Chapter 34

Central Buckinghamshire. Nine days later.

“You are sure about this?” Thorn asked. He settled himself more comfortably into one of the deep arm-chairs in the main drawing room at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country residence in central Buckinghamshire. He was holding a large cup of quality coffee. There was a decanter of excellent whisky on the table near him, but neither he, nor his guest, had so far availed themselves of it.

“Yes sir.” Gareth Boase did not look quite so comfortable in his chair. His cup of coffee still steaming gently on the small table to his side.

Thorn looked at Boase. He didn’t entirely trust the older man, even though he was very good at his job.

“Where did you get this information? I’ve not seen any signs of it?”

“It was something Helen Mumbles was mumbling, er, er,” Boase slightly stumbled his speech as he realised what he had just said, but quickly recovered and carried on. “Er, talking about last week. She didn’t think it was important.”

Thorn frowned. “Are any other ministers hiding things from me?”

“Probably sir, though I suspect it’s not so much hiding, as thinking it not important enough to bring to your immediate attention.”

“Everything is important enough to bring to me,” snapped Thorn.

“No sir,” Boase said slowly. “If we did that you would get inundated with trivia. You need to let your ministers do their jobs, and only if you think they’re falling down on the job do you need to get involved.”

Thorn frowned. He understood what Boase was telling him, even if he didn’t totally agree. “So why do you think this is important if the Education Secretary doesn’t?”

Boase frowned. “I don’t know. A hunch. Intuition. A feeling in my gut. I can’t explain it any better.”

“Go on,” Thorn said quietly. He’d learned to trust Boase’s intuitions and feelings, even if he didn’t totally trust the man.

“One doesn’t think about students as very important in the grand scheme of things,” Boase said slowly. “They generally have little or no political or economic influence. They are young, so often overlooked by the general population who see them as just ‘whining kids’ who do nothing but drink, smoke, do drugs and occasionally take classes.” Boase frowned in thought. “Look. If I said to you, Oxford and Cambridge, what’s the first thing you think of?”

“The boat race,” Thorn answered promptly.

“Indeed. A perfect case in point. Sport and sportsmen and women. The universities throw up loads of comedians and sportsmen, along with all the business people, politicians, civil servants, doctors and everyone else. But as students they’re not any of those things except for the sportsmen. And maybe the comedians. They’re party animals. Borrowing and spending, but not producing. No one really thinks about them because of that, except in a dismissive way. So they don’t look. Well I looked.”

“And?”

Boase grimaced. “They’re not all like that. It was almost accidental that I spotted anything at all, and really even Helen, the Education Secretary, thought I was over-analysing it. I can see her point, but I think she’s wrong. It just doesn’t feel right.”

“And you think the students are about to explode?”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“Okay, so what is it you don’t like? What is it they’ve done, or you think they’ve done, that worries you?”

“You are aware, I suppose, that there is a students union?”

“Of course. It’s just a bar and social club run by the students for the students.” Thorn had gone to Loughborough University, and although he had come out of it with a 2-1 in business and economics, he hadn’t believed anything he’d been taught. He had understood what he had been taught perfectly well, so had been able to regurgitate exactly what the examiners wanted him to. He just didn’t believe a word of it. Instead he had spent a lot of time reading political treatises. He had read Marx and Engles and Trotsky, as well as Mao, Hitler and Mussolini. He hadn’t really thought about the students union, had, in fact, taken no notice of it at all.

“No sir. It’s not. It is a proper trades union, albeit for students. The National Union of Students. Just like the miners or the dockers unions; and every university has it’s own branch of the NUS. Those in turn are allied to a national organisation based, er, in London.” Boase had been about to say ‘here in London’ only to remember at the very last moment where he was. It was only a few miles from his own home in Bedfordshire, so when he had phoned and asked for an urgent chat, Thorn had invited him over straight away.

“Okay, so it’s a national organisation of whining drunkards,” Thorn said. “Except,” he added slowly, “you’re about to tell me it’s not?”

“Indeed. They can actually be a very politically savvy organisation. They are regularly demonstrating about some perceived injustice or other. Usually relevant to students, but not always.”

“Such as?”

“Typically student fees, grants, finance stuff in general. Often supporting the lecturers when they go on strike. But on top of that they could be campaigning for almost anything. A few years ago it might have been about global climate change or plastic pollution in the sea or air quality or a few years before that it might have been racial equality. Left of centre stuff generally, but still pretty mainstream. In recent years they’ve been a bit quieter, but the last year,” Boase paused and shrugged, “well,” he paused again. “I didn’t see anything until Helen started telling me about how they organise, so I looked. More out of curiosity at first, but now?” He shook his head, worriedly. “Something’s up.”

