
Money Bomb

by P J Lennon

The genocide for profit story you were never meant to know

# Table of Contents

Title Page

Money Bomb

OBJECTION DENIED

THE OLD SCHOOL DARKNET

TRAINED VILLAIN

TOTAL MELTDOWN

JOM IS A GOOD LAD

NOTICE FROM THE PRESTIGE MOTORS CLUB

THE FRIDGE POWER SUPPLY

KNOCK-KNOCK

THE DTI BLUES

LIFE IS TOUGH WHEN YOU'RE 15

CHECK 1...2...

A PIGS EAR

NEWS REPORT

RUSHIN AROUND ATHENS

IT AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE

OVER THE HORIZON

DEEP STATE

CLASSIC MONDAY BEHAVIOUR

SKYLEADER

SUPER 8 PORNO PARTY

FEAR AND LOATHING IN AINTREE

THE DRINKING ELITE

NEWS REPORT

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

NO COMMENT

OFF THE ROCKER

BREAK-IN

THE BATTLE OF THE FORDS

HANSARD

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

WHIPPED

BRIEFCASE

STAR CROSSED LOVERS

WE ARE THE ROADCREW

SOMETHING IN THE WAY SHE MOVES

HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE

BREAKING NEWS

LOVERS IN A DREAM

EPILOGUE
A Note From The Author

It is a fact that we only get so many summers, so many springtimes throughout our lives. We are handed only a limited few, so I want to thank you for choosing to spend your invaluable time reading my book. I am grateful.

The story told within these pages is a true one. Although the events are accurate, all names have been changed to protect the innocent people involved.

If in the writing of this book, I have breached the national security act, I am sorry. If I make people wiser to an industry that knowing develops machines of mass murder for profit, I am not.

A special thanks to the real-life Fletcher.

\- Peter Lennon, 2020.

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# OBJECTION DENIED

Social justice seldom runs parallel to the letter of the law. Indeed, it runs wild, like the minds of men. In the sprawling design of the male mind, there are bear traps laid before paradise. If one is smart, he may simply leap over them to victory. If one is driven by ego alone, he may hear the snap of the traps his entire life, condemned to live out his days confused and consumed by the riddle of his mind, in blind pursuit of relief and fated to make the same mistakes time and again, and what wreckage he will leave in his wake.

I was considering the path of destruction that men leave as they fail when my contemplations were disturbed by the presence of two curious men who entered into view. It was their umbrellas that gave them away. Carrying an umbrella on a day like this perks the interest like a ballerina carrying a bass guitar. The suits the two of them are wearing are fine in principle, they're both a nice colour of blue and totally plausible due to the courtroom surroundings we find ourselves in, but the umbrellas are an oddity, and they beg the obvious question; why would two men carry umbrellas during the driest days of spring?

I distractedly digress, because before the pair of smartly dressed men walked in I was the only person sitting in the dusty, oak-panelled public gallery of Liverpool Crown Court, and I was enjoying the peace. Yet they chose to sit down right next to me without saying a word when they had the choice of a large number of other equally uncomfortable empty wooden seats.

The man in the middle of this rather trivial trial is an old friend of mine called Richard Jonas. He's 47, 6'2" man with thick salt and pepper hair. You could mistake Richard for geography teacher, and today, as usual, he's wearing his favourite brown suit with a pleasing floral tie that offers a splash of yellow and pink colours. All that is missing are the leather elbow patches on his blazer to complete the classic classroom look, but unlike most geography teachers, Richard is a good man.

He is an old fashioned kind of gent that would never say a rude word in front of a lady, unless the lady insisted, in which case he will apologetically and quietly call her something obscene. He is also the former director of a company called RadioWaves, a small outfit based in Aintree, Liverpool. Twenty people work for RadioWaves, including myself, and we are a modest manufacturer of amateur radio equipment, think ham radios, breaker-breaker, etc. RadioWaves was founded by Richard and the man who had him arrested a few months ago, a former friend and confidant by the name of Tony McDermott.

Tony and Richard both founded and operated RadioWaves Ltd together for almost 26 years, until they had a falling out last May. The cause of the arguments between them remains a mystery, but whatever the reason it's left a bitter taste in the mouth and they've been back and forth at each other's throats ever since.

When things went really pair-shaped at RadioWaves Richard took the company camera with him on his way out of the forever exit door, claiming that he had paid for it. Tony disagreed, of course he did, so he had Richard, his life long friend and business partner arrested for theft. And this is the reason why I am spending a sunny late-Tuesday afternoon in this musty old courtroom, instead of enjoying the beer garden at the Five Ways pub. The trial has been a petty and dry affair, and I can't fathom why it would attract the interest of these two definitely-not-secret-investigators sat next to me.

While Richard sits sweating in the dock, his counterpart and accuser, Tony McDermott, is sitting comfortably beside his solicitor, holding a constant and wry smile in corner of his mouth. Tony wears expensive-looking rolled gold glasses to hold back two large and arrogant eyes, and his jet black hair and upright posture suggest that he is a man in control. Tony slick and he is now the sole director of RadioWaves, which is a bit like letting a bear become the sole director of a salmon factory. Although Tony does have the wit and clear the talent for money-making, my relationship with him is a little like falling asleep on a Wurlitzer; I'm never sure what side of him I am going to be on from one day to the next, and it's equally as nauseating.

Speaking of sides (and being violently ill), my old friend Richard is on the wrong side of this case and the stress of the last few months has taken its toll on him. His health has started to visibly slide like the quality of writing in a debut novel and it upsets me to look at him, especially in this setting, he looks frail and much older than his years. This whole argument over a Nikon is such a shame and, if I was more of an A-hole I would say that it's almost ironic because dear old Richard has always loved photography; dramatic black and white portraits mainly, and drama is where he is right now, that's for sure.

The harsh lights above the dock cast shadows downward over Richards' face and it ages him by at least ten years to create a sorrowful portrait of a defeated man. But a certain elegance and defiance remain. Something is stirring in his eyes and he's started to oscillate in his chair. It looks like he's had enough, but without the proof of purchase for the camera he's done for, and he knows it.

The judge looks bored, you can tell because he's completely static in his chair, aside from occasionally peering down over his half-moon glasses. The case is almost over and it's sure to deliver a sizeable sentence to the currently unemployed and unwell Richard, but before the judge can conclude proceedings Richard stands up slowly and scans the room before delivering one last broadside to his erstwhile company.

'This trial is a total waste of public money. Why am I, a nobody, sat in this dock over an issue so petty, so minor and so trivial as a camera when there are clearly much bigger things at work here? Why don't we talk about what RadioWaves is really up to?' Said Richard. The judge, now fully engaged, sat silently in order to let Richard elaborate. Taking the moment left in the air by the judge Richard shouts across the room, 'How about the fact that RadioWaves, a supposed maker of amateur radio equipment, a British company, is secretly engaged in the development of weapons that are being illegally shipped to Bagdad to assist the Iraqi war effort and support Saddam's extermination of the Kurds - and that man sat right there is the one that's building the weapons! Why don't we talk about that!?' he said, aiming an angry, shaking finger on the end of a tightly balled fist. Out of nowhere the day suddenly became interesting and surprise lit the room. The two official-looking men stood up in tandem and left and the man Richard was pointing at was absolutely stunned. I know exactly how he felt because that man was me, Fletcher, his dear friend. That's how I learned that I had unwittingly become a developer of weapons for Saddam Hussein.

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# THE OLD SCHOOL DARKNET

Until the court case, I had spent the 1980s designing and building amateur radio equipment for RadioWaves - or at least, that's what I had thought. The 1980s was an interesting decade, it usually makes people think of red Ferrari's, shoulder pads and MTV. For others it might conjure images of Thatcher, Skol larger and 'gis a job', but not many people think of amateur radio and all the trouble that it got some people into.

Amateur radio was a big thing in those days. Up and down the country there were clubs dedicated to it, in fact, there still is. Then, as now, you need a special licence from the government to use amateur radio equipment, or ham radio as its known to it's friends. The government will then issue you with your own call sign like 'G3OUL' and such, like a latter-day state-controlled twitter handle.

Ham radio users operate their equipment to scan the airwaves to find other people to talk to from all over the world and basically if you can reach Australia, you've pretty much won. It was a pre-email, pre-whatsapps, pre-On-Demand, kind of world. Back then, if you wanted to, you could tune in to the emergency services radio frequencies and listen in to the police, fire or ambulance radio calls. Of course, it was illegal to do so, but it was impossible to police. For some people, amateur radio has always been an old school Darknet as it provides a potentially anonymised gathering place for all kinds of minds.

It's not all bad though, amateur radio is a powerful thing if used for good, it can be very impressive. Indeed, one man in Clydebank helped win back the Falklands armed with nothing but a shortwave radio. Les Hamilton was an amateur radio operator who was in regular radio contact with the Islanders and he was the one who informed the British government the islands had been invaded.

That was Les, my own story isn't quite as well dignified. In my story I drive around in a factory-fresh, mint condition, cream coloured Ford Capri to a little workshop opposite a busy cab rank on a small industrial estate in Aintree, Liverpool. There I would while away my days designing and building domestic grade electronics for the amateur radio market for RadioWaves Ltd, which, at the time was a well-known company to fans of ham radio. You can even still find some of our old products for sale on Ebay right now, some of them even have my signature on them, but, according to official companies house government records RadioWaves never existed, so let me fill in the blanks.

As you know by now, RadioWaves was started by Richard Jonas and Tony McDermott. They met in better days at Liverpool University Amateur radio club in the early '70s and they became firm friends. Together they started designing and making radio devices in their garden sheds. My career with the company started in 1974, building converters for them from my home when I was fresh out of school.

Success came and stayed for RadioWaves and soon they had people working from home for various projects. We quickly filled our order book and bought a workshop. Richard and Tony continued to expand the operation and soon bought a company called CastleModules, which was a one-man and a secretary operation importing semiconductors and selling them to big industry for big profit. You know the white tags they have on clothes? The security tags that the cashier takes off? In the '80s, all the expensive clothes had these security tags on. They were designed by an American company called Belco but built in Liverpool by me at RadioWaves. That was our first big contract. It paid $2,700 in 1979, enough to build an extension on the back of our workshop.

We didn't just build electronics, we were good at designing them, too. Our skill won us a prestigious and profitable contract for the Home Office. We were tasked with the job of boosting the transmission power of the Ministry of Defence radio transmitters from 25 watts to 100 watts for all the emergency vehicles across the north-west of England so the radio signal could carry over the hills and into the valleys. I designed the system for them myself.

As part of the contract, it was a requirement for me to go to London to the MOD headquarters once a month with every new batch of hardware to prove that the units worked and make sure there were no spurious emissions. This was a quality demonstration held at a top-secret location at Tolworth Tower, 459 Ewell Road, Surbiton, KT6 7ET. These tests were part of the sales contract with the MOD, and if a device failed the tests the batch would be rejected and we wouldn't get paid. The MOD, being a meticulous bunch, were only ever interested in seeing that 25% of the total number of units worked. If three out of twelve units worked the MOD would assume that the whole batch was good and we'd call it a day and go to the pub. Serious stuff. Good times. The '80s.

Richard and Tony soon realised that they could split RadioWaves into two parts; 1) amateur radio equipment, and 2) weird projects. Business was looking up and more orders flooded in. I bought my Capri. Life was great. Roll credits.

It was at this point that Vincent joined RadioWaves and, thanks to him, the direction of the company changed forever.

