He did not intend to consider St Clair at all, was thinking ahead to an American Reverend’s visit, to trapping a Jamaican with a tainted gun and a bloody modelling knife. Thinking back to Professor Duncan Pitt. Another piece.
* * *
The USA
Night-time in the Woodland Hills, the roads, parks and cul-de-sacs of the leafy southern Californian valley suburb undisturbed, sunk in affluent quietness, a far cry and long way from the festering litter pit of central Los Angeles. A Mercedes idled by, lights dipped, its engine whispering above the silence threshold. Nothing to draw attention or raise alarm. It had performed the circuit repeatedly, deliberately, the driver lost in thought and locked on route. Home territory. He had lived in the same street for five years, but had yet to meet his neighbours. They would not ask questions, might not even recognize him. So much for community values. Prosperity bred distance, its own kind of alienation. People travelled, passed through, moved on, their lives and loves, friends and families, hidden behind filigree ironwork and ornamental shrubs. The paper-boy came closest to establishing regular local contact – the kind that involved tossing a plastic-wrapped newspaper over a shoulder to the sidewalk. Even apple-pie came shrink-packaged in these parts.
One last turn around the block, and the car coasted up a gentle garden incline to enter through remote-controlled garage doors. They closed again, shutting out the uninvited, sealing in the unobtrusive. Duncan Pitt, academic and scourge of the liberal left, was in residence. But not quite at home. He switched off the ignition and remained seated at the wheel. It always came back to this point, to where he had started, the issues unresolved, his senses paralysed while the threats drew in. No hiding, even in the darkness; no comfort, even with inertia. That was guilt for you, that was the culmination of years of slick presentation, assiduous self-promotion and relentless ambition. What a waste. There was an anxiety-tremor to the hands, fatigue-rigidity in the body. He tried to slow his breathing, rein in stampeding thoughts. They merely dragged him along behind. It was strange to be reduced to this, scrambling to find logic and escape where there were none. Champion of controversy, darling of the lecture circuit, a free-thinker famed and feted for intellectual toughness, hated for his findings. They would blame him, crucify him.
It was ten minutes before he opened the car door, exited unsteadily and fumbled in his pockets and then on the ground for the house keys. His state of mind was not conducive to basic coordination. He would have been unrecognizable to his students: unkempt and unshaved, precision and grooming replaced by rumpled clothing, bloodshot eyes and disorderly hair. A drink would be welcome, might steady the nerves and the brain. He leant against the lintel to maintain his balance, insert the key, nausea suddenly clamping his gut. Christ, what a state he had got himself into. From cutting a dash to wanting to make a dash for the washroom. Life threw up surprises as quickly as a stomach could upwardly expel fine cuisine. The Yale turned; he was through. Lights on, the open plan of the house spread out and wrapped around the central living area before him. Too many mirrors for his taste – the previous occupants were Persian – but bookcases helped mask the more offensive detail. He caught sight of himself, stared vapidly at the reflected stranger. Such a pity, he thought; the original Duncan Pitt was quite a player, a fighter, a figure with stature Not this man, not this cipher.
The bourbon warmed him. He rested in the armchair. Everything had changed – though not his core principles. They remained constant – his belief that healthy societies required one dominant culture, that the centrifugal pressure exerted by multi-cultures with many allegiances and differing agendas would eventually eviscerate any nation, that the mixture of southern and northern hemispheres was explosive, that blacks were intrinsically inferior when measured against traditional yardsticks of class mobility, wealth creation and intellectual achievement. No, he never doubted, would never compromise. Yet his research had been hijacked, brutal neo-Nazi constructs placed on his written and spoken word, his academic argument adopted and cannibalized for ugly political intent. He was so naïve, arrogant, so divorced from reality, detached from consequence. It haunted him, would consume him. You have a responsibility to those who are carved up, mutilated, in your name, the British MI5 visitor had said on that day of university chant and protest in Bristol, England. And he had ignored the remark, dismissing the hostile campus reception as the floundering antics of self-indulgent anarchists and student bodies. It followed the discovery of a different body, a headless corpse belonging to a murdered black male pulled from the Thames with a paean of praise to Duncan Pitt etched on its chest. Still he had chosen to blank the implications.
His name would be written into the flesh of a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand victims, in the histories and memorials of the coming war. He had always revelled in his notoriety as touchstone for the far right. It gave kudos, edge, a higher profile. He denied the association, of course, laughed off the possibility of a link. It was not his concern that fringe lunatics and pariah groups adopted and misrepresented his teachings. But it concerned him now, terrified him, fear evaporating off the feeble defence of alcohol, penetrating the smokescreen, leaving him writhing, raw, exposed. He knew. They would identify him as the inspiration for atrocity, pinpoint him as a catalyst for explosion. Ted Bell had told him as much. By then, he, Professor Duncan Pitt of Woodland Hills, San Fernando Valley, was in too deep, funded too heavily, tainted by association, poisoned by his own vanity. Not quite so flattering.