Thorn shrugged. “I still don’t really see the problem. Students cannot get their student grants, loans and bursaries unless they can show they are members of the Truth And Freedom party, so I don’t see what there is to worry about.”

“That was only for new students. Existing students didn’t need to register, so in the summer after it became law, second and subsequent year students, just walked in and got their finance and their places, without needing to be a member of TaF. And it was not quite three years ago that the law came in. All current third years or higher don’t have to be members of TaF. And they are the ones that are now in control of the NUS.”

Thorn frowned in thought. “All right, but still, so what?”

“Most unions,” Boase started, “have a steady leadership. The current leader of Unison, for example, is Andy Lode.” Thorn nodded, a look of distaste on his face. “Lode has been in position for at least six years now, probably longer. The NUM has Len Grebe. Eight years that I know of. The RMT has Eric whatever-his-name-is, seven years. I remember his election.”

“Mather,” murmured Thorn. “Eric Mather.”

Boase nodded. “The NUS on the other hand gets a new leader almost every year as the new batch of students comes up and the previous batch move on. We have a handle on Lode, Grebe, Mather and all the other mainstream unions, but not on the students.”

“That just means they are inexperienced. And if they’re trying to study and run a union, I still don’t see the issue.”

“Except they’re not. Helen Mumbles explained this to me. I’d taken no interest in the union when I was at college, it was always far too left wing for me, so I genuinely didn’t know how it worked. It seems that when you become a union official, you actually temporarily give up your place on the course for that year. You pick it up again the following year. Sometimes even two or three years later. That means these people are full time union officials. It also means they are delayed a year or two, which means they could well have started a year or two earlier and therefore missed out on the requirements to be a member of TaF.”

“Ohh,” now Thorn was starting to see some of Boase’s worries. “But still, that just means that there’s still some students who we don’t know we can trust. That doesn’t mean they’re actually going to do anything. Or do you have any evidence that they are?”

“Not hard evidence, no. Just things.”

“Like?” Thorn was getting slightly irritated by Boase’s evasions now, but the problem for Boase was that he had little in the way of real evidence, so all he could give was feelings and impressions.

“Alright. Concrete example.” He wasn’t actually that certain, but Boase needed to over-egg the pot. “The current national leader, just voted in, is a guy called Martin Klau. It’s a strange name so I checked. He is English for at least four generations. This time last year he was president of Leeds University NUS. Back then he seemed to be a real supporter of you and of Truth and Freedom. By about April he was no longer shouting for you, although he also wasn’t shouting against you. This year, and we’re not quite two months into the academic year, he’s made at least three speeches criticizing you, or TaF, or Earth First. He’s mentioned the confederation in two of his speeches, and not in a critical way.”

“So he’s been got at by the traitors,” Thorn murmured.

“Yes sir.”

“Who? Do you know?”

“No sir. There’s three or four possibilities. A girl from Bournmouth uni who is on the national committee, and his deputy in all but name. A boy from Leicester uni and another from Cambridge. The fourth possibility is that it’s one of the permanent staff at their national HQ.”

“You’re discounting that because last years national leader was pro Britain?”

“Yes. He was, and still is, a member of TaF. It’s also possible of course that the influence came from outside again, but I don’t see that as at all likely.” Boase shook his head. “It’s internal to the union.”

“You sure? What about his father?”

Again Boase shook his head. “Died in a car accident when the boy was only five or six. Brought up by a single mother who cleaned offices to buy alcohol. She was no influence. From what I’ve found out she was angry because he wouldn’t go out to work to earn money.”

“Hm. Your personal choice? Of the three? Or four?”

Boase shook his head once more, frowning worriedly. “I don’t know.”

“My favourite would be the girl,” Thorn said after a moments silence. “Females always cause more trouble than they’re worth.”

Boase frowned. “Possibly. She is his deputy in most things. Just not in name.”

“There you are then. Are they in a relationship? I bet you that’s what’s happened. He’d come under her spell.”

“I don’t believe they are, they are almost never together. He doesn’t appear to have a girlfriend, but I haven’t found out for certain. She’s originally from Liverpool, and we know what sort of commies and the like that place throws up.”

“So what do you want to do about it? Do you want to pick up the union leaders? Question them? Or do you merely want to watch them?”

“I don’t know. I just have this feeling.”

Thorn frowned. “Well make up your mind. If you want to arrest them do it.”

“Yes sir.”

Boase remained seated. Thorn frowned at him. “What? Is there something else?”

“Well, yes sir.”

“Go on?”

“This thing, a couple of months ago.”

“What thing?” Thorn was genuinely confused.

“You know, when the aliens arrived in space.”

Thorn burst into laughter. “Don’t tell me you got fooled by that as well. You know damn well it’s a clever trick to make us lower our guard and let the Jews and the blacks control us.”

