by Sibel Hodge
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But why is he watching the students? Ajay, Farzad. There had to be a reason he was there. I bet he was around when Natalie killed the man on the zebra crossing. When Vicky took her life. Klein’s brainwashing those students or manipulating their minds somehow, and Hoodie Guy is trying to cover it up.’
Sutherby shook his head. ‘I just think that sounds too bloody Orwellian. A professor brainwashing them is just…’
‘What? Sick? Twisted? Evil?’
‘I was going to say implausible and outlandish.’
‘But none of the students were either religious, radical, political, or outraged about any particular social causes.’
‘And some of our homegrown terrorists weren’t into any particular affiliations before they were radicalised, either. I have to err on the side of caution here. And it’s more logical that this is some kind of terrorist cell.’
‘But it wouldn’t be the first time unethical or illegal human experiments have been carried out on unsuspecting people without their knowledge or consent,’ I said. ‘I remember reading a news report a few years back about hundreds of covert experiments carried out by government scientists at the UK’s most secretive lab, Porton Down, on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. The one that really sticks in my mind is where they released potentially dangerous chemicals over vast areas of the country without telling anyone.’
He studied me carefully, one leg crossed over the other, drumming his forefinger against his knee, and I could see a spark of something else in his eyes now. Acceptance of what I was saying? Or was it fear? He was obviously higher up the political food chain in the force than I was, and I suspected he knew of far more incidents where our own security services would try to cover up something they didn’t want the public to know.
While I had him teetering on the edge of seriously considering my theory, I ploughed on. ‘No one can stay off the grid these days. There are traces of everyone. Everyone except, it seems, Hoodie Guy. So what’s more credible? That Hoodie Guy wiped himself off the system, or he had help? And if he had help, the big question is why and who’s protecting him? Who has that kind of power and resources? Then what about Klein? Why is there also no information available about him? Why are all my searches into him a dead end? And with the CCTV wiped, as well, that’s not coincidence. I seriously doubt anyone would be protecting a one-man-band terrorist cell. If they want the truth covered up that badly, I have to be right. And this must be something big going on.’
‘But this is just a wild theory. That’s all it is.’ He sounded less convinced by his words now.
‘I’m certain the evidence is out there somewhere. I need to do more research. In the meantime, I’ll also hang out around the medical block and see if I can spot Hoodie Guy. And my appointment with Professor Klein is tomorrow afternoon. I’ll do a recce and see if I can find out if he has any patient records in the building.’
His face was pale. ‘Okay, let’s say you are right. If Hoodie Guy and Klein have had help to stay off the grid, and evidence like CCTV is being tampered with, then you’re talking about—what? Some kind of clandestine government-condoned experiment?’
A suffocating chill seemed to fill the air then, and the icy realisation hit me—yes, that was exactly what I meant. I nodded. ‘As crazy as it sounds, it would fit.’
He took a breath, shaking his head. ‘Well, I don’t even want to think about it.’
‘If we can establish a definite link that Klein treated all four students, that will prove I’m on the right track, and I’m prepared to take the risk.’ I kept my expression strong and unwavering, even though I was actually terrified at the can of cancerous worms I was opening.
He clenched his jaw as the seconds ticked by. ‘Okay. Keep digging. I’ll give you authorisation to break into the Watling Centre to search for Klein’s patient records. And I’ll request his phone and financial data. I’ll let you know of any developments this end.’
‘Thanks, sir.’ I stood and walked towards the door.
‘And DS Harris…’
I stopped, looking over my shoulder.
‘Be bloody careful.’
I nodded, left through the rear doors of the police station, and drove back to the university, buzzing with energy, even though I’d been working solidly all day.
When I got back, I sat on the bench outside the Watling Centre, hoping to spot Hoodie Guy coming or going, but there were no lights on inside, and no one was around. I waited for a couple of hours then headed back to my room to research the internet, my stomach rolled into a tight ball of anger at what I was convinced was going on.
