‘We warned him. He was looked after royally while he was nutting things out with Zhang Wanxin, the so-called “Golden Brain of China”, the country’s top scientist and planner. We are talking military here too. They wanted Haut to work on special military projects. He and Zhang used to walk the beach of Hunan and discuss the science behind these projects. They would use the beach to avoid being spied on with electronic eavesdropping et cetera. On one occasion, he advised Al to leave China fast, or they—the government—would never let him go. He would be a prisoner doing the government’s bidding. That’s where Al opted out. The Chinese have been gunning for him ever since.’

‘How’d he become mixed up with the Chinese?’

Wombat took a deep breath.

‘He can be naïve, even gullible at times. A Chinese “trade envoy”—Dr Richard Ni—went to one of his speeches in the US and approached him afterwards. Al was invited to China.’

‘Let me guess. Ni was an espionage agent?’

‘You guess well. The man was head of China’s spy operations in the US. He organised the stealing of NASA technology, from reverse engineering to the formula for heat tiles.’

Cavalier waited, prompting Wombat to disclose more.

‘We believe the Chinese put up five million dollars to develop Haut’s oil project in Tasmania. The quid pro quo was that Haut worked on the cold fusion with the Golden Brain. The Chinese used a Hong Kong front company to put the money into the Tassie oil development. But then Al scarpered from China. The Hong Kong company is suing him over the issue. But we believe this is just a chess move to isolate him in a certain jurisdiction and eliminate him.’

‘A jurisdiction?’

‘You know, say Melbourne, where if they sued and forced him into the courts and making an affidavit, they would know where he was and act accordingly.’

‘Al really knows how to excite wonderful enemies. How much of this cold fusion development did Al get out of China?’

‘Good question. He told me that individually he and Zhang Wanxin hadn’t quite grasped a real breakthrough. But together, they had succeeded in nailing it.’

‘No wonder the Chinese were interested in snaring him, like the Americans did with German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun after World War Two.’

‘That’s a fair analogy. The Americans were acutely aware that Al had been working on cold fusion in China. He was challenged by the Americans about it. Al answered that cutely, and correctly, by saying that without Zhang Wanxin’s assistance he might not have worked out how to harness the science. The Americans had to accept that. If they used Al’s developments, they’d have to turn a blind eye to how the science was created.’