Greywolf

by Brian Cain

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The International Trade Conference, the Brewery, Chiswell Street London, the stock market had been wiped out, banks stopped trading, the might of the planets money makers gathered in one place. The aristocratic gathering of the best money minds in the world failed to fathom why anarchy had not prevailed; life to the main went on with not so much as a hiccup in most places. Local networks sprang up, debt meant nothing as the entire western world lost the burden of autocracy. From somewhere came hope, people needed each other, a feeling the aged suggested was akin to a world war as people drew together. The puppets of the rich and powerful closed the door, they began to ask questions looking for answers that would return systems to the normality of which they were accustomed prior, to addressing the congregation on how this would be achieved. A handful of people discussed the welfare of the masses, veiled with secrecy the debate was at times heated.

  Chiswell Street became quiet, traffic dropped away and eventually ceased all together. The security personnel on the door became anxious, the areas traffic lights, security cameras and systems ceased operating. The old Whitbread Brewery, now a multinational hotel had been there for hundreds of years, several renovations had sealed lower areas of the London icons ancient apparition, but some were aware of how to access these caverns, last used in the Second World War.

  With voices raised and fingers pointed the room full of financial parishioners fell silent, they all looked at the door with faces etched with scorn. The head of the IMF stood and addressed the intruder. "I gave specific instructions we were not to be disturbed."

  Wolf closed the door behind him and lent on it facing the gathering, a long table with about ten chairs either side, and one at each end. Dressed in grey leather jacket, blue jeans, redwing boots and gold rim ray bans he attended without disguise. "And we sha'nt be." His glasses fed information to him to the far left side of the lens, facial recognition technology beamed from satellites he knew exactly whom he was addressing.

  "How did you get in here, where's security." The man left his position at the far end of the table and paced quickly toward Wolf. "I'll see to it you never work here again, call..." As he got to Wolf he looked down the barrel of a Colt Peacemaker converted to take forty four magnum rounds, he stopped, his face etched with fear.

  "Graham Thimbleberry, not your real name, CEO of the IMF. Money laundering, insider trading, international corporate fraud, shall I go on."

  Thimbleberry gulped, he went white. "Who are you?"

  "Go and sit down Mr Thimbleberry, the line between life and death hangs in the balance for you. It's now who I am but what I say that will be of any importance to you."

  Thimbleberry walked back to his seat and just before sitting spoke. "And your name is?"

  "I asked you to sit down, now I'm telling you."

  Thimbleberry sat but wore a look of revulsion. "I don't know if you're aware but the entire planet is in financial meltdown, we are here to discuss ways to avert total disaster."

  Wolf remained at the door, steadfast and poker faced. "For whom, the few puppetering your services and you react willingly for a slice of the cake."

  A Middle Eastern man stood, he was sitting next to Thimbleberry to his right, easily distinguishable by his broad Arab accent, thawb and headdress veil. "I demand you tell us who you are, upon attempting to leave this building you will be arrested, lay down your weapon and we shall put in a good word." He smiled and gestured with his hands, his fingers heavy with gold rings encrusted with jewels.

  "Shut up and sit down."

  The man became enraged, he pushed over his chair as he made his way toward Wolf, he shouted. "We do not take orders we give them!" From beneath his flowing robe the man produced a handgun, he raised the weapon toward Wolf and a deafening shot rang out. The man was stopped in his tracks by the force of the projectile from Wolf's weapon, he fell backwards and slid along the floor, his gun flying in the air and landing on the floor by the wall. He laid lifeless, blood polling below his body on the polished floor. The room fell deadly silent, no one moved a muscle, faces turned pale with fear.

  Wolf calmly removed the spent cartridge from the chamber of his weapon, put it in his pocket and replaced the gaping hole in the chamber with a live round. He spun the chamber and held the weapon by his side. "Don't regret knowing the people that come into your life, good people give happiness, bad ones give you experience, the worst give you lessons and the best give you memories."

  Thimbleberry broke the silence. "My god you just killed a man, he was the head of many corporations, willing to help out in this crisis......"

