by Geoff Wolak
I held up a flat palm. ‘We need to talk off the record, well off the fucking record. Do I have your assurances that we can do so?’
Annoyed, he glanced at his team before he sighed and eased back. ‘Yes. Go ahead.’
‘Every story has a beginning, middle and end. You have the last five percent.’ I took in their faces. ‘Over the years there have been a great many attempts on my life, direct attempts - not some soldier in the jungle, some of those attempts here on UK soil, kept quiet and out the press.
‘On one occasion, an Mi5 manager tried to get me killed, the detail covered up. Then came a JIC official, sending details of my daughter to a drug dealer in Panama, the hope being that he would kidnap or kill her.’
‘Jesus,’ the Defence Minister let out.
‘That man suffered a heart attack after being injected, the public none the wiser. Other attempts on me were dismissed as being terrorists that I had attacked, but I had my suspicions about how these lame terrorists always knew where I was, the timing a bit too convenient.
‘In West Africa there were some very odd attempts on me, and they could never have been attempted unless someone back here was tipping off the bad guys. But, since there were many bad guys, from many nations, it was dismissed as being not probable.
‘Gentlemen, there exists a Dutch/Belgian bank that is heavily invested in West Africa, and the intel suggest that they were behind the coup in Liberia, the bank after the oil offshore, and after the mines in Sierra Leone, working against us -’
‘A Dutch bank?’ the Chancellor queried.
‘Chancellor, with a little effort I could prove that they funded the attacks on British servicemen.’
‘Dear god.’
‘You must keep in mind that they have a trillion pounds of investments under management, and a very great financial interest in West Africa. Unfortunately for you, many of their board members are British, old school network, and very rich. Some are Lords, and several are in the City of London Corporation.’
The Prime Minister and the Chancellor exchanged a knowing look.
I continued, ‘They have people in Parliament, and they have people in the intelligence services, and they’ll know that I was here today, and they put that bomb on the Mi5 bus, the idea that it was there for the boy just a trick, to hide behind the idea that the kid was the real target and not me.
‘But in the school was a teacher, the man shot dead, and he had been there three months, and he could have killed the boy at any time. It was a set-up, to kill a Russian agent working with me, and to kill me.’
‘They say he’s this Petrov fella,’ the Home Secretary put in. ‘What the hell was he doing working with you!’
‘He was not Petrov, but he was often pretending to be Petrov. I’m Petrov.’
‘You’re … what?’ the Prime Minister asked with a deep frown.
‘Many years ago the real Petrov was killed in London, his body on ice, his death kept quiet. SIS knew that I spoke Russian and that I had the body scars from my injuries in Bosnia, so I went in undercover for SIS and pretended to be Petrov, supposedly just the one small job.
‘It grew from there, and in Panama I posed as Petrov, working my way inside a Russian drugs gang till I was No.2 in one of them.’
‘Jesus,’ the Home Secretary let out, horrified looks exchanged.
‘What then happened … was that I tipped off the CIA and SIS about drug shipments on a regular basis, and I trained a team of Russian soldiers, turning them towards attacking the FARC. My helicopter was shot down by a heat-seeking missile, the Navy picked me up in a Lynx helicopter, and SIS did not want me going back in.
‘But I stayed in touch with the gang, and they’ve gotten SIS some very vital intel over the years, including about West Africa. When the CIA and the French found out, they wanted the Petrov story maintained.’
‘The crimes he was supposed to have committed?’ the Prime Minister loudly asked.
‘Mostly back-story from the CIA. They never happened.’
‘And the little shits in SIS never told us,’ the Defence Secretary put in.
‘For your own good, plausible deniability. And, for all I know, one of you four is in league with the conspirators.’
They exchanged looks. ‘Bloody cheek,’ the Home Secretary told me.
‘Lord Michaels is on their board of directors, and your largest party donor. Be a bad day if that got out, gentlemen.’
