by Andy McNab
She came back at me, seething at what she saw around her, and for the reason that had brought her here: what had happened in Paraparaumu.
‘The Rayners’ lives have changed for ever. But not like yours.’ It was anger, pure and simple.
Richard’s car had been found within twenty-four hours of his failure to return home from his trip to the supermarket. The local police could come up with only two explanations as to why all his personal stuff, his mobile, his wallet, had been left behind in the glove-box. The first, and preferred, option, as far as the police were concerned, was that he had run away to start a new life, probably with another woman. The second was that he had suffered a mental breakdown and had committed suicide. That would mean more paperwork, because they might end up with a body to process. Both possibilities, they explained to the Rayners, were quite common with men of Richard’s age. So when his bloated body had washed up on a Kapiti Island beach three days later, the police just concluded that his death was option two: suicide, and the currents had washed him about until he landed. They completed the paperwork, filed it away, and that was that.
But the Rayners weren’t willing to accept the police’s easy route out. They didn’t accept either theory for Richard’s disappearance. If he was abandoning them, why would he have left his wallet and mobile in his car? Surely he would have needed his cards, and why hadn’t he taken money from his accounts? If he had committed suicide, where were his car and house keys? If Richard’s mind was so unbalanced and disturbed, why would he throw them away before drowning himself? Why not leave them in the Lexus? Above all, Richard was a considerate man, who loved his family and friends: where was his suicide note? They refused point-blank to believe that he’d run out on them or killed himself, and they decided they had no option but to go in pursuit of the truth themselves.
Their quest got nowhere until early January, more than a month after Richard had washed ashore. That was when the events at Sanctuary were splattered all over the New Zealand media.
It had taken a while for the carnage to be discovered. With the houses on Hunter Road being so far from each other, one neighbour thought they’d heard gunshots during the night, but another suggested that, with so many outages, it could have been crackling power lines. Neither took their theory any further, and most of the other neighbours were overseas. Five bodies lay around Sanctuary rotting in the summer sun, and it wasn’t until a power-company helicopter, running a check of power lines after yet another outage during New Year’s Eve, flew over and spotted the battle scene that the police had known anything about it.
Curiously, the men’s deaths were from multiple head and thoracic injuries. It was a mystery: they weren’t shot, stabbed, or beaten to death; these people had died from injuries more consistent with falling off a high building or a parachute failing to open.
Along with the bodies, there were two abandoned vehicles and several firearms. Vehicle tracks had cut into manicured lawns; ammunition cases were scattered like confetti.
To add to the mystery, which was a gift for the media that they lapped up eagerly, was that there were reports of secret tunnels beneath Sanctuary, and the interior house walls had been broken down with sledgehammers. Even more excitingly, two sets of DNA, unaccounted for, had been detected in the grass. Were they from the mystery wall-destroyers? But why? The answer about the DNA, I knew, wouldn’t have been that exciting. I was sure it would turn out to be Tony’s and mine if it was ever tested.
But just as quickly as the media had found a great story to milk for a week or so, it had disappeared from the nation’s screens and its consciousness. Almost as if a switch had been thrown.
The Hunter Road mystery was the Rayners’ big break. They put two and two together and wondered if there could be a connection between the five deaths and that of their own loved one. They knew he had been doing his last piece of work down there on the South Island, and it was at a place called Sanctuary … so the police should investigate. They pursued the local force once again to reopen the case, but the Rayners were banging their heads against a brick wall.
That was when they’d decided to go national. They battled until they got a meeting with Janet in her Wellington office, and gave all the same statements and the evidence they had given the local force. Their dogged persistence was the reason Janet and Lawrence were sitting with me now.
Part of that evidence was their daughter’s dashcam footage of the day Richard had gone missing. They’d checked it, along with the house’s CCTV footage, just in case there was something – anything – on it that would help the police: maybe a strange car, maybe a strange character walking past. There was: it was me, and it was my hire. No residents recognized either me or the car, and once the Toyota’s plate had been checked, it was an easy operation to trace me all the way back to Queenstown, then link me to the four Brits who’d checked into the same hotel as me just days before Sanctuary got shot up. It was my card that was used to pay for their hotel checkout around the time of death of the Sanctuary bodies – and then guess what? We all disappeared.
Janet and Lawrence had made the connection between me, my credit card, and Subramanian International Banking. And guess what else? The bank’s sole founder and owner had been killed within the same time frame, during the course of what the US media called a ‘house invasion’. But they weren’t here on account of the Sanctuary or Atherton deaths. They were here for Richard’s.
But just as all the dots were beginning to be joined, they were called in by their bosses and ordered to pull away from the whole investigation, and hand over all documents and evidence they held. Then, just as the media had been requested on grounds of national security, they were told to drop it and forget. Newspaper, radio and TV editors might have complied, but Janet and Lawrence were made of sterner stuff. They were pissed off, and even more determined to find out exactly what had happened. Richard was a real man, with a real family, and from what I had seen of Janet she didn’t seem like a woman who liked being told what not to do.
‘You’re right, Janet. Their lives will never be the same. I am deeply sorry about that.’
