The Watchers Read online

  Soon after that news report, I formed some pretty strong views on flying saucers. They weren’t craft from outer space. They were night-flying aircraft, weather balloons, comets, car headlights, stars seen at unusual angles through trees and mist. They were explainable. And I was extremely relieved, even if Grandfather did refuse to accept rational explanations. I would never be like him, would never be dragged into his wild superstitions.

  Selina was similarly sensible and logical, I’d thought. I remembered the UFO reports she’d shown me but didn’t for a minute think she was actively investigating them. The issue bothered me as I sat, alone, in her flat the day after my meeting with Corso.

  It was Tuesday. I knew I shouldn’t have been drinking, given my state of shock, but I needed something to take the edge off. Selina’s parents had been on the phone three times that day, questioning me about the explosion. Every detail. And I was beginning to doubt that I would ever again be able to close my eyes without seeing Selina lying bleeding on the floor.

  I didn’t believe Corso’s tale any more than I believed in flying saucers. I certainly didn’t believe anyone would launch an attack on Parliament to cover up such an absurd story. At the same time I couldn’t shake from my mind something Selina had said to me the morning of Corso’s evidence session: You think it’s intentional? Someone making trouble?

  I had assumed her agitation that morning was because of her job interview in the City. But now I was beginning to wonder how close she had been to the reports of peculiar sightings back home. How long had she been investigating the Croughton connection?

  My thoughts turned to the admiral. He had first told me about Project Caesar and then warned me to leave it alone. My pulse quickened. I had never felt more isolated. I reached for the phone and dialled the only number I had for him at the Ministry of Defence, letting it ring once, twice, before the line clicked dead.

  Keyed up, I returned to Selina’s bedroom, feeling very much the intruder as I dragged open the desk drawer and rifled through three or four slim folders, wondering whether I might find a clue here. All I could see was the usual flood of constituents’ letters from farmers, residents’ associations and charities, much of it demanding Bestford’s ‘urgent attention’.

  Why had she brought so much constituency correspondence to London? With mounting curiosity, I reached to the back of the drawer and found a folder of cuttings, most of them sensationalist crap written by the journalist I vaguely remembered Selina mentioning, Frank Frobisher.

  Was it any wonder the residents of Little Haven and Broad Haven were joining ‘flying saucer walks’, given reports like this? Tutting, I tapped the cuttings into order in the folder, ready to replace it. A face peeped out from a cutting at the back of the pile. The haunted hotelier Araceli Romero. The mother who’d reported a flying football of light and wanted Selina’s help.

  At the sight of the picture, I felt something that made me wonder, Do I know her? I was sure not, but something kept me looking into her wide frightened eyes.

  On the back of the article, scribbled in Selina’s handwriting, were the words ‘Haven Hotel’ and a telephone number. I checked the time – 9.45 in the evening – and decided I would call anyway. I let it ring for almost a minute. Eventually, a ­woman’s voice answered and at once I felt cold, exhausted. I couldn’t explain the sensation, the light-headedness, but couldn’t ignore it either.

  ‘Is that Miss Romero?’ I asked. ‘Araceli?’

  ‘I’m sorry, we’re closed for the season.’

  ‘Actually, I was hoping you might speak to me about your recent . . . sighting?’

  Silence. A long pause.

  ‘I read in the newspaper—’

  ‘Don’t you people have any respect for our private lives?’ she cut in.

  She thinks I’m a journalist.

  ‘I work for your Member of Parliament,’ I said, trying to adopt a reassuring tone, ‘and I read in the newspaper about what happened to you, the light that chased your car. When I was young I saw something very similar, but it turned out to be a satellite. Perhaps you saw something else, some meteorological anomaly?’

  ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’

  ‘Someone who can help.’ Then I found myself adding, ‘I used to live in the area.’

  ‘I said all I’m going to say about this to Mr Frobisher at the newspaper. And to the military.’

  ‘The military? When did they contact you?’

  ‘Aren’t you listening? I don’t trust officials, and I won’t be ordered to be silent.’

  I didn’t like what I was hearing. Silent about what?

  ‘Please,’ I tried, ‘I need to ask you about my colleague, Selina Searle. I believe she had information that could explain what you saw. I think she might have contacted—’ The line became crackly. ‘Hello? Hello?’

  I pulled the phone away from my ear as a high-pitched metallic whine filled the room. Then the line clicked dead.

  – 9 –

  My conversation with Araceli Romero had left me shaken. I poured myself another drink. On the television were images of police boats patrolling the murky waters of the Thames. My hand clutched the glass as a thin greying detective appeared on screen. He spoke with the slow, deliberate consideration of a man imparting bad news. ‘Although no bodies have yet been recovered, in the absence of any further evidence we are treating the event as an unfortunate accident.’

  An accident? His voice was ringing in my head as I plunged out of the flat into the murky night. Feverishly I headed along the Embankment, over Westminster Bridge and found myself in Parliament Square. Across Whitehall, the grand windows of the Foreign Office glowed through the fog.

