LONDON ALERT (21 page)

Se
eing him reappear with a towel around his midriff, the
nurse
told him to put on
the
pair of
convict
’s
striped
overalls lying on the
bed
and watch the TV until summoned. The drab outfit
undid
all
the good the
shower had done him
. It
seemed
destined to add t
o his
humiliation
.

The television had a recording of
BBC Breakfast
for the
morning Nelson had been knocked off his perch. The public would never know the
role he had played, though he was glad Celia knew.

After about twenty minutes, the sound of the door being
unlocked signalled the return of the nurse – he could tell it was the same one
by her voice and a stain on her otherwise immaculate uniform. She led him out and
along a passage, before ushering him into a large bare room with an expensive-looking
chair set in the middle facing a large flat-screen monitor. After telling
him to sit down and wait, the nurse left the room, gently closing the door
behind her. It was only then that he realized there was no door handle on the
inside.

Certain that the large mirror
to the left of the screen was two-way and unsure of who might be observing him,
he began to fidget. As far as he knew, he had carried out the initiation test
as instructed and not put a foot wrong. Yet his subsequent treatment meant something
had gone awry and that they knew he was not what he purported to be.

What was going to be
his fate? ‘Make or break
’
, the nurse had said. Did
her solicitude mean she knew his life might be almost over? After what seemed a
full ten minutes but was in fact probably much less, a rustling sound emanated
from the speakers inset in the wall on either side of the monitor.

Was this going to be
another interrogation?

He felt bad that the
combination of scopolamine and threats had made him confirm he worked for Giraffe
so easily. He tried to console himself by telling himself that, not being a
field agent, he had no training in resisting interrogation. What else had he
revealed under the effect of the truth drug? Perhaps much more, but another
consolation was that it was not like giving away the names of fellow agents, like
many had done under torture by the Gestapo in World War II. He did not know
their names and now realized the rule about not discussing personal matters
with fellow agents was a wise one.

‘Look at the monitor!’

The loud, distorted
voice had caught Holt by surprise. He looked at the enormous screen, which was
flickering into life, showing Whitehall, along which he had walked to The Trafalgar
hotel. And coming into view was he himself. Worse still, the video footage taken
from the front clearly showed him going through his supplication routine – designed
to attract attention without it being noticed by anyone following behind him. Of
course, viewed from the front, as shown on the monitor, it was only too
obvious. His heart sank as the voice emanated from the speakers again.

‘Holt, Jeremy Holt. That
is your real name, isn’t it?’

Holt had to reply in
the affirmative; there was no point in denying it. Though he felt he was
talking directly with the Owl, the latter’s voice seemed to be passing through
some form of scrambler, distorting it and adding superfluous stock words and
phrases such as ‘um’ and ‘come to think of it’ to make it difficult to identify.
[For clarity, these are omitted here – editor.]

‘In World War II,
when we – um, the British – captured German spies, we gave them the choice of
either being shot or working for us as double agents. Fortunately for us, many opted
for the latter, and thanks to them we were able to deceive the Germans in key
areas, notably the quantity of fighters we could produce per week during the
Battle of Britain and the location of the landings on D-Day. Helped us win the
war.’

‘Are you giving me that
choice?’ responded Holt with a shaky voice.

‘Too early to say. You
thought you could trick us?’

‘Was it that video that
made you suspicious?’

‘No. We only came upon
it a couple of days later, though your crossing over to the other side of Whitehall
on the way to the hotel left us puzzled.’

‘So when did you know?’

‘When we learnt Charlie
had informed the prime minister about our intentions. You, Holt, were the only
person who could have revealed we intended to topple Nelson with a cruise missile.
So we were onto you hours before. What we didn’t know was how involved you were
with Giraffe and, indeed, my chum Charlie-boy.’

‘There’s not much I can
say.’

‘You’ve already said
more than enough, though with truth drugs one can never be sure how much is valid.’

Holt had to admire the
Owl’s choice of initiation test. Toppling Nelson was serious enough, publicity-wise,
to ensure the security services would inform the prime minister if only to
protect their backs. It was a simple way to test him and at the same time learn
whether he was working undercover or in league with the security services.

‘Under questioning,’
continued the Owl, ‘you begged us to lay off, bleating abjectly you were merely
a backroom boy tasked with coming up with 9/11-type ideas, which indeed was what
we wanted you for.’

‘I was only a cog.’

‘Cogs get their teeth sheared
off when the driver makes a mistake. Charlie should be ashamed – sending a boy
to do a man’s job. You’re not cut out to be a James Bond, though even 007 would
have relished Consuela. Though I am not sure she would have indulged him to the
extent that, for some reason, she did you.’

‘I don’t know what to
say, Your Wisdom.’

‘Aha, aha, I see our
nurse briefed you correctly.’

‘That’s all she said,
other than that this would be make or break, and very important.’

‘We have checked up on
what you were doing. Truth be told, there was little likelihood of someone even
as intelligent as you imagining what we might do, but then we are not the typical
al-Qaeda
-
type organization. Though it’s
a pity Charlie found you first; you would have been more valuable to the country,
to the world, working for us.’

To try to save his skin,
Holt immediately agreed that had the situation been reversed, things might well
have been very different. He told himself he was not really letting down the service,
since the Owl was so highly placed, or so well connected, he obviously already knew
what Giraffe and Sir Charles did.

Being unable to see the
face behind the mirror made replying difficult. It was quite possible no one
apart from a technician was there and the Owl was miles away, even in the South
of France on
Vessos
or a similar
vessel. The next question came as something of a surprise.

