Newsdeath

by Ray Connolly

  ‘Well, do it.’

  ‘But what if he wakes up?’ The engineer pointed at Danny.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’ll shoot me first,’ said Huckle. ‘They can’t kill you. They need you. You’re the only person who knows how all this works. And you’re the only person who can save us all. Do you understand? It’s up to you. Everybody here is depending on you, Bill.’

  Bill Adams nodded again, then looked up quickly to make sure that none of PUMA had seen him in conversation with Huckle. He was quite safe. Huckle’s body was hidden from them by the console.

  ‘Okay now. Don’t switch us on until I give the signal. Right?’ said Huckle. ‘Good luck.’

  Again Bill Adams nodded. Huckle walked slowly away from him towards Studio B, the place where in normal times Capital Radio might do interview programmes. Then, stopping at the door, he looked into Eyna’s eyes.

  ‘I thought you might like to say goodbye to one of your old flames,’ he said, and went in.

  Chapter Nineteen

  For the first time since they had been together in the black room Eyna was smiling at him. It wasn’t a smile of warmth, but merely a signal that he was welcome to enter. He closed the door behind him. Eyna was sitting facing him. He moved to the far side of her and sat down. A microphone had been left on the table. It was now between them. He prayed that it was plugged in.

  Eyna spoke first: ‘I didn’t know you were going anywhere,’ she said.

  ‘I’m going to heaven, you know that.’ Huckle was keeping his voice controlled.

  ‘We’re all going to die some day.’ Eyna gave away nothing by her expression.

  ‘But those who know too much die first,’ countered Huckle.

  ‘What do you think you know that is too much?’

  Huckle smiled and raising his arms crossed his fingers and sat them on top of his head, yawning elaborately as he slowly stretched and then lowered his arms again. That had been the signal. He wondered whether Bill Adams had seen it. But all he could do now was carry on.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘What do you think you know that is too much?’

  ‘I know that you and Danny are fakes.’

  ‘Fakes …’ She paused. ‘That’s a strange word to use.’

  ‘Well, let’s say I know that you aren’t what you pretend.’

  ‘And what do I pretend?’

  ‘That you’re part of that lot …’ Huckle gestured with his head in the direction of main continuity. He dare not look around in case he saw that his plan had already failed.

  ‘And you think I’m not?’

  ‘I know you’re not. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know who you work for, but I do know that you don’t care one iota for any organization called PUMA. And I also know that the police didn’t kill those two PUMA people that Kate Springfield keeps going on about. It was Danny, wasn’t it?’

  Eyna looked at Huckle and very slowly nodded her head: ‘You’re right. You know too much.’

  Huckle shrugged. If his mind had been less obsessed with the idea that the microphone between them might not be picking up what they were saying, or that Bill Adams might not have had the nerve to switch the transmission from main continuity into this studio, he might have felt fear for himself. But if everything was working Howlett and half London would be listening. He had to carry on. ‘You remember, when we were in the dark room together, you promised to tell me all about PUMA. Well, you never did. Those other guys told me some things, but they didn’t really know what it was all about, did they? I mean, I still don’t even know what PUMA stands for?’

  Eyna laughed. ‘It stands for People’s Urban Media Army. What d’you think of that?’

  ‘It’s a terrible name.’

  She laughed again: ‘It’s as good as those pathetic creatures deserve.’ Her contempt for her disciples was chilling.

  ‘What about you? Where do you fit in?’

  ‘I am what you might call a mischief-maker. My job was to organize this group of self-pitying undesirables and to encourage them into acts of violence. I’d say I’ve been extraordinarily successful, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘But why … for what purpose? I don’t understand.’ Huckle said, although the more she talked the more he thought he was beginning to understand.