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# TRAINED VILLAIN

Vincent Schultz cut a low key figure around RadioWaves HQ. To put it another way, he was not a popular man, but there is no doubt that in sheer bloody-minded business terms he delivered success. He was brought in as a proven salesman with an impressive track record. We should have been suspicious of him from the start. You should never trust a good salesman, when they're so slick you can't see their sleight of hand it's a sure sign that you're talking to a trained villain. Vincent's mission was to supercharge the companies sales figures by taking the company deep into the wide-open waters of the international marketplace, and that is exactly what he did when he obtained one new key client.

When Vincent joined RadioWaves he was a skinny 25 year old 5'7" man who did a good job of hiding his talents behind notably bad posture. To meet him would give you no indication, no clue at all that he had any skills of any kind. Hair was part of Vincent's signature look, it was jet black and combed back leaving a wide groove running from front to back, and it was covered in so much wet gel it looked like it had to be glued on by a professional. It's almost enough to distract attention away from the fact that he hadn't yet grown into his suit. Apart from the perpetually confused look on his face, Vincent would have looked perfectly at home at a funeral, perhaps even as the corpse, although corpses tend to look a little more composed than Vincent did from day to day. In short, these are not the hallmarks of a go-getter. He looked for all the world like a complete incompetent.

Vincent was a local lad from Liverpool but he had no humour, which is also notable, I suppose. Rumour has it that his sales experience came exclusively from his own private enterprise of exporting stolen Mercedes and Rolls Royce cars in shipping containers to the Middle East, which is where all of his prominent professional contacts appeared to be, and so it proved when he joined RadioWaves.

The client list he built for the company remained a company secret for a long time, almost until the end and even from the staff. One day I spotted a shipping label on a container that we were dispatching to a client, and it was only then that I discovered who the client was and where they were located. To this day I still wonder where Tony and Richard found this man.

You, however, can find Vincent, on any given day, down the long corridor which leads to his office. The passageway is marked by a strong and unusual fragrance that is released into the air in waves by the burning incense on his desk. The unfamiliar and sharp musk takes refuge in the sinuses as the door brushes open to reveal a dimly lit and perfectly stationary Vincent. He appears to be caught in a spell cast by a small bronze statue of Wealth Buddha that he keeps on a desk in front of him. Time seems to melt in this office. His hours are spent desperately staring at Buddha's smiling little figure. Vincent would rarely break from Buddha's gaze, not even for serious conversation. During talking moments, Vincent peers down at Buddha, like a doctor studying some notes in front of him - that is, on the rare occasions that Vincent actually deigns to talk.

I would often leave Vincent's office without him saying a word, and when he did speak it was like words coming out of a tumble dryer, he once told me that 'racists don't blink, which is why Italians invented sunglasses.' I had been talking about carburettors.

Next to Buddha there would always be a sealed bottle of drinking water. He would never dare to drink an alternative beverage, only bottled water exclusively from his own personal supply. No tea, no coffee, no tap water. I always assumed that Vincent was worried about the possibility of being poisoned by nefarious interlopers, which seemed a little unreasonable, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are not after you.

Despite all of this, there is evidence that Vincent has been active at some point, a testament to this is the profitable new contract he brought to RadioWaves, which started with the development of an unusual device called the MTV2000FM, which would prove to be the starting pistol on the most brutal and drawn out series of events of my life.

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# TOTAL MELTDOWN

The MTV2000FM was a CCTV security system that was to be housed in a nondescript briefcase that featured a pinhole in one end for a camera lens to see through. This was top-secret spy equipment that would not have been out of place in the Mission Impossible TV show. It was also very uncommon in the '80s, especially inside the walls of an amateur radio company. Transmitting video was expensive and the whole contract was worth over £100,000. I designed and built the 100 Watt amplifier for it myself. Yes, it's all coming back to me now, I'll never forget testing the video transmission power.

Tony McDermott was the proud owner of a car called the Nissan Cedric. This great white whale of a car was imported, and the thing was so white it looked like a giant bar of soap. Tony was thrilled with his new ride and he came around the workshop one day to show it off. Even though thing was the size of a small glacier it featured one very high tech gadget; a car phone, the first-ever car to come with such a thing attached. Now, this is a very handy piece of gear to have then you are testing long-range video transmission.

I mounted the MTV2000FM camera onto the Nissan's dashboard and wired it to the 100w amp placed on his passenger seat, the finishing touch was a jerry-rigged 10w antenna attached to the roof of the car. With the skies a pure evening blue and with the sun reflecting off Tony's polar white car, he giddily drove off around Aintree one calm Monday evening. He would communicate directly to the workshop via the car phone, 'Can you see anything? How is it?' etcetera. We'd all stand around the TV watching in awe as the live video images beamed in from the camera in his car.

We marvelled at our work, but there was something not quite right about it all. Something was off. I could hear strange sounds in the distance as Tony drove around the neighbourhood. I couldn't quite pick out an individual sound, it was such a din of pure tones and syncopated rhythms. It was Tony that figured it out.

'Er, does anyone know why all of the house are alarms going off...?' He muttered down the phone.

One after another, as Tony cruised past in his white barge, all hell was breaking loose with the electronics in every house in the neighbourhood. After a moment of listening to alarms in the distance, I realised that the broadcast frequency the video was using, and the power of it, was wholly inappropriate for suburbia, and it was sending all of the house alarms in the area into total meltdown.

The fire alarms must have gone bananas too, not to mention the TV sets and microwaves. After the fact, I realised how powerful the video transmission signal really was. It was overkill to such a degree that any television sets within a one mile radius would have been hijacked by the video signal, basically meaning that everyone in the neighbourhood would be sat down to watch Coronation Street, and at one particular moment, the TV would have switched to live coverage from a car driving down their street, and then their house would explode.

Those poor people, what must they have thought? A national emergency of some kind? Aliens? KGB? No, don't panic, it's only us, the amateur radio enthusiasts, and this is what we do. We are the kings of pranks and electronic buggery.

Soon after the MTV2000FM, RadioWaves took over a second workshop, a small unit which used to belong to Liverpool Typewriters. It was a semi-blacked-out, covert looking building with small windows that had bars on them. This space was for special assignments only, and the staff that worked inside would never say much about what goes on inside. This little unit became our very own Area 51, to cater for Vincent's new number one client; Saddam Hussein, of Falastin street, Iraq.

In one fell swoop, we moved into a decidedly grey area of the political and moral map. Shipping arms to Iraq was in direct opposition to the government guidelines ever since the start of the Iran-Iraq war, a war which has been raging for 8 years now. But a camera is not a weapon, we would agree amongst ourselves, and as we waited for our morals to engage the secret service had started to take a keen view on what we were up to at RadioWaves, and I was instantly considered to be a person of interest.

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# JOM IS A GOOD LAD

Nothing says cool like a 100% original MK3 1.6 litre 3 door V4 Ford Capri Laser Pinto, in cream colour. I still own mine, 1 owner since new; Fletcher James Nelson. It was the last Capri model ever made. Built-in 1986 it cost £890 and with a top speed of 99 miles an hour and a 0-60 mph in 13.4 seconds, it had the right balance of desire-ability and poor security which made it the most stolen car of the '80s.

Each morning I'd fire up the Capri, slip on my Ray-bans and zoom along the winding country lanes of Crank road, Shelly Brow and along the S-bends of Red Cat Lane to zoom past the farms with all the spring sheep and the sunny brown cows with my Simply Red cassette on full blast. The drive was so pleasant it seemed a shame that it led to work. I enjoyed working at RadioWaves though, especially in those days.

I rolled into work the day after the gibberish in court and I wondered what it all meant. All I had done was manufacture some radio equipment, was I guilty of something? Did I do something wrong? My brain was already starting to crease at the edges and it wasn't even 9 o'clock. I had no choice but to wait for the shit storm to land. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that at any moment the police will be at the door and some awkward questions would be asked, and in the meantime, we would all have some very difficult meetings to try and figure out what we would say when they got here.

Beyond the main reception area at RadioWaves there is one large open space that serves as a production and assembly area. It's clean, well lit and a credit to the small industry it serves. To look at this space is to know that this is the building of an aspiring British tech company. To the right, there is a corridor leading to several research and development rooms, one of which is mine, and as usual, I've arrived 30 minutes early. I like to get in and get my mind ready for the day before the other buggers arrive and maybe plant a prank, like a remote-controlled hammer (a classic).

Pranking at RadioWaves became a very real problem. When it comes to wind-ups a knowledge of electronics is essential if you want to pull a prank with any real gravitas. So, if you don't have the skills to compete, stay away from ham radio people, they are the gold medalists in perversion.

They are men and women who have the necessary knowledge to walk into any supermarket at peak hours and tune directly into the background music system and blast the sounds of hardcore pornography through the speakers at a volume so loud it would make your hair curl and your body recoil ground-ward. They will take the cigarettes out of your packet and replace them with electrodes that shock you when you pick up the box. Electrifying everyday items was a particularly popular prank at RadioWaves, and after a while, things became so bad that people were too scared to pick-up anything for fear that someone may have wired it to a car battery. People would look twice at their coffee cup, their pen, their telephone, anything might be rigged to zap you. Never get on the bad side of these kinds of ham radio people, they are cruel and oddly persistent.

This morning, however, the workshop is blissfully quiet, but waiting the sword to fall is boring. With no-one around, doing any actual work seems pointless. I assume we'll be shut down soon, so instead of working on RadioWaves designs I resolved to re-start work on a personal project of mine, which is to design a special loudspeaker system for some friends of mine.

RadioWaves doesn't make any sound equipment for the live events industry, but I've always had an interest in loudspeakers. I have a radical new design for a PA system and it's to be debuted at a local venue for a band called 'A Boy Called Doris'. The band are friends of mine and they're launching their self-published debut album and I've agreed to build a PA system for them. The big gig is next week so I should probably get the speakers finished.

So far, the two 18" subwoofers are complete and eight prototype Top speaker enclosures have been built from marine birch, high frequencies waveguide and compression driver have been installed, as have the low-frequency driver. All I need todo is to tie-up a few loose ends and come up with a clever way to cover the bare wood of the speaker enclosures. Looking at the clock I realise that one quick minute has turned into around 5 hours, and one too many morning coffees.

Eventually, my workmates had filtered into work around me, but I'd been too engrossed in my speaker design to bring up the court case in conversation. By around 3 o'clock there had been no mention of it, no questions or formal lines of enquiry. So I eventually broached the issue with Jom, my (knob) head of department.

Jom wears mass-produced T-shirts that say things like 'Custom Made' and 'Original' written in big fonts across the front, he has the IQ of the average bowling ball, and a face that is a complete mystery to me, even after three years of seeing it everyday. He wears the thickest square rimmed black glasses I have ever seen and he has a beard so lustrous I often lose myself in conversation with him staring into it, wondering what he would look like without that magnificent beard. He's a man that could easily escape the law with a shave and some contact lenses.

Under the beard sits a man who is as successful with women as dogs are at driving cars, theoretically not impossible yet all attempts have ended badly. Jom often comes into my room just to fart and run away, perhaps that has something to do with his relationship problems. Many times has he peered his rear-end through the door of my workshop before scuttering away, tittering to himself like a demented school child after too many Haribo's.

Jom had been in meetings all day with Tony and Vincent, and he has come out of that experience looking terribly hung-over, which is probably how he went in, in all fairness. Jom is funny though, mainly because of the many bullshits he tells.

There was one time, before Jom moved out of his mums house, that he turned up at home with no trousers on and totally naked from the waist down. His mum said that Jom claims to have left the pub in possession of correctly installed trousers, but he had the simple misfortune of staggering into a park where some kids were playing cricket.

