State Sponsored Terror

by David Carter

  ‘Fat chance!’ scoffed Colin.

  ‘Not up for it, then?’

  ‘Do me a favour!’

  They both ignored the risk of attracting attention, and laughed aloud. It was all like something out of a movie, or a dream. How his world had changed. He also revealed that he had been sounded out about taking a position at The Washington Post, treble pay no less, something he would have jumped at, but for Richie Foulsham intervening and announcing that Colin Cornelius had been signed up on a long-term contract. He would not be available for at least six years, and he would not be going to America, or anywhere else.

  ‘First I’ve heard of it,’ moaned Colin, ‘about any long-term contract.’

  ‘Nice to be in demand, though,’ said Martin.

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  ‘Joss will get her e-summons next week,’ revealed Martin.

  ‘That’s the funny thing,’ said Colin, ‘for some reason she thinks it will be delayed, or even cancelled altogether.’

  ‘I can’t see that.’

  ‘Neither can I.’

  ‘Any news on Tinbergen?’ asked Martin.

  ‘Nothing fresh. It is almost as if those who know anything at all have clammed up.’

  ‘SPAT pressure, I reckon.’

  ‘You are probably right?’ muttered Col.

  ‘Anything else, mate?’

  ‘Nothing more on Tinbergen, not yet, but there was something else.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Martin.

  ‘You remember that NHS campaign, Eradicate TB forever.’

  Martin thought for a second. ‘Yeah, TB was eradicated years ago, but it came back into the country, hitching a ride on the tide of immigrants.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Colin, ‘so they say, but I heard a whisper a gang of people were recently arrested in London. They were using that slogan as their own, Eradicate TB, but they weren’t talking about TB, if you get my drift.’

  Ten seconds silence, and then Martin mumbled, ‘Thelma Bletchington.’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘You mean...’

  ‘I don’t mean anything, just reporting back.’

  ‘An assassination conspiracy?’

  ‘Hang on, I didn’t say that,’ said Colin.

  ‘Don’t like the sound of that much.’

  ‘I don’t like talking about it, even with you.’

  ‘Do you think it’s true?’

  ‘How would I know? Probably just rumours, perhaps some disaffected guys somewhere got hold of some strong vodka and started talking drivel.’

  ‘I think that is better forgotten.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Nope, you?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Martin. ‘Nothing that can’t keep. Look, we have a bit of time in hand, why don’t you shoot off first this week, I’m going to sit and think things through.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind that actually,’ said Colin. ‘It’s our anniversary.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Nineteen years! A life sentence. Go on, you sod off, mate, I’ll follow on in ten minutes.’

  In the darkness, Colin nodded cheerfully, and fastened his raincoat and left. The moment he was down at sea level he saw the saloon car hurtling toward him, and the Head, siren off, its yellow tinted headlights, like flame-throwers, on full beam. There was no moon and thick cloud blanked the stars. In the darkness, Colin darted behind the boarded-up hot dog and ice cream stall. The car swept into the car park nearest to the bottom of the hill and four guys jumped out, leaving the doors swinging. Colin knew the area as well as his own back garden, and was comfortable moving about in the darkness. He guessed those guys were not. He could hear them close by, whispering. A powerful torch went on and he ducked out of sight. The blokes walked briskly by, heading toward the path that led up to the top.

  ‘You and Mark go that way; fan out as soon as you reach the top,’ Colin heard the senior one whispering. ‘We’ll come in from behind.’

  Colin wondered if they were there for him and Martin, or were they looking for someone else? He wondered too if Martin was still in the hut. He considered shouting a warning up the hill, but realised his voice would be lost on the wind, not to mention giving his own presence away. He squinted through the darkness and watched silent shadows ascending the path, then he turned round and crept out from behind the refreshment stall, and ran away on tiptoe, along Broadway.

  Martin glanced down at his watch’s green luminous hands.

  Fully ten minutes had passed since Colin had gone. Something caught his attention, and when he glanced up, a ghostlike figure appeared in the doorway. For a moment Martin imagined that Colin had returned.

