Guy Fawkes Day

by KJ Griffin

  ***

  St. Stephen's Hall, 12:10 p.m.

  When the camera team was ready, Al-Ajnabi stepped into the glare of the lights and beckoned to Darren Chapman.

  ‘Same format as before. I'll say my piece first. You can have longer for your questions after.’

  ‘As you wish, Your Excellency,’ Chapman agreed. ‘When you're ready.’

  Your Excellency! Al-Ajnabi murmured to himself. That was more like it! Darren Chapman was talking to the right man. Robert Bailey would remain time-frozen forever back in the days of the Troubles. This was the winner talking.

  ‘Citizens of the World!’ he began, taking his cue from the cameraman's thumbs up. ‘We have invited the TV cameras back into the Mother of Parliaments here in Westminster, London to share this moment with you. For this is your revolution we are starting. And because we are fighting for a new vision of the future and for a new justice for all, we want you to see that there have been no casualties; all the hostages we hold have been treated with courtesy and respect.’

  ‘In my last broadcast, I talked to the world about the problem of overpopulation. To provide year on year economic growth, the unbridled capitalism that has spread to every corner of the world thrives on exponential population growth, which is in turn fuelled by out-dated religious dogmas.’

  ‘But you will also have noticed the other startling by-product of the ungovernable current world economic order: soaring and uncontrollable wealth inequality. Today the richest 10% throughout the world own 86% of all its wealth; the top 1% among you own 46% of the planet’s wealth. Without the action I am just about to announce, those shocking figures will only grow. The game of Monopoly will be over.’

  ‘How are we tackling the issue of wealth redistribution? This morning the CEOs from a large number of large corporations as wealth as a large number of high net worth individuals will wake up to communications from my team with precise instructions about the level of funding they should be donating to local projects we have selected for them which provide housing, environmental clean ups, clean water initiatives and local amenities to those communities where the three billion who live on less than a dollar a day are most likely to be found. Do not ignore our demands. We do not threaten your lives, but I assure those high wealth individuals and CEOs that ignoring our demands will prove a lot more costly to you in the long run. And if that’s not enough reason to act, why not take the chance to reform yourselves and enjoy becoming part of the solution, instead of the root cause of the problem?’

  ‘Today, here in London, ordinary people are already marching to end the broken economic model of unbridled capitalism that has already unleashed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But the brave men and women who are still letting their voices be heard on the streets of London are also wondering why they have so little support. What is happening in Seoul, in Manila, in Lagos, in Cairo, in Mexico City? Are you not with us? Where are the billions of you live on less than a dollar a day? Are your lives, your futures so perfect and so promising that none of you will join us? This is your movement, the beginning of a global revolution, your last chance to build a fair and sustainable future. Our critics will tell you that by taking over the Mother of Parliaments we are anti-democratic. But I say the very opposite. I say that we have come here to Westminster to give the direct democracy that has been thieved from you back to the people! Take to the streets now! Take back control over your own lives and by joining us help to save ours! For when you come out onto the streets to show your support, then we will come out of here with our hands up and our heads held high.’

  Al-Ajnabi nodded to Chapman and the reporter joined him in front of the glare of the filming lights, scratching his curly locks and rearranging the tortoiseshell spectacles on the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Prince Al-Ajnabi,’ Chapman began tentatively, ‘you have shocked and astounded the country and the whole world by audaciously capturing the Houses of Parliament. But many people are equally amazed by your extraordinary background and by the fact that you seem to combining your own personal agenda with political demands. Which of the two is most important to you? The people or the politics?’

  Al-Ajnabi smiled softly at the camera, nodding good-naturedly at Chapman.

  ‘If all this was merely about punishing James McPherson and Douglas Easterby for the crimes they committed against the people of West Belfast one April day more than twenty years ago, I could have brought them to far swifter and more certain justice by staying powerful, unknown and hidden in the sands of Ramliyya. Oh no, this is much, much more than a personal vendetta, Mr Chapman. James McPherson and Douglas Easterby are just extreme examples of the disease lying at the heart of your western democracies and the new world order of global turbo-capitalism. They typify the malaise: for them, it’s all about getting power for power’s sake; and while they jockey for the controls of the runaway plane, the plane is freefalling towards earth and nobody notices the crash that awaits. The same combinations of naked greed and ambition are being played out everyday in all the governments and institutions that are gaining more and more control over all of our lives. Like James McPherson, most of your politicians long ago lost sight of any vestige of principle, save that of gaining and maintaining power for its own sake. Like Douglas Easterby, the CEOs of the world's most powerful companies are ready to sacrifice anything and anybody in order to protect and increase their own profits. And if you add into the equation the fact that the corporate executives are able to exert irresistible influence over the politicians via their donations and lobbying groups, you will soon agree with us that without the agreement of the overwhelming majority of the planet's population, the world is plunging ever more quickly into an abyss from which there will be no return.’