I wasn’t sure if she believed me or not, but her eyes were back to looking about the room. I hoped she contained whatever loathing she felt. I didn’t fancy being the target of a burst of aggression from her because, no matter what the situation was above her on the food-chain, she was here and she still had power. She could arrest me, and then more people than she could possibly imagine would be in the shit.
I waved my arm. ‘All this is Charlotte’s now.’
Janet wasn’t interested in property ownership. She had more important things on her mind.
‘And Atherton?’
I shrugged again. ‘There was a cover-up. Just like the one down here.’
No one in the States had been arrested for the ‘home invasion’, let alone prosecuted. There had been multiple investigations, or so they had said, but nothing had been found.
‘So, now I’ve told you everything. Am I about to leave here in leg irons?’
No smile from Janet, and she was far from finished. She pushed forward to the edge of the settee and leant in to me. ‘What I want to know is: why am I being prevented from doing my fucking job? It’s what’s in the ledger, isn’t it? That’s what’s keeping everyone’s heads down and mouths shut, isn’t it?’
I nodded very slowly. I had to choose my words carefully. ‘I understand your frustration, I really do. I didn’t choose what happened.’
That did it. The finger came up and jabbed the air. ‘Nor did Richard fucking Rayner! Why do we have to go back to his family and lie? Why should we leave them in a world of doubt, blaming themselves, for the rest of their lives, not knowing what the fuck happened? Not to mention the Filipino. What is his family going through?’
She took a deep breath but Lawrence stayed sitting back, staring at me noncommittally, probably in case he needed to be the good cop.
She switched her tone and shook her hea
d. ‘Why, James? Why do I have to let his family suffer? Tell me, what is contained in the ledger? Tell me.’
I sympathized. They were just trying to do their job. But the fact was that Richard’s family had been given the shit end of the stick, while Janet and Lawrence had been landed with the job of making them not notice the smell.
65
‘Parmesh might be dead, but his dream and his crusade will continue, thanks to the ledger. It’s not like cutting the head off a snake and the snake is rendered useless. He managed to bring together people from all over the world to be part of something good and worthwhile, something life-changing.’
Janet couldn’t have looked less engaged if I’d been reading her the shipping forecast, but I was reluctant to give them more than they needed. I knew the demand would be landing, though – and it looked like it was going to be quite a forceful one. She pushed herself to her feet and strode behind the sofa. Standing behind Lawrence, she glowered at me for several long moments. Then she took a deep breath and turned away, taking a couple of paces towards the front of the house. Just as quickly, she spun on her heel and was coming back at me, her eyes wide and livid. ‘I don’t care about your precious Parmesh and his fucking dream. I don’t care about Sanctuary, Castro, Skye – or even those two murdering fucks who killed Richard.’
She bore down on me and Lawrence’s body tensed. ‘So what is it? What’s so fucking great in that book that we have to back off investigating a murder? A man whose biggest crime was earning money to pay for his grandkids’ education? I mean – really? What have you got there? The Holy fucking Grail?’
Lawrence looked concerned about an escalation. I kept my calm on the La-Z-Boy, tried to bring the temperature down. ‘Janet, I know it’s tragic. I really understand what his family must be going through – and I also understand your frustration.’
She stormed past the settee towards me, her eyes now lasers. Lawrence jumped up to place himself between us, but the coffee-table was in his way. A split second later, Janet towered over me, then jerked down from the waist to bring her face just centimetres from mine. I caught her lemon scent, and then she shouted with such force that she sprayed my face with saliva.
‘Frustration? Fucking frustration? Doesn’t even come close.’
She poked my chest and I kept motionless.
Lawrence pushed an arm between us. ‘Boss, please.’
She wasn’t having it. ‘You fucking people, you come to my country, you buy up half of it, then you kill, you steal, yet nothing happens to you. Why’s that? Why is my own fucking government protecting you and at the same time ordering me to shut the fuck up and go sit in a corner like some fucking interfering schoolgirl? Why?’
Lawrence eased her back from my face, and I brought up a hand to wipe away the flecks of spit. She thrust his arm down so she could take a step closer. ‘Fuck that. Try this for size. I charge you with accessory to murder. Think on that – think hard.’
Lawrence looked as if he was seeing his career shattering into pieces in front of his eyes, and he didn’t know how close he was to reality. ‘Boss, please, stop. Come. Sit down.’ He moved his whole body between us, his back to me as he manoeuvred her away to the settee, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He decided to stay on his feet.
Her face had dialled back a few shades of red and her chest had stopped heaving so angrily, but she still wasn’t interested in ifs or buts or preambles. With both hands she wanted to beckon it out of me. ‘So tell me, or you will be going back to Wellington in leg irons, and then we’ll see what shakes out of the fucking conspiracy tree, shall we?’
My eyes flicked between hers and Lawrence’s, and he agreed with her. ‘She’s the boss.’
In that instant, I, too, made a decision.
I leant in towards the GoPro, reached out and kept my finger on the top power button until the red light went out.