  Wolf's face became etched with disapproval, he scanned the table faces through the dark lenses of his glasses, the closest to him at the opposite end of the table to Thimbleberry moved his chair slightly, uncomfortable twisting his neck to look round at Wolf. Wolf's gun was cocked and aimed at his face in a flash. The man raised his hands. "No please, I can't sit like this any longer, my neck." The man slowly moved his chair to a comfortable position and very slowly sat down.

  Wolf lowered his weapon and focused. "Corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill and lie to make money. They throw poor people out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars for profit, poison and pollute the eco system, slash social assistance programmes, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder government treasuries. They crush all popular movements that seek justice for the working men and women, they worship money and power."

  Thimbleberry looked for motive. "You're an activist, I think you fail to understand the system. We are working to alleviate and control these problems, I admit they exist." he gestured toward the gathered and forced a smile. "The American contingent here are moving to...."

  Wolf stood from leaning on the door. "Today the US is number one in billionaires, number one in corporate profit, number one in CEO salaries. It's also number one in child poverty and number one in wealth irregularity in the industrial world yet you willingly offer up the perpetrators as a light for the future. This person is a magician perhaps, has changed his ways in an instant after being educated and propagated to protect your hording habits. You don't see faith healers working in hospitals for the same reason you don't see psychics winning the lottery. Poverty is not an accident, nor slavery, its man made and can be removed by the actions of people."

  Thimbleberry clasped his hands together in front of him. "We realise a change is required, we can do this."

  "You claim to be able to preside over a privileged time, an era of full employment, family vows, innocence and simple things in life. How we treat the venerable is how we define ourselves. I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change, I am changing the things I cannot accept. Give money to the local people and it stays in the local economy. Give money to the rich and it goes to the Cayman Islands. Corporations do not manifest cures, they propagate customers. Common sense is rare these days, it should be considered a super power." Thimbleberry occasionally looked along the fear filled eyes seated at the table without moving his head, Wolf chuckled. "No good looking to them Thimbleberry, they no longer have the power of aristocracy, you foolishly gave it to my father in your relentless fight for supremacy."

  "Your father," Thimbleberry dug for information. "We know him."

  "You know of him."

  "And whom may...."

  In a flash a shot boomed across the table and the man sitting to Thimbleberry's left flew backwards off his chair and hit the wall, blood spattered on white shirts and tailored suits, Wolf shouted down his weapon as he held it poised to strike again should it be necessary. "Look at his hands!"

  Thimbleberry studied the lifeless body slumped against the wall, he looked back at Wolf. "He's armed, he had a gun in his hand."

  "In cohorts with your Arab friend, sent to kill you all with back up from a few of the security staff, they have already met with an unfortunate accident."

  Thimbleberry put his hands
palm down on the table. "Who the hell are you?"

  Wolf lowered his weapon. "Some here would be familiar with my father, John Stanton."

  Thimbleberry looked puzzled. "You're a lawyer, his sons are powerful lawyers."

  "They are my half brothers."

  "He has no other sons."

  A man in a tailored black suit, grey hair and glasses to Thimbleberry's right interrupted. "He's Greywolf, his mother is Bella Elizabeth Fonteyn, and we are all familiar with that name. I've meet John Stanton, he looks just like him and on one else could get anywhere near this place."

  Thimbleberry looked concerned, he held his palms on the table. "A myth, concocted by MI6, a dead end," he shrugged his shoulders. "I don't believe it."

  Wolf smiled and lent with his back to the door. "And that's why I'm here, feed information irrelevant and directional, you wouldn't know if your arsehole was on fire. You haven't been in control for sometime, have the police investigate your dead friends here, and could be most surprising." Wolf began to replace the spent cartridge in his weapon, he suddenly produced a second smaller weapon, spring loaded and hidden up his sleeve, he pointed it at the man familiar with Greywolf, he had slowly slid his hand inside his suit. "Stand up and take your jacket off." The man began to stand and as he did he kicked the chair from behind him and dived his hand inside his jacket. Wolfs Colt peacemaker again boomed across the room and the man crashed to the floor, there was silence, the muzzle smoke was all that moved in the room. Wolf scanned the eyes of the seated, they had all put their palms on the table. "A man of mathematics, yet he miscalculates the magazine capacity of a weapon by several hundred percent. He's been doing that with people's money for so long thought such calculations would work in the real world." Wolf returned the derringer to its poised position up his sleeve and reloaded his Colt, he found the door handle behind him and began to open the door.