  ‘Back are we?’ he said. ‘Dropped something? Forgot something?’

  ‘Now what kind of thing might that be?’ said the man in a voice not dissimilar to Colin’s.

  ‘Sorry, I think I have mistaken you for someone else?’ said Martin, getting to his feet.

  ‘And who would that be?’

  ‘Just some lonely passer-by I got talking to,’ muttered Martin, as he made to pass the guy standing in the entrance.

  The bloke held out his arm, blocking the exit.

  ‘Identify yourself,’ said the man, and by then there were two or three others floating around behind him in the darkness.

  ‘My name is Martin Reamse. And you are?’

  ‘I am Sergeant Fowler of His Majesty’s SPATs, and you, my friend, are under arrest. ID card please?’

  ‘What on earth for?’ said Martin, reaching into his back pocket for his ID.

  ‘Terrorist activities, Mister Reamse.’

  The guy stared down at the card lit by torchlight, at Martin’s frightened photograph. He shone the torch into Martin’s face, and nodded.

  ‘Is it a crime now to sit and think and chat with a stranger?’

  ‘That would depend on what you were talking about, and with whom, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘A stranger, I told you.’

  ‘So you said, sir. Make a habit of talking to strangers in the dark, do we?’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s gay?’ minced one of the others at the back.

  ‘Bugger off!’ said Martin.

  ‘Watch your language, sir,’ said Sergeant Fowler calmly. ‘It is an offence to swear at His Majesty’s SPATs.’

  ‘Sorry, but he asked for it.’

  ‘Handcuff him, Williams, and get him down to the car.’

  Twenty-One

  Adam sauntered into Christchurch library on the High Street. He went through to the back room where the banks of computers lay. It was very busy there. He approached the supervisor’s desk, and stood before her. She was studying a large desk diary, though she looked up when he blocked out a segment of neon light.

  ‘I need a computer for twenty minutes,’ he said, smiling down at the chubby, though not unattractive woman.

  ‘ID card, please?’ she said in a voice that betrayed she had asked that question a hundred thousand times before.

  Adam rifled in his jeans’ pocket.

  ‘Er, sorry, I have left it at home.’

  The woman smiled her bored smile.

  ‘No ID, no computer, you know the rules, young man.’

  ‘Sorry,’ muttered Adam, peering hopefully into her dark brown eyes, praying his youthful charm might yet work. She nodded toward the door as if to say: Get going, pal. Adam shook his head cheerfully enough and turned about. Half way to the door he turned back and chanced his arm and tried again. She glanced up as before.

  ‘It’s my mum’s birthday,’ he pleaded. ‘She lives in Australia, I live with my dad, she will be getting up in a few hours and she’ll be so disappointed if I don’t send her an e-happy birthday card.’

  The woman pulled an odd face and glanced at the computers. A solitary machine had come free.

  ‘You’ll get me shot.’

  Adam adopted his pity me fa
ce. ‘Oh, go on,’ he whispered, ‘pleeeeeze!’

  ‘Take that machine,’ she said, glancing round to check the manageress wasn’t about. ‘There is sixteen minutes left on it, after that, you’re out, no argument.’

  ‘Oh ta!’ he grinned, ‘may all your dreams come true! I love you to bits,’ and he shifted sharpish toward the machine.

  He sat down and eased a disk from his pocket, the disk that Marcus Cross had copied for him at Brock College. Adam had gone there after he had been flattened at the cottage. He had climbed into the college through a back window because there was always some haughty Party member stationed in the entrance hall; priggishly checking ID’s of everyone who came and went.

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’ Marcus had said, seeing Adam’s bleeding head and bloody shirt.

  ‘Got mugged by gypsies,’ said Adam, spouting the first thing that came into his mind. There had been several instances of gypsies fighting with minor local officials who were insisting the gypos settled into permanent accommodation, an action the authorities saw as a way of regulating the Romanys’ wealth and taxes. That hadn’t gone down well in the gypsy community, some of whom had been looking for a bloody good fight or years. The gypsies were an easy target, and the government knew that well enough. They also knew that the bulk of the general public were hugely supportive of any anti-gypsy campaign.

