‘Don’t bother. It happened a few days ago. He’s already on a flight to Chiang Mai for protection from a certain person. He’ll be in touch. One of his best mates, a Brisbane doctor, patched him up, shoved a painkiller into him and helped him on his way.’

‘Do they know who tried this time?’

‘Al said the BMW had blacked-out windows except for the front windscreen. He was certain the occupants were Chinese.’

‘Richard Ni’s boys?’

‘We suspect them, yes.’

‘What will Al do in Chiang Mai?’

‘We’ve given him a false passport and name, Duncan McPherson. He’ll receive an untraceable phone and new computers. He’ll have a completely new identity.’

‘That won’t stop him following through on his technology, the financing and marketing. He believes the carbon problem is more pressing than ever because we’re now in a solar minimum—only a few or no sun spots—that will last into the next century.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning the sun is giving off fewer flares of ultra-violet light, which normally disperses carbon dioxide. The result of reduced UV light is a build-up of carbon dioxide circling the globe.’

‘Isn’t that good—less UV light, less skin cancer?’

‘That’s a very small part of the importance of it. If you don’t have UV light from sun spots, spores and fungi are not destroyed. Instead they release viruses and bacteria into the air.’

‘Hence, coronavirus?’

‘That’s what Al believes. I think he’s right. He said there would be 170 million corona infections worldwide.’

‘So the build-up of carbon dioxide combined with less sun spots means massive problems for the world?’

‘Al looks at history: it repeats and repeats. He believes that civilisations and nations rise and fall in parallel with the solar minimum periods. He points to things like the great plague of Europe, the Spanish flu, locust plagues and so on. Crops also die without UV light, which means a drop in food production.’

‘His technology is more vital than ever right now.’

‘Everything is set up for him in Thailand,’ Wombat said. ‘He’ll be meeting another billionaire investor similar to William Donnelly who wants to be involved. Financiers are ready to provide funds.’

‘Al’s had a rough time. He claims he saw it in his original vision in 1977. But it didn’t make it any less terrible. First Bleulance and Conquer tried to kill him for his oil leases to expand their reserves. Now they have been joined—independently—by the Chinese Communist Party. It wants the leases to prevent the US having fuel for any possible battle in the Pacific.’

‘That’s before both these groups know the full impact of his plasmoid invention.’

*