  I hurried to a public phone box, paranoia making the blood pound in my ears. Thank God Corso had told me where I could find him; if he was right, if there was a connection between the explosion on the Thames and the sightings in west Wales, and someone knew I knew . . . well, there was a chance I could be in serious danger.

  The telephone box was empty. I slotted in a coin, dialled the number. ‘Room 9, please.’

  I waited ten, perhaps twenty seconds to be connected to his room.

  Come on, come on . . .

  A man with a stiff English accent came on the line. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Sorry, to whom am I speaking?’

  ‘This is James Stevenson,’ said the brisk voice, ‘hotel manager.’ Before I could decide whether to hang up, he cut in with a question: ‘Are you a relation of Colonel Corso? Do you know where we can reach him?’

  ‘I was hoping you might tell me.’

  A pause. ‘We haven’t seen him in two days, and well, he was due to check out yesterday. His belongings are still in his room.’

  Corso had said his life was in danger.

  ‘Did he leave a note?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Did anyone leave any messages for him?’

  ‘Only one message, sir,’ said Mr Stevenson, ‘from a Frank Frobisher.’

  I remembered the byline on the newspaper cuttings in Selina’s room. ‘Can I have his number?’

  ‘I really shouldn’t give it out.’

  ‘Please,’ I said, clutching the receiver close, ‘a lot could depend on this.’

  ‘Who did you say you worked for, sir?’

  ‘Paul Bestford MP. Chair of the Defence Select Committee.’

  It took some persuasion, but the manager eventually gave me the number. I found a pen and a scrap of notepaper in my pocket and jotted it down then hung up.

  ‘Hey! You gonna be long in there?’

  I looked up to see a fat middle-aged bloke rapping on the rain-soaked glass.

  ‘Hey, come on! I’m waiting here!’

  I turned my back on him and slotted in another coin.

  ‘Hey!’

  I ignored the guy beyond the gl
ass and punched in the number that the hotel manager had given me. Frobisher had been trying to reach Corso too. I needed to know why.

  The phone rang and rang. I was about to hang up when a gruff Welshman answered.

  ‘Mr Frobisher?’

  ‘Yes,’ he sounded agitated. ‘Who’s this?’

  I explained my connection. ‘I understand you’ve been trying to reach Lieutenant Colonel Conrad Corso?’

  ‘Oh, good. You’ve located him, have you?’ I heard the rustling of paper over the line. Then Frobisher said, ‘I’m trying to cover this flap down here. My God, since we published that story on the flying football everyone’s started reporting sightings of strange lights! I want a quote from a US military source. Want to make sure they’re not testing something around St Brides Bay that they shouldn’t be.’

  Something didn’t feel right about this. Frobisher could have asked anyone from the US military about the sightings. Why Corso specifically?

  ‘Corso’s spent a lot of time down here, been seen in the Ram Inn quite a bit.’

  That intrigued me, partly because Corso’s base – RAF Croughton – was over two hundred miles from the Havens, but mostly because it tallied with what Corso had told me about visiting Selina in the constituency.

  ‘If you ask me, the military are taking all this more seriously than they’re letting on,’ Frobisher added. ‘Whenever I dig, the witnesses clam up.’

  I asked him to clarify.

  ‘When I approached Araceli at the Haven Hotel – to ask her if she’d seen anything else – she said she’d been threatened.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Some men who came to see her after my article was published, warning her not to talk.’

  ‘Did she describe these men?’

  ‘Tall, dressed in black. She said their skin was like wax.’

  A shadowy memory tugged at me. ‘Mr Frobisher, I have something I think you ought to see. Can I send it to you?’

  ‘You should get down here, man, come see me.’

  Grandfather’s craggy face, the scar like a crooked smile, leaped into my mind, and I felt a shiver of fear as a familiar thought surfaced: Somewhere, we went somewhere . . . ‘No, I can’t do that.’ I hung up.

  Pushing out of the phone box past the waiting man, my mind was fixed on getting home, making myself safe. My world was turning into shifting shadows. I could not allow myself to become lost in them. But I had taken only a few steps before I was halted by a name called out from behind. My name.

  Oh God, they’ve found me.

  I was relieved when I turned and saw it was just a lone man, black-suited, professional. Until I registered the serious authority in this pale stranger’s demeanour.

  ‘Yes? What do you want?’

  ‘Your attention.’

  I looked around. There were other people in sight close enough to give me confidence to fire back, ‘Like you wanted Colonel Corso’s attention?’

  He nodded in the direction of Trafalgar Square. ‘Come with me, Mr Wilding.’

  I stood very still and replied, ‘I generally don’t go anywhere with strangers.’

  ‘It’s your choice, of course.’ He reached into his pocket and brought out a packet of cigarettes. ‘But if you value your safety, you’ll come with me now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The men I work for require your assistance with a project.’

  ‘What sort of project?’

  ‘The sort that doesn’t exist. Not in any official sense.’

  We were standing a little way down from the MoD Main Building, where on many occasions I had attended briefings and conferences in its grand Pillared Hall. In the distance the towers of Westminster Abbey loomed.

  ‘But why me?’ I demanded, finding my mouth dry with anxiety.

