State Sponsored Terror

by David Carter

  Liz smiled inwardly, but didn’t say a word.

  ‘I have just one slight problem with that,’ continued Thelma.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Don’t worry, nothing that I can’t sort, but apparently the head of the SPATs can only be appointed by the joint security committee. Bloody ridiculous, red tape, nothing more. Between you and me, that is something I intend changing in the next parliament. Already pencilled it into the next King’s Speech as a matter of fact, but for now, you will have to go under the title of Acting Head. Just until they rubber stamp my final decision.’

  ‘I understand, Prime Minister.... Thelma.’

  The PM sat in silence. Liz guessed there was more bad news to come.

  ‘Deputy’s pay too, I’m afraid, just until I clear it. You do understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, Thelma, I understand. It’s not a problem.’

  The PM reached across and gently clasped Liz’s wrist.

  ‘You and I will make such a good team, a great team. I can feel it. Let us get this damned election out of the way, and then we can sit down and plan the way forward. What do you say?’

  ‘It would be an honour to contribute.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I have some ideas for the new parliament that will shake the country to its core.’

  ‘Really,’ said Liz, attempting to tease information.

  ‘Yes,’ smiled Thelma knowingly, ‘and boy, does it need a damned good shake-up. In the new year you shall be one of the very first to know.’

  ‘Thank you.... Thelma.’

  ‘Deliver me that election victory, Elizabeth, and the world shall be your oyster.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Thelma, I intend to do just that.’

  The women exchanged smiles, each wondering what exactly was going on in the other’s mind, and the meeting ended, and Liz was sent on her way.

  Forty-Eight

  It was totally dark. Colin lay on his back, his hands clasped behind his head. Over the previous twenty-four hours he had done a great deal of thinking. He had hatched a plan. Alone, in the silence and darkness of the Bletchington Clinic, he had plenty of time to think, to refine the details, to fine-tune his idea to perfection.

  He guessed it was now around two in the morning, yet he was not remotely sleepy, his active brain saw to that. He could picture it, the whole scene from start to finish, the method whereby he would escape from the Bletchington.

  He had noted from the start that he and Jason Wellworthy were similar in stature. They shared the same fair white skin prone to freckling and burning in the sun, the same dark brown hair, and were similar in weight and build and deportment. His plan was simple. He would attack the worthy Jason when he least expected it.

  Jason had probably never once considered that the mild mannered Colin Cornelius was capable of such a thing. Colin would cosh him unconscious, remove his clothes, his nurse’s uniform, and most importantly, his keys, ID, and wallet. A quick change of clothes; he would let himself out, not forgetting to lock the incapacitated minder inside the room, stroll confidently down the corridor, perhaps nod tiredly at the recent change of guard at reception, and stride out through the doors into the icy and free, Swindon air.

  Once outside, he would make his way to the railway station where he would buy a ticket on the first train heading south. To do that he would need up-to-date ID, something that Jason was bound to be carrying. True, his picture would not match, but he reasoned the official looking nurse’s uniform and a quick flash of a genuine ID card would be enough to fool a dopey booking-office ticket seller.

  The plan depended on Jason carrying sufficient funds in his wallet. If he failed to produce the necessary cash, Colin would resort to hitching. It wasn’t that far from Swindon to Christchurch, a couple of hours maybe, probably more direct anyhow, and quicker by road, for sure.

  In the cold darkness he re-ran the plan in his head. It would be important to time his move to coincide with the staff rota change. Perhaps the new staff might not know Jason by sight, and hopefully wouldn’t be surprised to see another nurse going off duty. Colin had a fair idea when the staff alternated for he had studied the changes. The next hurdle was to locate a suitable cosh.

  It wasn’t easy producing a weapon out of nothing but he had an amazing stroke of luck. When searching under the bed for part of the frame that could be ripped away, he found to his amazement, that the legs at the foot of the bed simply unscrewed. Someone in Supply & Logistics had cocked up big time on that.

