Terror Illusion

by James R Conway

Next morning Jonathan had a light breakfast of coffee and toast with marmalade and he was showered and dressed and ready by eight o’clock. He walked with Mac over to the Tower Hill station and they caught the Underground train to Euston where they would catch the train to Bletchley.

  They each picked up a cup of coffee from a shop on the Euston station concourse. Jonathan yawned and said, “I might be awake by the time we get to Bletchley.”

  “Not a morning person, eh?” said Mac.

  “Nah! I used to be but I think I used up all my early mornings some years ago.”

  The train from Euston to Bletchley was a suburban commuter train with basic accommodation and stopping at nearly every station along the line. It took almost an hour to reach Bletchley, just fifty miles north of London. Mac and Jonathan stepped off the train and began to walk along the platform to the station exit.

  “It’s only about five minutes walk,” said Mac.

  “Have you been here before?”

  “Very early in my MI5 career, just before GCHQ moved to Cheltenham. I came here for a week’s training course on cryptography. Last year I came back to visit the museum.”

  They left the station and turned right to walk along the road towards Bletchley Park. As they walked, they could just glimpse the main buildings through the trees. It was about a quarter of a mile to the front gates of the park. As they turned off the road and into the driveway, they could see the Victorian mansion that had been home to the Government Codes and Ciphers School during and after World War Two. It had been renamed Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) after the war and had eventually moved out of Bletchley Park to Cheltenham in the west of England. After lying empty for twenty years the mansion in the middle of the park had been restored by dedicated volunteers and had been opened as a Museum of Cryptography, celebrating the formerly secret labours of the brilliant cryptologists who had broken the German communication ciphers during the Second World War. General Eisenhower himself had said that, in his opinion, the efforts of Bletchley Park had shortened the war by at least two years.

  Mac and Jonathan paused for a moment to take in the view. The driveway on which they were standing curved around a lake that lay in front of the mansion and then curved back to arrive at the front door. The mansion itself was an impressive structure built at the end of the nineteenth century in a rather quirky mixture of architectural styles. It was a two storey building of red brick construction but with grey and white stone columns and decorations surrounding the doors and bay windows. There was a two storey circular tower at one corner of the building capped with a copper dome, which had acquired an attractive green patina over the years.

  “It looks just the kind of place where you would expect a bunch of boffins to work,” said Jonathan.

  “Actually, the mansion was mostly used for the administrative offices. The boffins worked in wooden huts around the park that were thrown together at the start of the war.”

  After admiring the view for a few minutes, Mac and Jonathan went into a building on their right where they bought tickets and a guide book and started their tour of the museum. They spent a couple of hours absorbed in their study of the museum’s exhibits which told the story of how the code breakers of Bletchley Park had been recruited from the mathematics departments of Britain’s top universities to find ways of breaking the codes used by the German military to keep their radio communications secret. They saw the Enigma cipher machines and the very earliest versions of computers, which had been developed and used in the darkest days of the war. Both Mac and Jonathan were so fascinated by what they had learned in the museum that they had entirely lost track of time.

  Mac looked at his watch. “Good Lord! It’s nearly three o’clock. I’ve just realised I’m hungry.”

  “Me too! Can we get lunch somewhere round here?”

  “There’s a cafe in Hut Four, or if you want something more substantial there’s a pub called The Enigma Tavern just the other side of the railway tracks from here. Bear in mind that we have to be back at the mansion to go into the Question Time recording by six o’clock and it probably won’t finish until about nine, so we are not likely to be able to get an evening meal.”

  “I think I would like to unwind for an hour or two before I start trying to get into Mendellson’s mind,” said Jonathan. “Why don’t we walk over to The Enigma Tavern?”

  “Good idea. These museum tickets can be re-used for a whole year so you can come back whenever you like.”

  With that, they left the museum and started walking back towards Bletchley railway station.