  He lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘The project concerns the committee inquiry, your boss, your home. What happened to Miss Searle. We’ve been watching her for some time, watching you too, until we knew the time was right.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You will. If you come with me.’

  ‘Where?’

  No reply.

  ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘A friend.’

  ‘This is bullshit,’ I muttered.

  ‘Bestford has cancelled the inquiry.’ His voice turned eerily cajoling. ‘He had his reasons. And no one will ever know the truth about what happened at Croughton.’

  I should get away, right now, I thought, but instead heard myself saying, ‘OK. I’ll come with you.’

  – 10 –

  My heartbeat picked up noticeably as the man in the black suit led me not to the MoD building we’d been standing opposite but to the Hotel Metropole just down the road from Trafalgar Square. We passed through a great revolving door into a splendidly decorated lobby – all marble columns and red carpets. The place was oddly deserted. Not a guest in sight. Not even a receptionist.

  The man led me across the lobby towards an old-style lift next to which was a sign that listed a basement, a ground floor and five floors above us. ‘Where are we going?’

  His only response was to produce a small brass key. The lift doors slid closed behind us and I felt my anger rise, for I was certain that he was enjoying this.

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Room 800,’ he said as he inserted the brass key into a tiny hole at the bottom of the lift control panel.

  My gaze jumped to the buttons. ‘But this building only has five floors . . .’

  ‘We’re not going up, Mr Wilding. Room 800 is located eight floors down.’

  He turned the key. The lift jolted, and we descended into the ground.

  Understanding dawned. ‘The hotel is a front?’

  He nodded silently.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  I had no idea how deep we were going but my ears popped as we descended. The evening’s events were taking their toll: I felt weak and nauseous, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to focus.

  ‘What you are about to see is classified at the highest level,’ said the stranger as the lift shuddered to halt. ‘What you learn here, you leave here. Understand?’

  I nodded.

  He dragged back the door to reveal a further steel door, pushed a button, and I heard a locking mechanism turn. Then the door swung open, revealing a wide white-tiled tunnel that ran straight into the earth as far as the eye could see.

  ‘What the hell is this place?’

  ‘This city has its fair share of hidden histories and quiet corners. You’re standing in the very best: an underground fortress, Mr Wilding, constructed after the crisis in Cuba to meet the needs of a government and Parliament in hiding. We use it now primarily as a crisis management and communications centre.’

  ‘How deep are we?’

  ‘Two hundred feet below ground.’

  Buried alive, I thought.

  The man in the black suit led me deeper into the facility. The air was thin, processed, and thick pipes and cables lined the walls.

  ‘One kilometre long and six hundred metres across, this bunker can house four thousand government officials. It’s totally self-sufficient, blast proof and radiation proof.’

  ‘Who works down here?’

  ‘People without names. One hundred senior civil servants. Rotating teams. Three months on, three months off. It’s a way of life for them.’

  I had been in nuclear bunkers before, when Bestford had toured some military bases in Scotland. I had been on three such trips, but I had never seen anything quite like this. As the stranger led me along the corridor, the sheer size of the facility became ever clearer: my eyes roamed from the green linoleum floor, to the gleaming tiled walls, to the many turnings into separate tunnels. A sign immedi
ately up ahead was marked with an arrow and read TUNNEL F: POST OFFICE TOWER, 350 YARDS. HOUSE OF LORDS, 1,700 YARDS.

  ‘This is impossible,’ I muttered. ‘An operation this size?’

  Legends of underground connections between government offices were rife in Parliament. But no one I knew seriously believed these places existed. Something so large could never remain secret, could it?

  ‘The Germans managed it,’ said the man in the black suit when I asked him. ‘The secret rocket factories at Nordhausen were four miles deep, huge facilities joined by enormous tunnels constructed forty years ago. I can assure you that modern tunnelling technology is more than up to the job, Mr Wilding. Some bases near the coast join with natural caverns and passages, even extending under the sea.’

  Why are they showing me all this? I asked myself. And what can possibly be so important, so sensitive, that it needs to be examined under two hundred feet of concrete?

  A solid steel door up ahead indicated there was more yet to see. And as my intimidating guide proceeded to open it, I was wishing I had taken the precaution of telling someone what I was doing that evening.

  Not that I had anyone to tell. And they’d never find me anyway.

  The enormous door buzzed open. A switch flicked. Rows of lamps suspended from the ceiling above us cascaded on, and I gasped at the sight of a huge strongroom of boxes and files towering up to a ceiling that must have been one hundred feet above. In the centre of this steel-reinforced concrete chamber was a large mahogany desk and an old-fashioned drinks cabinet. The furniture looked distinctly out of place in this setting but fitted perfectly with the silver-haired man rising from his seat at the desk to greet me.

  ‘Welcome, old chap, to Room 800.’

  I moved swiftly towards the man I thought I knew, suddenly full of frustration. ‘Admiral, what the hell is going on? Why am I here?’

  A searing pain made me freeze. The man in the black suit had grabbed me, twisted my arm roughly behind my back.

  ‘No, no. It’s quite all right,’ said the admiral. ‘Let him go.’