  Eyna stared at him for a moment as though debating with herself. Then she suddenly became very practical. ‘Look, you and I know that there’s a need for strong leadership. Right? The people want to be told what to think and what to do. Right now what they want most in the world is to kill us. Very good. That’s what I intended them to want. They also want laws to protect them from terrorists like PUMA, and they want strong government to give them law and order. My job has simply been to help pave the way for public acceptance of a stronger system of government.’

  ‘I still don’t follow,’ lied Huckle for the benefit of the microphone. ‘What has all of this got to do with PUMA 7

  Eyna laughed again: ‘I created PUMA. They were sitting around in squats talking to each other about the perfect society they wanted to create. They were drop-outs, inadequate people who took too much dope. I harnessed their frustration and used it. PUMA were like everybody else, only they were worse. They needed a leader, and it only took the right person to come along at the right time and they were suddenly revolutionaries. They think they’re heroes because they managed to kill a few people and get on the radio for a few hours. They’ll be begging for their plane to freedom any minute now.’

  ‘They won’t get it.’

  ‘No. They won’t get it. Danny will make certain of that. When the time gets close there’ll be a little bang somewhere, the police will rush in and in a few minutes the whole thing will be over. Maybe a couple will have become martyrs, but the rest will be arrested.’

  Huckle was confused: ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll be arrested and taken away in a black van. I’ll appear in court in a few days’ time where I shall say nothing. Then I shall be held in prison to await trial. And then one night I shall be gone … just like that … as though I’d disappeared in a puff of smoke. And no one will ever see me again.’

  ‘It’s impossible.’

  ‘It isn’t only not impossible. It’s certain. Everything has been arranged.’

  ‘Arranged by whom?’

  ‘That isn’t even for me to know. Danny and I shall disappear out of whichever prisons they put us into, at the same time, on the same night.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘What’s left of them will face the wrath of the great British public.’

  ‘It won’t work.’

  ‘But it will work. PUMA is just the first stage. When I’ve finished somebody else will begin a new campaign, and before long the people will be begging for a strong solution. Even now there are people who are calling for military intervention. More events like this, and there will be more, and the momentum will be unstoppable. It’s historically inevitable. The forces against violent anarchy have never been so strong in this country as they are now.’

  Huckle considered what she had said. ‘I can’t believe you. I can’t believe that you could get these people to go around murdering people so easily.’

  ‘You can say that to me?’ she said. ‘Everyone has a time when they are vulnerable. Even you. Don’t you remember? You were lonely and frightened. And there was a woman who took care of you and gave you whatever you wanted. And you enjoyed her. And don’t tell me that you weren’t just a little bit infatuated.’

  ‘I never killed for you.’

  ‘You would have done.’

  Huckle shook his head. ‘But PUMA … they did kill for you?’

  ‘They killed for themselves. They were a group of hopeless cases propping each other up when we found them. Two of them might have been troublesome, Danny took care of them and that left the jellies that the world thinks is PUMA. Believe me, those idiots in there are no more PUMA than you are. PUMA isn’t just a group of sky-high hippies. The real PUMA
is organization and planning on a scale that you would never believe.’

  ‘That was how you knew so much about me?’

  Eyna smiled, but said nothing.

  ‘Where does Danny fit in?’ asked Huckle.

  ‘Let’s just say he’s a good mechanic. He works for wherever the money is best.’

  ‘And the bomb in Pelham Street. The first bomb … that was you?’

  ‘That was my test. The others wanted to see if I would actually go out and do what I said they should do. You shouldn’t have seen me. You would have been safely in bed with some young girl now, I dare say, if you hadn’t been there that night.’

  ‘But why was the media the target?’

  ‘Because the media is the people. It’s as fickle and as gullible as the people. It lacks control. It needs governing. It’s irresponsible. We knew the media wouldn’t be able to resist a story about itself. It did our work for us. It created public panic.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You know what has to happen to you.’

  ‘You’ll be able to kill me just like that?’

  ‘Should you mean anything to me?’

  Huckle thought again about their time together in that black room. Then he shook his head.

