Borderless Deceit

Carson Pryce is a Canadian intelligence analyst who is also responsible for coordinating the intelligence-sharing relationship with the USA. This gives him privileged access to powerful American data bases.

Years before Carson developed a casual friendship with Rachel Dunn, then a trainee diplomat. He admired Rachel’s vibrancy and ease with people which stood in stark contrast to his own colorless existence. He developed a need to tap somehow into her approach, her idealism, her capacity to live life as a work of art.

Rachel was soon off to do brilliant humanitarian work in distant places while Carson’s need to feel part of what she does grew into an obsession. He fell into a habit of abusing his access to the data bases and so began to track her on line – what she did, who she saw, where she went. Soon he knew more about Rachel, that is, the people she became involved with, than Rachel did herself. But some of these people, wealthy, outwardly altruistic and cosmopolitan, were nasty customers. Under the guise of humanitarian work they were involved in arms trafficking and money laundering. But Carson couldn’t find the courage or moral strength to warn Rachel. It would have spelt the end of their friendship.

A destructive event hits the diplomatic service. Its global communication network is annihilated by a precisely-targeted computer virus. An investigation begins. Carson has no formal role in the investigation, yet uses his access to US surveillance satellite data to figure out who created the virus and the reason for it. He learns it originated in Romania, which is where Rachel has recently became ambassador.

Knowing that the investigation could find out what he knows about Rachel, including her private activities, Carson decides to create an on-line cover up for the origin of the virus. He alters certain files and contributes fake information to a report. The cover-up works for a while, but when it is found out he is forced to go on the run.

At this same time, a larger and much more dangerous deceit has been unfolding in Rachel’s private life and she too is forced to go into hiding. By twists and turns they both end up in an isolated casa in Costa Rica. Each has secret truths to share; each wants to confront the character flaws which brought them there.

And yet, their reconciliation is not quite the end; all along others have been operating in the shadows of cyberspace.

The plot in Borderless Deceit skips easily from Ottawa to Vienna, from Berlin to Alexandria and from Transylvania to Kenya. The action takes place in a world where a mouse click will orchestrate deceit in faraway places and where privacy has effectively ceased to exist.