Gone Underground

by Phil Brett

  There had then been an attempt to interview Jackie Payne. Obviously, she hadn't been in the studio, but I missed where exactly she was because my attention had been suddenly caught by Victoria loudly swearing, swerving and steering the car out of a skid.

  ‘Sorry, Roijin. Ice on the road. Nearly lost it there. Sorry. You were saying?’

  Skid over, there was no reduction in car speed or the tempo of her conversation.

  I flashed her a look but was ignored. Deciding on not to suggest that paying attention to the road might be a good idea, I returned to the news, only to discover that the linkup with Payne had been unsuccessful due to technical difficulties – terminology which covered a multitude of sins from crap electrics, weather conditions or cyber interference from the CIA. But whether it was the weather, spooks or snow, they had returned to the studio for more experts pontificating. It was a tossup which would be more inane: the self-congratulatory TV debate or the cop chit-chat in the car. Deciding, I turned it off.

  Cole and gang were still wittering on about witness statements and a few things which they needed to chase up. I didn’t bother to join in, as it was too early in the morning to listen to some ex-cops being arsy with me, so I just looked out as the countryside whizzed past. Noticeably, the number of water tankers began to increase from the odd one into dozens.

  The nearer we got to the extraction centre, the higher up the South Downs, the cooler the temperature and the thicker the covering of snow on the fields. We passed a batch of wind farms turning furiously. My mind went back to the shoot-out yesterday, remembering the bloodied body of the technician. How was Cole feeling about it now? It had certainly shaken her and she’d made it quite plain that the double whammy of guilt of allowing the technician to be murdered and, in turn, of her hand in killing the killer, had stunned her. Whatever the circumstances, and the basic fact that she’d killed a state terrorist – in self-defence – I’d hazard an each way bet of ten workers' tokens that she wouldn’t be over it for quite a while.

  Soon after the turbines, we caught sight of the tops of the extraction drills. I guess I’d expected something impressive and space-age looking, but in actual fact they looked quite the opposite. Whilst the turbines stood upright, proud and full or promise, the drilling towers just looked tired, aging and half-hearted. If there was anything space exploration about them, it was one of a 1950s science fiction magazine. There wasn't much to write home about the surrounding buildings either; looking like oversized caravans parked by oversized barrels. To be fair, the fencing was impressive, with huge warnings of fatal electric shocks for anyone attempting to climb them. I would also hazard a wild guess that the occupants of the khaki armed vehicles parked on the verge might also take some action if such a thing occurred. Looked like we had some way to go with the demilitarisation of things.

  Reaching the gates, Victoria told me to check my phone. Doing so, I saw that she had transferred an attachment to our ID. It was a Vid message from Jackie Payne who, as president of the Workers’ Republic of Britain, authorised whoever saw it to give me access to whatever I wanted to see or talk to whomever I wanted to. Proof that I was coming back in from the cold.

  I noted the time Jackie had sent it – last night, ten minutes after Victoria had dropped me off at the Anchorage. Obviously, Victoria and Jackie were having intimate talks. Considering that Jackie had such minor matters as our revolution, the Portuguese revolution and the growing possibility of others across Europe to deal with, it was telling that she had time to take such an interest in this investigation.

  Nonetheless, it was useful to show the guards on the gate. We, or rather Cole, explained who we were and that we were to see Janet Kovac on NWC business. After a few checks and questions, we were allowed in. Passing the guard house, we could see several suspicious pairs of eyes following us, below which were suspicious machine guns, doing likewise. Things were clearly edgy here. From out of nowhere, two armed guards on motorcycles appeared, joining us for the three-minute journey up the access road. I wasn’t too sure what they were supposed to be doing, considering that the road was flanked either side by three huge pipes arranged in a triangular formation. What did they fear we’d do? Rev up the engine, jump them and hurtle off across the Downs?

  With the revolution's energy supply safe for a while, we arrived in the large rectangular extraction site. It looked even less impressive close up than it had from a distance. The offices were yellow boxes, looking not much more than containers. When they had been manufactured twenty odd years ago, they had most probably been bright puke-inducing yellow. Now they were a sickly jaundiced tone.

