The Watchers Read online

  He did so. I held still for a long moment, breathing deeply, waiting for the admiral to dismiss the man.

  ‘Did you know about the explosion?’ I demanded once we were alone. ‘Is that why you told me not to go to the inquiry?’

  The admiral came towards me slowly. ‘We didn’t know exactly where and when the attack would happen.’ He saw my hand still trembling and said softly, ‘Now then, I’d try to calm down a little if you can. You’re going to need a clear head for what’s coming.’ He turned and his gaze roamed the enormous room. ‘You are looking at the jewel in the crown, the details of British intelligence operations collected over decades.’

  ‘I thought government documents are kept at the Public Records Office?’ I said, taken aback.

  ‘Oh yes, indeed. That’s where they are supposed to be.’ His smile was furtive. ‘These are the cases no one knew what to do with – propaganda projects, assassination targets, acts of bribery. Every difficult decision ever faced by successive Cabinet secretaries. If certain issues were too difficult, too sensitive, they were locked up down here.’

  Almost involuntarily I reached for the nearest box slotted into place on a metal shelf, but the admiral’s hand shot out and fastened on my wrist. ‘No, no. I cannot sanction that. Some secrets must remain secret.’

  I nodded, momentarily embarrassed at my own impetuousness, but I couldn’t help asking the obvious question. ‘Then why bring me down here?’

  ‘To give you a sense of the overall picture. There is much the people of this country do not know, a secret history that would stun minds: Soviet defections, covert operations. You wanted to know the truth about that night in 1963 – what happened at RAF Croughton, about Project Caesar, why it must remain secret.’ He led me to his desk, sat and leaned back in his chair, studying me closely. ‘I apologize if my friend was a little rough with you. How about a cup of tea? Something stronger, perhaps?’ He nodded at the drinks cabinet and smiled knowingly. ‘Belonged to Churchill. Lends a certain charm to the place, I think.’

  ‘You run this facility?’

  He said nothing, but the answer was in his tantalizing smile. As he lifted his glass, I clocked his perfectly manicured nails, his pearl-white cuffs.

  I had assumed that he was a go-between for the MoD and Foreign Office, someone who transcended the endless manipu­lations of politics. I had assumed I could trust him, not just because he had helped my career, but because he had helped me personally.

  It was the admiral who had first noticed my absent moments, the way my eyes fastened on doors and windows, and made me see them for what they were – a nervous condition that could cost me my career. It was the admiral who had given me the name of a doctor I could trust, a psychiatrist with a private practice in Harley Street. And it was the admiral who had paid for the first sessions. I had absolutely no reason to doubt the man, and yet the situation was making me uncomfortable.

  ‘Where is Colonel Corso?’

  ‘Now, now. Knowledge is a privilege, Robert. It comes at a cost.’

  ‘I’ll pay, whatever the price.’

  ‘Are you sure? You must be very sure,’ he replied, lowering his voice. There was an expression in his eyes I couldn’t quite decipher, as if he couldn’t decide whether to admire me or feel sorry for me. ‘You will have heard things from Colonel Corso, incredible stories that will come to make sense.’

  ‘How did you—’

  ‘We listen to everything. Especially matters of national security.’

  Selina had been worried someone was making trouble for us. ‘Were your people monitoring her?’ I asked the admiral and felt my anger rise as he nodded. ‘Why?’

  ‘We needed to know what she knew.’

  ‘And the high-pitched noise I’ve been hearing on the telephone? At the flat?’

  I thought he would nod, but the Admiral’s face was blank. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Our main concern were Miss Searle and Colonel Corso. Weak man.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’ I asked.

  He gave me a disdainful glare. ‘His whereabouts are a mystery, even to us. Kill him? You might as well accuse me of orchestrating the explosion on the Thames.’

  ‘Did you?’

  He met my question with the silence he clearly felt it deserved then said, ‘Your committee inquiry risked exposure at the worst possible time.’

