“I’ll see what I can do,” Tyler said.
“So what can I help you …” All of a sudden, Hyland’s eyes went wide with recognition. “Hold on! You three were in the video!”
Tyler nodded. “That’s actually why we’re here.”
Hyland grinned. “Wait’ll I tell my mates. I couldn’t believe it when the jet boat rolled over onto the beach. That was bloody bonzer!”
“We understand you recognized one of the men chasing us.”
“I emailed the Kiwi police about it, but I suppose they thought I was some kind of nutter.”
“You sure it was the same guy?”
“He was sitting in the driver’s seat of a car right where yours is. I was walking by and only saw him from the side. That’s why I wasn’t sure it was him in the video. But that mess of an ear was hard to forget.”
“What about the man he was chauffeuring around?”
“I never spoke to his boss. I went back to work while my professor gave him a tour of the place. Said he was some kind of corporate sponsor.”
“Do you remember the boss’s name?”
Hyland shook his head. “Some gray-haired bloke. Wasn’t old, though. Looked like he could wrestle a croc and win.”
“How about his company?”
“Sorry. You’d have to ask Professor Stevens.”
“Where can we find him?”
“Don’t know. CAPEK and the van were gone when I got here this morning. He left a message that he was taking it out for a run.”
“You mean the robotic truck?”
Hyland nodded. “Beautiful piece of work, if I do say so myself. Gonna revolutionize shipping in Australia, although the truckies won’t care for it.”
“The truck drivers?” Fay said. “Why?”
“Well, it’s a robotic truck, you see. We’ve got thousands of miles of desolate roads running through the outback. CAPEK is the first step in making them autonomous vehicles. Operating in remote regions to start with, of course. Private mines. Sheep stations. Like that. But eventually they could travel all the way from Darwin to Adelaide using GPS and on-board cameras.”
“How close are you to becoming operational?” Grant asked.
“We’re there now if the government would certify us. We’ve put forty thousand miles on CAPEK so far, though we’ve had someone in the driver’s seat the whole time in case there’s a problem. Haven’t had a single incident.”
“Did you have a test today?” Tyler said.
“It wasn’t on the schedule. I imagine Professor Stevens wanted to do some fine-tuning.”
“How does it work?”
“The truck can be driven normally, but once the robotic system is activated, the driving functions are totally autonomous. We have a chase van used for control and monitoring. The truck uses sensors, GPS navigation, and computer-controlled servomechanisms to stay on the road, and the person monitoring in the van gives it commands to start, stop, and turn. Eventually you’ll be able to plug in a destination with no further input. While we’re testing, you usually need three people to operate it: one in CAPEK, one to drive the van, and one in the back of the van monitoring.”
Hyland frowned.
“What’s the matter?” Tyler asked.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that I was surprised they took it out without me. It being winter break, the only other student around is Milo Beech.”
“So it’s just the three of you? Isn’t it odd for you not to go with them?”
“I suppose it’s not that unusual. The professor must have had his reasons. And it’s easy enough for two people to do. They find a stretch of road, park the van, and drive the truck up and down to collect data.”
“Can you call the professor?” Tyler asked. “We’d like to talk to him.”
Hyland shook his head again. “When he left me the message that they’d be taking it out this morning, he told me he’d be turning off his phone so he wouldn’t be distracted during the testing. But he should be back after lunch.”
“What time?”
“Two o’clock should do it.”
“You sure we can’t contact him sooner?”
Hyland looked to each of them in turn as if he were making up his mind about something, then nodded.
“I suppose it’d be all right to tell you where you can find him.”
“You just said he’s not answering his phone,” Fay said. “How can you find out where he is?”
“I’ll show you.” He beckoned for them to follow him into the garage.
Hyland sat at a computer terminal and everyone gathered around him. He talked while he clicked through the screens. “Of course, when there’s a fleet of robotic trucks in operation, we’ll need to know where they are at all times, so we have a system to track their GPS signals.”
The map on screen was scaled to one inch per hundred miles, so the blinking dot representing the truck didn’t tell them much. Hyland blew up the map by a factor of ten.
“That’s weird,” he said.
“What’s weird?” Tyler asked.
“Well, I expected them to be out the back of beyond, but they’re in Alice Springs. The truck’s not moving. Wonder what he’s doing there.”
“Can you overlay a satellite map on that?”
“No worries.”
A few clicks later, an overhead view of Alice Springs appeared.
If the satellite map was up to date, the truck was currently parked next to a warehouse, right in the middle of town.
SIXTEEN
While the C-17 taxied to a remote area of the Alice Springs airport’s tarmac, Morgan called Dr. Kessler. Vince was already standing; Josephson was busy checking the moorings to make sure none of the equipment had come loose during the flight.
“Yes?” Kessler answered.
“Are you ready?” she said.
“I saw you land as we were driving in. We’ll be there in a minute.”
She hung up.
“I hate flying on planes with no windows,” Vince said. “I wanted to see Ayer’s Rock.”
“That’s over a hundred miles west of here,” Morgan said. “You wouldn’t have seen it anyway.”
“Still. Where’s Kessler?”
“On his way.”
The cargo plane lurched to a halt. The loadmaster scrambled down the stairs from the upper deck and opened the side door. Per procedure, he wouldn’t open the rear doors until the cargo was ready to be unloaded.
Morgan followed him out to see two local police cars guarding the street entrance. They’d stop anyone who tried to get within a hundred yards of the plane.
Vince stretched his arms and put on sunglasses as he peered at the sparse trees dotting the red landscape.
“That is a whole lot of nothing,” he said.