  By the time that they had had a drink and a meal at the pub and walked back to Bletchley Park, it was almost six o’clock. The museum had closed but they showed their tickets for the Question Time recording at the gate and they were admitted by a uniformed guard who directed them to the mansion. Once inside, they were directed to a large room where other members of the television audience were gathering. Coffee and biscuits were available but both Mac and Jonathan declined and they took seats at one of the tables away from the crowd, to await the start of proceedings. There were cards on the table upon which they were invited to write questions to be asked during the programme but they did not want to attract unnecessary attention to themselves so they chose not to submit any questions.

  After a few minutes, Mac spoke. “Jonathan, I’ve got a question for you. When you are getting into the mind of a subject you are concentrating one hundred percent on them, right?”

  “Very much so.”

  “So how do you make sure that you are able to remember all the details that you see in their minds?”

  “Good question. I have found that the memories in my head are very intense for a few minutes so if I can record my memories onto a notepad straight afterwards, or tell the details to somebody then I can make a pretty good record of it.”

  “Once the recording has started we won’t be able to leave the studio until it’s finished. Do you have a pen and paper to record your thoughts?”

  “I always carry some kind of writing materials.” Jonathan pulled a small spiral bound notebook and a ball point pen out of the pocket of his jeans and placed them on the table.

  A man wearing a headset and microphone walked into the room and plugged his headset into an amplifier at the front of the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, could I have your attention please?” He paused briefly and the buzz of conversation that had been filling the room subsided. “My name is Greg Owen and I’m the studio manager. In a few minutes, we will all be moving into the studio to take our seats for the recording of Question Time. Once we are seated, we will be doing a short rehearsal so that the camera and sound crews can check their equipment. Then David Dimbleby and his panel of guests will enter and we will start recording. We will record the programme straight through without a break so now would be a good time to make yourself comfortable if you need to. My assistant, Anne, will be here in a few moments to show you to your seats in the studio.”

  The studio manager unplugged his headset and left the room.

  “Jonathan, quick, come with me,” said Mac. They both stood up and Jonathan followed Mac as he walked quickly out of the room. Mac caught up with the studio manager in the corridor just outside the room.

  “Excuse me, Greg,” said Mac. “My name’s Fergus McKinnon. Did your producer, Jean, mention me?”

  “Yes, sir, she did. She asked me to make sure I looked after you. What can I do for you?”

  Mac lowered his voice. “Is there any chance we can slip into the studio and get seats on the front row?”

  The studio manager looked around rather furtively. “No problem. Come with me.” He led Mac and Jonathan down a corridor and through double doors into the studio. The room was in fact the former ballroom of the mansion with high ceilings and tall windows along one side. The windows were covered with heavy curtains now in preparation for the programme. Rising on the left were rows of seats for the audience. To the right, at the front of
the studio, was the familiar Question Time studio set that both Mac and Jonathan had seen on television many times before. There was a curved table where the panel and the chairman would sit. There were seven seats behind the table. Behind the seats was a series of tall background panels bearing the Question Time logo and on the floor in front of the table was the large black Q logo bearing the name Bletchley Park picked out in large white capital letters. Jonathan noticed that the centre chair behind the table, the one that would be occupied by the chairman David Dimbleby was a few inches higher than all the other chairs. He mused that this was probably a subtle way of giving the chairman a little extra authority over the guests.

  “Take those two seats at the far side of the front row,” said the studio manager, pointing across the room.

  “Thanks Greg,” said Mac and he and Jonathan walked across the room and took their seats. By the time they were seated the studio manager had left the studio again and they were alone. The room was very quiet.

  “This is excellent,” said Mac in a low voice. “You’ll be just a few yards from Mendellson.”

  Jonathan looked around the room. The seats behind them rose up in about ten rows. Above his head was a lighting gantry that stretched across the width of the room and illuminated the studio set brightly, and in front of him were two television cameras, one each side of the studio, Cables snaked across the floor. Jonathan noticed a buzz of conversation at the double doors and the rest of the audience started to file into the room and take their seats. At the same time, technicians started to take up their places behind the television cameras. Other technicians were picking up sound booms.

  Once the audience was seated the studio manager, Greg Owen, came in. “Right, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to do a short rehearsal so that our director and our sound and vision people can get all their equipment set up and adjusted. So I would like six volunteers from the audience to come out and play the part of our guest panellists.”