  Thimbleberry put his hands up in front of him. "What now?"

  "You're all intelligent people, work it out. I don't come with just condemnation, if it was illegal or impractical to hoard money, if it was spent within communities every week, hoarded money just makes a few rich. Stop hoarding and promote spending would be a good start, I'm no financial strategist but sounds like a good start. At the moment governments borrow from the very people that hoard the money they lend."

  "We have always used the trickle down effect."

  Wolf looked brazen. "Really."

  "The Russians and the Chinese haven't even attended this meeting, we have some serious participation problems."

  "Why would they attend this meeting, the parties over, all hard work from now on?"

  "The military are taking over, threatening governments, the ability to debate through duly elected criteria is falling away, and our freedom may be lost."

  "The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it. It's all about money not freedom. Think you're free, try going somewhere without money. Reverse the hoarding culture, or perish."

  "You are hardly the person I hear your father is."

  "Don't get confused between my personality and my attitude, my personality is who I am, my attitude depends on who you are. Pull a gun and see the consequences, rally aptitude and reap the harvest. Sort it out or be swept aside."

  Thimbleberry stood up, his palms remaining on the table. "You can't just come in here, kill, make suggestions and leave."

  "I just did, yet you still use the word can't. Exactly how much education were you planning on receiving?" Wolf opened the door. "Excuse me gentleman, I have an appointment, sometimes the only choices available are bad ones, but you still have to choose." The door closed and Greywolf vanished.

  The group floundered for a couple of minutes, scathed and stunned by the experience, Thimbleberry eventually opened the door to seek assistance. He was met by a contingent of police; they sealed the premises off and for over an hour interviewed the members within the conference room as forensic gathered evidence beside them. The police accompanied by MI6 advisors finally removed the bodies, conferred and confronted Thimbleberry whom was protesting about being held for so long in such appalling conditions. Chief inspector Burt Plod, from a family of carer police officers over generations scattered about the globe, stood over Thimbleberry for a final question and summing up. "So Mr Thimbleberry", can I call you Graham?"

  "Yes now look I....."

  "A man, apparently called Greywolf, entered the room uninvited, he produced a firearm similar to ones used by John Wayne in cowboy movies. He shot three members of your meeting, apparently sent to assassinate you. He then issued some threats and instructions, then left because he had an appointment elsewhere."

  "Well yes, but that's putting a little...."

  "Three members here shot, all have firearms they should not be carrying and a further member has been found with a firearm. All the firearms have been used and are missing rounds in their magazines. Can you explain that?"

  "Well no, but yes, hang on...."

  Plod folded his arms with a look of stern distain. "They are suspected to be the same calibre as the rounds used to kill the deceased members of your group."

  Thimbleberry gestured with his hands as he spoke, holding his left arm across his chest and waving his right finger around. He shook his head. "You would know more about that than I."

  Plod stood to one side allowing a person looking over his shoulder into the fray. "This is criminal psychologist Slink Watkins," he turned to him. "What's your opinion Slink?"

  Slink smiled and nodded, he looked part of the meeting in his black suit and crisp white shirt. "These people are unreal, I could make a carer out of them, never heard such a story, please tell me more."

  Plod turned back to Thimbleberry. "Graham Thimbleberry, you are under arrest for consorting to commit murder. You do not have to say anything but what you do say may be recorded and later used against you in a court of law." Plod gestured to waiting uniformed officers, they flanked Thimbleberry and handcuffed him, he looked pale and wilted.

  "I'm innocent, this is preposterous."

  "Should investigations show your innocence you will be released, but until then everyone that was in this room is under suspicion of the same thing. Take them all to Scotland Yard."