“No, I didn’t get fooled, but it got me thinking.”

Thorn’s eyes narrowed. “About what?”

“Well, if the Americans and the Jews and the blacks, controlled by the Bilderberg group, could manage to persuade so many people around the world that this crap is real, just exactly how powerful are they?”

Thorn frowned. He knew many of his people were convinced the secretive utra-rich Bilderberg group was behind the conspiracy. But he, Thorn, knew that was just a front, a cover, for the real conspirators. Behind the Bilderberg group was the American and French governments. That was easy to prove as far as Thorn was concerned. Wasn’t it the Americans who had forced Britain into the EU and under the control of the French? Wasn’t it the Americans who had forced Britain to drop its TSR2 fighter program? Its Blue Streak missile and Black Knight rockets? Thorn himself was far too young to remember any of these, even his own father would have been a young child at the time. Thorn however, ‘knew all’ about them, and hated the Americans, but even they were only puppets. No. The people behind the American government were the Irish. Didn’t the Irish hate the British? And you just had to look at the way the Americans ‘celebrated’ St.Patrick’s day, even though The Virgin Mary was their patron saint, not St.Patrick. And behind the Irish? The Catholic Church. The Pope. The fount of all evil in the world.

But the Pope himself was just a figurehead. Somewhere behind there, buried deep, was something else. The Illuminati? Thorn didn’t think so, that was itself just a false-flag front put up, to be publicly shot down again as a myth, both by the Vatican and others. Thorn just knew that whatever it was, was buried deep inside the Vatican.

Thorn had been brought up by lapsed Anglican parents, but had gone to a Catholic school ‘because it was the best school locally’. He had soon learned to hate the priest and those of the teachers that happened to be nuns or monks. When the priest had been arrested, the rumour went around that it was for ‘kiddy fiddling’. Even though Thorn later found out it was actually for ‘causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink’, he was quite happy to keep the ‘kiddy fiddling’ rumours fuelled. Even to expand upon them.

Even though Gareth Boase couldn’t see the bigger picture, it was enough for Graham Thorn that the older man knew the Confederacy was a lie. “Have you never seen a science fiction movie? Even as a child?” Thorn asked, all humour gone from his face again.

“They never made sense to me,” Boase said. “I just could never get that suspension of disbelief. Know what I mean? Gravity was all wrong. Movement in space?” He shook his head. “Useless. Unrealistic and totally unbelievable.”

Thorn nodded. “I know. I could watch them. And did until I was about ten or eleven, that’s when I realised the truth. That they were secret propaganda to make the future look good if we just keep going as we are. Not rock the boat.” Thorn conveniently managed to ignore those films showing a more distopian future. “But they’re often very technically clever. It’s not difficult, in the computer, to add stuff in that isn’t there. Hollywood are extremely clever at making you see things that aren’t there, or hiding things that are.”

“I’m aware of all that,” Boase said, just managing to keep the irritation out of his voice. “What I’m talking about is having done that, they can actually use what they’ve created and go on and persuade so many people it’s real. That’s what’s worrying me. If they really are that powerful, how do we really go up against them?”

Thorn showed his understanding. “Yes. I see what you’re saying,” he murmured.

“I know the Chief’s Of Staff Committee were persuaded, that’s why they had to go,” Boase continued. “They in turn had persuaded too many other senior and middle ranking officers of the false truth, or they already believed of course.”

“Evans made a good start in purging the army of it’s old-fashioned ways and old-fashioned people. Some of them were still fighting the cold war of last century, it seemed.”

“You know why don’t you?” Boase interrupted.

Thorn looked puzzled. “Why?”

“Because they still pledge loyalty and allegiance to the crown. To the monarch. They actually name the current monarch, but they don’t name you. They don’t even mention the government or the prime-minister. Just the crown and the queen. By name.”

Thorn’s face had darkened as he was told this. “Beatrice is still opposing me,” he hissed. More to himself than to Boase. After all, it was ‘well known’ that the previous queen had been to numerous Bilderberg conferences. He glared at Boase. “Why didn’t Evans do anything about that?” he asked angrily.

Boase shook his head. “I don’t know that he didn’t. But after he died, Bill Stewart took over, and to be honest, I don’t think he’s doing a very good job.”

Thorn was surprised. Bill Stewart had always seemed to him to be pretty good. “Why?” Thorn demanded.

“It’s just not his thing. He would have been better at the Home Office, or left at the MoJ, but since you got rid of Justice, he’s been left hanging.”

“Hmm.”

“I know Sheard was a military man, but he seemed to be on our side. Why did Stewart sack him? From what I could tell, Sheard was doing everything he should be doing, and helped us enormously.” He shook his head. “It’s not logical.”