I felt like I’d fallen down a rabbit hole with no idea how deep it went. But I wasn’t going to stop until I reached the murky dark pool right at the bottom.
Chapter 35
Toni
Mitchell had sent a text saying he was on to something and was on his way to my flat. I sat in my lounge while I waited for him to arrive, scrolling through the rest of Marcelina’s phone in case there was something else of interest on there, but I didn’t find anything on it that might explain what was going on.
When the intercom buzzed, Mitchell’s face stared back at me from the video monitor. I let him into the building, and a minute later, I was swinging my door open. We gave each other a quick hug before I stepped back to let him in.
‘Mum doesn’t know, does she?’ I asked.
‘What, that you’re digging into something sinister? No.’
‘What did you tell her about where you were going?’
‘I just said I was meeting up with Lee, which is true in a roundabout way. I hate lying to her.’
I shut the door. ‘I know. I do, too. But she’ll freak out completely if she finds out what I’m doing.’
He acknowledged that with a tilt of his head as he sat on the small two-seater sofa, swamping it completely. He wasn’t tall, but he was wide and solid, and even in his late fifties, he was still all muscle.
‘And is it sinister? Or am I imagining things?’ I asked.
He twisted in the seat to face me as I sat next to him. ‘You’re definitely not imagining things. Lee’s found out a load of really bad shit that will literally blow your mind.’ An angry vein throbbed at his temple. ‘The guy who said he was a doctor… the footage from the stabbing didn’t show him that clearly because he wore shades and a baseball cap, so Lee got into the CCTV system at Watford General’s A&E department and found some clear shots of him leaving the building. External cameras also caught him getting into a vehicle, which is registered to someone who doesn’t exist at an address that doesn’t exist.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘But that’s not all. Although he avoided council CCTV cameras, and we couldn’t trace the vehicle’s movements far after it left the hospital, when he was outside A&E, he made a phone call. Lee managed to narrow down his mobile phone data and used that to track him instead. He took a route to the outskirts of St Albans.’ His stomach rumbled loudly then. He patted it. ‘Sorry, I haven’t had dinner.’
‘Me, neither. I was too engrossed in looking at Marcelina’s phone and forgot about it.’
‘Do you want to order something in while we talk? My treat.’
‘Yes, but it’ll be my treat since you’re doing me so many favours. What do you fancy? Chinese, Indian, or pizza?’
‘Pizza sounds good.’
I grabbed us both beers then ordered a couple of pizzas before sitting on the sofa again and tucking my legs beneath me, giving him my full attention. ‘So where did he go in St Albans?’
‘He went to a company called Regen Logistix, on a large business park complex. He stayed there for about half an hour, then Lee picked him up again and tracked his route to St Albans University. There are only CCTV cameras inside the front gates and at the admin block, and the local authority cameras are sparse in that area, but the mobile phone tracking is pretty accurate, and we know he went into the Watling Centre.’
‘O
kay. And Regen Logistix? What’s that?’
‘They make implantable medical technology devices—pacemakers, cochlear implants, blood glucose monitors, that kind of thing.’
‘So, the guy I saw was a doctor then?’
‘No. Here’s where it all starts getting seriously buggered up. Lee ran him through some standard databases, trying for a facial recognition. But he came up as no trace and seems as if he’s a ghost. So Lee dug deeper, into classified stuff. The guy’s name is Gary Glover. He’s ex-military, but now he’s working for the British Security Services.’
‘What?’ My skin prickled.
‘Yeah. You know when Lee left the SAS, he started working for the government doing cyber surveillance and security? Before Lee set up his own company, he did work for the security services, too. He still does contract work for them, and he’s got a backdoor into their systems.’
‘Spying on the spies? That’s got a nice irony to it.’ I quirked an eyebrow up.