  One of our guards dismounted from his bike, barked at us to stay in the car and knocked on the nearest door. I couldn’t see who the machine gun toting biker was talking to, but they’d said something positive and then shouted back at us that we were allowed to get out. I did so. Right smack into a puddle of oily, slushy water. Nice. I looked down at my splashed trousers and cursed the halfpenny outfit who used to run this place.

  Cole seemed oblivious to my traumas and just strode towards the door. Sheepishly, I followed, trying to avoid any more carnage to my clothes. Waiting for us was Kovac, a shortish woman wearing trousers and a pullover. A huge beaming smile welcomed us. Being the Flow, Proppants and Fracturing Monitoring Tech at the Shale Gas Extraction Plant at South Downs appeared to make her one happy woman. It must be a gas. Cringing at such an awful joke, even for me, I joined them.

  After a warm and hearty hug, she ushered the pair of us in like we were long lost relatives visiting at Christmas. ‘Come in, come in, comrades, and get warm.’

  We did as she asked, but as for getting warmer, it wasn’t immediately obvious that it was going to be the case. Even with the door shut, it felt barely a few degrees above freezing in there. She beckoned us further into a corridor, which had all the allure of a gutted caravan.

  Her voice was quick, cheerful and packed with random questions, thoughts and subjects: ‘So, how ya doing? How was the trip to the Deep South? Snow’s at least cleared.’ She chuckled as way of demarcating sentences. ‘It's been terrible down here’ Chuckle. ‘Weather wise, that is. We've pretty much missed all the action, good, bad and otherwise. We've heard about them, of course. Just terrible, some of them.’ Chuckle. ‘Still, great news about Portugal!’ Chuckle. ‘So, how ya doing?’

  Cole answered, exchanging pleasantries, whilst I mourned my trousers.

  ‘I’m doing okay,’ she replied to Cole’s polite enquiry. Clearly, the Met’s customer relations courses hadn’t been in vain. They might have been disbanded, but they could be proud that their community policing etiquette was being kept alive. Albeit, by a woman whom they regarded as a traitor because had joined the revolution. Good manners, though, transcended the class struggle.

  The welcoming dance over, Kovac explained how we were to work. ‘I’ve arranged a room for you. I’ll get some tea and biscuits. You said that you wanted to meet everyone comrade Harrison had spoken to. I’ve actioned that. People have changed their shifts so you can do so.’

  She smiled and then shuffled down the corridor, momentarily stopping to say hi and chuckle to two engineers in orange high-vis jackets and matching safety helmets.

  ‘Here we are!’ she announced, her bright tone contrasting sharply with the dour grey door. It didn’t suggest a grand suite. Opening it, there was proof that sometimes first impressions are right. The size of a teenager’s bedroom, it was totally bare except for a metal table and three chairs. The walls were cardboard coloured, looked like cardboard and smelt like cardboard. They probably were cardboard. It also looked like someone had taken a pick-axe to parts of them, creating large holes in places. Not that anything like a pick-axe would have been required: a stiletto would have probably been more than enough, although rather less macho. Wires visibly hung from sockets. Cold hung in the air. Prison cells were more comfortable.

  Cole thanked her.

  I wondered what for.

  Jane
t ushered us in and showed off all the facilities. There was the table, the three chairs, a light and, well, we knew that the door opened. Before we had a chance to contact Furnishing Weekly, or even to sit down, Cole got straight to the point.

  ‘So, Olivia Harrison telephoned you whilst she was at the wind farm?’

  ‘Correct.’ Janet beamed.

  ‘Then, in the course of that call, she decided to drive here?’

  ‘Correct again.’

  ‘Did she suggest she come here herself or did you?’

  ‘Oh, she did. I wouldn't have thought of dragging her here. She's got far more important things to do.’ Janet chuckled. ‘No, she did. I was a bit surprised, but heck, any visitor is a good visitor here.’ She laughed again.