  Marcus had slipped him the finished disk under the desk.

  ‘You didn’t get this from me,’ he whispered. ‘If you are caught with it, you don’t ever mention my name. Understand?’

  ‘Course Marco, goes without saying. I owe you one. I’ll say I found it lying round the computer room.’

  His answer seemed to placate Marcus, and the disk found its way into Adam’s sweaty hand.

  In Christchurch library, he glanced back at the supervisor. She was still concentrating hard on her large diary, but from where Adam was sitting, he could see that inside the diary, wide open, was the latest edition of one of the celebrity gossip mags. She wasn’t quite so devoted to her work after all, he thought, but what the hell.

  He slipped the disk into the computer and waited for the prompt. The cursor appeared, flashing on and off.

  He typed: ACTIVATE KILLCEN.

  The machine whirred and thought about it, then came back with a negative response:

  Mainframe does not recognise this instruction.

  Adam typed again.

  ACTIVATE KILLCEN.

  Mainframe does not recognise this instruction.

  He was not to be deterred. Marcus had warned him that his program KILLCEN, acted in three different tranches. It was burrowing its way through the censorship restrictions, killing them time and again wherever it found them like a demented virus. Carnage was going on inside one of those machines, world war fifty-four, but Adam didn’t care about that. He was in a hurry. The clock was counting down before his eyes in the corner of the screen. Time was running out.

  For a third time he typed: ACTIVATE KILLCEN.

  This time everything was different.

  The screen exploded in a riot of colour, reminiscent of computer mock-ups of the big bang itself. It reminded Adam of an old woman’s magazine his mother used to read. He used to pinch it and read it for the agony aunt letters and sex education. What is an orgasm like? was a favourite theme the mag returned to, again and again. Like starburst colours, someone had written. Yeah, said Adam under his breath, you got it babe. Starburst colours. The colour fest on the screen was so startling it was enough to attract the attention of the girl sitting at the adjoining desk.

  ‘What is that?’ she said, clearly impressed, standing and leaning over for a better look.

  ‘Oh nothing,’ said Adam languidly, ‘I am just working on a new screensaver.’

  ‘It’s brill!’ said the girl. ‘Can I have a copy?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe, when it’s finished, but I have to crack on with it now. It’s nowhere near done.’

  The girl knew where she wasn’t wanted and returned to surfing the net. ‘OK, cool. Cheers. Sorry.’

  TINBERGEN PAPERS, Adam typed in as quickly as his young fingers could manage.

  Again the machine whirred. A moment later, a flashing message:

  Access denied! Access denied! All information on this subject is restricted.

  ‘Jesus!’ said Adam under his breath, but the machine started again.

  Access granted. Security level five.

  ‘Yeah baby!’ muttered Adam. And then:

  The Tinbergen Papers, followed by loads of multicoloured text.

  Adam scanned the security information that scrolled up before his eyes. There was mountains of it. Mountains. People arrested. People shot whilst attempting to escape, and that rang a bell. People sent to Blackpool. People still wanted, a whole long list in alphabetical order. Currently there were 66 people on the Most Wanted list. His eyes followed the names down to the letter G. Stone me! There he was in glorious green type. Goodchild, Adam, Horatio. It looked ludicrous sitting there, his name, especially that hideous middle name that had always irked him so. There he was, slap bang in the middle of a SPATs security file, amongst PEOPLE MOST WANTED. What the hell had he done to warrant that? Was the country going crazy?

  By the time he had read all the information he knew the clock was almost run down. At zero time the machine would automatically shut off, and it could only be restarted by someone entering valid ID.

  Fifteen seconds to go, and he noticed a small inconspicuous button on the screen he hadn’t seen before: Background and Source. He raced the mouse over the button and clicked. The computer whirred and brought up a whole new set of pages.

