The Need for Fear (3 page)

Chapter 5: The Old Cold War Crowd

As they descended the stairs, Chi cast the odd look over his shoulder, wondering if the anarchists would come after them, but he doubted it. After what he'd just witnessed, it seemed that he'd hooked up with the old-age pensioner equivalent of the Terminator. The radicals weren't going to come looking for any more hurt.

But the fight had evidently taken its toll on Robert. He was pressing his right hand against his lower back and grimacing with pain as they made their way downstairs.

“You all right?” Chi asked, though he felt a certain satisfaction in the fact that the man wasn't as indestructible as he'd appeared.

“I'm fine,” Robert muttered through gritted teeth. “Just keep your trap shut until I tell you it's safe to talk.”

“You know, for someone who
lies
for a living, you're pretty crap at acting friendly.”

“Piss off.”

They reached the foot of the stairs and walked past the out-of-service elevator to the front door. The sky was clouding over, a dull English chill replacing the earlier sunshine. Chi followed Robert to a bus stop, where a double-decker was just pulling up. They both got on and Robert led Chi upstairs to the back of the bus. They sat down, surrounded by empty seats.

“Okay, now we can talk,” Robert groaned, rubbing the area of his back above his right buttock. “Damned thugs. I'm too old for this nonsense.”

“Why is it okay to talk on a bus?” Chi said, frowning.

He glanced up at the video camera in its secure casing at the far end of the upper deck. It wouldn't have a microphone, but they had just been filmed sitting together. All of a sudden, Robert wasn't being very discreet. Chi never would have chosen this place for a meeting that was supposed to stay secret.

“All video footage from the public transport system comes through my department,” Robert said. “I can find this by date and bus number and corrupt the file.”

“Hang on … you're an
analyst
?” Chi gaped at the old man. “Where'd you learn to fight like that if you work at a
desk
all day?”

“Never mind that. What's the story with this fridge? What's on that hard drive that you're so keen to get ahold of?”

“Ha! No, no, no!” Chi gave a cold laugh, shaking his head. “You've got to tell me what's going on here. I'm in deep trouble with those guys now. Doing damage is a vocation for them and they're gonna want to tear me a new arsehole for this. If you want me to help you, you have to start being straight with me. What's going on here?”

Robert leaned forward, his elbows on the seat in front of him, and pushed up his glasses so he could rub his knuckles into his eyes. He looked tired and, as he lifted his head and glanced around him, even a little bit fearful.

“All right,” he began, his voice tight, as if opening up like this caused him physical pain. “I've worked for the intelligence services for nearly forty years. I started off in MI6, spent my early years stationed in Berlin until the fall of the Wall in eighty-nine. After that, I was called home, and spent most of my time in Northern Ireland. It was a dirty business and by the end of my time there, as the peace process was kicking in, I didn't have the stomach for the job anymore. I didn't have what it took to be a spy, so I moved into counterintelligence with MI5. The service is a very different operation now; there's very few of the old Cold War crowd left. I've stepped on too many toes in my life and got myself sidelined, and now they're just waiting to get rid of me. But I don't know any other life. What I
do
still have is a very high security clearance, so I man a desk in GCHQ, muckraking through signals intelligence. Took the job just to keep myself in the game.”

Chi was about to launch into a barrage of questions, but he held back, sensing it would be the wrong move. The old guy wanted to talk and it would be best to let him.

“Which is how I came across your blog,” Robert went on. “The words you used in your article:
brainwashing
,
Scalps
,' and
Sinnostan
—each of those words on their own wouldn't draw much attention, but having them all in the same piece like that
did
raise a flag. My bosses don't know about it yet, because I pulled the notice as soon as I saw it… .”

He sighed, a long, hoarse sound from an ex-smoker's lungs.

“You see, without realizing it, you've kicked over a stone and found some pretty ugly stuff. And I've decided to let you bring it to light. Because things are about to go too damn far.

“This has always been a very … morally gray business. It's deceitful by its very nature. Our work is judged only on what gets results—every other consideration is secondary. We lie, cheat, manipulate, betray, and kill according to what gives us the best advantage over our enemy. And that was easier to justify back when the Soviets ruled half of Europe and we were trying to avoid World War Three. Their whole philosophy demanded our subjugation. I spent enough time on the far side of the wall, and it wasn't a place you'd ever want to live. We couldn't let them win, you understand?
We couldn't let the bastards win
.

“In some ways, taking on the terrorists in Northern Ireland was worse. It's a small place and everything's that much more personal. I lived a few hundred yards from guys who'd happily have taken me out into the hills, shot me in both knees, and left me to die if they found out who I was. I kind of liked some of the Germans we worked against; it was a cold-blooded affair, but there was a certain mutual respect. The Irish guys though, they
hated
us. They didn't give an inch until the peace process started.”

