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Last we heard, John was hiding out in caves on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But he still maintains his official cover, a Professor at TU Delft.

It’s perfect. Who ever knows where the professor is? … They hardly work.

I wandered on to campus during “Open House”. Pretending to be some dufus visitor. Taking photos of statues not Newton.

And pretending to admire student prototypes like this Ferrari branded vacuum cleaner:

What kind of institute of Technology is this, anyway? … The student bikes you couldn’t give away as scrap metal. Why aren’t they researching derailleurs? Disk brakes?

It was surprisingly easy to get up to John’s 18th floor lair.

Quickly I found his office. … But not quickly enough.

Colleagues told:

He stepped out.

… Gone for a while.

To New York.

… at least a week.

Foiled.

_____

If you don’t know the back story, John Long was “turned” while a working student at Bell Northern.

He co-patented a computer chip that looked like a coin, revolutionizing pay phone technology, as you know. Black ops tagged him then and there as a potential recruit. And started building his career.

Soon he was flying around the world (how convenient), expert witness in patent infringement cases.

Someone bought him a chair at prestigious U of Toronto. … At his age? … hmm

Next he was asked to head research at Delft University of Technology, one of the three leading Universities in electrical engineering. … When he got that job, why didn’t we start asking serious questions.

So naive. We were so naive.

And John’s still out there. Somewhere.

I’m hoping John Le Carre bases a novel on John’s story.