When last we visited our intrepid hero he was falling to what seemed a certain death. Oh no! Can anything save him? Let the story continue.
My hands were shaking as I pushed open the door and slipped silently into the DG’s private quarters. I had little time to spare, but nothing was going to stop me from taking a good look at my surroundings.
I had not expected this: a drab windowless room. I had imagined the DG surrounding himself with luxury furnishings and fine art, and had expected to learn something useful about the kind of man who became the head of a dangerous and sinister intelligence organisation. But all I saw were walls of grey, a dull brown carpet and almost no furniture.
At one end of the room was a white desk, unlike any functioning desk I had ever seen, because it had almost nothing on it. A stern black chair sat behind it. On a table at the other end of the room stood a rectangular glass tank. The tank housed some kind of reptile, an iguana maybe, or lizard. Just the kind of pet someone like the DG would have.
The creature stared at me with unblinking eyes and I turned away in revulsion.
I went over to the desk and picked up the only thing actually on it: a small photo-frame. Some loved one? Did the DG have a family? Children? I was eager to unlock some of the mysteries about the man, but the picture only added to them. A photograph of Anne Tolley? It took an extraordinary amount of willpower not to rush shrieking out of the room there and then.
The clock on the wall informed me that I was running out of time. The DG had told his assistant not to expect him back before five o’clock. Only fifteen minutes now remained to rummage through the DGs personal effects and find some answers. I had to find something to use, some evidence of wrongdoing that would stick. I had come here against my better judgement because, unless the DG could be stopped, he would eventually realise I wasn't dead and would take immediate steps to rectify the situation.
But for now I was supposed to be dead, lying in a watery grave underneath the main spy facility at Waihopai. The DG had arranged a special trip for me, and I had tumbled helplessly for what seemed an eternity before slamming into icy water. I had bobbed to the surface but there was nothing for me to see, because no light could penetrate into the hole I was in. It was a dark unforgiving place, like the cold heart of of the man who had put me here.
My hands struck rock as they flailed about for something to grip, and it became quickly obvious that I was in a confined space. I could only just reach from one end of the hole to the other. This is not looking promising, I told myself. The bottom of a well is never a good place to be, and as far as I knew the only way out was the way I had come.
That, as far as the DG was concerned, was the end of me: just another nuisance asking awkward questions about his operations. People like me were easily disposed of. The DG lived in the world of shadows, where ruthless men operated with impunity, and ordinary people could not even begin to understand the kinds of things these men were capable of. They had no reason to believe I might get out once I had been flushed down the hole. I was just a sheep – a slightly curious sheep, but still essentially stupid.
So he would not have expected me to crawl from that hole alive.
As a child I had climbed everything and anything, and there was hardly a wall or tree I wouldn’t attempt to scale. This had understandably driven my parents mad with anxiety, and they became convinced my climbing would be the death of me. But no amount of bruises or broken bones would deter me. It was a gift I had.
And so, even though I thought I’d left behind my childhood ways, when I grasped the ragged stone wall with my fingers and yanked myself up, all the old memories came back to me. I found myself several metres up the rock wall before I had time to consider this remarkable gift I still had.
But years of sitting behind a computer screen furiously denouncing those in the blogosphere who had wronged me meant that, while my legs and arms were willing, the skin on my fingers was torn and bloody in no time. My digits were soon so messed up I could barely hold on. The long climb upwards began to feel like an impossible journey. Besides, even if I made it to the top, what exactly was I going to do once I got there? Would I knock on the hatch in the hope that someone would open it, and then explain that there had been a terrible mistake and, actually, would they mind awfully if I just went on my way?
That was about as likely as Ian Wishart buying a hybrid car and wearing a t-shirt that said "Fuck you, Jesus".
Then my left hand failed to grasp anything and I almost let go. I steadied myself and felt again. It was an opening! Crawling inside the cavity, I rested for a few moments as dozens of indignant muscles protested at my sudden exertion.
I felt around the space I was in. I hoped it would be a tunnel leading to my salvation, but quickly collided with what felt like a smooth concrete face, only a metre back from the opening. Just another dead end, or so it seemed until I felt something protruding from the smooth surface and realised it was a door handle.
The door creaked like a subterranean monster aroused from its repose. I shivered, expecting to hear a sudden clattering of boots and the shouting of hard anxious voices. But no sound followed, so I pushed the door open further and emerged into another black space, a corridor, where the air was fresher. Padding the walls with my hands I shuffled along until I came to another wall, and attached to it a ladder of smooth metal. Looking up I could see cracks of light and what appeared to be an opening, only a couple of metres up.
Using what little remained of my strength I climbed the few rungs and then pushed away a grating, emerging squinting into the light, no longer caring what awaited me. Let them kill me if they chose, so long as I didn’t alone die in a dark hole like a sick rat.
