Cui Bono: By Tom Fynes

 

Maurice and Scott, stood on the bridge and looked down at the black mess the Tellus had made, when it connected with a fully loaded Army Oil Tanker. The Minister of Health and his entire family, who were being transported by the Tellus, had been totally immolated.

Maurice Matthews and Scott Mathews where Department E Detectives, Cabinet Ministers security, send down to investigate the crash.

And if they found any flaws in the various security procedures, they could recommend updates.

“We’re lucky you know,” said Scott.

“How so?”

“It has the new Tellus black box. We should be able to nail this down and get back to civilization. And leave the country plods to clean this mess up." 

"What do we have so far. Anything?”

Scot was flipping through the information they were feeding him from HQ.

Maurice was looking at the security barrier that had failed to stop the Tellus going over the bridge.

“Look Scott, the Tellus hit the only spot that was weak enough to let it smash through. It looks like there was some sort of construction work going on. Right here, at this very spot. That’s why it was weakened.”

Scot had gone silent, while he read through the information coming in from HQ.

“This doesn’t’ make any sense,” said Scot, more to himself than anybody.

“No, it doesn’t,” said Maurice, “why would they weaken a perfectly good security barrier.”

“Well listen to this. The Tellus took evasive action to avoid hitting a child in the road. It’s why it swerved, and why it went through the bridge’s security barrier.”

“So Tellus is the culprit.”

“It gets worse. These self-driving Tellus government cars have extra advanced electronics.”

“And?”

“It can track aircraft and traffic up to a 100-kilometre radius.”

“So? It’s a safety feature. I knew about that.”

“It was tracking the Army Oil tanker.”

“You’re shitting me!!!”

“Our IT Guru back at HQ is checking through the Data. He’s convinced the Tellus was tracking that Oil tanker, from the minute it left the Army refuelling depot.”

“Tellus is the hitman!! How the fuck are we supposed to explain this to our superiors. If this is confirmed, we’ll have to pull all the Government Tellus cars that are out there. This will be a PR nightmare.”

Scott was visibly shaken by the next piece of information that was dropped by their IT Guru.

Maurice was looking at him and said, “What now.”

“The Army Convoy, its route was changed. Nobody can say who ordered it. But one thing is for certain, it shouldn’t have been on this route according to its planning coordinator. This is a diversion from its original route.”

“Anything else,” said Maurice.

“Yea, one final piece of information. The people who keep our roads and bridges safe, have no idea who ordered work to be carried out on this bridge, work that ended with weakening the security barrier.”

“Listen Scott, ask our guy again about the tracked Oil tanker. Was the Tellus still tracking it when it went under the bridge.”

“That is an affirmative, said Scott, “tracked it up to the moment it plunged into the tanker and the explosion stopped the data.”

“Then its confirmed. It was a planned hit. By person or persons unknown.”

Scott said, “We have a suspect, pointing down at the black burnt out shell of the Tellus. But he aint talking.”

“Cui Bono,” said Maurice, “we find who benefits, that is our man.”

“But in the meantime, how the fuck are we going to explain this to anybody”