They exchanged horrified looks.
I added, ‘You’re up against old money and the old boy network, and you’re Labour, socialists, not blue-blooded.’
‘What the hell do they want?’ the PM asked me.
‘For the most part they’re law abiding, quietly investing money around the world, minding their own business. It’s just unfortunate that I trampled all over their business interests in West Africa, killed their people and cost them a shit load of money. Otherwise, you’d never know they were there.
‘I’ve been very active in West Africa, I have significant local contacts there as Petrov, and I’ve cost them billions in lost revenue. I don’t see that as my fault since the previous government and the MOD sent me in to stop the coup attempts - as with Guinea. We were none the wiser who was really funding the coups and wanting to get at the oil and to open some mines.
‘But, and it’s a big but, I have – as the Petrov character – developed strong working ties with the CIA and the French, strong ties with factions in Africa, and as such I’ve done things that outsiders cannot understand a major in the British Army doing.
‘Hence they want me dead. What you have to worry about now is the situation that has developed, their more aggressive than passive role, killing people, bombs on buses, and … the attempt to bring down a London building with thermite.’
‘Which building?’
‘The glass and metal one in E2, owned by the Royal family in Oman.’
‘Why the hell would they do that!’ the Chancellor demanded.
‘What you don’t know … is that was built with faults and will cost billions to fix or to take down. They ramped up the insurance, then got ready to blow it whilst making it look like terrorists. My friends in low places got me the tip-off, and we intercepted the ferry in Harwich. I alerted Intel, they did not alert me.’
‘Hence their particular interest in you,’ the PM noted. ‘You spoilt their fucking plans.’
I nodded. ‘If they brought down that building then Lloyds of London and a few others would have gone bust.’
The PM began, ‘I can see now why the Americans are pressuring us, they want your dodgy Petrov persona operational.’
‘Sir, Camel Toe base was stage managed. I knew of each attack before it happened, to the minute. I have a personal network of contacts that control 90% of the weapons moved into Africa, and I had mines delivered and paid for, all off the record.’
‘Paid for?’ the PM queried.
‘I have a slush fund with a hundred million in, the money from … questionable sources.’
‘And SIS knew?’ he demanded.
‘Of course, I do nothing without their say so.’
‘How long have you had that money?’
‘Years. The drug gang in Panama offered me that much to stay with them.’
He lifted his eyebrows. ‘So you’re not financially motivated then.’
‘No, sir. And when you see the FBI grab weapons, that’s all stage managed. All the gun runners know my Petrov persona and work with him, a wide network. And all those hostage rescues with American soldiers, we stage managed them for the TV cameras.’
‘Jesus,’ the Chancellor blew out. ‘The world we think we know, then the real world.’
‘The important thing, sir, is that the hostages go home to families, not who gets a pat on the back.’
‘You know who in Mi5 is connected?’ the PM asked me.
‘I have started to set a trap. Sir, when they present you with their findings you need only compare those findings to t
he truth, and we might catch them out. On the Farringdon raid they altered evidence, but I had hidden the evidence first, and they were caught out. I’ve taken steps to hide evidence here, to look at things, take samples. We only need them to state the opposite.’
‘What is it that you think they did here?’
‘They argued with you for custody of the boy -’
‘Yes, late last night.’
‘GCHQ got the mobile phone signal that triggered the bomb, someone watching my base with binoculars. It was timed to kill me, three or four seconds delayed for some reason. If Mi5 claim a timed bomb, or that it was placed underneath the van, we have them.
‘And sir, that van would have been in a secure Mi5 lock-up, CCTV there, security staff. They would have been legally bound to have searched it, and they were responsible for it. We know the bomb was above the chassis and below the bodywork, radio aerial hanging down.
‘That bomb would have taken an hour to get in place, and someone would have had to make sure that our particular van was used. That manager in Mi5 is part of the plot, and I’d love to see their fake CCTC of the garage lock-up.’