  ‘Did she say why she wanted to come?’

  ‘To see how we were doing. She said she was prepping for the conference.’

  ‘Did she say why she felt it necessary to come in person?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn't ask?’

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  Cole nodded. She thought for a second, before asking her next question. ‘Did she speak to you?’

  ‘Course. She asked about how the plant was doing – output, safety procedures, damage to the environment.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Er, well how the staff were, staffing levels, morale etc.’

  ‘So, similar to what she asked you on the phone?’

  ‘Yep, pretty much.’

  ‘And she then asked you to arrange interviews with all the staff?’

  ‘Yep, took her best part of two days—’

  Cole had asked enough. She smiled, nodded and took off her overcoat, revealing a thick blue shirt. From the texture, I could see that it was made from thermowarm material, which basically used the body’s heat to act as an electric blanket. Once her coat was on the back of the chair, she sat down.

  Rather surprised by the abrupt end to the conversation, Janet Kovac, for a moment, seemed rather at a loss to know what to do. Finally, she shook herself and muttered that she would get “that tea.”

  ‘Coffee, please!’ I shouted after her.

  Cole looked around but said nothing. Not having clothes made from such fibre as hers (they didn’t yet come in suits and formal shirts), I kept my coat on and glumly looked at her. Not seeming to be bothered by the solitary confinement cell we’d been dumped in, she took out her phone. Laying it on the table, she turned the projection on and started to plan our time here.

  I was tempted to suggest that we flee, contact the workers’ air force, and get them to strafe this “building” with high impact missiles. But I didn’t. I sat down.

  ‘How do you want to do this?’ she asked.

  'Quickly', I said to myself.

  ‘Divide them up and take one each would be quicker,’ she said, ‘or we could interview each one together? That would be slower but perhaps more thorough.’

  Despite fearing that icicles would start to appear from my eyelids and that this room was an instrument of terror, I found myself going for second option. ‘This place is important. I think we both agree that the reason for Olivia’s death might be found here.’ I had no idea why; it was just a feeling. And it being so numbingly cold, I was grateful for any such thing which resembled feelings. ‘And it seems only sensible to be as thorough as possible.’

  Before Cole had a chance to say anything, or even applaud my dedication, Janet arrived with the refreshments. Sitting down, she passed the mugs to us. Mine was chipped. We each got a biscuit. Mine was missing a corner.

  ‘Sorry about in here, but the only other available room was the staff room and the people weren’t willing to surrender that to you.’

  I looked mournfully at my “breakfast”. ‘Not popular, are we?’

  ‘Not really. Well, having the position of closing all fracking sites doesn’t make you popular with these guys. Feckin’ frackers, huh!’ she chuckled.

  ‘So, why do you stay?’

  ‘Oh, we’re not popular, but there’s no hatred. They know full well that any closures will be followed by redeployment to jobs requiring their skills. I’ve been with this crew for a while. Shall we say that, personally, I’m liked, but my politics are only tolerated?’

  ‘I don’t want to be rude, but I have to say that from what I’ve seen, I don’t see that closing it right down would be such a tragedy!’

  Unexpectedly, Cole laughed in agreement.

  As did Janet. ‘You may have point, comrade, but we get quite attached to the job, and the way we work makes us quite closely bound.’

  ‘What do you mean, how you work?’ Cole asked.

  ‘We’ve been extracting for years and the reserves of shale gas in this part of the country are running out, so we are having to drill deeper and to keep moving. We move to a site, drill, exhaust it and then move on. That makes us rather nomadic but also quite tight knit.’

  ‘And explains why it’s so shambolic here,’ I muttered.

  ‘That’s true, but also you’ve got to understand that hydraulic fracturing is quite an old technology and the equipment needs replacing. When the energy crisis hit alongside the economic meltdown; rebooting the industry wasn’t seen as important, even by the Government that the guys here support.’

  ‘Okay,’ Cole said, changing the mood in the room, if not the temperature. ‘Go through again what Olivia Harrison said to you when she phoned.’