Feeling desperately like he had some cricket coaching to offer, Jom decided he needed to show the children how to bat properly. He picked-up the bat and faced the young swing bowler opposite, who threw a fierce ball that caught Jom, and his beard, completely off-guard. Attempting to bat the ball away, Jom assumed the proper stance for drunk cricket and thrust his foot forward and bent his leg at the knee. Despite his fine batting form, according to Jom, the ball was too fast and he was simply too drunk to see it. The ball bounced-up hard and struck his pocket, and in that pocket he happened to have a book of matches. Jom claims that the book of matches took a direct hit from the cricket ball causing a spark that ignited his trousers, burning them and his underwear clean off. He had to walk home tackle out, 100% bottomless.

I never challenged him on this, nor did I challenge him when he claimed that he used to settle beefs between biker gangs. Jom is proof that if you encourage a bullshitter you will be rewarded.

Another thing about Jom is that he loves driving cars, fast cars usually. He's a proud member of the Prestige Motors Club. Members of the PMC get together at monthly events to admire each other's cars, kick the tyres and say 'Oh that's good' (I'm guessing) then drive around the country roads a bit, for fun (I'm guessing). He encourages people to join his driving club and he will always try to recruit people from work by putting notices up on the boards around the communal areas, detailing the club, the events they hold and the supercars they drive around in.

What Jom doesn't know is that I always take down his club notices and retype them to replace the word 'driving' with the word 'bumming' and then I post them back on the notice boards around the company. Prestige Motors Club membership numbers seem to have slipped off as of late.

'Jom' I said, finding him in a corridor with spectacles off, rubbing his eyes. 'Did you hear about yesterday? What Richard said in court?'

'Holy Hell, Fletcher, I don't know! I've been in meetings all morning and Tony is saying the MTV200, 2000, fucking 3000, whatever, didn't need a licence because it was non-military equipment. He reckons we've done nothing illegal, but the two accountants walked out this morning, and I really should not have been up until 4am eating Chinese food and whispering into a voice-changing microphone just to freak myself out! HA-HA-HA!'

'I'm guessing beers were involved then? Your house is a den of iniquity, you shouldn't be allowed to live alone. So John and Emma have walked?'

'Yep, both of them, mate. Vincent said he has someone he wants to bring in to replace them both,' he said reinstating his glasses on his hairy face, 'I'm assuming it's someone with fewer scruples and tonnes more greed. Greed is good if you're a complete twat so you should know all about it. Anyway, Vincent's got some new projects coming in,' Jom said grimly, lifting his eyebrows and peering into my eyes deliberately through the thick-rimmed glasses. 'Here's one of them, I've got these design plans for you, this is the next project,' he said handing over some documents, 'Have a look and let me know what you think, I'll need a report on costs and timeframe. It's big money this one, 200K apparently, just to build a few of these so it's top priority. Oh and we've been told by Vincent not to ask questions...'

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# NOTICE FROM THE PRESTIGE MOTORS CLUB

Hi all, Jom here. This is only directly relevant to those ages 26 or under, however as we have no mailing list for that, I hope you forgive me for advertising this on all of the bulletin boards at work.

As many of you know, I am quite partial to bumming and I will have regaled any of you mad enough to listen with tales of bumming 'round Wales in Porches as my preferred way to spend a weekend.

I am a member of the Prestige Motors Club, which consists of about 500 other people, such as myself, for whom bumming is a way of life. Anyway, a few years ago, we starting running Young Bummers' Day which have proved to be incredibly popular. This year's one us on Saturday the 12th of March (Just over two weeks away).

The format of the day involves bacon sandwiches, talking about bumming (in general, specifically, overtaking), doing some bumming, being bummed by an PMC member (which may happen to be in some sort of supercar), lunch, talking about bumming again (track bumming) and then going out to bum and be bummed again. It's a good fun day and you're guaranteed to learn something. It is most definitely NOT like a bumming test! The Club's values are "Passionate about bumming; committed to self-improvement & Fun loving".

If anyone is interested, please speak to me and feel free to spread the word to any others too.

All the best, Jom Richards

P.S The event is held in north Oxford and you will need a car (or a van!) for the entire day if you want to take part in any of the bumming activities.

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# THE FRIDGE POWER SUPPLY

I left Jom in a terrible mess in the corridor and went back to my desk.

Man, I really need to cut back on coffee. I have a hotplate with fresh coffee directly behind my desk in my office, and like a heroin dispenser at rehab; a dangerous luxury. Today the caffeine was starting to send me into a nervous, but productive, direction. It felt close enough to psychosis that it could easily lead to an unwarranted freakout at an innocent co-worker. I fuelled up with more coffee sat and down to look over the plans for the new project.

Casting my eyes over the designs, it struck me as odd that the schematic was labelled as 'Untitled' and the document had been supplied to RadioWaves by parties unknown. There was no signatory, no date or any sign of its origins. It seems that no-one wants to take credit for this.

The design documents explain that the circuitry is to be enclosed into a 45cm by 45cm box made of 4" thick aluminium. The box was to be filled to the top with thick black epoxy resin to seal in the internal components, and the lid will be closed with twenty M10 bolts. The box was to house an unusual switch-mode power supply which takes 28 volts DC input and produced a phased locked output of a triangle wave, square wave and sine wave at 440Hz.

I know that 28 volts DC is the standard power supply for aeroplanes, and from the wave output, I would guess this is a power supply for some sort of gyroscope or tracking system. Even more curious is that the unit needs to have a strict maximum run time of only 59 minutes, with no specified off time, and it also needs to be able to withstand 100G. That's 100 G-force. An average pilot will only encounter a maximum of 9G and he/she needs to wear a special suit to withstand that, anymore G and the pilot's blood would drain away from the brain and they would pass out quicker than a freshman at spring-break.

'What's this power supply for?' I shouted down the corridor towards Jom.

'For a fridge.' Jom offered.

'Fuck off! A fridge!? What kind of fridge operates for only 59 minutes and needs armour plating? Some fridge that!' I said.

'Maybe that's why Almack in Scotland declined to build it, they were approached first and wanted nothing to do with it. Ah, I dunno about all of this, mate. I can't be arsed anymore, I've realised that living under a bridge might suit me better.'

'You've got the face for it.'

'Cheeky fucker HA-HA-HA!'

'This is dodgy this, Jom. Why can't we make some more stuff for our old clients, like Dr Crink?' I said.

'Cos Dr Crink is a maniac, that's why.' Said Jom.

Dr Crink, or Johnny Crink as I knew him, was an old client brought in by Richard a few years ago, and Dr Crink quickly became my favourite ever client. Dr Crink was a shrink and a lecturer at Liverpool University, which is where Richard knew him from.

Dr Crink had a theory about the brain that stated that as the brain is an electrical device, any brain ailment such as epilepsy, dementia, etc, must have an electrical cure. That might be the biggest medical breakthrough since chopping off limbs, or it might be like trying to fix a burning shed by throwing more wood at it, I don't know, I left the academic stuff to Shocky Dr Braino.

RadioWaves made Dr Crink a machine, based on his own design, that basically electrocuted the brain - in a therapeutic way, of course. He wanted us to build a device that took 250 volts input and was microprocessor controlled to deliver pulses of electricity to parts of the brain via electrodes on the scalp. The device controlled the width, time, frequency, shape and intensity of the electrical current being delivered to the grey matter, and by doing this it could induce certain states into the patient.

To my surprise, it worked, I built the prototype and I tried it on myself. The shocks were very gentle but it successfully induced a state of slight boredom in my brain. The idea was later turned into a piece of fitness equipment - the electronic pads that people put on their abs to tone up, you know the kind.

'OK, why don't we build more of those 'TimeClerk' units then? They were successful.' I appealed to Jom.

'Are you mad? No, it was not! That whole thing shit the bed before it started' rebuffed Jom.

TimeClerk was another one of Richard's ideas, it was a time tracking device for solicitors. We set up a whole new company around this new device concept. When the solicitor sits down with a client they would push a button and TimeClerk would log the amount of time the solicitor spent with that particular client. It had a little screen on it to display the time, and when you finished with a client you pressed the stop button and TimeClerk would tell you how much time you spent with them.

Richard designed the software for it, but he spelt the word 'client' wrong. So each time you stopped the machine the display would read 'You spent XX amount of time with a clint'.

I howled with laughter, 'Who's Clint?!'

We made 250 units for the very specialised market of people who know a man named Clint and want to track how much time they spend with him. Not to mention the fact that clocks and watches would surely have proven to be difficult competition to dislodge from the time-keeping market place. I started to think that, on reflection, Richard Jonas was not the pioneering industry guru I first took him for when I joined RadioWaves as a teenager.

'Ah Sod it', I thought, 'I'm going home, Jom, I've never made a power supply like this, have a word with management for me, and see what's what'.

'Early finish? Do you ever start?' Said a familiar, gravelly voice from outside my office.

I looked around to find Joe at my workshop door, 'Says you? What's going on Joe? You looking for a skive? You fat dobber' I said perhaps rather too harshly.

Joe is great. He's the odd job man at RadioWaves and he is as Scouse as they come. He can build or bodge anything. You want him to lay a new driveway? Yep, he'll do it. Build an extension to the building? He'll figure it out - it might not be to the correct dimensions or be legal according to any building regulations, but he will get it done.

'What's going on fellas? Just thought I'd come down here to sack the two of you.'

'OK, great, can I go now?' Jom said laughing.

'You wish, you're not that lucky. Ey, did you see that comic relief thing on the telly last night? 15 million they made for Ethiopia, that's good that innit? Be sorted that Ethiopia after all that money. 15 mil! Maybe next year they can give it to Liverpool. Then maybe I wouldn't have to put up with the brothers Grimm, Tony and Vincent!' Said Joe. 'You know what he's got me doing now?' Joe looked over his shoulder and leaned in then took his volume down to a whisper.

'They've got me completely blacking out the unit behind ours, you know the place that used to belong to the typewriter company, they want that sealed up, they want me to brick up the windows, put in new security doors in, new alarms, cameras. It'll be like Ford Knox! I know Liverpool has a reputation, but they've gone barmy'.

'There is a lot of that about at the moment, you need to have a word mate. And, Joe, its Fort Knox nor Ford Knox'. I said.

'Me!? You've got to be kiddin' haven't ya? And that's what I said, Ford Knox, you know, where they make all the cars. Anyway, you know Tony caught me having a smoke out by the back gate and he went bananas. "You smoking again!" He was giving it all that. He's a complete prick. You have a word with him, Fletch.'

'Oh yeah, I'd love to but I'm going home so I can't. I have a serious case of the Can't Be Arsed. I'm not hanging around here'.

I waved cheerio to Jom and Joe and decided that on my way out I would make a point of passing through the reception area at the front of the building, rather than use the staff entrance around the back, even though this means walking a lot further.

The reception is a good place for me to gather my thoughts, and I used to make all kinds of excuses to go to the reception area so I could talk to the lovely Helen who works behind the desk. Helen wears earrings that are little sculptures of Saturn's rings and they hang down from her ears and swing back and forth when she turns her head. Around her is an iridescent purple aura caused, in part, by the large neon sign that sits above the reception desk. She is flanked by peace lilies and palm trees that flutter gently and blow a spring scent into the air when the front door is opened. I like it here, and I enjoy her bright eyes and her genuinely happy smile.

'Hi, Helen! How are the dogs?' Helen also has two lovely Cocker Spaniels and she takes them in Crufts style agility competitions on the weekends. She goes up and down the country with those little doggies.

'They are amazing, thanks, Fletcher! We were at a competition at Newark this weekend! I'm a little tired today but it was well worth it, little Wynnie came second in the agility! And puppy Goose ran his first-ever competition!' She beamed.

