English introduction

Welcome to a world where forgotten history, modern networks and hidden interests collide. Technology, history and concealed power structures come together here. A technological thriller, Het Zevende Charter (The Seventh Charter), the first book featuring ethical hacker Xara, is currently in preparation for publication.

About John Haverkate

I live in Dronten, the Netherlands, with my wife Susanne. We have two sons and are proud grandparents of two granddaughters.

Professionally, I have built up broad experience in technology, cybersecurity and international operations, including work as an ethical hacker and in leadership roles within complex organisations. That background is a source of inspiration for my technological thrillers, where human motives, hidden patterns and vulnerable systems intersect, though it never limits the genre.

I do not just write about digital threats, but also about history, psychology, power, and the influence of technology on human behaviour. My stories often revolve around one question: what happens when certainties disappear and people are confronted with choices that could change their lives?

My motto, 'A lifelong learner,' lies at the heart of my writing. Each book is, for me, a journey of discovery, into knowledge, meaning, and the forces that move people and systems.

The Seventh Charter (Het Zevende Charter)

• Manuscript completed
• Publication preparations under way
• Expected publication: end of 2026

The Seventh Charter is a technological thriller in which cybersecurity, historical secrets and critical infrastructure converge. The story explores the relationship between technology, power and ethics in a world where hidden networks play a far bigger role than is visible on the surface.

When ethical hacker Xara uncovers a trace during a routine investigation that seems to have no place in the modern world, she is confronted with a centuries-old secret. A historical instrument, once used to optimise trade routes and infrastructure, turns out to have an unexpected connection to modern digital networks.

What begins as a technical investigation grows into an international search where technology, history and power collide. As more parties take an interest in the same discovery, it becomes clear that some knowledge was never truly lost, it was only waiting to be found again.

Themes

• The ethical boundaries of technology
• Cybersecurity and digital safety
• Historical secrets and lost knowledge
• Power, influence and hidden interests
• Critical infrastructure and networks

Xara

Xara is an ethical hacker. Analyst. A shadow in the network.

She lives between code and history. Where others see data, she sees connections, old networks, forgotten archives, structures that were never meant to be found. Xara L. Arendt is no hero in the classic sense. She is a seeker, a reconstructor of truth in a world that would rather forget.

• Name: Xara (this is probably an alias, not her real name)
• Age: 32
• Background: born in Delft, daughter of a mechanical engineer and an art historian
• Occupation: ethical hacker, data analyst, digital archaeologist

Copper-red hair, grey-blue eyes, slender build. Dresses in dark, functional clothing. Always carries a backpack, often wears a hoodie, and her laptop is covered in stickers from forgotten universities.

• Exceptionally intelligent, analytical and thoughtful
• A need for control, though emotionally deeper than she lets on
• Quietly empathetic, she feels more than she shows
• Wary, shaped by betrayal in her past

Driving force: uncovering the truth, not for fame, but from the moral conviction that knowledge is freedom.

Vulnerability: she believes she can switch off her feelings, but discovers that some connections cannot be decoded.

"I break codes, not people. But sometimes the difference is smaller than I thought."