I could not believe my luck. The opening took me out into sunlight, into the very middle of what appeared to be a farmer’s paddock. A ram stared at me anxiously, as if to say “could you move along? You’re spoiling my lunch”. There was no sign of the place I had just escaped, apart from the hole I stood next to. But the spybase could not be far away
Shivering and dripping with dank water, I walked for miles across fields and vineyards, hoping not to be seen, but not daring to think I would evade their clutches. But they did not appear to be chasing me and I was able to make it to the outskirts of Blenheim by nightfall. They had not made it to my motel room, and the key was still in my pocket. So I went in, cleaned myself up, then left. I tried to make it look like I had not been back, because I knew these people would not let me live if they thought I had escaped. Someone would be here eventually, to remove all traces of my existence and to buy the motelier’s silence.
As I left the motel I pondered what to do and where to go. The DG’s disposal of me had been brutal but casual. He was clearly a man accustomed to wielding power over others. Squashing me gave him a small pleasure, but it was all too common an occurrence to be a thrill for him. He would continue to murder until he was exposed, so I had to find a way to bring him to justice.
With a borrowed motel blanket in hand I found a sheltered spot in a local park and tried to sleep. But anyone who has survived being dumped in a well by a villainous monster will be able to tell you that you don’t usually sleep well afterwards. Still, it gave me time to compose in my head the text of the denunciatory blog-post to come. They may be powerful and dangerous people, but I would unleash Hell via the blogosphere. I would make Cameron Slater’s blog look like the work of a polite and well-behaved child.
In the end it was remarkably easy to get into the spybase. A day after wallowing in fetid water at the bottom of a well I was in the DG’s own quarters. It was typical of a powerful man to be lax about security, because nobody ever dared to threatened him. I was able to waltz through the front door of the establishment, waving my library card to the receptionist like it was a security pass. The rest was easy. I’ve always found you can open almost any door if you just swagger and look confident, so I walked bullishly around the building for a bit until I found a door helpfully labelled “Director General”. I checked the handle and felt the door move slightly. The man didn’t even lock his door!
Hearing voices nearby, I panicked, but there was a cupboard door half-open next to the DG’s quarters, and I could see it was roomy enough for one. That was when I heard him and his assistant talking about when he would return. When they had gone I stepped out and entered his room.
I returned to the desk. Unlike the desktop, the drawers revealed a wealth of information. As I shuffled through the assorted papers from the desk drawers, I realised that the tentacles of this shadowy organisation stretched further than I could ever have imagined. They had influence at every level of society, and had infiltrated just about every major business organisation.
The papers revealed how they had cornered the jam donut market. It was done with their usual efficiency and brutality. The managing director of Sunrise Foods, Derek Snout, the world's biggest donut supplier, had been found dead one Monday morning beneath a mountain of mock cream. The coroner ruled it was an accident, but with Snout's demise the last barrier to complete confectionery domination was removed. The papers in the desk proved they had murdered Snout.
All of this was deeply disturbing. And yet it did not greatly surprise me.
It was only when I opened a red dossier and peered inside that I felt truly angry. Here was evidence that they had infiltrated the ACTA negotiations on copyright law. The secrecy behind the negotiations had been essential, to ensure the DG’s people could operate with impunity. And there was worse. His people dominated the main patent attorney firms, and had taken critical strategic positions where they could best extort patent examiners to grant ridiculously broad patents to the multinationals who would pay them handsomely. Now I knew how they had afforded this gigantic subterranean complex: Bill Gates had funded it.
I looked at my watch. I had better get out.
"You’re back," a familiar voice said behind me. I turned around to face him. "And I thought you were dead. How unfortunate for you that I was wrong. I shall now have to make you suffer."
He stood in front of the reptile tank, gun in hand. Except that the reptile had gone. Had it simply been my imagination that anything had ever been in the tank?
“You are more resourceful than I ever expected,” said the DG. “It’s a shame I can’t let you live, because someone like you might have been a useful asset to me.”
“Not a chance,” I replied angrily, staring at the gun. “I’d sooner die than be a player of your perverse games.”
“Seeking and maintaining power is neither perverse nor a game,” he said. “It is the natural way of things.”
“There’s nothing natural about what you did to Snout.”
“Snout got greedy. He said he wouldn’t deal with us, and then he threatened to release information that would destroy us all, unless we did as he said. He was so arrogant and cocksure, like the cat that got the cream. Burying him like that was my little joke.”
“You don’t seem capable of humour,” I replied, trying to determine whether the gun was loaded, and whether I had any hope of rushing him. “How did you know I was here?”
His cruel face revealed what might have been a smile: a slight upward movement of one side of his mouth. “I was here all along. I smelt your presence in the building.”
That did not explain how he could have returned without my noticing him. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt certain there had been a reptile in the tank. Was it just possible…? No, I told myself, David Icke was a lunatic. There’s another explanation, there has to be.
“It is getting late,” said the DG as he glanced at the clock on the wall. “Will you stay for dinner?”
“Do I have a choice?” I tried to imagine just what he had planned for me. Some awful poison? Or was he going to sit opposite me and simply gloat, until disposing of me some time after dessert?
“There is always a choice. You can do as I tell you, or I can shoot you in the face. You decide.”
“When you put it that way, dinner would be lovely.”
He gestured for me to walk towards the door. I went, because, really, what choice did I have? Two of his boiler-suited goons were outside, waiting in the corridor, and they led me down a number of passages until we were standing before a vast stainless steel door. The first guard pulled the door and shoved me through.