'Ah, they are lovely little puppies! Tell them well done from me!'

'I will. Awww, Wynnie, she's my little princess and Goosey is so lovely! Oh, while you're here, Fletcher, we've had a call from L'Elettronica.' She continued, 'Apparently the modules you made for them last month all arrived faulty. Tony told me to arrange flights for you to go to Athens and take a look at them ASAP. He says you are needed in Athens urgently.'

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# KNOCK-KNOCK

L'Elettronica is a well-known retailer of all things amateur radio, based in Athens. Their relationship with RadioWaves goes way back, L'Elettronica is an old friend. Last month we made 20 transponder units for them (UHF to VHF converters, very standard stuff), but they have all arrived in Greece faulty, which seems as fishy to me like a fish pie with extra tuna.

I paused for thought to star into space and gurn at the offer of going to Athens. I considered the trip before I recognised the offer for what it actually was; an opportunity to get away from the recent stress and an opportunity to let the dust settle on the court case. Plus, hey, I can't just quit my job based on yesterdays events in court, where would I go? Everyone I know is on the dole. Unemployment in the '80s was like being shagged by a bullmastiff, despite all efforts, it's surprisingly common and not something you can easily shake off.

'Fine' I said, 'let's go to Greece, it'll be a nice break for both of us'. I said to Helen.

'I wish! Who would look after my doggies!' She's lovely is Helen. She gave me the details for the trip to Athens. It should be a simple job; go to Athens, fix the faulty units, get a suntan then come back and figure out what's next. A simple job and a nice holiday with all expenses paid; a done deal.

As I turned to leave and heard a whisper from behind me.

'Er, Fletcher, can I have a moment' said a meagre voice. It was Vincent, who had silently hovered over without me noticing.

'Yessss...' I exhaled, looking away.

'Jom tells me that you don't want to build the power supply order?'

'Yes, Vincent. That's true, I've never made a switch-mode power supply, it's not what I do, plus, it runs off 28v which is for aeronautics, and it has some funny phase-locked outputs. That thing is never for a fridge, Vinnie'. He hates being called Vinnie.

'Please listen carefully, Fletcher, listen right here. Listen now.'

'I'm all ears, Vinnie.'

'Ha, yes, er, look, now, just look.'

'I'm all eyes, too.'

'Yes. You have to build this power supply, it's essential to the business, it's part of our key growth area and the companies new direction. It's vital to our year, and it's for our big, top, biggest client. Now I expect you to understand how important this is, so you must your job, or so help me you will be out on your ear and I'll...' He was struggling to finish the sentence, and I didn't let him carry on. He doesn't normally say boo to a goose or dare to speak to geese at all, in fact, but today I saw him almost mad for the very first time.

'Vincent, I'm going to Athens anyway. To L'Elettronica to fix the broken bits, and I leave next week so I won't have time for the new project anyway.' And with that, he was somewhat placated, but not convincingly so, but I took the opportunity to leave anyway, and get away from talk of Iraq and Special Projects which was starting to weigh heavy on me now.

I like a blissfully ignorant life, I don't want to be involved. News on the Iraq - Iran war dominated the news in the '80s, you couldn't put on the TV or switch the radio on or even pick up a newspaper without an update on the situation. On the ride home from work I could hear the newsman announce the latest editorial statement on the war:

"The eighth year of the Iran-Iraq War is nearly over, but the conflict shows little sign of ending anytime soon. Despite the dramatic events of April, when U.S. and Iranian naval forces clashed in the Persian Gulf, 1988 appears destined to be just another year of bloody stalemate in a seemingly endless war.

Appearances, however, may be deceptive. In the course of the last year or so, Iraq has continued to make significant economic and diplomatic gains while holding its own militarily. Its clear edge in missiles and air power has made the "war of the cities" a decidedly one-sided contest. Much more importantly, with its recapture of the strategic Fao peninsula April 17-18, and despite serious setbacks in the north, Iraq may have actually managed to wrest the land initiative from Iran for the first time in six years.

To appreciate properly the significance of these developments, one must first understand the military situation that has prevailed since the Iranians drove the Iraqi invaders back behind their own borders in the summer of 1982. Since that time, Iran has been slowly winning the war on the ground, while losing it on the economic and diplomatic fronts.

That Iran, with an estimated 6.2 million men fit for military service out of a population of 45.2 million, could be winning a war of attrition against Iraq, whose 15.5 million population includes only 2.03 million men fit for duty, is hardly surprising. If anything, it is surprising that Iraq, despite over two dozen major Iranian offences since 1982, has kept the numerically superior Iranians at bay for so long."

There is only so much of this you can digest and I soon tuned the news out as I drove homeward on a sunny April afternoon. Springtime in the north-west is inspiring, probably because the winter is so dark. If I had the money I've always promised myself that I would leave Liverpool for the winter months and go to LA, or some other sunny state and hang out with the winners of the world. It's a worthy goal.

Someone once told me that leaving your home town is an essential part of life's journey, and even though I've never fully understood why, it gave me a longing to try somewhere new, to be one of those people. The Anglo-American, the exotic foreigner cruising around Hollywood in a white trilby hat and a big red convertible. Until then I have a home I love. I live in a bungalow on a sleepy little cul-de-sac surrounded by neighbours that are all retired. It's nice and quiet, with trees and lovely birds that sing in the morning, and even though it's an entire street of curtain jerking gossips, I like it. When I arrived home and opened my front door to the sound of my telephone ringing.

'Hello, Fletcher speaking'.

'Hi, Fletcher, it's Richard Jonas speaking.'

'Hey! Richard!' I exclaimed. I and Richard had always been good pals. It's great to hear from him, especially after what happened in court.

'Well, well, well, what's going on? Ha! I suppose you're going to read me my rights now aren't you?'

'Ha, no, Fletcher. Oh dear, I am sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean to throw you under the bus, as it were, but it needed to be said on the record.'

'Don't worry about it. No one said anything to me about it and nothing has come of it so far.' I reassured him. 'I assumed you've probably just gone mad.'

*CLICK*

'Yes and no' Richard said. 'I mean it is true, what I said about RadioWaves being a developer of systems for the Iraq regime'.

As I sighed. 'Why is it always a regime? You know it's not good when they say "Regime" and not "Government"'.

'Er, quite, I suppose' Richard continued. 'We never told the staff but the MTV2000FM security surveillance system that you built last summer was designed for the Royal Palace in Iraq. The job came through Vincent's contacts at the Iraqi embassy in London. They sent a diplomatic car to RadioWaves with a briefcase full of cash as payment for the project and then took the MTV2000FM system away.'

'Wow,' I said, 'So one minute I'm working for the Home Office and the next minute I'm building systems for the Iraqi regime? You've got to be kidding me? Is this the type of work that Vincent's bringing in then?'

*CLICK*

'In a word; yes. But I need more evidence so I can make a case of it. Keep your head down and you'll be OK, but Fletch, keep your eyes open, if you see or find anything unusual, let me know about it.

'I need proof. And on the subject of unusual, the really strange thing is, Fletcher, earlier today I tried to call up the court to organise a payment plan for the fine they gave me at the hearing. I'm not working so I've no money coming in. I wanted to break the payment down over months or years if I could. *CLICK* I gave the clerk the court ID for the hearing. She told me that the case doesn't exist. They have no record of that case at all, it never happened... *CLICK*... the case seems to have disappeared.'

I was aghast. 'What? It did exist, I was there! Are you sure you gave the right case number? I mean, who has the power to wipe a court case? It must have been because of what you said.'

*CLICK*

Richard continued, 'Yes, it was the case number that was printed on my previous correspondence with the law courts. And now, Tony is planning to devalue the stock of RadioWaves and CastleModules so he can buy me out on the cheap, which is intentional stock price manipulation and that is illegal. But Fletcher, I'm not sure I have the fight left in me to do anything about it, Fletcher. I'm not sure I have much left in the tank, you know I've not been well...'

*CLICK*

'...Sorry Fletcher, what's that clicking sound? I'm sorry but it's really quite annoying.'

'Er, I don't know, good question'.

We waited in silence for a few seconds, neither of us saying a word then *CLICK*.

'Something up with this line, Richard. It must be your phone or mine.'

'Yeah.... Must be. Anyway, I've got to go now, Fletcher. I wanted to apologise for what happened in court. Keep your head down and you'll be fine. I'll speak to you soon.'

And with that, he hung up and left me hanging. I didn't know what to make of it all so I did my usual thing of taking my trousers off. It was early summer and it was hot, but no sooner had I kicked my kecks across the living room there was a knock at the door.

'Mr Nelson' Said a precise and unfamiliar voice.

'Er, wait a minute, shit, I can't find my trousers,' I said as I opened the door in my underpants. Stood opposite me in the doorway were two clean-shaven men in well-pressed blue suits clutching umbrellas.

'Mr Nelson, we are agents [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] from the Department of Trade and Industry. We have some questions of urgency that we need to ask you in connection with your place of work and we would like to take you for questioning. Please put your trousers on'.

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# THE DTI BLUES

I was still zipping-up my flies when I stepped outside the house, flanked by the two serious men from the Department of Trade and Industry. Several of my neighbours were watching me from behind their net curtains, and I could feel the colour drain from me.

'Bastards!' I thought, 'Next door will be wetting himself over this'.

Agent [REDACTED] opened the door of a clean, unmarked pea-green car and signalled for me to get in. Riddled with shame, I obligingly shuffled into the backseat. The car door thwacked closed behind me, and I was momentarily alone. The car felt for all the world like a prison cell. The agents got in and fired up the engine. I'll never forget the sound of that car starting up, it was heavy like a roll of thunder. In a blink of an eye, I was arrested, and it was agony in slow motion. I felt cold, muted and altogether too serious.

As we drove away I could see between the two agents into the front of the car. The centre console had all kinds of specialist government equipment installed into it. On closer inspection, I could see that the car was fitted with the very same RF power amp that I designed and built at RadioWaves for the Home Office, the ones I had to test with the MOD only a month or so earlier. It seemed like a terrible kind of irony to me, to be carried off by the law in a car with a radio of my design fitted to it for crimes against radio.

The ride must have only been four or five minutes long, I wasn't paying much attention to the route we were taking, it didn't seem to matter what the route was, I was screwed in every direction. How had this happened? What had I actually done? It was all unclear to me.

The two agents said nothing as we drove, and save for the click of the indicator, the three of us sat in silence until we reached our destination. The driver pulled into a car park next to a tall, regal looking building that can only be described as looking a bit like a pub. In fact, it was a pub.

'Oh, it's my local, the Five Ways!' I realised calmly as if a spell had been broken.

The Five Ways is actually a hotel, and outside it has two huge greek classical style columns, one on each side of the entrance. Inside it has the look of a library, but don't let that fool you. Anytime you are there you are sure to overhear Liverpool's latest break-up live in action, and the atmosphere mimics the stuff you see on Coronation Street or Eastenders pretty faithfully.

We walked into the vault area to a little booth away from the bar. The agents handed me a pint of lager and £500 in cash, all in crisp new £20 notes, with a staple through them to keep them together neatly. I flicked through the cash noticed that all of the serial numbers on the notes were sequential. One of the agents broke the silence and set the agenda.

'Mr Nelson, we are from the Department of Trade and Industry.'

'Call me Fletcher,' I Said.

'Yes, Mr Nelson - Fletcher. Our department has been monitoring RadioWaves for quite some time.'