  Issuing beds to the Bletchington Clinic where the lower legs could easily be unscrewed was tantamount to gross negligence, metal legs that made perfect weapons; and one quite capable of incapacitating Jason Wellworthy, or anyone else, in some crazed hands, a killing tool even, though Colin would draw the line at that. The Bletchington Clinic, and everything in it, was brand new, and Colin guessed it was inevitable there would be bungles and glitches in the system. There always were in any new establishment, no matter how carefully things were planned.

  He successfully unscrewed one of the legs; something he chose to accomplish in darkness in case the cell was bugged and videoed, which it was. Newly armed, he stood in the darkness and clubbed unconscious various imagined foes, working up quite a sweat in the process. The bed leg felt good in his hand. It empowered him, emboldened him, it encouraged him to believe in his fine-tuned plan.

  The trouble was that in solving one problem, it had produced another. His idea was to hide the cosh under the pillow. Whenever Jason returned to interview him, Colin noted he always pulled up a chair while asking him to remain seated on the bed. A three-legged bed would not support his weight, but what could he use in its place? He had tried a shoe; he had tried a toothbrush, both hopelessly inadequate. In the darkness, in desperation he felt his way to the shower cubicle and explored the top of the splash back. It was made of some kind of cold metal, and it had been ill fitted. It took him more than an hour of sweat inducing work to loosen the top of the frame sufficiently to snap it off, and put it in place, under the bed, while the liberated leg nestled in Colin’s right hand. The replacement served its purpose well, so long as Colin did not make any jerky movements, and he had no intention of doing that.

  Flat out in the darkness, he was ready. Morning could not come soon enough for he knew he would not sleep again. The changing of the guard occurred at 8am. Jason would arrive shortly after that with his breakfast, and Colin would be ready. He flexed his fingers around the heavy bed leg and reminded himself as to why he had hatched his plan.

  He was not frightened of being shipped to the Falkland Islands; he had grown quite used to the idea, so much so, he was looking forward to it. But was it real? He had become afraid it was all a mirage. Why would the government go to such hideous expense? Why all that way? There were plenty of remote-ish islands dotted around the United Kingdom, the Scillies, Lundy, several off the coast of South Wales with names he could never remember, and any number of huge craggy rocks, seemingly tossed at random into the sea off the Scottish coast. Why not use them instead? In the absence of a boat they would be just as difficult to escape from, or almost, and a hell of a lot easier on the stretched public purse.

  He knew how the government worked, or at least he thought he did. Saving pennies was always high on the agenda. Were they really sending undesirables to the other side of the planet, and if so, why? The more he thought about it, the more he doubted it. The question then arose that if they were not deporting people, what was the charade about tropical inoculations all about? If they weren’t tropical, what the hell were they?

  It was a chilling thought, but the notion would not go away. It nagged into his mind. He recalled the conversation with Martin up on Hengistbury Head of persistent rumours of people being killed in secret, executed, a better word. Could that possibly be occurring in the Bletchington? Could Jason Wellworthy be party to secret state executions, as he smiled at the doomed ones, and acted as their long lost pal? Surely not. Surely to goodness. No
one could live and sleep with that on their mind, could they?

  Yet the uneasiness refused to go away. He could hardly ask him. Excuse me, Jason, but is the Bletchington Clinic in fact a murder factory? Do you plan to murder me too? Are you personally an accessory to murder? Murder with a smile, murder on demand, murder all those who don’t agree with you, murder those who don’t support you, murder anyone who speaks out against the charismatic, bordering on the holy, Thelma Bletchington.

  Colin recalled witnessing that desperate soul being trampled underfoot at the Bournemouth conference. He had seen first hand killing being used as a tool to silence opposition, in broad daylight before a crowd of hundreds of crazy zealots, and there was that name again, Bletchington. Odd how everything kept coming back to her. He was in the Bletchington Clinic that very moment, and if the Bletchington Clinics were not modern day extermination factories, what the hell were they?