‘It turns out that Glover is being paid in a very roundabout way via MI5. Specifically, by an elite black ops department known as Behavioural Modification Operations, who carry out covert PSYOPS. Glover is basically a private contractor employed by one company and subcontracted out to another company and another, in the hope that no one could ever track him back to who he’s really working for. But the bottom line is he’s employed by the government so they can maintain the cover and deniability of the dirty work he’s doing for them.’
A ripple of dread passed through me. ‘PSYOPS?’
‘You’ve heard the term? Did they cover it in your psychology degree?’
‘No, it wasn’t covered, but the subject interested me so, as usual, I delved into my own research and brought it into the classroom in an essay.’ I could still remember the summary I’d given of key points almost word for word. Psychological operations are intended to convey selected information to audiences in order to influence emotions, motive, objective reasoning, and behaviour. It’s a form of covert mind warfare, where the message is the weapon. ‘Who are they running a secret psychological operation against?’
‘Against all of us. Billions of pounds are already spent every year to control the public mind. And the Behavioural Modification Operations’ remit is to manipulate public opinion, foster population obedience, and encourage conformity by many external methods—using propaganda in mainstream media, campaigns on social media using fake accounts or fake videos, creating spoof online resources with inaccurate information to discredit or cover up the truth, or shutting down genuine websites who question the government or the unelected shadow government’s doctrine.’
I stared at him, horrified. ‘You’re right. That is scary.’
‘But this goes wider than just Marcelina and Farzad. There are three other tragic incidents involving St Albans uni students in the last few months. On the face of it, that’s probably not that unremarkable. But Lee dug further into police reports, and their friends all mention a common link in their behaviour. All of them were suffering from the same kind of symptoms—blackouts or fugue-type states, memory loss, nightmares, or weird behaviour shortly before the incidents happened.’ He told me about Vicky Aylott, Ajay Banerjee, and Natalie Wheeler.
‘Yes, I remember hearing a bit about all of those incidents, but Ajay and Vicky died before I arrived at the uni. I didn’t know they were all related.’
‘And now you’ve got Farzad Nuri, who stabbed someone in the high street and has disappeared, but I suspect he’s already been murdered. There was a localised power cut before the incident, which meant all council-run and private CCTV of the area was out of action so they could cover Glover’s tracks. But what they couldn’t plan for was that someone would film the incident on a phone, or you noticing Glover at the hospital with Marcelina and putting two and two together. They already broke into your patient records and must’ve decided you didn’t know anything so didn’t bother to take any further action.’ He swallowed a mouthful of beer. ‘Lee checked out medical reports for Vicky, Natalie, and Ajay. No drugs showed up in their systems, and there were no physiological reasons found for their symptoms.’
I blew out a breath and shook my head, ‘Setting yourself on fire is absolutely horrific.’ I scrunched up my face as a sickening sludge settled in my stomach. ‘What a terrible way to go.’
Mitchell opened his mouth to speak, but the intercom buzzed. It was the pizza delivery. I paid for it and then came back and found plates, cutlery, and napkins.
Mitchell tucked into a slice of pizza and chewed before answering. ‘It doesn’t seem like coincidence, does it? Two students might be coincidence, but five recent tragedies? Plus, you’ve got Glover posing as a fake doctor while working for MI5, trying to hide his identity at two of the events we know of so far, then going to the uni, so he’s definitely involved in this.’ He took a swig of beer and set the bottle back down. ‘All five students were perfectly normal youngsters until a few months ago, and now all of a sudden, there’s all this weird stuff going on.’
I took a small bite of pizza and swallowed, but it seemed to get stuck in my closed-up throat. I washed it down with another mouthful of beer.
‘There were plenty of witnesses to Vicky diving off the stairway,’ Mitchell said. ‘Witnesses outside Ajay’s house and evidence the doors were locked from the inside make it seem likely he wasn’t murdered. Lots of witnesses to what Natalie, Farzad, and Marcelina did, too. So everything points to them doing things themselves. Or, as Lee and I suspect, making them do it.’