As agent [REDACTED] was talking he handed me a large folder. It must have been 4 inches thick, it was full of documents and photos. I scanned the photos and noted that they are all of the people coming in and out of the reception entrance at RadioWaves. There were some photos of Joe, Jom, some of foreign visitors, some of the cleaning lady, some of lovely Helen and some of me. One in particular was a close up of my beautiful face, at the exact moment I had a finger up my nose!

'Twats!' I thought before opening my mouth. 'Oh, cheers for the one of me, fellas, very nice. You must have been outside our place for months! How the hell are you getting all of these pictures? Is someone helping you?'

'Well, I shouldn't be telling you this, Fletcher, but you know that taxi rank outside your workshop?' Said agent [REDACTED] as he took a swig of his pint.

'Yeah...the one opposite, on the other side of the carriageway?'

'Yes. What if one of the cars parked outside the cab rank was not a taxi?' Said agent [REDACTED], now with a moustache of beer on his now smug top lip.

'Well...' Is all I could quietly say. 'What do you want from me? And what's the cash for?'

'Information,' agent [REDACTED] replied. 'It's not in our interests to take you in for formal questioning, we have identified you as someone that can help us. Your friend Richard Jonas has been assisting us in our enquiries, and he says you are the man to talk to. We would rather pay you for your time than arrest you.'

'Oh, OK, then what's this all about...?' I said, somewhat gingerly but already knowing the answer.

'Some months ago we became aware of a CCTV surveillance system that was designed and built by RadioWaves and exported to Iraq via the Iraqi embassy in London.' Said Agent [REDACTED].

He continued. 'This was done without the proper listening authorities being contacted. The payment was made in cash and was never declared. That CCTV system was shipped directly to Saddam's royal palace. We have reason to believe this will not be the last activity of this nature.'

'I know that,' I said 'You should have seen the plans that had me look at earlier today, they reckon it's for a fridge, it's basically an armour-plated box with a power supply inside for aeronautics. Do you know anything about that?'

'According to our intelligence what you were looking at is very likely to be the tracking system for a scud missile. We have word that the Iraqis have purchased a number of decommissioned missiles from the Soviet Union. The Russians removed the power supplies for the guidance system when they decommissioned the weapons. When the Iraqi army fired the rockets up without them in place the missiles just span around in the air like fireworks. The design you saw is intended to replace the missing parts and to put the missiles back into action on the battlefield against Iran.'

'Nothing important, then?' I couldn't help but laugh, it's mad. 'Are you going to let them build it?'

'Unfortunately, the government is on the fence about what can and can not be exported, Fletcher, that power supply is what might be called a grey area, it's not a weapon, it's a component that could be used in a weapon, or not. Legally there is no crime'. Said the agent.

'Madness.' I whispered.

'There's more, Fletcher. Last year the company you work for bought out a company called RPV Ltd, which was developing a radio-controlled remotely piloted light aircraft called Skyleader. The original design had the intention of using the technology to survey farmland before crop spraying. It is our belief that this technology could be repurposed for military use and we need you to find what RadioWaves is doing with the designs'.

'...Yeah, I heard about us taking over a company that makes RPV's. I'm really not sure I want to be involved, fellas.'

'You are already involved, Mr Nelson, Fletcher, this is an opportunity for you to be involved in the correct way, and make your father proud. As you might know, Iraq is currently locked into a war with Iran. A war which has been waged for eight years over the disputed territory of the Shaat Al-'Arab waterway. We believe that Saddam intends to bolster his arsenal with remotely piloted aircraft for surveillance operations in the region, or even as a means of delivering chemical attacks.' Countered agent [REDACTED].

This stirred a sombre mood. I had seen the news reports for years. It felt so far away, but now it came right into focus. Mentioning my Dad was a dick move, though. 'What makes you bring up my Dad?'

'We know he was a legend in the RAF. A genius according to most, and what he achieved, in what was known as Rhodesia, is nothing short of incredible.'

'Well, I didn't meet the genius, I only knew the drunk. I come from a long line of distinguished alcoholics so if you don't mind, any comparisons are not flattering. So, what exactly do you want me to do?' I said with my pint in hand.

'We need pictures and the technical design documents and any modifications that are being made by Skyleader by RadioWaves.' Instructed agent [REDACTED].

I nodded disapprovingly, 'RadioWaves wants me to go to Greece next week to fix some faulty equipment for a company over there called L'Elettronica, we shipped some units out there and they've said they all arrived broken. What do you reckon? Should I go? It's for a company we've worked with for years, is that even legit?' I asked.

There was a stony silence. 'Go to Greece, Fletcher, when you're back, we will be in touch. Take my card and call me when you are back in the UK. For now, of course, do not say anything to anyone about our meeting.'

'So are you guys in the secret service?'.

'There are many pillars of the secret service, Fletcher, yes we are one of them.'

'So, am I in trouble then? I had no idea the CCTV was for Iraq.'

'Don't worry, Fletcher, you are not in trouble, you are our informant now, our man on the inside.' Agent [Redacted] offered.

'You know, they don't tell me anything--' Before I could finish Agent [REDACTED] cut me off, 'All we need is the technical documents, that should suffice, we have everything else covered.'

'Er, OK, so one question then.' I proffered, 'What's with the umbrellas? I saw you in court the other day and you stuck out like a brontosaurus at Bible camp. It's one of the hottest springs on record and you are both dressed for rain. Let me guess, they are actually antennas for a short wave communication device that's housed in the handle?'

'Nope.' They both said.

'OK, so it must be a recording device then, or it has a poisoned tip for assassinations.'

'Nope.'

'OK, what are they for then?'

'For rain.'

'Oh.' I said feeling a little deflated.

After a few beers, the agents turned out to be nice fellas. They even gave me a lift back to my house. As they drove me home I saw agent [REDACTED] reach for his MOD issue car transmitter radio unit, which was, of course, a very familiar thing to me, having designed and built it.

'Base come-in, base come-in.' He said into the microphone and waited.

'Base come-in, base come-in.' Nothing.

'Base come-in, base come-in.' He said turning the knobs on the unit.

'Base come-in, base come-in. It's a new unit, why do these never fucking work properly!'

I chuckled boozily, 'Maybe because they don't test them properly!'

It's a funny old world, and things don't always work as intended. I've always been curious about how Saddam got on with the CCTV system that RadioWaves built for him, I wonder if he has a house alarm like the ones in Aintree!

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# LIFE IS TOUGH WHEN YOU'RE 15

Kamran knows he shouldn't argue with his Dad as much as he does, but in his defence, he is a teenager and how else is he supposed to fill his time? Especially when it comes to the age-old debate of homework vs comic books. Flipping out is to teenagers what terrible Hollywood movies are to the Batman franchise, common and embarrassing but ultimately easy to ignore. Life is tough when your 15.

Unusually though, today, like a new BBC weather girl, Kamran has a special yet unconfident spring about himself. This is for two reasons. One: the FA cup final is the Saturday and being a proud Liverpool supporter he is looking forward to watching Bobby Gould scrape his players off the pitch with a spatula after Liverpool reduce Wimbledon FC to a flat mulchy paste.

The second reason is Yasamin. Yasamin has flowing dark brown hair and hazel eyes that hold a curious smile for long enough to make Kamran forget his own name. She is Kamram's fav. She is in his maths class, which has forced him to get better at maths just to have something to talk about, like some hormone driven study program. Although she doesn't know it, Yasamin even distracts Kamran from the mad crush he had on his English teacher, Ms Leavy, she's a young student teacher who takes an unnaturally long time to pick up the chalk she so frequently drops.

Much to his constant annoyance, Kamran didn't have the balls to ask Yasamin out for valentines day. It's taken him around two months to find the perfect line to ask her out with. A line that could potentially lead to a 'yes' but something so subtle in its complexity that a 'no' could be brushed off with no real damage. As the end of Tuesday's maths class looms he readies his pre-prepared lines in his mind and the school bell rings out. The time is now.

The plan is to catch her in the corridor away from prying ears and drop the bomb that could change his life. Here goes nothing. Deep breath, 'Hey, so, Yasamin, er, Liverpool are playing on Saturday, its the FA cup final, so, I, I was wondering if you would like to....'

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# CHECK 1...2...

Soundcheck is at 5. It's currently 1 o'clock and I've finally got my bloody speakers up the three flights of stairs to the top floor of SoundControl, the music venue for the launch of A Boy Called Doris's debut album, 'I Killed Doris'.

A Boy Called Doris is a grunge band with a light-hearted sense about them. If I'd have realised I'd be carrying these speakers up three flights of stairs I would have made them lighter! I'm cream-crackered!

I stood by the loading bay door next to the stage, surveying the scene and catching my breath. What stood before me was a small, empty music venue with a bar at the far end, sticky floors and painted black walls dotted with posters for upcoming gigs. The smell of stale beer was inescapable. I could see the bands' instruments were already set up on stage opposite the bar and there was a sound mixing desk out in front, in the middle of the room. I had a feeling that this place would make for a perfect distraction from RadioWaves, the DTI, the up-coming Athens trip, et al.

'You awright mate?' Said a deep cockney accent. In front of me appeared a broad and very tall man in blue jeans and a well worn Iggy Pop and the Stooges T-shirt. He had short choppy hair that is kind of dyed blonde with patches of a red-ish, almost pink-ish colour that you wouldn't normally associate with a man in his forties. I could see a Chelsea FC tattoo on his right forearm and on each hand he has one fingernail painted black. He was a tough, but odd-looking bloke.

'I'm fucked, I Just dragged these up three flights!' I whimpered to him.

'Oh dear' he said mockingly, 'my heart bleeds. Are you the speaker man?'

'That I am.'

'Ah, You see, the thing is, you've come a day early.'

'You wha'?!'

'Ahhaha only messing, you twat. My names Slouch, how's tricks? I'm roadie-in' for A Boy Called blah-blah.'

'...Doris.'

'Who you callin' a Doris?'

'Ah, you big funny bastard. Just help me with these speakers, will you? I'm gonna pass out and wet myself!'

'Awww, I was hoping to watch you struggle and make a fool of yourself again.' He said as we humped the speakers into position on stage. We stacked two top speakers onto one sub per side in a tall column, one column on stage left and one on stage right.

'I made these.' I said patting the speaker boxes and smiling.

'Looks like it. What's all that grey carpet around them? Does that make them sound less shit?'

'Hey, hey you've not heard them yet! That carpet is there for a reason.'

'What reason?'

'It's cheap.'

'Fair enough. I hope they sound better than they look. When do I get to hear them, then?'

'Let me wire the buggers up, are you mixing the band?'

'Nah, am I fuck - guitars and cables, that's all I'm interested in. Parker, the big posh nob who is currently over there stuffing sushi in his face and pretending he's not gay is mixing the band tonight.'

'The fella wearing sunglasses inside a dimly lit venue?'

'Yeah, that's the one. The 40-year-old with an 18-year-old's haircut. They better sound good, these speakers, or you won't hear the end of it from Parker. No pun. Soundcheck is at 5, I'm goin' the pub, unless you need a hand? What's your name?'

'Fletcher, call me Fletcher. I think I should be OK to be honest, cheers anyway.'

'Alwright, Fletch. See you later on then. Cheerio, oh, and don't fuck it up.' And with that, Slouch left me to muck around with my speakers.

I have no fear, these are properly designed cabinets, I built them myself, I tuned the cross over, designed the bass port, built the enclosure and I did all the carpeting myself.

I met A Boy Called Doris through a friend called Phil Lennon. His mate, Simon, was managing the band until Simon lost his membership to the sanity club. Simon believed he knew where Franz Reichelt had gone wrong, and he was determined to prove it. Franz, AKA the flying tailor, is known to the world as a man who jumped off the Eiffel Tower to his death in a dramatic PR stunt gone wrong when he tested his personally designed Parachute suit to the media. Simon tried to jump off the Blackpool tower with a homemade parachute.