  Janet Kovac could have pointed out that she had told us twice already, but didn't. Instead, she did as she had been asked. Cole listened carefully, only stopping her to check that what we were being told was as near to it being word for word as she could remember.

  ‘So tell me what happened when she got here. From the moment she arrived at the gates.’

  ‘Well, she got here about three o’clock. I have my afternoon break at 2.30 to 2.45 and it had just finished. Shame we had some nice biscuits then.’ She chuckled. ‘Anyway, the guards let her in. I was at the drill so she came straight to me.’

  ‘How did she seem?’

  ‘Oh, er, fine. I had met her a few times at meetings and conferences. She remembered me, because, to be honest, there aren’t that many party members in the fracking industry. We chatted about how long I had worked here and in what capacity. I told her for ten years, and then explained my job. I have to say that her ability to grasp technical detail quickly was awesome. Then, she wanted a rundown on our production targets and overall capacity. That wasn’t my forte, so I gave her a few names that could go into more detail.’

  Janet closed her eyes for a second, trying to recall the conversation. Cole sat patiently. I shivered.

  ‘She then wanted to know all our security arrangements. Which, I gotta say, are pretty solid. We have guards at the gates and along the fences. We have six militia always stationed inside. Plus, there are regular checks by the local lot. Then there’s Drongo.’ Seeing Cole’s confusion, she giggled. ‘That’s our name for the drone which permanently hovers above us. Below ground, there are sensors and emergency cut-outs in case of an attack from that direction. Our software has the highest protection, and in the case of hacking, everything closes down.’

  ‘So, you are saying that you are 100% safe?’ Cole asked.

  I could detect a slight tone of disbelief in Cole’s voice. Certainly, I hadn’t seen such a commanding protective shield when we had approached. It had looked more like a rundown campsite to me.

  Still with a smiling happiness, which was more in keeping with a birthday party than an investigation into possible terrorist threats, Janet replied, ‘We can’t say 100%, but maybe in the nineties. It may look like a dump here, but it's a safe dump.’ She laughed. ‘One reason why we are so well protected is that the previous owners were terrified of sabotage by environmentalists and socialists. I’ve pointed out the irony of this to Gita Devar and Emily Messager many a time. Do you know them? Two anarchists involved in the extraction power industry, good committed class f
ighters.’

  We confirmed that we did.

  ‘It is pretty laughable, crazy even, that two of the leading anarchists who had previously organised demos and action against this and other such plants are now a part of the management of the entire industry! Devar actually served a two-year prison sentence for disabling a plant in the north-east. Awesome!’ She laughed.

  We smiled. Yeah, it was even crazier that the very same Gita Dewar had just been handed a role in policing. We didn't mention it though. We just smiled.

  Kovac continued. ‘But we’re pretty much the best protected arm of the power industry; well, aside from nuclear, that is. You could say that for both us and nuclear, the only realistic threat is from the NWC itself – shutting us down. ‘

  ‘Okay, anything else?’

  ‘We chatted about the workforce here, their politics and what we might be do to build the party profile—’

  ‘And?’ Cole asked, who probably, like me, was still puzzled as to why such a high ranking, and therefore very busy, member of the National Workers’ Council would drop everything to come and chat about how to recruit a few more members.

  ‘She kinda just talked about the workforce. What they were like, how long they’d been here, that sort of thing. I’ve worked for the plant crew for over ten years, so I know most of them. There’s a few here who’ve been here longer than me, but I’m pretty much one of the old guard.’

  ‘Did she say why she wanted to know all that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was there anybody she asked about in particular?’

  ‘No. It was just a general conversation.’

  ‘She didn’t seem interested in anyone you spoke about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What else did she talk to you about?’

  ‘Nothing. That was it, really.’

  With just the slightest movement of her head, unnoticeable to Janet – and, if I'm honest, to almost me as well – Cole threw me a look. ‘She didn’t ask about any comrades who might not actually work here, but had connections with the plant?’