I glanced over towards my bookcase, to a book called Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of ‘Brainwashing’ in China, about an analysis of brainwashing in American servicemen and Chinese citizens by the Chinese government. My gaze flicked back to Mitchell. ‘Are you saying this secret government black operation is involved in brainwashing unsuspecting students into doing all this?’
‘No. It’s much worse than that.’
Chapter 36
Mr White
Nathan White was shown into the plush office. Already seated around the large oval conference table made of polished ebony were Professor Carl Gale, Professor Brian Klein, Dr Kenneth Beaumont, and the head honcho—CEO Paul Hughes. The blinds were drawn at both the external and internal windows. No prying eyes were going to be privy to what went on inside. The subject of the meeting was strictly classified.
Hughes stood in his flashy, expensive bespoke suit, made by a luxury designer, and held his hand out for White to shake. ‘Good to see you.’
‘Likewise.’ White gripped Hughes’s hand and nodded at the others. ‘Gentlemen.’ He pulled the flash drive from Glover out of his pocket and handed it to Hughes.
Hughes broke into a savage smile. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got here.’ He slid the flash drive into a huge flat-screen smart TV on one wall.
Klein, Gale, and Beaumont swivelled their chairs for a better viewing angle. White leaned against the wall, thinking it was better fun watching their reactions as the footage started.
Klein looked excited but nervous at the same time, sweat dotting on his forehead and upper lip. For Klein, this was his life’s work. Everything had been leading up to this moment. But he still had his boundaries. He’d voiced his concerns over the direction things were taking, but everyone had reminded him that there could be no backing out now. There was too much at stake. Too much to lose. And Klein was in far too deep to be able to walk away. But if anyone was going to be a weak link, it would be him.
Gale was the design man, the one who’d pored over the specifications for years until they were just right. Gale thought he was a pioneer. Someone who’d do anything for his cause. He really believed in all this stuff.
Beaumont was the data guy, who analysed everything and studied the outcomes. He had a predatory, detached look on his face that White recognised in himself.
Paul Hughes was a different matter entirely. It wasn’t about ground-breaking innovations, professional accolades, p
ushing things into a whole new realm, or even the kudos of being the first. Of course not. For Hughes, it was all about the power and money.
White turned to the TV screen, observing the end of the footage Glover had shot in St Peters Street with the hidden camera in his messenger bag.
Hughes turned off the TV, removed the flash drive, and slid it into his pocket. ‘It’s looking good. After all these years of research, Project Shadow is finally ready to put into production.’ He sat down at the head of the table, hands spread wide on top, that reptilian smile fixed on his face.
Professor Klein cleared his throat. ‘I think we need a little more time before we can say that with any certainty. There have only been five test subjects, and we’ve had some mishaps.’ He looked at Professor Gale. ‘I’d like to again voice my concerns about the way things are being done. This wasn’t my intention when we discussed this initially. It’s not—’
‘Five successful subjects,’ Dr Beaumont butted in.
‘It works. You can’t dispute that.’ Professor Gale shrugged nonchalantly. ‘And as we all know, with delay comes risk.’ He looked pointedly at Hughes. ‘We’re not the only ones so close to the endgame.’
Hughes crossed one leg over the other, nodding vehemently. ‘Yes. I concur. We can’t wait any longer. There’s too much at—’
‘What about Natalie Wheeler?’ Klein butted in, a flush spreading up his neck as he glanced around the room. ‘That didn’t go according to plan. She didn’t do what she was supposed to in the end. And Marcelina Claybourn? What if she wakes up and starts asking more questions?’
‘The whole reason she’s in the hospital is because she was asking too many questions,’ Hughes said. ‘If she wakes up, that will all be taken care of. That’s what Mr White is here for. To clean up the annoying little glitches.’ Hughes swept a hand in White’s direction.
Klein dabbed a handkerchief to his forehead and sneaked a wary glance at White. ‘It’s too unpredictable at the moment. It’s too messy. It’s not what I envisioned. We need to stop. Do things properly.’