  Hence the plan, his plan, Colin’s last stab at freedom. In the morning, he would anticipate the authorities. He would get his retaliation in first. He would club Jason unconscious, steal his identity, and escape.

  HE WAS BRUSHING HIS teeth when Jason entered the cell. Behind him, the aroma of cheap breakfasts permeated the room. Time for a quick shower.

  ‘You are up early,’ said Jason, cheerfully.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ said Colin, truthfully.

  Jason set up the table and made ready, as Colin stepped from the shower and began towelling himself down.

  ‘What have you been thinking about that kept you awake?’

  ‘This and that,’ mumbled Colin, thinking of the acquired weapon that was sleeping beneath his pillow.

  ‘Anything you want to tell me about?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Colin, as he came and sat at the table, hoping for a decent breakfast, for he had no idea when he might eat again.

  Jason served the porridge and dry toast, as Colin spread the soppy oats on the bread and began eating.

  ‘Big day tomorrow,’ said Jason, as he fussed over something and nothing. ‘Second travel jab, and all.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Colin.

  Shame I won’t be here by then, he thought.

  ‘We’ll sit and talk, when you have finished.’

  Yeah, thought Colin. It was all going just as he had imagined.

  The breakfast disappeared, and the dishes were cleared away.

  ‘Sit on the bed,’ said Jason, collecting and pulling up the chair. ‘There are a few things you should know.’

  I’ll bet there are, thought Col, as he sat gently on the bed.

  Jason turned away, as Colin reached under the pillow and grasped the club, slipping it out of sight beneath him.

  ‘You’ll be going out of my jurisdiction once you have had your second injection.’

  You can say that again, Colin wanted to say.

  ‘It isn’t too late to affect your sentence. Information given up now often results in cancellation of the deportation notice altogether.’

  ‘Rat on my friends, you mean?’

  ‘Not at all. You shouldn’t think that way, Colin. There comes a time when everyone must act for themselves. That time is now. And don’t think others in your position would do any different. No one would blame you. No one.’

  He knows, thought Colin. He knows damn well what is scheduled to happen to me, and yet here he is, talking to me as if I am one of his best friends, as if I really am about to set off on a long journey, when all along he knows that when the sun comes up tomorrow, I shall be murdered by the state. What kind of man is he? How could anyone do that to another human being? He deserves to be coshed to death.

  ‘Have you got some paper?’ asked Colin.

  ‘Course,’ said Jason, turning round to reach down for the file he had placed on the floor.

  It was exactly as Colin had envisioned.

  The moment had arrived to draw the weapon. He slipped the club from beneath him, and clasped it in his right hand.

  ‘Got some blank sheets here somewhere,’ muttered Jason, flicking through his papers.

  During the night, Colin had been thinking about the actual blow, about coshing someone. He had never hit anyone before, not in anger, and certainly not with a weapon. How hard do you need to strike someone to incapacitate them? In the movies, a sharp tap always rendered the bad guy inert and incapable, but they soon quickly recovered, seemingly none the worse for the experience. Too soft a blow, and Jason would turn on him with a vengeance.

  He would call for assistance, and Colin would be quickly overwhelmed. Too hard a blow may well kill him, but could he trust himself to inflict a strike of the precise intensity? No matter what Jason Wellworthy was involved in, Colin had no wish to kill the man. He hadn’t appreciated how difficult it was to strike someone in cold blood, to seriously harm them; to render them unconscious, and maybe worse.

  ‘Here it is,’ said Jason, returning to the bed with three sheets of blank paper, and a cheap pen.

  The club was back beneath the pillow. The opportunity had gone forever. Colin understood that, but whatever was to come, he was content with his decision. It was a better choice than taking another human life. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, whatever the circumstances. Jemima had always said he was an old softy, and she had been proved right.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ said Colin. ‘I have nothing to write.’

  Jason scowled. ‘You are a fool! You’ll regret it!’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Colin. ‘But, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Time is running out for you, my friend,’ said Jason. ‘The clock’s ticking.’