Fortunately for Simon, he was tackled before he could make his leap off the tower in Blackpool, not by a hero or samaritan though; he was mugged by locals who mistook his baggy parachute suit for loot. When police picked him up, Simon told his story and he went straight into the loony bin like a used nappy into the outdoor waste.

Undeterred, the band managed to self-record 10 songs and raise the funds to get them pressed to vinyl, they even have some snazzy cover art. Now they are launching it in the heart of the local Manchester scene with the support of my PA and the club owner, Andy O, who has lent them his venue for the night. Well, 'lent' isn't really the word. Andy gets 100% of the ticket money and 100% of the bar profits. You might say it's a lose-lose for A Boy Called Doris, but they are triers and I like that. Their songs are good too and I think that Aiden, the lead singer, guitarist and writer has a real future in the music industry.

After wiring my speakers into the amps I ran some tests and made some tweaks. They sounded great. Job done. Time to relax, or so I thought. All of the noise I had made alerted Parker, the bands sound bloke, who appeared feverishly at the mixing desk. With some very uptight facial expressions, he stood over me with reflective aviator sunglasses on, all swept-back hair and correct posture. He wore an unbuttoned short-sleeved olive coloured shirt with a white T-shirt underneath that had a cool hand-drawn graphic of a matchstick man on it. He worn kind-of-chino shirts and converse combination.

'Hi, Hi. My names Parker, the sound man. What's your name, please?' He said hurriedly. Slouch wasn't wrong, he did sound posh.

'Nice to meet you, Parker, I'm Fletcher.'

'Hi, Fletcher. So tell me, what is that?' He said pointing a deliberately sharp finger at my speakers.

'That's the sound system for tonight.' I explained earnestly.

'Holy fuck, really?' He then spun on his heels and marched off to the production office behind the bar. I could overhear him saying something that sounded a little like 'Nobody told me we were using fucking homemade speakers.' But I could have been wrong. He could have just as easily been saying 'Noddy Holder is wearing fucking massive sneakers,' I reasoned with a shrug.

I felt I needed to win over Parker. I had put a lot of effort into these speakers, so it was time for a showcase, and I knew exactly what song to play through them to impress.

The one thing that I know about all sound engineers is that every front of house sound bloke trusts their career to one song, their so-called personal 'run-up tune'. This is a song that he or she knows intimately and they know how it should sound. It's the first thing a sound engineer will listen to on any PA system, it is their personal benchmark.

The song will be selected because it has a deep, clean baseline and clear, crisp, present vocals and has controlled high frequencies. The idea is that he or she can listen to the system with something familiar and gauge the quality of the sound system, and if used properly it will help the sound engineer keep their job for one more night, or at least give them something to blame when they get the can at the end of the gig. This is the reason why you may have heard 'Everywhere You Go' by Crowded House blasted at high volume at every soundcheck in every music venue up and down Britain for the last 30 years. It is the quintessential and cliched 'run-up tune' for any sound person worth their salt.

Upon nosing around the front of house mixing desk I noticed a rack full of professional audio equipment. Below the compressors and gates and FX units sat two cassette players. In the top machine, there was an old, worn-looking cassette tape labelled 'Sweet Dreams' by Eurythmics; Jackpot - Parker's run-up tune.

While Parker was getting heated in the production office I hit the play button and lifted the two faders on the desk labelled 'background music'. The staggering deep pop synth baseline pounded through the subs, the kick drum felt like it was kicking my cock off, and then Annie started to sing with that crisp, clear beautiful voice of a Scottish boy-child.

Parker came out of the production office, took off his sunglasses and looked towards the stage. He walked over to the mixing desk and lifted the faders a few more dB. He stood in the middle of the room, totally prone. He then he took large some and equally spaced even steps forward until he hit the front of the stage, then, still looking at the stage he walked back towards the back of the room, then he sidestepped left to one side of the room, then right, and then he zigzagged up, down and across the room in a merry, if slightly robotic jig, before returning to his desk after the 3 minutes and 34 seconds of '80s pop heaven.

He lowered the faders on the desk and silence took over the room. 'THOSE SPEAKERS ARE FUCK-ING BRILLIANT!' He shouted as if the PA was still on top volume. 'Fletcher, do you want some sushi?'

'No, fish makes me fart. I'll have a beer though.'

'Good choice, no-one wants a farting roadie.'

Me and Parker got into it. He wanted to know more about me and I explained that I may have inadvertently supplied Saddam with a covert CCTV system and I was perhaps a criminal. He thought that was hilarious.

It turns out that his Dad goes to the same Masonic lodge that my Dad went to, the Apollo lodge in Garston. It's a small world sometimes. Parker also wanted to know more about the speakers and if I could make any more. He was very keen.

'I've never heard a system like it,' said Parker.

'The HF wave-guide is the secret' I said, 'It provides a coherent wavefront over the entire horizontal coverage at all frequencies. It's the first high-frequency device capable of creating a rectangular, constant-phase planar output coherently across the whole audible frequency range. It eliminates destructive interference in the horizontal plane to create a near-line source of the sound.'

From looking at Parker's face I could tell that I'd gone too far, he had glazed over. Around this time Slouch came back in the room wearing his khaki safari jacket, 'Alwight, son. Hows the PA sounding?'

'Good', said Parker, 'coherent horizontal output with audible phase rectangles.'

'Oh, rightio, good, might be a good show then, now you've got anything to whimper on about. When's the band turning-up?' No sooner had Slouch finished his sentence then Aiden appeared at the door with a guitar slung over this shoulder and the full band in tow. He spotted us all from a distance and slid his guitar to the floor. He opened his arms out wide and yelled 'guys! Excellent to see you.' Top hugs all around and high standard music industry schmoozing took place. All is well in rock 'n roll.

Soundcheck was exhibit-A and my speakers sounded awesome. The band were on form and we were ready to go. Nailed it. Time to drink.

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# A PIGS EAR

It was about shitfaced-o'clock when the crowd started to ooze into the venue, the bar staff got busy and the background music was kept low before the big event. I was barely able to stand up when the show started. I leaned heavily against the small metal fence around the mix position and started to get excited about watching the band play live.

A Boy Called Doris has been described as awful. They can indeed be a terrible disorganised noise on stage some nights. But, on other nights they are awesome and something to reckoned with.

On those nights, you know for sure that in the distant future you will say to friends 'I was there - I saw ABCD when it was real and raw and unpredictable and it meant something'.

I think we all wish for that, to see something meaningful, to feel that you were there and alive and part of it, like the hippy dream in the '60s, or punk rockers in the '70s. Most of us will never really know if these things actually ever happened, or if they were just media constructs designed by clever marketing men to sell us the latest distraction. But are distractions so bad? No, it might be all we really have and tonight I have A Boy Called Doris, and that's good enough.

The band is a six-piece, which is a tight fit on the stage they are performing on tonight. In their favour, they have the coolest drummer in the north of England; Loren. She dresses like Queen Victoria in a fine, but heavy and totally impractical empress ball gown, complete with a girdle. The bass player is Freddie.

Freddie is wired wrong. He is skinny thin and he dresses like an old-timey strong man, complete with bowler hat and a moustache curled at the corners. The term punk was invented for his kind, he doesn't conform to it, at least not intentionally, punk is whatever he is and does. You can not fabricate or replicate what Freddie is, a real rockstar, a dangerous man and a loose cannon. He has such physical charisma that if he ever told you that you could make a home-made parachute-suit you'd probably believe him, and then forgive him after it went wrong.

Mike Kyle plays the ukulele and knits on stage dressed in a white Etonian suit and hat. Whenever a song comes along that doesn't require his ukulele skills, Mike takes to knitting a drum stick holder for Lauren live on stage, which is like Syd Barrett making paper mache heads during Pinks Floyds instrumentals.

David plays lead guitar and he wears a hat. He's a little bit folk some in his persuasion and he likes a slide guitar, think Donovan, but in a hat.

Mimi is the keyboard player and backing vocal and harmonises beautifully, even if she doesn't speak any English, and then there is Aiden.

Aiden has long light brown hair that makes me want long hair. Ripped jeans and battered trainers are his hallmarks. He is a perpetual smiler until he gets on stage, then he lets the music take him where ever it needs to go. He does all the writing, lead vocals and rhythm guitar but despite his best efforts, if it goes wrong, it goes wrong because of him. And when it does go wrong, it goes very, very wrong - like when your mum shagged Hitler.

Aiden also likes to wear a beaten old top hat, exactly like that of a vagabond of yesteryear, a red British military guards jacket, and he likes to stay up late.

The band opened with a mellow song called 'Star Crossed Lovers' and I was admiring the melody when I remembered one critical thing - some poor bugger has to load out all this sound equipment tonight, and that poor bugger was me!

I'm in no fit state to do the job. FAK! For help, I went to stage-right to see Slouch. I found him sat on a furry zebra-patterned drum stool with a large toolbox at his side on stage behind the PA, in an almost karmic state of calm.

The show was on full beam, lights a go-go and noise and people everywhere apart from here with Slouch. He was sat quietly monitoring the action on stage, alert to a broken guitar string, or some such performance-related emergency, all the while glancing down to the guitar he was turning and studying the little meter on the tuner in front of him. He sipped beer from a plastic pint pot lit by a small bulb which reflected through his half-moon glasses that he wears to get a better bead on the guitar strings. Surrounded by the frantic energy on stage and all of the deafening noise he looked meditative, and for all the world like a man at peace, or at least he was until I fell on top of him.

'Nahahaha, you silly twat!' He yelled in surprised laughter, 'You fucking muggins, you do realise you have to load your carpet speakers out at the end of the night? Hahhaa.' He pushed me away. I was new to at roadie-ing and it showed.

The show was soon over, all the flesh bags left the room and the lights came on. Aiden came over to congratulate the crew as the room was spinning.

'Once you're done come for a pint!' He said to everyone, 'the after show is at the Thirsty Scholar, next door, see you there! Thanks a million, guys.' And with that, he left, and I promptly vomited into a nearby bin. Slouch took a long look at me and smiled as he said 'What's up, son? Had a bad oyster?'

Coiling cables at the end of a gig makes you feel like the guy who came into clean the control room at Huston once all the staff had left to celebrate Neil Armstrong's feet hitting the moon. All the fun has been had. No-one sticks around to see the man on stage trying to detangle a 13a extension cord, just as well really, 'cos I made a pig's ear of it.

I picked up all the cables in one big lump like giant spaghetti and threw them in the bin. Too drunk for all that, but it turned out that lifting six speakers down three flights of stairs was a lot easier than I thought though, mostly because I didn't do it; Slouch took pity on me and had some of his crew take care of it.

Parker came to me at the end of the load-out and presented me with his business card, 'That's for you, you drunken idiot. Call me, I need a good speaker man and we are planning a tour this summer, across the festivals in Europe. So if your not busy building things for tyrants, give me a call.'

'It's amazing what I can do when I'm pissed', I thought.

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# NEWS REPORT

A number of French companies have exported machinery and raw material for the manufacture of chemical weapons to Iraq since 1986, a French magazine reported today.

Le Nouvel Observateur, a left-of-center magazine, reported that a company named Protec S.A., based in Riedisheim, near Mulhouse in eastern France, was an intermediary over the past four years for the supply of chemical materials. Protec denied all the charges today. President Francois Mitterrand said on Saturday that he knew of French companies that were breaking the United Nations embargo against Iraq. Mr. Mitterrand vowed to prosecute violators vigorously.