He retrieved the bottle from beside his chair and poured another heavy slug. Only pussies required ice. He was no pussy, just a stupid, feckless, dumbass, jerk-off scapegoat. A different kind of animal – led uncomplaining to slaughter with wool pulled over its eyes. Damn it, he would complain, would fight. But they were watching him, would see which way he bolted. No one would listen, protect him. He would be handed back, trussed and bleating, set up for a drop, readied for butchery. An early casualty of the conflict. They were everywhere, their eyes, their spies, their sources, their sympathizers. He had played golf with some of them, drunk with some of them, given presentations to some of them. They praised him, paid him, hooked him. Ted Bell had smiled, patted him on the back and steered him towards fresh acquaintances and further irrevocable commitments. In those conversations, that company, he had recognized the outlines of an operation, sensed the electrified atmosphere of an oncoming storm front. His insurance was to find out more, his instinct was to fine-tune the readings. To be unprepared was to get rained on; to stand outside was to get flattened. So he burrowed deeper, was unable to back out. Their plans were too advanced, their reach too far.
Screw their plans, their reach. He drained the glass. The only way to counter one extreme was to go to the other. White supremacists had gathered their forces, would have allies among the police and the Feds. He could not go to them. News would travel. There had to be neutrals, others with critical faculties and critical mass, opposing camps, disinterested parties that he could approach, inform, work with. A double game, twice the jeopardy. It made sense, in a befuddled way, to a brain already seeing double. He was perfectly in tune, perfectly in control. His eyes peered over the side of the chair, searching for the bourbon. He was unsure where he had left it. Too much effort. He slumped back into position and lolled for a while. Ceilings were underrated, had hidden interest. He would analyse it, report to the trusted few. That was it, the answer. The trusted few. He would contact Mr Josh Kemp of the British Security Service, a man far enough removed to be safe, intelligent enough to take matters seriously. And things were serious.
For the second part of his coup, he would communicate his concerns to Reverend Al Azania, firebrand, radical and black agitator. They were hardly friends. Cool antipathy, name-calling instead of first-name terms, described their relationship and approach. All the better. The Reverend would seize greedily on what was offered, add flesh to the bones of conspiracy. Ted Bell, his cohorts, his fellow plotters, would have no choice but to withdraw, to back down. Openness was the greatest weapon of all, could reveal and blow apart the best-laid strategy. The press would get involved, the politicians, Congressional committees. Feeding-time. At the end, when it was done, the affidavits read, the recriminations made, the conclusions reached and sentences passed, Professor Pitt would be cleared, praised as a brave individual, an American patriot, a man who stood by his principles and saved the day. Spontaneous applause.
He climbed to his feet, knocked the bottle, and moved with the over-compensation and caution of a purposeful drunk towards the telephone. There were advantages to acting when the blood was up, courage was Dutch and dread was diluted. It took a while to find the number for Azania’s Los Angeles-based Union League. Buttons pressed. Error. Second attempt, second misdial. Third try, the tone went live. He cleared his throat, formatted his thoughts into a semblance of order, was through. He articulated his request, received the reply. Yes, the receptionist recognized his name – the clipped hostility proved it – but no, the Reverend was currently away. Did the Professor have a message? Did he have a message? Oh, sure he did. He would call again later. The handset slammed into the cradle, the academic leaning over beside it and weeping high-proof mucous tears.
* * *
The UK
I feel your pain … The theme and repeated refrain, the sound of a bandwagon. Reverend Al Azania was in town, mobbed, followed in a moving throng, his head or hand appearing through a crowd to wave and smile, to catch the attention of cameras, to take adulation and imprint personal authority. Celebrity statesmanship, theatrical command. I feel your pain … In fact, he felt nothing. He hugged children, visited 10 Downing Street, attended race workshops, held audiences with church and community leaders, left politicians from the mainstream wallowing in his slipstream. And he talked – everywhere, to everyone, from pulpit to podium, in street market and sink estate, from Speakers’ Corner to Brockwell Park. The press snapped him placing flowers at the site where the mutilated body of a black teenager had been found, recorded him embracing the grieving relations. Flash-point or front-line, he was there – listening, consoling, harnessing anger. I feel your pain … In the background, always in the background, his camel-coated bodyguards shadowed and stayed silent. For the Reverend had come not to salve, but to exploit.
‘We love you, Reverend,’ a matronly Jamaican in Sunday skirt and wedding hat yelled. He turned, reached out, held her hand and raised it in a joined and joint clench of victory. He was touching people, winning hearts, corralling the disenfranchised. Mass pleaser, mass teaser. They responded, their interest total, their faith absolute. No one else strove for them like this, no one else could generate such passion, garner such blind commitment. He was prophet and teacher, a good man, an inspired man, a stylish man, a messiah with mouth and attitude who swept in by limousine cavalcade, flew out by liveried helicopter. Had it not been blasphemous, he might have entered the city by donkey. Caught between anxiety and populist desire, the authorities offered red carpet and carte blanche. They meant to keep him sweet, make him tame. He was neither.