  ‘For whom?’

  The admiral fixed me with a look of great seriousness. ‘For the Americans.’

  ‘Our closest allies? They were responsible?’ And yet I wasn’t shocked. If Colonel Corso’s story was true, our inquiry could have exposed a lot more than the illegal storage of nuclear weapons at Croughton.

  The admiral motioned me to a chair at another desk, on top of which lay a slim black lever-arch file. ‘Have a seat.’

  I remained standing. ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?’

  ‘You had no need to know.’

  ‘And now I do?’

  He paused, staring directly at me. ‘Yes, old chap. Now you do.’

  ‘Am I in danger?’

  ‘We are all in danger. A great shadow is descending upon our nation.’

  ‘Admiral,’ I tried again, ‘Colonel Corso told me what happened at RAF Croughton. Project Caesar. The explosion, the black triangle, the silver figure that walked through the perimeter fence . . .’ It was madness to ask, but the question was on my lips: ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Truth is a hazy concept, old chap. Certainly there was a troubling incident at Croughton in 1963. Events we didn’t understand.’

  ‘Then what happened? What did Selina know? What did Colonel Corso see?’

  ‘Croughton was a strategic base for front-line fighter planes. Whatever happened that evening led to events that are in motion now and cannot be reversed. The Russians have got wind of it all and we learned yesterday from a source within the US Navy that the Sound Surveillance Project is tracking a Soviet nuclear submarine bound for the UK. Its current course puts it on a direct heading for St Brides Bay. Diplomatic efforts are of course already in play but the situation does not look promising.’ He gave me a piercing stare. ‘We need you, Robert. And we need his help too.’

  ‘Whose?’ I said dumbly.

  Silently he plucked the file off the table, opened it and passed it to me. He didn’t need to say a word: the answer to my question was frowning up at me from an official report.

  Randall Llewellyn Pritchard.

  My grandfather.

  Overhurst Farm,

  Broad Haven,

  Wales

  Monday 7 February 1977

  Dearest Julia,

  I understand that you have reservations about my trip to the Havens. Please know that I do too, but I’m not getting any younger, and – having finally learned the true identity of my father – please understand that it is truly in my blood to find the truth.

  Sightings of strange objects in the sky continue daily. The locals are deeply superstitious and seem to fear these events. They even have a name for them – the Happenings.

  One event in particular has caught the imagination. It occurred at the Broad Haven Primary School and involved thirteen pupils aged between nine and ten. Truly their report of their sighting is intriguing, and according to their headmaster school life is taking a rather long time to get back to normal. Not that Mr Howell Cooper believes the object witnessed by his pupils was necessarily a flying saucer on the ground. But after the event many reporters, photographers and television cameramen descended on the youngsters. Their descriptions vary widely, but the consensus of opinion is that the flying saucer was first seen at lunchtime on Friday, behind a bush about three hundred yards from the school.

  The children made some crude sketches. Most gave the object a classical saucer shape, though others drew it looking more like a pudding, or even a cigar. Some gav
e it a dome and windows, others a flashing light.

  I know you will be smiling as you read this. And as much as I am inclined to look for a logical explanation for what is happening down here – you know this is precisely what I would urge my students to do – I have already promised myself that I will delve into this curious matter with an open mind, even chronicle the findings in a book, if it will find a publisher.

  Indeed, I have already decided the title: ‘The Mind Possessed: A Personal Investigation into the Broad Haven Triangle’.

  I will write soon, I promise.

  All my love,

  Caxton

  – 11 –

  I watched with mounting intrigue as the admiral clicked the lights off. He took up a position beside a projector, which whirred into life with the flick of a switch and spooled out flickering images of the remote coastal village that used to be my home: the sweeping beach at Broad Haven, the cove at Little Haven and beyond, St Brides Bay. As a child I’d look at that vast expanse and think, I’m going to get away. I’m going to be someone and finish what Mum never could. Now I looked and thought about the lighthouse in my dreams, remembered Grandfather’s warnings and superstitions.