  About a dozen hands shot up and the studio manager selected six people from the audience, who stepped down to the studio floor and were directed to their seats behind the curved table. The studio manager settled himself into the centre chair. A couple of technicians fixed lapel microphones to the volunteers.

  “I will ask a question and then I will invite each of the panel members in turn to comment on the question. I would also like contributions from the audience so if you would like to say something raise your hand and wait for me to call on you to speak. For the rest of the audience, applaud when you think fit.”

  Mac leaned over to Jonathan and said in a very low voice, “Do you want to try a practice run on the panellist nearest to you?”

  “I don’t think that will work, Mac. You see, I have to have some connection with the person, I have to know something about them in order to hook into their memories. For example, with Mendellson I can try various keywords like ‘Prime Minister’ or ‘MI5’ and get into his memory but with these panellists I don’t know them from Adam.”

  Mac nodded and the pair watched as the studio manager called on each volunteer in turn to comment on the question he had asked. It took about ten minutes for all six panellists to say their piece, so Jonathan reckoned that at best he had about seven or eight minutes to get into Mendellson’s mind and get out again before Mendellson was asked to comment on the next question. Mendellson would be in a temporary seizure while Jonathan scanned his memory stream so he would just be staring straight ahead and would not respond to anything said to him. It was a risky job but at worst, Jonathan could just drop his concentration, thus freeing Mendellson from the seizure.

  After two rounds of questions to the volunteers, the studio technicians had their equipment set up and the studio manager instructed the volunteer panellists to return to their seats in the audience. Then the chairman of the Question Time programme walked onto the studio floor.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is David Dimbleby and I will be chairing this evening’s discussion. I would just like to say that it is you, the audience, who are the key to an entertaining show so please do feel free to participate by asking supplementary questions and applauding when appropriate. And now please welcome tonight’s guest panellists.”

  Dimbleby called the each of the guests by name and the audience applauded as each took their seat. The first guest was an opposition Member of Parliament who sat closest to Jonathan in the seat that Jonathan had hoped would be occupied by Lord Mendellson. The next guest called was a journalist working on one of the national daily newspapers. The audience applauded each guest as they were introduced. The roll call continued until Lord Mendellson was the last to be seated, farthest away from Jonathan.

  “I was hoping he would be closer,” whispered Mac.

  “Me too, but because of the curve of the desk I am face on to him and that will definitely help me to make eye contact with him. Do you think he will recognize you?”

  “Not likely. I’ve only met him briefly a couple of times and I am pretty much in the shadows sitting here.”

  The panellists settled into their seats and the audience became quiet as Dimbleby began to speak. “We will take one practice question as a warm up for the panel and a final technical check for sound and vision, then we will start the recording, so can we have our first question please?”

  A member of the audience stood up and started reading a question from a card that she held. A technician with a boom microphone held it above the questioner’s head and a cameraman with a chest mounted Steadicam closed in. Once the question was asked the chairman invited each of the guests in turn to comment on the question, starting with the guest closest to Jonathan and working through the panel so that Lord Mendellson was the last to be asked to comment.

  “I’m trying to get into the rhythm of the show,” said Jonathan.

  “I understand,” said Mac. “Take your time. The recording will last an hour. Just relax.”

  The pair watched as Dimbleby looked directly into one of the cameras that were moving about on the studio floor and the programme’s introductory music played. Dimbleby began his introduction. “Good evening and welcome to Question Time. This evening we are in Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, fifty miles north west of London. During the Second World War, this park was home to the British code breakers who cracked the German Enigma military codes and by some reckonings helped to shorten the war by two years. For thirty years after the war, the heroic achievements of the code breakers were shrouded in secrecy but now Bletchley Park is a museum of code breaking, honouring those wartime achievements.”

  Dimbleby paused and there was applause from the audience. As the applause died away, he introduced the six members of the panel again for the benefit of the television viewers. Then he called on a member of the audience to read out the first question. He asked Mendellson to respond.