Now he stood on a balcony, the public face of a celebrity, citizens packed densely below to glimpse their transatlantic champion. No matter that he was an American import. He brought charisma, glamour, a new accent, a smoother flavour. All the way from Los Angeles to be with them, to commune with them. His foundation had subsidized black consciousness publications, campaigned, petitioned, awarded scholarships, paid for lawyers and publicists. It was right he should appear in a time of trouble, natural that he should emerge from a grand arched window at Lambeth Town Hall to receive a tumultuous welcome. This was grandstanding, a grand gesture; this was electioneering without the hustings or the ballot box. Power came in the shouts, the baying throats and excited eyes; power came in a black 250-pound male who made the ground tremble, the whites tremble. His brothers and sisters were voting for him. They flowed up Brixton Road, streamed towards the voice booming loud on speakers, milled around St Matthew’s church, jammed and jostled several thousand strong at his feet. Fuel. He would light the incendiary, toss it into their midst.
‘Today, you have stopped the traffic. Tomorrow, you will stop the world …’ he called.
The words filled the interior of the Security Service ops van parked up among police vehicles a mile away. There were five men inside, two of them facing a bank of television monitors, one at the data-fusion desk, another stationed at a tactical communications console. The fifth member of the team, its commander, was Kemp.
‘I feel like a fucking roadie,’ an image specialist complained. ‘We’ve toured the whole damn country with the guy and he doesn’t even acknowledge us.’
‘You’d think we didn’t exist,’ his colleague added.
‘We don’t.’ Kemp was leaning over a shoulder, peering at a screen. ‘Pan sector five. We’ll do the side-lobes.’
A sigh. ‘That’s rock ’n’ roll for you. The little people, the invisible bloody men.’
‘Going sector five.’
Picture change, a remote camera switching coverage to a looser-knit gathering nearer the periphery. MI5 men disguised as television camera crews were also out there, feeding their take into the loop, scanning with high-technology filters and computer-enhanced devices fitted with face-, movement-, behavioural- and metabolic-recognition software. Useful equipment. The loafing mugger, the look-out, the pickpocket flitting through a crowded market, the watchful car-thief, the stalker, the staggering drunk, the aggressive pimp-role and densely muscled torso of a predatory alpha male: all logged, categorized, assimilated. Everyone had a unique walk and posture, particular features – tinker, tailor, soldier, spy, preacher, killer filmed arriving at Heathrow airport – that could be mapped and retrieved. The algorithms were in place, the team was in position. Big Brother was searching, and would find.
‘Birmingham, Bristol and Bethnal Green, and all we’ve dredged up is twenty-two known Yardies, about three hundred petty criminals and five undercover cops.’
‘Means the kit works.’ Kemp maintained his position, kept his gaze fixed.
‘We have a target pinged. Full match.’
‘Not our man.’
‘Zoom and read-out. Give me hard copy.’ The face ballooned to fill the screen, a matrix pattern overlaying before the stored mug shot and data scrolled onto the adjacent display. Kemp snatched the accompanying print-out, gave it a perfunctory glance and threw it onto the gathering pile. ‘Standard tea-leaf. Petty crimes, petty life.’
‘Jesus, and ours isn’t?’
‘Hope you’re speaking for yourself, Al.’ Kemp looked around for his coffee thermos. It would be nice to see daylight outside the virtual world of the container, catch a glimpse of existence beyond murderers, madmen and threats to national security. Hunting for bad asses warped the perspective. He fitted in well.
‘Fish are jumping. Another tag.’ A light winked. ‘Bingo. All positive. He’s our guy.’
‘Let’s get a look.’
Atmosphere change, a tensing of bodies, tighter static in the air. A face confronted them, baseball cap pulled low, eyes wrapped in trademark shades. But the lips, cheeks, nose and chin, every salient feature, belonged to a man who had arrived from Los Angeles, Nassau and Jamaica to kill, who had unleashed spectacular savagery against a young woman named Sophie, her family and friends, who had employed a rented 9-mm pistol to drill cops and civilians. They had him and would not let him go. It was the beauty of technology derived from military applications, the task of plotting and prioritizing targets in wartime.
Kemp clamped a hand on the shoulder of the comms operator. ‘Okay, I want the police at a distance, even the Specials. Not a sniff of them. He’s off-limits, and he’s ours.’
‘Welcome to the Carnival, boy,’ a technician murmured. A cursor ran over the face, checking, double-checking. Computations correct, visual enhancements underway. The mark was hanging back, mellow and benign in a sea of unrestrained enthusiasm and loud emotion. Electronic processors had passed a verdict of guilt.
‘Why d’you think he’s shown, Josh?’
‘Sermon on the Mount’s the best show in town,’ another team member suggested. ‘Probably picking up a coded message in Azania’s oratory.’
‘You’ve been in the firm too long.’