  ‘As far as we can ascertain,’ began the admiral, ‘the recent disturbances in the Havens began on Christmas Day with an unexplained humming sound, which came at night, rattling windows. Locals thought it was coming out of the ground.’

  There are giants, Robert . . . giants in the ground. Dangerous beings.

  ‘Complaints first reached us through the 14th Signal Regiment at the Cawdor Barracks, Brawdy, where your father was stationed. Miss Searle, working in the constituency office, would have known about all of this. She would have been keeping files, records. As she did on this young woman, Miss Romero.’

  The image on the screen changed: the hotelier with whom I had briefly spoken. ‘Miss Romero’s was one of the more recent reports to make the newspapers. And while you were preoccupied with the committee inquiry, Miss Searle contacted RAF Brawdy directly to pursue the matter. They, in turn, dispatched Flight Lieutenant Webb, who visited Miss Romero at the Haven Hotel.’

  ‘What did he find?’

  ‘Aside from a very confused and frightened young woman? The roof of her car was scorched, burned with an intense heat, and the car wouldn’t start. Webb concluded that Miss Romero and her daughter believed they had been confronted by something totally other.’

  ‘Believed,’ I repeated. ‘Doesn’t mean they were.’

  The admiral nodded, but only for a moment. ‘The following week there came six reports of unusual activity in St Brides Bay. Men in diving suits sighted just off the coast, near Stack Rocks Island. During the day and at night. And then this, just last Friday, the most intriguing report of all.’

  The room blinked into darkness for an instant as the screen refreshed. Now I was staring at a flickering image of thirteen children huddled together in the playground of their school. Twelve boys and one girl. They looked dazed. Some of them were deathly pale.

  ‘An entire classroom of children at the Broad Haven Primary School witnessed something extraordinary.’

  Every child held a drawing of an object that looked like an upturned disc resting on the ground.

  ‘You see, Robert,’ he continued, ‘you may find this a surprise, but we have known for many years that flying saucers, UFOs – call them what you like – are real.’

  I just stared. His choice of words wasn’t helping me. When I heard ‘flying saucers’ I thought of bug-eyed aliens and shitty B-movies from the 1960s. ‘Now please. You’re not suggesting that these things come from . . . ?’

  ‘Another planet?’ He smiled, shook his head. ‘Just because people see something strange in the skies does not necessarily mean that the something strange is a vehicle controlled by an alien intelligence.’ He paused, choosing his words carefully. ‘But peel away the layers of myth and speculation and you have a phenomenon deserving of serious scrutiny.’

  ‘It can’t be true,’ I whispered, eyeing the file of newspaper cuttings, police reports and other official documents.

  ‘Would it surprise you to learn there was once a division within the ministry that served as the focus for UFO reports in Britain, that Churchill himself gave the project the green light?’

  What could I say? Contradictory opinions were stirring within me, growing, because on the one hand the triviality of such stories after what had happened to Selina was offensive to me. But on the other, here was one of the highest-ranking officials in the British government, a sensible level-headed professional, telling me I should take this seriously.

  ‘So,’ I said cautiously, ‘what are they?’

  ‘Most sightings can be explained as misidentifications of normal objects, optical illusions, psychological delusions or hoaxes. The rest are –’ he smiled at the image of the kids on the screen ‘– shall we say, rather more interesting.’

  I studied him carefully, wondering how this connected with the explosion in Parliament, with Soviet intrigues and the mysteries in the Havens.

  ‘To know the present you must understand the past.’

  The room blinked into darkness again. Now the projected image on the screen was of the front page of The Times. A headline read, DOWNING STREET HIDING TRUTH ABOUT FLYING SAUCERS.