  “Are you ready?,” said Mac in a whisper.

  “Just as soon as he has finished answering his question.”

  Mendellson spoke for just over two minutes in response to the question then the panellist to Mendellson’s right pitched in with her answer. Jonathan caught Mendellson in eye contact and immediately put him into a light seizure and started thinking of keywords to start the memory trace.

  “MI5 Black Ops.”

  An image started to form in Jonathan’s mind.

  I am in a car, sitting on the back seat. There is a driver wearing a peaked cap and uniform. I am travelling down Whitehall and I can see the tower of Big Ben ahead of me. The car is slowing down and making a right turn into Downing Street, where the Prime Minister works and lives when he is in London. The car is drawing up to a pair of ornate gates guarded by two policemen. I have been summoned by the Prime Minister to see him but I don’t know what he wants to talk to me about.

  One of the policemen is looking in through the windows of the car and now he is waving to his colleague who is opening the gates. The car is driving slowly through into the street beyond
the gates. The car is stopping at the door of number 10. A policeman is opening the car door and I am stepping out. As I approach the door the policeman on duty is saluting me and the door is being opened from inside. I am stepping in through the doorway into the entrance hall and an aide is closing the door behind me. I have been here many times before.

  Another aide stepping out of a side door, into the hallway.

  She says “Good morning, Lord Mendellson.”

  I respond, “Good Morning.”

  “The PM is ready for you, sir.”

  With a broad sweep of her arm, the aide is inviting me into the Prime Minister’s office. I am walking into the room and I see the Prime Minister sitting behind a large desk.

  “Lord Mendellson to see you, sir,” says the aide.

  The Prime Minister says, “Good morning, George.”

  I respond “Good morning, Prime Minister.”

  “Take a seat.”

  I sit down at the opposite side of the desk from the Prime Minister. The aide is closing the door as she is leaving the room.

  The Prime Minister is speaking again. “George, we are getting an increasing problem. We are losing support for our anti-terrorism efforts. Both in parliament and in the country. We are having trouble getting our anti-terrorist legislation through parliament and we have been getting a lot of demonstrations and protests around the country. We’re also losing support for our military operations in the Middle East.”

  “I absolutely agree, Prime Minister. We are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of our own people.”

  The Prime Minister is continuing. “When we had the attacks in New York and later here in London we had a lot of public support but the longer we go without a terrorist attack the less support we get. It’s almost as if people forget and when they feel safe they are less inclined to accept restrictions.”

  “Prime Minister, it’s almost as if the more successful we are at fighting the terrorists the less support we get from the people. And don’t forget our military operations. People are questioning why our troops are dying in the Middle East. It’s as if people have lost track of why we are there.”

  “George, I want you to take on a task to rebuild popular support for our anti-terrorist policies. Do you think you can handle it?”

  “Yes, sir. I am sure I can handle that. I think it might be a job for the Organization.”

  “George, as usual I do not want to know what you are doing. We must maintain plausible deniability.”

  “Very well, Prime Minister. Leave it with me.”

  The Prime Minister is pressing a button on his desk and I am standing up as an aide is opening the door.

  “Good luck, George,” the Prime Minister is saying as I turn to leave. As I reach the door, I turn to face the Prime Minister. “Thank you, Prime Minister.”

  I am being shown to the door by the aide. “Goodbye, Lord Mendellson,” she says and I step outside. A policeman is stepping forward and opening my car door. The car has been turned around to face the other way, towards the gates that we came in through, because Downing Street is a dead end street. I am getting into the back of the car and the policeman is closing the door.

  My driver is saying, “Where to, sir?”

  “Back to my office, if you would.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  I need to call Grendan West over at MI5 Black Ops and set up a meeting with him to discuss what the Prime Minister has talked about. I am pushing the button to close the privacy window between the driver and myself. I am punching in Grendan’s private mobile number on my mobile phone. It rings for a few moments then Grendan answers

  “George, what can I do for you?”

  “I need to set up a meeting with you.”

  “Well, today is Wednesday and I’m pretty much tied up for the rest of this week. Would Monday, the fourteenth do? Say, two-thirty in the afternoon? Usual place?”

