‘My bible studies at first. Then I started researching the sacred geometry of the ancient Sanskrit text, the philosophical language of Hinduism. It has advanced science—long forgotten—intrinsically embedded in it. Tesla used it. So did Oppenheimer.’

Donnelly butted in. ‘Oppenheimer said “Now I become death, the destroyer of worlds” after he had seen the first nuclear bomb detonated at Los Alamos.’

‘Oppenheimer had studied the Sanskrit text,’ Haut added. ‘He even hinted in interviews that atomic weapons had been used in ancient times. And there’s a logic here. The water-as-fuel technology I am developing uses information in that text.’

‘What about his justification for being involved in the Manhattan Project to develop the bomb? He believed it was for the greater good.’

‘That attitude is put in allegorical, philosophical terms in the Sanskrit. I agree with it. Don’t forget the Nazis were very, very close to having their own bomb. Imagine what Hitler would have done, at the very least in desperation as he realised he could lose the war.’

‘I know of your spiritual drive. What’s the main aim here?’

‘The search for truth.’

‘That’s a bit vague. Truth of what?’

‘The universe. How it is a grand design. Finding the real source of energy leads to God.’

Cavalier was silent. He looked at Donnelly, who was nodding approvingly.

Haut added, ‘I figured out the link between all the elements was to do with their frequencies. Once that was established, I could build a plasmoid unification model. This is it.’ He showed Cavalier the model, which sat on his desk like a foot-long trophy in the shape of a doughnut. ‘This allows me to link up all the elements: colour, sound, paramagnetism, biomagnetism, positive and negative charges, crystal formations and so on.’

Haut pointed to the tags on the ‘leaves’ representing the elements.

‘This shape is that of the plasmoid itself,’ he said. ‘The model allows me to calculate everything to do with time and space.’ Haut paused. ‘In essence, I am trying to find a common denominator.’

‘So that common denominator gives you the universe’s grand design?’ Cavalier proffered uncertainly. He would rely on going over the tape before he could claim comprehension of what Haut was on about.

‘Yes. But understand that it has all been done before. The technology is not just building on Tesla, Oppenheimer, Ken Shoulders and Winston Bostick, who first discovered and referred to plasmoids. You can go back to Pythagoras and further to civilisations that inhabited the Earth tens, hundreds of thousands of years earlier.’

‘So you are saying, as the cliché goes, there is nothing new under the sun?’

‘It’s true.’

Cavalier wrote in his notes here: Not sure about this. Better get him back near the tangible.