  ‘When the first reports appeared in British newspapers in 1947, a war had been won; another was just beginning, a war on communism – a totally different way of life. The skies were ours to control and protect, but suddenly there were these flying discs that no one could identify, objects which ran rings around our fighters and slipped in and out of radar. Artificial objects under intelligent control moving at quite fantastic speeds. They represented extremely advanced technology, and the possibility that Soviet secret aircraft were operating in UK skies was very real indeed. We weren’t the first to put a man in space. If the Kremlin could do that, what else could they conquer? Imagine,’ he almost whispered, ‘just one unidentifiable blip on the radar. Was it a Russian bomber, a guided missile? We needed to know. For that reason, personnel from the RAF and the navy were asked to submit reports for analysis, which were sent here, to Room 800. Witnesses weren’t to discuss the phenomena they had observed with anyone except authorized officials. The most puzzling cases were locked away in this room.’

  ‘So you’re saying most UFOs are secret military aircraft?’

  ‘That is what I believe.’

  ‘And the black triangle that appeared over Croughton in ’63?’

  ‘A Soviet drone, probably. We couldn’t let the public know that the UK’s air defences could be breached so easily. Imagine the impact on public confidence!’ The admiral was watching me closely from under his bushy eyebrows. His face seemed heavier under the facility’s artificial light. ‘You look doubtful, old chap?’

  ‘I still don’t see how this is connected with the explosion in Parliament.’

  ‘I’m getting to that.’ There was a long, long pause. ‘Remember when the U-2 spy plane was tested, it looked very much like a disc, especially when flying at the highest altitudes.’

  ‘But the U-2 was . . . American.’

  ‘Well exactly.’ The admiral smiled. ‘Trust me; the NSA and CIA have played the game far better than the Soviets. Indeed, the US has taken a different approach regarding public hysteria over flying saucers: UFOs provided the perfect smokescreen under which to test highly advanced prototype aircraft.’

  Suddenly I understood. ‘You mean the Americans have actively encouraged the general population to believe in flying saucers?’

  He nodded. ‘It was essential. In this Cold War nothing is more in demand than better, faster, more invisible aircraft, but the military couldn’t have their own people accidentally exposing their new weapons to the enemy.’

  ‘How is this connected with the Havens? With my grandfather?’
r />   ‘Our sources suggest that the Americans have been working on a top-secret aircraft, testing it in our skies without authorization.’

  ‘Why test it in our skies?’

  ‘Mission rehearsals. Our air defences are among the very best. They’re putting their new toy through its paces, testing its stealth in foreign skies, testing foreign military reactions. And they are engaging in activity that is very dangerous. Imagine, if one of these objects was to crash or collide with an interceptor jet. That sort of disaster would trigger an international incident with unthinkable consequences.’

  ‘You’re sure it’s the Americans?’

  He nodded. ‘They’ve built something that would defeat the Soviets in speed, height and stealth. An aircraft that flies at ninety thousand feet and twenty-two thousand miles an hour. Soviet missiles wouldn’t stand a chance.’

  A very unsettling thought now occurred to me. ‘You think the Americans are responsible for these sightings in Wales, don’t you? That’s why the Soviets are interested?’

  The admiral nodded and sighed. ‘We have suggested politely and indirectly to our friends in America that they should not conduct these flights in UK airspace.’

  ‘And . . .?’

  Up flashed the picture of the schoolchildren with their pictures of what they had seen. ‘Clearly, they’re not listening. It is clear that whatever happened at RAF Croughton in 1963, it was because something with this technology went wrong, and the Americans have done all they can to cover it up. We cannot allow that to happen again.’

  ‘And why specifically in St Brides Bay? Why the Havens?’

  With his gnarled hands knitted behind his back, the admiral went to the light switch, flicked it on, then crossed the room to stand before a huge Ordnance Survey map fixed to the wall. ‘There are military installations all over the area,’ he said, pointing to Broad Haven, which lay under a cluster of blue pins – reports of strange sightings? ‘Here, a missile testing ground at Aperporth, and down here the military firing range at Milford Haven. And here, at the top of the bay, RAF Brawdy.’