  “That will be fine. I’ll see you then,” I say and I disconnect the call.

  Jonathan felt a nudging in his ribs and realized it was Mac indicating that Mendellson was about to be asked another question. Jonathan immediately broke concentration with Mendellson and started writing in his notebook to record what he had seen on Mendellson’s memory trace. When he had finished his notes, without saying anything he showed the notebook page to Mac who nodded approvingly. Both Mac and Jonathan were relieved that no-one seemed to have noticed the seven or eight minutes during which Mendellson had been in a seizure.

  Jonathan watched the remainder of the programme feeling much more relaxed that this first real use of his memory trace seemed to have gone well.

  The audience applauded as the programme’s closing music was played. When the recording was over the studio manager stepped onto the studio floor and asked everyone in the audience to remain seated. Dimbleby led the guest panellists out of the studio then the studio manager called on the audience to leave, one row at a time. Mac and Jonathan’s row was among the first to leave. They did not speak until they were standing on the driveway, outside the front of the Bletchley Park mansion.

  “I think that went rather well,” said Jonathan.

  “Yes, I think so too,” said Mac. He looked at his watch. “Nine thirty-five. There’s a train back to London at ten o’clock. I suggest that we walk back to the station and catch that train. We can talk about the information you gathered once we are on the train home.”

  They walked quickly in the cool night air and reached Bletchley station in plenty of time for the ten o’clock train. At this time of night, all the station facilities such as the coffee shop were locked up and dark so they sat on a bench on the platform to wait. After a few minutes, the train pulled into the station and came to a stop with a squeal of its brakes. Jonathan and Mac stood up from the bench and boarded the train. As the train began to move off, they found seats. They sat facing each other. There were very few passengers on the train and none in their carriage.

  “Warmer in here than out on that platform,” said Jonathan.

  “Let’s look at what we’ve got from Mendellson,” said Mac.

  Jonathan pulled out his notebook. “The Prime Minister has told him that the people and the parliament are becoming too complacent about terrorist threats because we haven’t had any attacks for a couple of years and has ordered Mendellson to come up with a plan. What kind of plan do you think Mendellson will come up with?”

  “I need to think about that. Before now MI5 have claimed that they have broken up a terrorist plot just to make the papers and the public feel more comfortable.”

  “This guy Grendan West has popped up again.”

  “He’s the head of MI5 Black Ops. I used to work with him in the old days. I never really liked him though.”

  “Well, Mendellson is meeting him somewhere, sometime next Monday.”

  “I am guessing that they will decide the plan then so it would be good if you could do another memory trace on Mendellson after that meeting to find out what they are planning.”

  “How do you propose that I get within sight of Mendellson again?”

  “I’m not sure yet but I’ll put Roger onto that one.”

  The train rumbled on through the darkness, stopping at almost every station between Bletchley and London, and both Mac and Jonathan dozed lightly until the train arrived in London’s Euston station. As they walked along the platform towards the exit gates, Mac said, “I think we should get a taxi back to the flat, rather than using the tube at this time of night.”

  The station clock showed that it was just after eleven o’clock. The pair walked out of the station towards where the taxis queued up waiting to be hired. There were several taxis there and nobody waiting so Mac and Jonathan got into the cab at the head of the queue. Mac told the driver to take them to the St. Katharines flat.

  “You’re going to see Roger’s office tomorrow morning, aren’t you?” said Mac.

  “Yes, Karen is going to take me over there.”

&nbs
p; “I have to be out and about early tomorrow morning. I have a couple of meetings so I will meet up with you all at lunchtime. It will be all right to brief Roger and Karen about what we learned tonight. When I get there we can sort out what our approach to this should be.”

  The taxi pulled up outside the apartment building and Mac and Jonathan got out. Mac paid the driver and then the pair went into the entrance hall and up in the lift to the flat.

  “I’m going to get straight off to bed, it’s been a long day,” said Jonathan.

  “Me too, I’ve got an early start,” said Mac and with that, they both went off to bed.

  Chapter 22