A French official involved in the investigation was quoted as saying that without photos made available by American satellites, it was difficult to prove that these products were destined for military use in Iraq. The satellite photos made available to French authorities suggested, the official said, that much of the material may have ended up in the chemical weapons factory of Samarra in Iraq.

Pool of Companies Reported

The weekly magazine said several other French companies were apparently used as part of a ''pool'' to supply various equipment ''blindly'' without knowing its final destination. Among these, the magazine said, were industrial companies including Le Vide, Carbone Loraine, De Dietrich France, SVCM, Pirep and Prevost.

The magazine said Protec took the intermediary role after diversifying its operations away from construction at the request of a West German company that is being investigated for shipments of raw materials and machinery for the manufacture of chemical weapons to Iraq.

\- The New York Times, 1988

LIFE IS GREAT WHEN YOU'RE 15

Trying to hold back a beaming smile, Yasamin calmly said '...Yes, I would like that. I love football', which was a lie, but it didn't matter. She would pretend to be into football the same way Kamran had been pretending to be into maths.

She just had one hurdle to jump before she could actually go over to Kamran's house to watch the FA cup final - she needed to get permission from her Dad. She couldn't say no to Kamran because she thinks he's so adorable. His unconfident, fumble mumbly approach was too cute, and she was giddy with the rush of a first crush.

She looked deeply into his brown eyes and felt sure that she had to be careful with this young man, on account of him being so unwittingly charming, it was easy to be taken in by someone so cute. She was excited nevertheless, and she skipped home after school to consider what to wear when she went to go and watch the game. Yasamin has always liked bows in her hair. They make her look like a movie star from the olden days, the ones her grandmother loves so much. Her grandmother always smiles a full smile when she visits in a yellow bow in her hair.

Yellow suits Yasamin, the colour of sunshine and happiness and these were about the happiest days she has ever had. She knew she'd be the talk of the school on Monday and she couldn't wait, but first, she had to ask Dad.

*

Well, Dad was quick to make the decision, and pretty angry about it too, with a long drawn out 'No!' and a sizeable list of reasons why his little girl would not be going around to a boys house for any reason at all.

'But Dad, I want to watch the football!' She pleaded.

'Huh, oh really? Since when has my daughter been interested in any sport?' She ran to her room crying as Mum came up to comfort her.

'Darling, darling, you know how he can be, do not worry, let me talk to him. Kamran's father is a good man, let me explain that to your Dad,' she smiled wryly, 'besides, we have a whole week to wear your father down.'

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# RUSHIN AROUND ATHENS

It took a few days to recover from the night at SoundControl, but as soon as I was well again I found myself en route to Athens.

As the pilot fired us down the runway of Manchester airport the rain blew hard against the outside of the plane smearing water across my window. As the plane pointed skyward, I looked down at the earth below at all the neatly maintained farmland interspersed with patches of suburbia as we left the city behind. It struck me that until only quite recently nobody in history had ever seen anything like the view from 30,000 feet. None of the kings and queens of ancient civilisations, not even the wisest of men, or the most powerful elite of the past saw the cities and mountains from the clouds as I can right now. For a moment I had a real feeling of power as I gazed down on the planet below and I marvelled about how powerful we had all suddenly become in this year of 1988.

That feeling of power lasted for only a brief moment. I soon realised that I have absolutely no influence, and can take zero credit for the direction or the power of this plane. I can't turn it around, I am strapped into it and I can't even so much as go to the bathroom unless a little light tells me I can do so. I am not in control and seldom in my adult life have I been as helpless as I am now.

Maybe that's why I drink so much when I fly, to dull that deep-rooted feeling that we have all been elevated by advances in technology that have been created by the very few. Advances that we had nothing to do with and that we hardly understand, but now find ourselves bound to, and at the mercy of. People say that ignorance is bliss. It's not. Ignorance is poverty of the mind. We are all prisoners to the unmerciful, unrelenting demand for progress, and none of us has paused to ask why, or consider where progress will take us. In my case, it's taking me to Athens.

It's hard to defend progress. That little shit bought us the A-bomb. It gave us Chernobyl. It eroded the ozone, and the smart-arse melted also the ice caps and made an island of plastic the size of Texas in the Pacific ocean. Never before in natural history has any species caused such devastation to its own eco-system. We are all guilty. We seem to go along what whatever is shoved in front of our face - yes, more petrol cars, please! More single-use plastics! More pesticides for the crops and double the hormones injection for animals and while you're there hit me full in the face with a handful of additives and preservatives. No, we do not have smallpox or polio anymore but we have HIV and parts of the earth that are so radioactive they've become no-go zones for life, oh and we also have chemical weapons and all-time high cancer rates. Go team progress!

After many cloud-bound hours, I arrived in Athens in the dead of night after what had been a very boozy flight. The airport was humid as hell and I felt disorientated but somewhere in this small beige airport was my contact from L'Elettronica, a man by the name of Rushin.

Strange name, that. Rushin, I thought just as I stumbled across the man himself in the arrivals lounge. He was a happy and well-fed man with a pseudo-American accent and an olive complexion. He towered over me at 6' 4" and on top of his large head he wore a nice 'man abroad' kind-of white trilby hat to match his cream coloured linen shirt, shorts and leatherette sandals.

'You must be Fletcher!' He said as I wandered through the airport with my bags in hand.

'I suppose so, are you Rushin? I smiled limply.

'Yes, I am Rushin now, but later I will be sleepin!' He replied, beaming, all proud of himself. Greek humour. He must have been waiting to deliver that line all his life, either that or he works it into the introduction of every person he meets. I instantly liked him. What a guy.

We stepped into Rushins' car, a battered old Honda with a hole in the exhaust, causing it to make a farting sound. Oh, and the breaks were mostly broken, but that didn't stop Rushin from rallying over the hills around the airport, tooting around small hamlets until we got to the centre of Athens and to my hotel, the four-star Athens Gate, near the king Zeus columns and opposite the Temple of Olympia Zeus, near the Parthenon. It was a very classy place with an expansive marble floor in the lobby, a TV in every room and a continuous smell of heating oil.

There wasn't much going on at the hotel and there was no bar to speak of. With the muted tones of the decor, it didn't leap out at me as a place I would want to spend much time in. This will never do. More beer is required and we can do better than this, I thought.

'Hey, Rushin, whats the local beer like? I'll drop my bags in my room and we can go and find a pub. Let's meet in the lobby in 10.'

'Fletcher, we do not really have pubs around here.'

'There must be somewhere to drink. I've been on a plane' I reasoned. And I had been on a plane, so after I checked in we took a short walk down the humid main street to find a bar or a pub or a restaurant or something.

It was quiet and there was not a soul around. As we explored the streets for life I could smell something familiar in the air. I had to pause for a moment to recognise it. 'Engine oil?' I sniffed. Down the main high street, there were lots of shops with the shutters down, the kind of shutters with little gaps in so you can see behind them. I could see inside and of them were scrapyards, but no cars inside, just bits of scrap for sale, right there on the main high street! Near all the posh shops and stray cats.

One thing that was funny about Athens in the 80s was the cars. They were all 20 and 30-year-old classic British cars in brilliant nick driving around. Amazing. And the mopeds, you'd see 3 people stacked onto on a single moped going about their business on the main street by the hotel.

As I marvelled at the high street scrap yard I heard Rushin remember 'Ah, it's Sunday night!. Everything is closed now...' He paused and pondered before sparking into life 'I know, let's go for a drive! I remember on the way in from the airport there was a village that had a bar with the lights on, it's only a few miles away'.

So we beat a path to his crappy Honda and jumped in to search for cold, sweet beer. We were quickly outside central Athens, and all I could see for miles and miles were dark rolling hills lit only by the moonlight and the dimming car headlights of our wheezing Honda. After driving for a short while I could see by the roadside what looked like ornate little greenhouses with fresh flowers inside that appeared to dance delicately by the light of a fresh candle sitting beside them, they were really very beautiful, and there were many of them dotted along the highway.

'Hey, Rushin, what are they?' I said, pointing at the glass flower boxes.

'They are memorials, they are put there by people who lost a loved one to a car accident on that spot. The loved one will come and tend to the flowers and light the candles each day.' He said. Just seconds later he switched the Honda's headlight off.

'I drive better with them off, moonlight is better.' He explained.

'Rushin?' I said. 'You must be jokin'! Get them on! Listen to what you've just said! I don't want to be a candle! Put 'em on!' He laughed and it took him a solid moment to realise what I was saying.

'Oh, yeah...sorry.' he said grimly.

We continued to wind through the lanes towards the bar that Rushin had seen on the way into Athens only a few hours earlier and we soon arrived at a sleepy-looking, lonely, little taverna on the edge of town surrounded on all sides by farmland. Fortunately for us, it was still open and there was a party going on inside.

'Nice one, I'll get the first beers in' I yelled over the sound of the traditional music that was blasting over us as we walked in. It was beautiful, well-lit bar-come-night-club. A kind of a Greek fun pub, actually, well, fun-taverna, and it was worth the journey. I gazed behind the bar to the big branded bottled beers, Budweiser and Heineken. We'd hit the Jackpot, finally.

I and a happy looking Rushin stood at the bar scanning the room and we noticed the place was full of beautiful girls, lots of them, and there was not a man in sight. They were all really dressed up in traditional Greek dresses, laughing and dancing with each other.

'This place is alright' I nodded at Rushin. 'We've done well.' He agreed with a nodding gesture as we clinked beer glasses.

'Have you been here before?' I asked.

'No, never.' Said Rushin.

'OK, cos I was just wondering where all the blokes are?' Just as the words left my mouth I began to notice a few things. Adams apples and large hands mostly.

'They're all blokes' I spluttered, laughing. 'So you don't have pubs in Athens, but they have tranny bars!' We chuckled, finished our pints and left, we didn't want to offend anyone, they were all having a lovely time but they didn't need tourists.

We never did find an open pub on a Sunday night in Athens. Rushin's car just about got us back to the hotel, and I learned about something new that night. I learned what a minibar is. 'This hotel has immediately grown on me', I thought, 'All this for free!' The next morning I learned a second lesson, I learned that minibars are not actually a free offering from the hotel and they are very expensive! I billed it to Rushin' L'Honda from L'Elettronica. I figure he owed me one.

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# IT AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE

'It's a cruel, cruel summer,

Leaving me here on my own.

It's a cruel, cruel summer.'

\- Cruel Summer, Bananarama, 1983

I woke up the next morning at the crack of dawn with an equally cracking headache. 'Damit! Minibar!' I yelled as I threw an angry shoe from my bed at the little mocking fridge in the corner. Ah well. Let's get these repairs done so I can go home, I groaned to myself as I fell out of bed.

Great shower. Good breakfast. Bad hangover. Back in the crappy Honda. FFS it's hot!

'Morning, boss.' Said Rushin as I approached the Honda.

'Rushin! Morning lad.'

'Are you ready to work, Fletcher? I'll take you directly to L'Elettronica's workshop now.'

'Nope, but let's go anyway.'

After loading my tools into the boot of Rushin's car, I sat down in the passenger seat beside him and wound the window down. I breathed in the outside air which smelled sweet and cool, perfumed by the summer fruits growing on the outskirts of town under brilliant blue skies and a gentle breeze. Huge peaches grow in the gardens and farms, as do beautiful apricots and raspberries that are so perfect their taste excites the mouth like champagne. But all I could think of was the task at hand. 'What do you know about the faulty equipment?' I enquired.