  ‘Are you frightened?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a slight pause. Had she been in full control of the situation she would have killed him at that moment. But she seemed to want the conversation to carry on.

  ‘Tell me who you work for?’ said Huckle. There had been no sound from outside since his conversation had begun. He was certain now that Bill Adams had not managed to transmit the conversation, poor foolish Bill Adams and his infernal broadcasting machine. Now Huckle just wanted to talk, every word he uttered would prolong his life.

  ‘Let’s just say that I was brought to London by some people who think that the best thing for Britain is a kind of government which in your ordinary course of events would be unthinkable.’

  Huckle looked at her for a long moment. ‘What kind of gobble-degook is that?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘You’ll never get away with it. The police will find out who you are, and then they’ll find out who you’re working for.’

  Eyna smiled again, an expression of self-congratulation: ‘The police will only find out exactly what they are meant to find out. Nothing more. I even had to help them do their job by sending them a messenger … a girl called Patsy Peters. Poor Patsy … a pretty girl, but I think a little infatuated. She was hurt, and because she was hurt she talked. I knew she would. She was useful. Just as useful as you’ve been. Do you remember when I phoned you the first time and you tape-recorded our conversation? I expected you to do that. You were very predictable.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. You sounded scared.’

  ‘I had to be convincing. I needed your help. And you gave it more than generously.’

  Huckle stared at her in silence. Suddenly he felt that he wanted to beg to be allowed his life, to say that he would never tell a soul of what she had told him, to ask for her mercy before it was too late. But he was unable. He looked up into her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry Huckle,’ she said. She half smiled, an expression which almost suggested sympathy. Then she turned abruptly towards main control in search of Danny.

  It was at that moment that they both saw the ape-like shape of Shelley standing in the doorway.

  The sound of Huckle’s voice in conversation with Eyna over the radio had been enough to persuade Howlett that a plan of assault which he and his advisers had been considering all day should be put into instant readiness. For the moment he was not interested in the content of the conversation, only in the fact that Huckle had somehow managed to put one over on Eyna and the rest of PUMA.

  The plan was simple but fraught with risks. Capital Radio had to be taken that night and PUMA captured. Early in the siege it had been accepted that there could be no frontal assault on the building through any of the doors or skylights. They were all certainly guarded or booby-trapped. So what other ways were there? The answer was the windows. By lowering armed police down from the flat top of the roof of Capital Radio simultaneous attacks could be made from several places in the building by smashing in through the glass and blinds and taking PUMA by surprise and from all sides. During the day it would have been impossible to rig the necessary winching devices on the roof without risking the attention of television cameras - who might then confound the whole plan by showing them on the news that evening, thus alerting PUMA to the plan. But, with the fall of the early winter night, twelve hastily assembled and improvised winches were taken to the roof of the Capital studios from the adjoining Thames Television building. It was a silent operation, and the men erecting them worked in stockinged feet in case they should disturb too much gravel.

  At ten-thirty a crack troop of ex-army policemen were waiting on the roof as Howlett listened thoughtfully to Huckle’s conversation with Eyna, waiting for any signal which might tell him when to attack. It all seemed so peaceful and orderly down there. Every word that the woman was saying was being broadcast loud and clear. He couldn’t believe any of it, and it didn’t make any kind of sense. But nothing that was happening gave him any indication that it was safe for his men to attack.

  ‘I needed your help,’ he heard Eyna say. And then the slight note of regret: ‘I’m sorry, Huckle.’ It had to be now or never, he knew. There was going to be another death.

  But even as he was thinking that, he heard the sound of machine-gun fire crackling and roaring down his radio.

  He was too late. Too bloody late!

  Eyna probably just had time to realize that something was wrong, but even before she could rise to her feet she was dead as, with a shattering of glass, Shelley let loose into her from a distance of no more than three yards a spray of machine-gun fire, bullets which ripped through her body and scattered out the other side so that her corpse jumped and flipped and tossed in a backwards jigging motion.