‘Don’t you think you
owe
us something?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘In return for Consuela.
In normal circumstances, someone as lowly as you would never come near, let
alone handle, to use an unfortunate word, such a gem – literally a gem for billionaires.’

‘It was not just the sex,
though even just for that I’ll be eternally grateful. She gave me my life back
– or rather, what’s left of it.’

‘Not so fast there. She
reported you had many qualities and that she took you in hand at first in a
motherly way, and then in a more physical way, believing you were an innocent
young boy, which in many ways she found you were.’

The phrase ‘taking in
hand
’
made Holt wonder just how
much detail Consuela had revealed.

‘I was not
that
innocent!’

‘Admittedly, she did
say you at least knew your basic geography, but now she is right out of the
picture and resuming her matrimonial duties, it’s your political views we are
interested in. She gave me some inkling as to what they might be – not that
they were very deeply thought out. It seems that overall we hold very similar ones,
though we might differ regarding the means whereby those goals might be
achieved. What did you think of the Rethinking Democracy seminar on
Vessos
?’

‘I
thought it was very interesting. Very stimulating and informative, though it
was more a matter of hypothetical questions than definite proposals about what
should be done. I quite liked the idea of reduced voting power for people not
contributing to society to prevent them having too much sway. And that even
pensioners should not be allowed to skew the system. Though there remains the
problem of how to evaluate those who contribute to society and hold sensible
views who are not remunerated monetarily.’

They continued
discussing democracy and what needed to be done in England, including taxing
food, with penalties for excessive amounts of salt and sugar. Many of the Owl’s
gripes seemed reasonable to Holt, as he made clear, though he could not see how
they could be achieved in the face of vested interests and lobbyists.

‘I reckon,’ said the
voice, ‘we can still make use of you, but in a way totally different from that originally
envisaged.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘In the operation on
which we are now embarking and future ones, you could be the conduit, not
directly to His Pomposity the prime minister, but to Sir Charles, who will be
able to understand our point of view and present it properly to the powers that
unfortunately be.’

‘Will His Pomposity, as
you call him, go along with that?’

‘He will have to.’

‘How will we know it is
you?’

‘Neither you nor anyone
else will be talking to me again in real time. We shall use the name the Owl, with
it referring either to me or someone representing our organization. It could
even be just an intelligent computer. We will give you a special phone, which
we shall call the OwlPhone. Will you do it?’

‘Seems quite reasonable
to me, personally.
Do I have
any choice?’

‘In reality, no. You
know too much for us to just let you go. While we might not flush your brain
and turn you into a zombie, we might have to lock you away somewhere for years.
Wouldn’t be much fun for you, though we might throw in a woman in a similar
predicament as yourself. She wouldn’t be a trophy wife, that’s for sure. Could
be a grandmother even. Won’t be much of a life sharing a cell with a
grandmother, will it?’

‘Then the answer must
be yes. Could even be exciting.’

‘Don’t count on that.
Not everyone in government and the services will like you being the
intermediary. They will play mean tricks to undermine you, and Charlie who they
can never forgive for having outmanoeuvred them.’

‘Better than the
grandmother.’

‘Okay then. You will tell
Charlie that he – via you and the OwlPhone – will be the link between us and
the government. You understand?’

‘Yes, perfectly.’

‘Before we part, let’s
talk some more about the situation in England. The sorry situation in which our
country finds itself…’

The Owl went into a
long discourse, covering many topics and pet hates. How, having lost Australia,
we should now use the Falklands as a penal colony. Politicians and politically
correct do-gooders, who over the years have wrecked the country, should be sent
there, together with rapists, paedophiles, and mothers who allow their
daughters to be circumcised – along with the doctors who cover it up, and illegal
immigrants who have physically attacked people but cannot be deported due to
their exploitation of human rights legislation, not forgetting benefits cheats
and tax evaders.

‘There won’t be room for
all that lot,’ said Holt.

‘I know. I’m getting
carried away and partly joking, as I know we cannot have a perfect world.
However, there are little things that many might agree with, such as taxing
mobile phone calls, text messages and even emails with a double rate if they
are in a foreign language, or fifty per cent more if one party uses an unintelligible
dialect. Any form of encryption would be subject to a high penalty tax. We
could make gossiping expensive, punishing those not working with time on their
hands.

 ‘The unbelievable
thing,’ went on the Owl, ‘is that the French can do it, but we can’t. They have
a law making rip-off credit card processing charges like those imposed by
the airlines illegal, a maximum unit charge for phone calls from hotels, and, long
before the UK did anything, introduced serious measures to stop FGM. They also
keep religion and the manifestations thereof out of their state schools.’

The Owl ended by
saying, ‘I hope you will appreciate the events that will unfold in the near
future are merely a wake-up call, and items requiring action will be
added subsequently. Should action not be taken, the country could expect a
repeat of a different nature. We might then even have to target individual
officials for incompetence or lack of action. I hope you understand this is for
the good of the country.’

‘I can see that. What’s
going to happen now?’

‘You will be put to
sleep again so no one can work out when we held this conversation and thereby
identify me. When you wake up, you will have the OwlPhone beside you. It will
be a bricklike device like mobile phones used to be, because it contains
multiple SIM cards and other communications circuits, including Wi-Fi, and of course
some C4 plastic explosive to deter any attempt to open it or subject it to
rays, X or otherwise. Attempting to do so will result in it self-destructing
and the loss of the handler’s life and that of anyone else in the immediate
vicinity. Also, interfering with it will render communication with us more difficult.
You have been warned.’