  That is just it; thought Colin, you are not my friend.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY WHEN it was all over, Jason discovered the club. He instinctively knew exactly what it was, and what it was intended for, and he remembered too, that moment when he had turned and reached down. He pictured Colin flexing his muscles; club in hand, ready to strike. Why had he not struck him? Why was he, Jason, still alive? The man was a fool; Jason had thought that all along, all the more so now he saw the man must have guessed his own destiny. In Jason’s eyes, Colin was a coward.

  He glanced under the bed and saw it was supported by part of the shower-screen. Someone had cocked up, unscrewable bed legs for God’s sake! Before the sun went down, every bed in every Bletchington Clinic throughout the country would be changed. Jason had had a narrow escape, and he wasn’t alone, but no other inmate would ever enjoy the opportunity that Colin had stumbled on.

  ‘If you ever get the chance, tell Jemima I love her to bits,’ Colin whispered, as he was being strapped to the theatre bench.

  ‘Sure,’ Jason had said, as if on automatic pilot. ‘Don’t you worry, pal, I’ll tell her.’

  ‘Tell her, I will die dreaming of her.’

  Jason hadn’t replied to that, contenting himself with a pitying glare. The man truly was a fool.

  Forty-Nine

  Election Day. Liz checked into Downing Street at five minutes to seven. Tombstone was already there, washed and shaved and neat and tidy and raring to go. He glanced up from the bank of screens and nodded his hello across the room. Liz returned the greeting, and took her seat, and dragged papers from her bag. Captain Eagles arrived five minutes later, clutching an obese briefcase.

  ‘Any sign of the boss?’ he mumbled, taking his seat.

  ‘Saw her at six thirty,’ muttered Tombstone. ‘Still in her dressing gown, no make-up.’

  Eagles pulled a face. One of the telephones rang and Tombstone snatched it up, and began chattering in that quiet business-like way of his. It was close to being the shortest day of the year and all the lights were on, as Liz began ringing her supervising officers, checking everyone was up and active. Without exception, they were. It was only as Liz expected. This would be the biggest day of the year for her troops, every single one of them.

  Thelma arrived half an hour later, accompanied by the hunk. She looked spectacular in her black two-piece suit, skirt and jacket, white blous
e. Her makeup had been carefully applied, and she radiated an aura of organisation, confidence, and calm. Liz could only guess how churned up inside she must have felt. Thelma made her way round the desks, whispering to each person in turn, checking that everything was just so.

  ‘No sign of Harry yet?’ she said, to no one in particular.

  Tombstone again. ‘None, Prime Minister.’

  ‘Probably as well, that man could irritate for England.’

  The door opened and a red-faced Harry Summers lumbered in.

  ‘Sorry, Prime Minister,’ he bumbled, ‘terrible traffic.’

  ‘You’re here,’ she said through a fixed face, ‘that’s the main thing.’

  Harry smiled, imagining he was wanted.

  The sky remained stubbornly overcast, and it would be another of those days that never truly grew light.

  ‘At least it’s dry,’ said Harry, in an effort at sounding upbeat.

  ‘Not as important as it once was, the weather factor that is,’ added Thelma. ‘Not since I introduced compulsory voting. Now they damn well have to get out and perform.’

  The polling booths were open and the first exit polls were dumping into the computers, jump-starting the multi-coloured graphs on the screens, exciting the avid watchers even more. The early polls suggested the election would be a knife-edge affair, just as Thelma feared.

  Tombstone scribbled an urgent note and handed it to the PM. It was a list of three constituencies he and the computers were forecasting they would narrowly lose. To the right of them was the location of the nearest rock solid safe seat where a heavy government victory looked assured. Thelma snorted at the information and made her way to Liz’s desk. The PM held the note in front of Liz’s eyes. She was talking to the senior SPAT in the West Country. Liz nodded at the intelligence and rang off.

  ‘Much as we expected,’ she said, calmly.

  ‘We can deal with this?’ said Thelma.

  ‘Of course we can. Already on it.’