The bus pulled up at another stop. No one came upstairs, but the old man threw a glance at the few scattered passengers up loading at the front before carrying on.

“When people think of spies, it's all James Bond or Jason Bourne or that Mission Impossible lot,” Robert explained. “Action, guns, that bleedin' martial arts and hanging from ropes. All very dramatic. What happened back there with those clowns in that flat, that's the kind of thing we avoid at all costs. If things get to that point, it's normally a sign that you've cocked up. Most of the time, it's not a case of someone throwing fists or sneaking into a place or using a disguise. That's a bloody last resort. No, what you do is you recruit an asset, someone who's already inside where you need to be—someone you hope the enemy will never know is working for you.”

“You mean someone like me?” Chi interrupted.

He said it in a casual tone that attempted to hide the hint of pride he felt at being an “asset.” Robert threw him a look that suggested his patience was being tested, then carried on.

“It's much more effective to use someone who belongs in a place than to try and introduce someone new. We'd persuade, bribe, seduce, blackmail … Whatever it took to get the job done.

“When I started out in Northern Ireland, I thought we were there to solve the problem. But every time we interfered, we seemed to make things worse. We gave the nationalists more reason to hate us, drove more people into their ranks as new recruits. In the end, we were just feeding the conflict. I lost the faith; I couldn't do it anymore.

“The way I see it now, we're causing problems across the world and it's all coming back at us. I
used
to think this was only incompetence on the part of our bosses. And God knows they're not the masterminds they think they are.

“After years of working in GCHQ though, I've come to understand the game a bit better. There are good people in the service, people who believe in protecting our country, but the problem is, the nature of our enemies has changed. We're not up against nation states anymore. I mean, sure, there's China and Russia, Iran and the rest, but it's not like they're going to start a
war
, right? Not a proper, gloves off, global punch-up between the main contenders. Sure, there's a little spat over oil or some other resource every now and then, but really, we're all in each other's pockets. Big business has too much to lose if any of the major powers lay into each other.

“Everything is secondary to doing business. And the more big business dictates the actions of government, the less we worry about falling bombs and invading armies. We go on about terrorism, but you know how many people were actually killed in terrorist acts in the US or the UK last year? None. Compare that with the number of fatal attacks carried out by the IRA back in the day—but that was about
forty years ago
. No, the greatest enemy now is anyone who challenges the status quo—and most of the time that threat to the people in power comes from their own citizens. A massive part of our security apparatus is being turned inward, directed at our own people.”

“Yeah? So tell me something I don't know,” Chi snorted. “Come on, man! Welcome to the twenty-first century. Tell me about the goddamned
brainwashing
.”

“I'm getting to that bit,” Robert growled. “But that's just the
means
, you understand? First, I'm going to tell you about the
end
. That's what it's all about. I'm going to give you what you've always been looking for, Goldilocks. A
real
conspiracy. The biggest and worst you've ever heard of.”

Chapter 6: Where We're Headed

Robert took a labored, rasping breath as if the words were causing him physical strain.

“What I'm about to tell you is rated Top Secret, as in protected by the Official Secrets Act, as in I go to bloody prison if anyone finds out about what I've done. You cannot mention
anything
about me when you write about this, got that?”

“Yeah, yeah. I understand! Of course!” Chi nodded eagerly, casting his gaze around the bus to double-check that nobody was close enough to listen, even with a long-range microphone. A laser mike could be aimed at the window from outside, but it would be very difficult to get a clear signal while the bus was moving. The old guy probably had that figured out before he got on the bus.

“Right … right,” Robert regarded him with anxious, calculating eyes before continuing. Robert nodded toward the front of the bus.

“You see that camera up there?” he asked.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Imagine that box had a microphone as well as the camera. Imagine it had x-ray capability or millimeter wave, infrared. Maybe even a chemical analyzer. Now imagine it's on every bus, every train, every major street, and in every public building and a lot more besides. Imagine there are guys going around wearing rigs with the same gear. They can follow you, examine you, and stare straight through your body. The kind of security you have at airports, only they can come into your home without permission, without even a warrant. They can go anywhere they like. You have no right to refuse them. Nobody has any right to privacy anymore—any right at all. The government can peer in where it likes. They can rifle through all your dirty laundry. That's where this country's headed.”

Chi stared at the old man, frowning. Then he turned to gaze out the window.

“Do you hear what I'm telling you?” Robert snapped at him. “Those clowns back in the flat, talking about a totalitarian state, as if we're living in old East Berlin these days? They haven't a bloody clue. They don't know how good they have it at the moment. What I'm talking about isn't some science-fiction future concept. It's not just some elitist, right-wing prick's wet dream. This is the
plan
. Some seriously powerful people have already started taking measures to make it happen.”