‘You know what, Janet? You’re right. The whole situation is wrong, and you do deserve to know. I’m here, protected by the people above you. And you’re also right about Richard – he isn’t getting justice. His family isn’t getting justice. But they can’t, and I’m sorry about that. Richard’s family must never know, and for your own safety what I’m going to say must stay in this room. No one must ever know.’
I pointed across at Lawrence but kept my eyes on her. ‘At least spare Lawrence from hearing this. Once it’s known it can’t be unknown. If this all goes wrong, why should both of you go down?’
Her jaw hardened and she looked ready to give it to me with both barrels, but Lawrence was in there first.
‘I’m staying.’ He thumbed at the switched-off camera. ‘Best for both of you. You might both need a witness.’
I powered the La-Z-Boy to its upright position to bring me closer to them. For just a moment, they looked more relaxed, but that was probably because they had no idea of the extent to which their lives were about to change.
I studied both their faces long and hard before I spoke.
‘So here it is. If America were in flames – from a nuclear attack to the scythes storming Wall Street – where do you think the leader of the free world would be evacuated to so that he could ride out the apocalypse?’
66
Ever since the Carter administration in the 1970s, when the Cold War was still raging, American officials had planned how to keep the government functioning during a nuclear Armageddon.
Only a handful of people in the world knew the resultant blueprint, but I was now going to tell Janet and Lawrence in minute detail not only the White House’s plan for an apocalypse but also how those plans had been found to be completely inadequate and ripped up, and why the ground under our feet was suddenly at the epicentre of the new preparations, and finally, because they insisted on knowing, why Janet and Lawrence had now put their own lives at severe risk.
Back when the biggest emergency the USA was planning for was a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union, the administration had built a series of blast-proof bunkers and facilities across the States to house different departments of government if missiles were inbound. The ledger listed them. They might have been built decades ago, but they were still part of the new preparations. I counted them off on my fingers.
‘Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in Virginia, a five-hundred-and-sixty-four-acre facility, which would serve as a relocation site for members of the executive branch of the government.
‘White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia, a massive dormitory for lawmakers inside a bunker originally built for members of Congress beneath Greenbrier, a four-star resort near White Sulphur Springs. The 112,544-square-foot shelter included enough beds and supplies to accommodate all five hundred and thirty-five lawmakers, as well as one staff member each.
‘Raven Rock Mountain Complex in Pennsylvania, built in a hollowed-out mountain near Blue Ridge Summit. The facility was conceived as a back-up for the Pentagon and built to house military leaders.
‘Freedman’s Bank in Washington DC, which connected to the White House via two tunnels – one under Pennsylvania Avenue to the Treasury Building, the second under East Executive Avenue from the Treasury Building to the East Wing of the White House.
‘And then there were hundreds of other relocation sites across the USA, including the one where the Federal Reserve has stockpiled billions of dollars in cash, which they plan to use to replenish currency supplies after Armageddon.’
The number-one priority of the bunkers, I explained, was to preserve the president and all branches of government so they could continue to carry out their roles and functions.
The president and his or her team would be helicoptered to whichever site was chosen. They’d lock themselves down and wait out the attack. Then they would emerge after the destruction, backed up by the government departments, which had the institutional knowledge to rebuild with what was left of the population.
‘But they eventually hit a problem with that plan. Nukes were one thing, but forty years on the wo
rld has changed. The nuclear threat is still out there, and some would say it’s worse than it was back then. But now we have more to worry about. We’ve got climate and the resource conflict, the discontented scythes threatening the established order, what the ledger calls “uncoordinated sabotage”. And it’s not just the cognitive elite who are concerned about all these new problems.
‘So – where would a president now go to sit out the crumbling of society yet still carry out his or her role when the world goes pear-shaped?’
Janet was on it. ‘Here.’
I nodded, but neither of them was showing surprise. Maybe it was police training to enable them to hide any emotion during interrogations; maybe she simply sensed I had more to say.
I held up my right index finger. ‘POTUS needs three things to be able to function in any emergency. Survivability: POTUS has to be able to ride out a nuclear war, civil war, uprising, pandemic, whatever it is.’ Then my middle finger. ‘The second thing is connectivity: POTUS has to be able to communicate to all elements of the US government and, of course, to other heads of state. Where POTUS leads, the rest will follow.’
The third finger went into the air to join the other two. ‘Finally, supportability: not just security, but everybody from NASA to the military, from food distribution to the power grid to water sanitation. They need to be with POTUS, not just in their own bunker somewhere in the US.
‘So if we fast forward to 2019, the triple requirements of survivability, connectivity and supportability have led to a major shake-up of the way POTUS tries to keep control.
‘Instead of the different arms of government having their own locations to bunker down in, each location now has an interagency cadre, a fifty-person team comprising all of the government departments that will be pre-positioned during a national emergency to support the president. The cadres will deploy randomly to any one of the sites, but the president will deploy with his or her own cadre to a purpose-built location that’s known only to a handful of insiders. Even the other cadres think that POTUS will be bunkered down somewhere in the US. They have no idea what will happen to POTUS. But now you two do.’