The PM took a call, glancing at me as he listened. Phone down, he said, ‘They’ll be here in an hour with provisional reports.’
‘Then I’m hoping that you four are not gullible fools.’
They exchanged angered looks, but they were not angered towards me.
The PM stated, ‘One way or another we’ll get the people behind this, starting today.’
‘Might I suggest, gentlemen, that for good of this nation you keep my theories to yourselves. There are powerful forces that could harm your ratings, your time in office. You don’t deserve to be sullied by this, you didn’t cause this, and the voters that put you in office deserve better.
‘Your time in office should not be cut short or affected adversely by secret groups working beyond the law, and little shits in Intel who think they should be running the world. You’re accountable to the voters, they’re not.’
The PM smiled. ‘You want a job in my cabinet?’
‘I doubt I’ll live very long, sir.’
‘We can organise protection,’ the Defence Minister began.
I shot him a look and shut him up. ‘No, you can’t, because the people you assign to protect me have other agendas. Who do you trust?’
‘Who do you think we can trust?’ came from the Chancellor.
‘GCHQ for sure, SIS mostly, police yes, Mi5 no – they have a history of middle managers playing god.’
‘Why the hell did you make that statement to press,’ the PM asked.
‘My key weapon here is my fame, and the fact that they want to avoid any publicity. Now that the media is involved they’ll make mistakes, under a great deal of pressure to alter things.’
‘And the Director of Mi5?’
‘Unaware of what’s going on under his feet.’
‘He should go?’
‘Fuck, yes,’ I told them. ‘You need a sweep of that building.’
The Home Secretary began, ‘There are rumours … that you cleaned-up a mess or two?’
‘I did. Best hope they don’t make the papers. And some of the men who tried to kill me, they were buried quietly.’
‘Jesus,’ the PM let out. ‘We’re all now party to this.’
‘Wait till you’ve been in office a few years, you’ll have messes of your own, Prime Minister. Like this one. You can deal with them quietly, or hope that the media don’t kick you out of office for someone else’s indiscretion. Is it fair that you get blamed for these Mi5 shits?’
‘No it damn well isn’t, but I’m in charge of them, they answer to me, and it’s no good telling the Press that I just got here.’
‘We will assist you, sir, to deal with it quietly. That is what we’re here for, for the good of the nation and our reputation abroad.’
‘We’ll get you tea or coffee as we wait for Mi5,’ he suggested as he stood.
I stood. ‘There’s something you need to keep in mind, Prime Minister. Under laws that have never been removed, it’s an act of treason for Mi5 to lie to you or provide false evidence. Have Scotland Yard here, sat ready.’
He faced the Home Secretary. ‘Check that law quickly, the wording.’
The Home Secretary got on the phone as I was led out, back to my legal counsel in a side room, a tray for tea and coffee, they even had biscuits here – so it wasn’t all bad.
I told the lady legal brief, ‘Checked under the seat for bombs?’
She gave me the finger, plus an angered expression, glanced at her colleague, but then checked under the seat.
I sat, hiding my grin. ‘The cabinet now knows what they need to know to fight back. And … Mi5 are on their way to present their initial findings.’
An hour later I was called for, and soon sat with the same men, but now there was a stenographer in the corner, two lady aides, and two senior men from Scotland Yard, commissioners.
The PM turned to me as I sat. ‘That law you mentioned … debatable, but technically correct.’
They made me a tea, the door opened for the Mi5 team, who were shocked to see me, angered but controlled, and well pissed off, their expressions clear to everyone.
‘Something wrong?’ the PM asked them.
The Director of Mi5 sat. ‘Just that Major Wilco should not be sat in on this briefing since he’s a material witness, a witness fond of making outlandish claims to the media – which we will challenge in court.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that. Sit down please. And you take court action when I let you.’
They all sat, a lady in her thirties plus an overweight man in his late forties. They readied files.