“I spent years in Berlin going up against the Stasi, fighting just this kind of crap. Men and women, friends of mine,
died
trying to bring down the system in East Germany and now I see shitheads in
my own organization
planning stuff that the Stasi could only fantasize about.”

Chi cast his eyes back toward Robert, then squeezed his hands together, rubbing his thumbs over his knuckles.

“Are you listening to me?” Robert pressed him.

“Yeah, sure. Of course,” Chi replied, a slightly dazed expression on his face. “It's just that … I've discussed this kind of thing with people for years. I've just never heard someone talk about it as if it was, y'know … real.”

“Well, you're down the rabbit hole now, princess,” Robert snorted. “And those terms you found—the ones you stuck in your blog without knowing what they were about? That's the root of the plan right there. Because to achieve all of this, the powers that be need people to be petrified—scared enough to give up their privacy for good.

“Now,” he added. “How about you tell me about this fridge?”

Chi took the little hard drive from his pocket and stared down at it. “The fridge belonged to a guy named Lidby, Gordon Scott Lidby. He's a spin doctor for the Minister of Defense. You know the kind of guy everyone says could sell fridges to Eskimos? That's him. Anyway, as a ‘political protest,' those anarchists broke into his London pad. They'd needed help cracking the security system in the apartment building, so a friend of mine put them onto me. I hacked the system to get them in. It was stupid, really. I just thought it sounded like a bit of a laugh at the time. I only realized how big a mess I'd got myself into after I heard about all the damage they'd done. They chucked his stereo, TV, and everything in the bath, sprayed paint on his clothes, wrote a load of graffiti all over the walls. I mean, Jesus, they destroyed the place. And then, on a whim, they stole his fridge.”

“Well, this guy Lidby must know something about the Scalps' operation,” Robert said. “Doesn't come as a huge surprise. Bloody spin doctors. He must have talked about it to someone while he was standing near his fridge, and all those new words got recorded.”

“Hmmph. Loose lips sink ships,” Chi murmured.

The bus was approaching another stop, and Robert indicated that they should get off. Chi followed him down the stairs. They were at Stratford train station. Chi hardly paid his surroundings any attention at all. His mind was racing. He was dying to connect that fridge's hard drive to his laptop and see what else was on it. And then there was the thumb drive Robert had given him. This could be it; the huge story that would vindicate all his suspicions and make his career.

Not that his career was what was important here, of course. Obviously the fate of the free world was his main priority. But carving out a career was a practical necessity he had to bear in mind, too. Still, he couldn't help being suspicious of this old spy and his motives. As Robert had said himself, he'd do anything—and use anyone—to get results.

“This surveillance state thing you were talking about,” Chi said in a low voice, as they walked toward the entrance to the station. “I dunno. It just sounds like an exaggeration of what we already have, but it's hard to believe people would let things go that far. We still have a democracy … sort of. Why would people give up what little privacy they have left?”

“They started doing it a long time ago,” Robert assured him. “Reality TV, GPS on your phone, taking selfies. Most people
want
to be seen. They crave attention. Pretty soon they're going to get it in spades. They just won't realize the cost until it's too late. Really, this is just the final stroke. So these fascist gits are going to use terrorists to create the fear they need to get the public on board, only
real
terrorists are kind of hard to control, as we found out in places like Ireland and Afghanistan and Iraq. Too unpredictable; you can't trust them to stick to your plan. It's easy to get 'em started, but they're impossible to manage once they're on a roll.

“No, instead, a special ops group known as the Scalps is going to kidnap some innocent fundamentalist types with the right backgrounds and they'll go to work on their brains. I'm talking real-world
mind control
here.”

“I've written about that,” Chi told him eagerly. “Implanting alien biotechnology that grows into the brain stem—”

“There you go with the aliens again! Will you forget that crap? Screwing up a guy's brain with drugs and torture works just fine.”

“Hardly reliable though—”

“For Christ's sake! Shut up and listen! The Scalps are going to convince these poor bastards that they're part of a new international organization—based in Sinnostan—whose intent is to terrorize Western Europe and the States with weapons of mass destruction. As if Sinnostan hasn't got enough problems already. The place is poverty-stricken; their bloody economy runs on goats and rice. The manufactured terrorists will put videos online expounding their views, then they'll be ‘captured' by police forces in different countries. What they say under interrogation will be key to the plan. See, that way the information isn't coming from some
government
with a
political agenda
. People are getting wary of that now. Instead, you're hearing it from the police as part of a criminal investigation. The story's ironclad.”

“But nobody'll fall for that unless there are some real terrorist attacks,” Chi said.

“And there
will
be,” Robert said tersely. “Just enough to be convincing. Not too many casualties, but plenty of property damage. And once those captured ‘terrorists' have convinced everyone that this threat exists, and public fear has reached fever pitch, then … Well then, just to make things worse, we're going to start a goddamned
war
in Sinnostan.”