  In shock Huckle was almost too late to move and only just pulled himself away as Shelley turned towards him. But Shelley had already wasted too much time hurling his transistor radio at the bleeding corpse of Eyna. As he stopped shooting for the moment which that symbolic action took, there was a second burst of fire from main control, shots which sent an arc of red ejections splashing out of his massive head, neck and chest. As he swivelled to face his attacker his giant body crashed down into the broken glass of the studio. Behind him stood Danny holding a smoking machine-gun.

  Instantly Huckle dived for cover beneath the studio table as a spray of bullets smashed into the chair in which he had been sitting. His head hit the floor, but even as it did so he realized that he had not moved quickly enough and that he had been hit. One more shot and I’m dead, he thought. And waited.

  It never came. Not from close-up. On the roof above him Howlett had given the order for attack. Suddenly there was the sound of glass breaking from the direction of the corridor as a dozen armed police marksmen swung from their winches and smashed their way into the outer offices.

  More exchanges of machine-gun fire echoed for a few moments around the buildings. Then the place was filled with policemen running into the studio and screaming at the hostages to get down on the floor; while in a state which was approaching a kind of high reverie Huckle heard a voice which sounded like Jenny Silas screaming, ‘For God’s sake, don’t shoot! Don’t kill us!’

  As screams and shouts and orders overlapped into a wild montage of sound Huckle put his hand down between his legs and tried to pull himself into a foetal position. At first he found that he could not move one leg. Then he discovered that his trousers were damp, and he wondered whether he had wet them in the shock of the moment. But as he pulled his hand up from between his legs so that he might rest it under his head he realized that it was covered in blood. Feeling down again once more he realized that the whole top of his thigh was hanging open. Then he pass
ed out.

  In main continuity Charlie Brown was confused and dazed. He had been in the building now for twenty hours, but it seemed like twenty years. For half an hour he had been listening to Kate Springfield going on about peace and love and revolution, oppressors and oppressed and God knows what. He had noticed that Eyna and the journalist had been sitting in Studio B talking with the door closed, but he’d thought little of it. And then suddenly there was that big ape who ought to have been watching the front door racing into main continuity towards Studio B.

  In the turmoil that followed he saw that Shelley had killed Eyna, but the rest of the action was sound only as he threw himself on to the floor, and prayed that he might not die. He was still there when a broad Scottish voice demanded roughly - ‘All you bastards had better stand up before we find an excuse for killing you.’ He opened his eyes, and saw that he was looking into the bloodshot red eyes of a man wearing a kind of denim assault-course uniform and blue beret. Over the man’s shoulder he saw Hickmore and Martin scrambling back against the wall before being struck across the shoulders by other uniformed men. Down the corridor he heard more shooting and shouting.

  In the flat in Chelsea Cloisters Kirsten waited until Capital Radio went dead before turning off the tape recorder. She had pressed the start button at the beginning of Huckle’s conversation with Eyna and taped every word of what they had said, right until the moment of the machine-gun fire. For something like three quarters of a minute she had heard sounds of shooting and screaming and general pandemonium, but she had not heard the voice of Huckle again. And then the radio station had gone off the air.

  She had done it, she thought, the sound of the machine-gun so close to the microphone still hammering inside her head. She had done what Huckle wanted. Picking herself up she walked through into the bedroom, and undressing she slipped into the bed, to relive the memory that had been their last night together. There were no tears now.

  In Fulham there were tears. For the first time Susan let go her hold on herself; because her mother was there it was probably easier to cry. They had both sat and listened silently all evening to the broadcasts. Susan’s mother had gasped rather too theatrically when the strident demands of PUMA had suddenly been replaced without explanation by the soft voices of Huckle and Eyna, but she said nothing. And now Susan was crying not because she thought her husband to be dead: she would never accept despair. But because she actually felt proud of him.