He paused for a moment when Thorn frowned in thought. “Look sir, give me the Defence portfolio, and put Stewart at the Home Office. He was good at Justice, and since about a third of that has now gone to the Home Office, he would be good there as well. Better than the pillock you’ve got there at the moment. In fact I think Bill Stewart is wasted anywhere other than the Home Office.”

Thorn nodded. He’d been considering something along those lines already. “I think you’d be too busy to take on Defence as well as MOSS.”

“It would be a good fit, plus the MoD is barely thirty percent of what it was just three years ago. Another two years and it’ll be a third the size again.”

Thorn slowly shook his head. “Noooo. I don’t think so.” He didn’t see Gareth Boase’s face darken for a moment in fury. “No, you need to keep a close eye on MOSS. You’re right, in theory it would be a good fit, but I want to expand MOSS’ powers slightly, so I need your full attention on that.”

“Oh?” Boase was curious enough that his anger vanished. An expanded MOSS was what he was after anyway.

“I also want to increase the size of the Patrol still further. It’s still no where near big enough. You have to concentrate on that. It needs doubling in size within the next twelve months. We know the Black-Jew cabal that created those images is now trying to control the world through fear. It’s a very clever thing to do, so we need to counter that, and we need more Patrollers to do it. The people trust the Patrol. Trust them far more than they ever trusted the police. That needs to be built on and the Patrol expanded, both in numbers and their powers. Their specific powers of arrest for a start. We must expand on that.”

Boase looked down in thought. “Yes Prime-Minister,” he murmured. “Hmm. After the military were banned from recruiting, the few remaining military recruitment offices were all closed and turned over to the Patrol as recruitment offices, but they are getting less than ten percent of people through the door than the forces ever did. And the forces never got enough.”

“People are being scared away?”

“Yes sir. I believe so. Almost certainly by Beatrice, or at least, by her people. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the last six months or so she’s been seen more, and she’s not hiding her feelings about you. After Lucy Cadwallader went missing, the queen went quiet for a bit, but then began to get quite, well, nasty about you.”

Thorn’s face darkened for a moment. “Well that’s the other thing I need you to do. I need you, in conjunction with the TV advertisers, to start creating adverts and counter propaganda. I want Beatrice thoroughly discredited. Rake up her past. She’s of the age group and of the right ‘party’ set that would likely have done drugs recreationally when she was in her teens and twenties. Find it. Dig it up.”

“Yes sir.”

“And dig up more dirt on Cadwallader. I want her even more thoroughly discredited.” Thorn thought briefly back to Lucy Cadwallader’s death. He hadn’t done the actual killing, but he had been there at the end, watching it all. When she’d spat in his face, he had punched her, hard. So hard that for a few seconds she couldn’t breath. He had thoroughly enjoyed the evening, and watching her finally die with her throat cut had been the best part of it.

“Yes sir. It will be a pleasure.”

“I thought you’d like that. Start with the recruitment though. That’s actually more important, but don’t neglect the counter-propaganda. Remember. We’re telling the truth, so it’s not ‘propaganda’. It’s ‘counter-propaganda’. Understood?”

“Yes sir.” Boase nodded decisively. He hadn’t got the Defence post which he really wanted, but he had got something. “What about Stewart? You really should move him to Home Secretary, and relieve him of Defence. Andrew Hudd was okay as a home office junior minister, but he’s struggled ever since he took over from Roland Child.”

Thorn nodded, frowning in thought. “Who do you recommend to take over from Stewart at the MoD? Hudd?”

“No sir. You could do worse than move Mark Harrison from DTI.”

“Harrison? Don’t know much about him. Seems capable though. Wasn’t he the one that came up through local politics on the south coast somewhere?”

“Yes sir. Portsmouth I think. He was an early supporter.”

Thorn nodded decisively. “Good.” Boase silently exulted. Harrison was a close ally of Boase’s. He hadn’t got Defence directly, but Harrison would do what Boase asked. “Okay,” continued Thorn, “now who goes to Trade and Industry?”

“You’ll have to promote someone I think. Bill Stewart might have ideas on that, as might Mark Harrison himself. His own junior minister, perhaps?”

“Who is?”

Boase pretended to scratch his chin in puzzled thought. “Not sure sir.” In fact it was another Boase ally, so he hoped Thorn would ask Harrison’s opinion. ‘Must make sure I talk to Harrison first,’ thought Boase. ‘That would give me effective control of three ministries.’ Boase wasn’t opposed to Thorn, in fact he believed the younger man to be a genius. But Boase was after power. Nothing more, nothing less. He intended to be Thorn’s successor, but not quite yet. Thorn should have a few more years yet, get everything settled down first. Boase didn’t have the public support Thorn had, and probably never would, so he needed a different kind of support. That was harder and slower to get, so Boase was playing the long game.