  Chapman pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose:

  ‘Prince Omar, this may not be the best forum for a proper debate about the issues you are raising, but what would you say to those who would argue that you cannot claim to speak for the people when you are holding their democratically elected representatives at gunpoint?’

  Al-Ajnabi smiled again, filled with sadness at the extent of the mass brainwashing.

  ‘I would ask them to join us in fighting for the true democracy they have never known. I would tell them that their votes are no more than rubber stamps to endorse the agendas of powerful individuals, groups and corporations. On election day in Britain and America, you are asked to choose between two or three similar agendas, none of which has any real ideological difference. If your football league consisted of two or three teams of identical players, you would long ago have lost interest in it. But that is what happened long ago to your democracy, while those who are waiting in the wings with new ideas for tackling the mounting global crisis of hunger, poverty, pollution, overcrowding, overheating, mass migration and unemployment lack the money needed to buy TV time, advertising and campaigning. Your system has a very crude but effective weapon for neutralizing any dissenting voices: money.’

  Al-Ajnabi broke off. There was plenty more he would have liked to say, but the TV audience would have fickle attention spans. He had to remember that he was competing against Friends, General Hospital and Eastenders.

  ‘If I may return now to your days in the Parachute Regiment,’ Chapman continued, sounding unconvinced. ‘Does David Carroway mean anything to you?’

  Al-Ajnabi smiled. He had known he could count on Darren Chapman.

  ‘Certainly. He was a private in my platoon on the day of the Falls Road Massacre.’

  It was Chapman’s turn to smile now:

  ‘I spoke to Mr Carroway this morning on the telephone. You will be glad to know he supported your version of the events of April 3rd and he is on his way right now to London for an exclusive interview with the Guardian.’

  ‘And did David Carroway also tell you that like Privates Campbell, Orr and Kynaston, he also gave the same version of events over fifteen years ago to a lawyer called Raj Patel, who was killed when a c
oncrete block was thrown onto his car from a bridge over the A40? Did he also tell you that when the police arrived on the scene, Mr Patel's briefcase containing all his files and recordings was missing?’

  It took Chapman a couple of seconds to digest what he had just heard. When did reply it came in a stammer:

  ‘Are… are you suggesting that Mr Patel was deliberately killed because he was collating testimonies of former paratroopers involved in the Falls Road Massacre?’

  Al-Ajnabi reached into the inside pocket of his padded waistcoat and pulled out some papers.

  ‘I am not suggesting it, Mr Chapman. I know it for a fact. Douglas Easterby paid Phil Goss, his former sergeant and trusted assassin, the sum of £30,000 to kill Mr Patel and terminate his enquiries.’

  ‘And do you have any evidence to support you allegations?’ Chapman asked in a voice softened by surprise.

  Al-Ajnabi opened the papers in his hand and waved them at the cameras.

  ‘Unfortunately, my evidence will not be admissible in a British court as the copies I hold here of Douglas Easterby's bank details, showing a withdrawal of £30,000 from his high interest account just one week before Mr Patel's murder, were obtained illegally by hacking into computer records. The confession I also have from Phil Goss, made in Ramliyya the day before his execution for murder, will prove equally unacceptable in this country, despite the fact that it was not obtained by coercion. But I would urge the British police to reopen their still unsolved investigation into Mr Patel's murder and encourage them to find their own evidence for Douglas Easterby's complicity in that murder.’

  ‘Prince Al-Ajnabi, I am sure that the viewers will want to know why you have kept these additional and equally shocking allegations against Colonel Douglas Easterby quiet for so long?’

  ‘Because Douglas Easterby and James McPherson – I am certain that Easterby has never acted alone in any of this - were also busy trying to kill me at the time. I survived one certain assassination attempt in Angola not long before Mr Patel’s murder, before paying a considerable sum of money to a couple of South Africans to fake my death in a helicopter crash, thereby putting Easterby and McPherson off my trail.’

  Chapman nodded tamely, utterly mesmerized:

  ‘Can you be certain that Douglas Easterby and James McPherson were behind the attempt on your life in Angola? There was a bitter civil war raging at the time.’

  Al-Ajnabi looked thoughtfully at the camera and sighed:

  ‘You can ask Max Clayton, the Deputy Director-General of MI6. He was mixed up with those two too.’