The Director turned his head. ‘Martin.’
The man began, an obvious public school twit with a slight lisp, ‘What we know, Prime Minister, what we suspect, is that when our people stopped at a service station on the M4 the bomb was placed under it, clamps or magnetic.’
‘You say that the bomb was under the van?’ the PM wrote down.
‘Yes, Prime Minister, the blast pattern confirms that.’
‘What type of timer?’ the Defence Secretary asked.
‘A basic timer, the police found parts of it.’
The PM nodded. ‘That’s odd … because GCHQ assure me that they got the mobile phone signal that detonated the bomb, tied into the CCTV from the base.
‘Those first on scene, all bomb experts – including Major Wilco here, noted that the blast was above the chassis and below the body, which the CCTV confirms, slow motion frames.’ He eased back and waited, the man glancing at me and now on the spot, the Mi5 Director suddenly looking very uncomfortable.
The PM continued, ‘Tell me, who arranged the van?’
‘Prime Minister?’
‘Who arranged the damn van?’
‘The garage manager.’
‘And does that garage have CCTV?’
‘Yes.’
‘May we see it, and why did you not examine it?’
‘We … were confident that the bomb was not placed in the van at our garage, it’s a secure garage.’
‘So it’s available, but no one bothered to have a look, you just assumed that your men drove to a service station, and then grossly and negligently left the van alone in a dark spot, even knowing the risks and the threats against the boy. That is what you are saying, that your men were grossly negligent, poorly trained and badly led..?’
‘They would have faced an enquiry, but they were not expecting trouble -’
‘Not expecting trouble,’ the PM shouted. ‘Are you fucking stupid! Was there not an attempt on the boy a few hours earlier, the son of a foreign dignitary! You came here last night demanding the right to protect him, and making very great assurances about his safety, and you were not expecting trouble!’
He focused on the Director. ‘Are all your people fucking stupid, or are you the one who’s completely fucking incompetent?’
‘
They ... should have been more prepared, Prime Minister.’
‘More prepared,’ the PM quietly stated. ‘The Director of our intelligence services, responsible for this nation’s security, thinks his people should be more prepared. Just what were you waiting for before they got to be prepared?’ He waited.
‘Prime Minister?’
‘What were you waiting for?’ he shouted. ‘World War III, an alien invasion? What would have made you train your people to be prepared for a security risk?’
‘They should have been alert to the dangers -’
‘But they weren’t, and now they’re dead, families grieving. So either your people are all grossly incompetent, or you were complicit in placing the bomb. Which is it?’ He waited.
The Director glanced at me. ‘The mistakes of a few -’
‘What mistakes were those? To tell me that that the bomb was placed under the van when the CCTV shows it was in the middle, to tell me there was a timer when GCHQ assures me that it was a mobile phone detonation.’ He again waited. He finally pointed at the Director. ‘Did you examine the evidence presented here today?’
‘I have managers to do that -’
‘So no, you didn’t. Do you stand by what this man has presented here as being accurate and truthful, and go on record as verifying it?’
The Director was on the spot. ‘I trust my people and what they briefed me on, but I did not examine the evidence.’
‘And how do you explain the discrepancies? Are GCHQ mistaken, lying, are SIS lying about the CCTV images, is Major Wilco lying with what he stated he knew of the bomb position? Well?’
‘I can’t comment till I see the evidence -’
‘So you have no idea what happened, is what you’re saying. Your provisional report is that you have these two brief you, and you attend here without a clue as to what really happened, and your briefing to me conflicts with what the other agencies tell me.’ He eased back.
‘This was to be a provisional briefing -’
‘Go back to your desk, pen your resignation, expect a far reaching enquiry, and a police investigation of your role. And you will have no contact with anyone in Mi5. Clear?’
Shocked, the Director stood, an aide just about pushing him out, a glance at me as he went. And the two managers were about to shit themselves.