice Department in Washington.

By the time the third year had begun, Bulletproof was growing like a weed and valued at more than three billion. As per Arthur’s wishes, they chose not to go public, because Arthur had had more than his fill of travel and meeting new people. Jackson had recouped his initial investment and a hefty share of the profits. Arthur, Tim and Gina and Alan Dafoe were all millionaires as well. 

But what was more important was that gunshot traffic in the hospitals and clinics in all the markets they served were dramatically reduced within months of the weapons’ release into local police forces. 

Crime was still crime, but it was a whole lot less messy.
And the countries who did not normally arm their police personnel were more than happy to issue the Bulletproof lasers.

After three years, Jackson, Tim and Gina had all trained replacements and were happy to back off and simply serve, along with Arthur and Alan Dafoe as a five-person board of directors. 

Once all that was in place, Jackson, Gina Tim, and Johanna packed some clothes untied the boat and headed up the Thames for an extended and well-deserved cruise around the Mediterranean.

Arthur and Miranda changed their mind about children and ended up with a young baby boy they called Tim. Arthur did all the corporate work he had to do by video conference with Alan Dafoe. Arthur took Jerome White on as his apprentice, and within a year, Jerome, Dafoe and Arthur had developed prototypes for three new products, which Alan Dafoe would manufacture and sell separately. Jerome took on the role of product manager and did all the necessary back and forth required to allow Arthur to stay at home.

Four months later, when they got back to England, Tim and Jackson were raring to go with something, anything that didn't have to do with laser weaponry. 

Gina was only too happy to supply them with a steady stream of projects that had accumulated in their absence.

FIN

(This story was created to be a pilot for a series of adventures that take Tim and Jackson to various places and into various situations around the British Isles and Europe)