“Welcome to our laboratories,” said the DG. “Let me give you the guided tour. We have so few visitors, so it’s always a pleasure to show off our facilities.”
We were in a vast room filled with computers, machines, filing cabinets and mechanical contraptions. The light was harsh and white, and fans whirred all about me, trying to keep the room at a constant temperature. It was hot in here, like I had just stepped into a sauna. The place was busy, with people tapping away at their PCs, leaning over machinery, or doing whatever else it was that they did down here. There must be hundreds of people down here.
“They always look like that,” murmured my captor. “Visitors. Dropped jaw, eyes wide, unsure where to look. It’s impressive, yes?”
“Indeed. How many people do you have down here?”
“Plenty. Under this building is a small city.”
“What are they doing? Is this all part of your spy network?”
He laughed, though it sounded more like he was choking. “You are in our Special Operations Centre. Here is where it all happens. You see that?” He pointed to my left. A row of men in white overalls sat diligently at a bank of computers, tapping furiously at their keyboard. “That’s our Climate Change Section. That is where all data about global warming is generated. There wouldn’t be a piece of data about climate change anywhere the world that didn’t come from here.”
I inhaled sharply. “Are you telling me climate change is a hoax?
“Of course it is.”
“But why? Why would you mislead so many people?”
“There is profit to be had in panicking people. Eventually, when the good citizens of the world become convinced that their planet is doomed unless drastic action is taken on climate change, they will look about for strong leaders. We will be ready.”
We began to walk through the huge room, and he pointed out a number of other operations. “And over there is the genetic modification department. That’s where we implant the genes of mutant creatures into common foodstuffs, before releasing them into the environment. We have also developed a range of GM crops that can be switched on and off by means of wireless device. They will reap a bountiful harvest, but only if we command it to be so. It is such a shame about the famine in Central Asia."
"I didn't know there was one," I said.
"It doesn't happened until next year. And over there,” The DG pointed to a series of desks and filing cabinets, “is the Black Ops Department.” It was deserted - nobody there. “They're on a mission,” he explained.
“What do they do?” I enquired, fearing that the explanation would make me sick to the stomach.
“Plan fake terror attacks, frame people for crimes they didn’t commit, and the like.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me they masterminded 9/11.”
He looked at me as if I was a lunatic. “Don’t be so absurd. That was our Washington office. We did do the Bain case though. Both the murders and the legal trials. A neat bit of work, that was.”
“You killed a man’s family and then let someone else take the rap?”
“I didn’t say we killed them.”
“Then…” My mind was spinning with the possibilities. “The Crewe Murders?”
“Oh yes, that was one of our ones. Before my time, though.”
“Watergate?”
“Our Washington office again.”
“The crucifixion of Jesus?”
“Definitely before my time,” he laughed-coughed. “Our people in Jerusalem sorted that one out. Of course, Jesus was in on the whole thing. Thought it was a terrific idea.”
“JFK’s assassination?”
“What makes you so sure he’s dead?”
I asked the DG what the current mission of the Black Ops Department was. “Plugging a regrettable leak. The coach of the South African rugby team has uncovered one of our operations and needs to be shut down.”
One of his men shoved me forward. “Come along now,” said the DG. “It’s getting late and we have other dinner guests. I wouldn’t want to keep them waiting.”
We had reached the other end of the room and were now facing another steel door. It opened automatically, but the two guards did not enter with me and the DG. I was in a smaller room, but it was not well lit. Through the gloom I could perceive a great table, and people sitting around it. As my eyes were drawn further into the room I could see that the people at the table were mostly middle aged, that of the twenty or so around the table the vast majority were men, and that they were all in business attire. It could have been the meeting of a company's board of directors. Except it wasn’t, because I began to recognise the faces. Directors of sorts, I realised, as I stared in horror at the faces of New Zealand’s Executive. The entire Cabinet were here: Key, English, McCully, Brownlee, Tolley, Power, Collins…
“Welcome,” said the Prime Minister with a goofy grin that was as out of place as a dead dog on a ballroom floor. “You must be dinner.”
I paused to take in what he was saying, but the DG was already laughing, in his choking coughing way. And the others started to chuckle. Gerry Brownlee was guffawing, and Paula Bennett began to cackle. Then, just as I felt suddenly faint and struggled to stay on my feet, they changed. Their faces melted before me, their pinkish flesh turning to liquid and dripping to the floor, and they tore at their clothes, shredding them with fingers that had suddenly become claws. What they became left me shuddering and screaming: an army of green reptiles with savage mouths stuffed with razor-like teeth. They climbed over the table and began to advance towards me.
I turned and ran. Or, at least, I tried to. But one of the reptiles had me by the neck, pinning me with one of his enormous claws.
“It seems we must say farewell”, hissed the monster in a voice that was unmistakeably the DG’s. “Bon appétit.”
Will our dashing hero survive? Or is he destined to be a very satisfying snack for the Hon Gerry Brownlee and his Cabinet colleagues, before they get back to the arduous business of pretending to run the country? And will we finally find out whether They are responsible for the new Cadbury Dairy Milk recipe? Stay tuned!