  The Tinbergen Papers: it said.

  This file first came to the notice of the authorities in 20..

  The screen flashed once, and belched a clicking noise. Already it was too late. The computer had hurtled into close down mode. Ten seconds after that the local authority logo appeared on the screen with a single box and a request for valid ID to be entered, fading and brightening in slow motion before his eyes.

  ‘Shit!’ he said aloud.

  Three of the other users stopped what they were doing and stared over at him.

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, and they returned to their own little worlds.

  He was well aware his activities would have been monitored at some faceless central point somewhere out of town. He had been deliberately interfering with secure government computer systems, an offence the authorities were extremely tetchy about. He had gained access to a top secret SPAT file. Hacking had long since been upgraded to a serious terrorist offence. He had a good idea that security people would be immediately sent to the library to apprehend the perpetrator(s). That thought was enough to spur him into standing and turning and heading for the exit, pausing only to thank the brown-eyed woman for bending the rules.

  ‘All right,’ she answered, ‘but don’t make a habit of it,’ in a voice that Adam took to mean, she was already having second thoughts about letting him anywhere near the machines. It couldn’t be helped, but he guessed she would get into serious trouble when the government information pricks turned up, and that wouldn’t be long.

  Outside, in the cold sunshine he walked briskly down the High Street heading toward the Priory. If only he had been a little quicker, he reasoned, he might have uncovered far more than he actually had. But he still had his KILLCEN program in his back pocket, and all he had to do was get back online, and as he was thinking about that, he heard:

  ‘Excuse me! Excuse me!’

  Someone was hollering down the street. He instinctively knew it was him they were shouting at. People stopped and stared. Was he a shoplifter, a bag snatcher? A bum pincher? A mugger? What exactly? What was all the commotion about? Adam speeded up.

  ‘Excuse me! Excuse me! Stop! Please stop a mo!’

  Against his better judgement he glanced round.

  The person making all the fuss was the girl from the library. What in hell’s name did
she want? More people were looking and staring, and that worried him. It would only be a matter of time before some copper seeking promotion took an interest.

  He paused as she caught him up.

  ‘What is it?’ he moaned. ‘And stop shouting!’

  ‘Sorry!’ she said, ‘but you wouldn’t stop.’

  ‘What do you want?’ he repeated, and as he asked the question he glanced across the street and smiled reassuringly at the party of older folks who had settled there, to watch the scene unfold.

  ‘The screensaver,’ she said. ‘It was so brilliant. You said I could have a copy. Can I? Go on!’

  ‘It isn’t a screen saver,’ he confessed, ‘I lied.’

  The girl thought about that for a second and said, ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ he said, staring down at her.

  ‘Because you are in trouble, I guess.’

  ‘Got it in one, Floss. Now if you don’t mind.... ’ and he turned and walked briskly away.

  She ran after him, chuntering as she went. ‘I can help you,’ she said, ‘maybe I can help you.’

  ‘I doubt that, darling. No one can help me, now beat it!’

  ‘But I can,’ she said, ‘really I can.’

  She reminded him of another young woman who had stopped him earlier that day, and had inadvertently saved him a great deal of grief. It had happened when he was walking through Canford Cliffs. There was a bakers there, an old fashioned traditional baker’s shop, and in the window amongst the rolls and pastries was a mouth-watering freshly made spread of cream cakes. He hadn’t been able to resist standing and gawping at them, and as his young face stared through the glass and into the shop, his youthful figure had attracted the attention of the young trainee who worked there. He hadn’t yet seen her, but mesmerised by the pastries, he went inside.

  The girl smiled at him, though Adam didn’t really notice, though by the time she said, ‘Can I help you, sir?’ in that flirty way of hers, he realised he was getting more than the usual customer service.

  ‘Yeah,’ he muttered, pointing in the window. ‘I’ll have one of them cream horns.’

  ‘Okey-doke,’ she said, sweetly. ‘Anything else?’