'Nothing, Fletcher. I'm not very technical. They just don't work, I guess. We have a technical team and I will introduce you, they know more than I do. They are all very excited to meet you, the man who designs these fantastic devices!'

'OK', I said, smiling a big smile and letting out what can only be described as an enormously inappropriate fart. Farts are funny, which is exactly why I started laughing. As Rushin winced I explained.

'Did I ever tell you about my claim to fame, Rushin? I once went to visit Anne Franks house. I was there really early in the morning and I was the first one inside and I let go of an absolute ripper. It was so dense you could have sewn a button into it, you could practically see it covering the entire downstairs area.

'The night before I was at an Argentinean restaurant and had two cups of garlic butter and a T-bone steak' I said, by now nearly in tears remembering the episode.

'Just after I did it a whole classroom of Dutch school children walked in with their teacher. The teacher was sniffing away, all disgusted! Some of the school children's eyes started to water, some of them were coughing - in Dutch!

'It was amazing! I wish I could do it again!' I was crying as I remembered their faces. Rushin looked horrified, which make me laugh even more, which eventually cracked him! He started belly laughing like a Greek maniac. Ah, Greece.

The drive wasn't long, L'Elettronica's HQ was close to the hotel. As we approached the modest shop front I was still beaming from the Anne Frank story.

Above the door was a green hand-painted 'L'Elettronica' sign. We stepped an unmanned and very basic looking shop front that had some improvised shelving dotted around the place. The shelves were sparsely stocked with few products for sale. You could tell that the stock had been on the shelves for years, as all of the product packaging had been almost completely bleached by the sun.

We went behind the abandoned shop front and to the workspaces in the back. The rear of the shop was like a Tardis, you couldn't tell from the front, but it went back a long way via a large, olive green corridor that was littered with boxes spilling over with mess. Several workrooms lay on either side and there was one door at the very end.

'I must tell you, Fletcher' Said Rushin in a sort of uptight manner. 'We are going to work in the room at the end of the corridor, as we walk down to the room, do not look to your right or to your left into any of the other rooms. OK?'

'OK,' I said as we walked down the corridor. I could see out of my peripheral vision that Rushin was now carrying a gun in his hand. When you are told where you can or can't look by a man with a gun, it's not the time or place to ask questions. I'm sure I wouldn't want to know anyway.

He led me to the room at the end of the corridor. Inside the room was all of the test gear that I told them I would need to carry out the repairs and the 20 faulty units, but nobody else.

'What's the crack?' I enquired. 'Where's the tech team?' Rushin no longer had his gun in hand, We were both pretending it didn't happen.

'It's 9 o'clock, they should be in soon, but I can never tell with Sid, he is a good technician but a terrible timekeeper.'

'Yeah, I know loads of people like that, twats basically. Don't worry, let me see what I can find with these faulty units, I'll sort it myself.'

After some short time setting up my workbench and tidying the room-up, I got to work. I can't stand mess of any kind in a workshop. To me, it's the little disciplines in life that make a huge difference, like cleaning your desk. It's the same kind of discipline that will make you successful in life. Whether it's the simple act of making your bed or a complex task of running a business; it's all the same thing and if you can't keep your desk clean then you'll be as successful as baby-sitting service run by a wolverine. Anyway, clean-up complete, I got off my high horse and fired up the first faulty unit.

The device sprang to life and appeared to operate correctly from all initial readings, and then...failure. The unit fell into stand-by. Hmmm...

It took a while to diagnose the fault, but really it didn't take a rocket scientist to discover that the device was going into thermal shut down. The devices had been developed in Liverpool which has an average ambient temperature around 12 to 20 degrees and now they are in Athens which is more like 25 to 32 degrees year-round. It was just too hot for the devices to operate properly.

I was pondering this problem when Sid, the local staff technician showed up for work. Not only was he late but he was also quite a resentful man. He had a passive way of resisting any advice and instructions that I would give him, and he talks like he has just woken up and is trying to work a kink out of his back, so I didn't bother to use Sid for anything. The repairs would take a while and this was not going to be a welcome work environment with Sid around. The gun was bad enough, but this guy was something else.

I set about testing all the units, which took all day. They all had the same issue. I figured the way to get the units operational would be to fit a larger heatsink to the power transistors and to pull back the standing current a few millivolts. This would take me at least a week, and before I knew it this day was done and it was time for Rushin to take me back to the hotel.

Rushin insisted on taking me for drinks at a bar by the hotel that had been closed the night before. It was a curious offer, considering the day I've had with him.

'You pulled a gun on my today! What makes you think I wanna drink with you?' I asked.

'Because Fletcher, when we work we work and when we play we play. It's playtime now, so let us drink together and enjoy ourselves.'

I couldn't argue with that logic, but the day's events began to make me worry about what lies ahead in my immediate future in Athens. L'Elettronica was clearly a front for some dodgy dealings and I hadn't yet pieced it all together in my mind, but I knew that I had to proceed with caution.

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# OVER THE HORIZON

My first memory was a vicious fever dream. I was five years old and I was suffering from meningitis. My mother told me that the doctors said I might slip away in the night. In the rapture of the dream my left eye was bleeding and I couldn't stop it. I was scared and I wondered around busy streets confused looking for advice, looking for hope and finding only the grim faces of my school teachers who told me that I should know better than to ask for help. I think that's why I stayed in Athens for as long as I did. I've never been good at asking for help. Suffering in silence is a curse and a simple bad habit. It's a kind of submission to circumstance that I think all British working-class people suffer from on some level.

On my second working day in Athens, I woke-up after a restless sleep with only two things on my mind; staying alive and not being dead. I resolved to go back to L'Elettronica and spent much of my day getting one unit operational so they could test it. The sooner I found a working solution the sooner I could getaway. The vision of Rushin with his gun stayed with me, and an air of impending doom loomed heavy in the Mediterranean air.

After several hours in the workshop, I found a satisfactory solution to the technical problems. As I thought, a larger heatsink was required and less standing current was applied and Presto! The unit survived the bench testing. I gave the unit up to Sid. He took the repaired unit away into one of the other rooms down the messy green corridor. After a few minutes, Sid came back to me with angry complaints.

'This guy is worse than Jom' I thought.

'This doesn't work. The repairs you have done are a complete failure. You must make this work. This is why you are here.' Sid declared with dramatic gesturing. After toing and froing with him for a while, and after a lot of testing and demonstrating, I simply couldn't find the fault he was wittering on about, and I became short-tempered.

'You need to show me what you are plugging these converters into, I can't find a fault so you must be hooking them up to something that's making them shit-the-bed.' I insisted, but Sid was not about to let me look at the equipment they were plugging my converters into, for whatever reason.

Eventually, Rushin intervened and I explained my position to him.

'I've gone as far as I can with what you are giving me, there is some other fault at work here and it's with your gear. You need to let me see your equipment so I can see the whole system in action. Otherwise, I'll sign off now and go home.' I said opening my arms out wide, expecting a fight.

Rushin took to arguing with Sid in a language that was not Greek. It was Arabic. By the time they were done, so was the second day. I was hoping things would be wrapped up around now and I'd be going home.

The day after, the third day, Sid conceded his secretive position and decided to show me what the converters were being used for. He walked me into a side room flanked by two guys with much bigger guns that Rushin had days earlier. What appeared before me on the workbench was a large piece of radar equipment. The main unit took 18-20MHz input and produced an output of 419MHz. After some time I realised what this was; a fucking Klystron Amplifier.

I had heard that the Americans had been working on a special 'over the horizon' radar technology, which could see well beyond the distance of conventional radar systems. It uses a powerful short-wave signal and a large transmitter to reflect the signal off the ionosphere and back again, unlike old ground-based radar what would only ping across a horizontal plane. I knew what this piece of equipment in front of me was designed for. It was to be a radar jamming system to counter the new American radar tech. What the fuck have I gotten into? A fart would have broken the tension perfectly, but I remember how much I upset the Dutch last time, so I didn't bother, these people have guns and no sense of humour.

*

On the morning go the fourth day, I remember being sat at the hotel breakfast at a table close to several American women, who were all talking about their doctors, psychiatrists and the various pills that they are taking. 'The doctor says THESE are what I need for my anxiety' Said one. 'Well, nervous tension is what my doctor says if the problem with my skin, he has me on these yellow ones, and I struggle in the morning so my doctor says I need this, too, and these for the evening really put me in the right state.'

'I'm never going to get out of this madhouse.' I thought. 'Between these women at breakfast, the guns and probably illegal radar at project at L'Elettronica, my prospects of getting out of here sane are about as a likely as me running a diamond mine in a supernova.

In a very beleaguered state, I reluctantly decided to drag out the job of making the required modifications the converters, as I was starting to worry about what they would do with me once the work had been completed. What happens to me when they have what they want?

After breakfast, I went for a walk to the Temple of Zeus. I sat beneath the colossal sunbaked structure of 104 ancient pillars that stand 17 meters high under the perpetual bloom of a blue sky. The remains are all that is left of what was the greatest temple in the ancient world. Construction started in 6th century BC and took 638 years to complete. What remains today is a beautiful but worn classical carcass, a reminder of superpower that once stood in the centre of Athens. These massive pillars that would have demonstrated enormous power thousands of years ago to anyone that saw it. It would have radiated out across the ancient world.

Now, in this certain year of 1988, many of the pillars have been pushed over by the hands of time and eroded to a pitted finish. I considered the Now. The fleeing moment that gives way to the next. When they all stack up together moments can make mighty empires disappear and reduce entire civilisations to rubble. What do these ancient ruins mean now? A stream of cash from tourism, perhaps, as the nation monetises its mighty failure at the hands of time.

Time remains undefeated, it is a master to us all, but no matter how brief or how long our personal empires last, what counts is not how long our time lasts but what we did with the time we had. This was a painful thought that cast a long shadow over my present and inelegant empire.

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# DEEP STATE

'I share your concern about the legality and morality of matters such as these.' Said Peter Johnston MP, as he dictated a letter to his secretary, Linda.

'Mr Jonas I am grateful that you have brought this issue to my attention. I will, in all good faith, endeavour to investigate your concern and raise this as a question in the house of commons with some urgency. However, I must have all of the facts, please contact my office to discuss the matter further. I will wait to hear from you on this issue before I decide the best course of action. Signed, P Johnston MP for Aintree.'

'Check that for me please, Linda, and get it typed and posted. Oh, and include my personal number.'

'Yes, will do, Mr Johnston.'

Welcome to the messy desk of Mr Peter Johnston, MP for Aintree, Liverpool. It is littered with documents, files and books, there are several copies of the Liverpool Echo, a cassette of Artie Shaw's greatest hits and a small booklet entitled 'The By-laws of the Garrick Club'. The sterling silver rolls of his hair and his piercing blue eyes suggests dignity at a distant glance. His grey suit fits his broad, middle-aged frame well, and his tie is always immaculate, unlike his desk.

Mr Johnston paused to light a large cigar with a single match and puffed away for a moment, pondering into the middle distance.

Outside his office, Linda takes to her typewriter. Linda knows that the letter must be formatted in line with parliamentary procedures. It must be typed in triplicate, with one copy sent to the constituent, one kept for Mr Johnston official archive and one is to be posted to the Central Committee, deep in the heart of the building that overlooks the gardens at number 10.

All correspondence must go to The Committee, who keep an active archive of all communication in and out of parliament for every MP in the United Kingdom. The preserving of correspondence and the recording of Hansard are their sacred responsibilities.

*

Later that morning, after Mr Johnston's response had been dutifully typed by Linda it soon hits the inbox of the Central Committee, along with copies of all of the other mail from his office. All letters are processed by banks of studious clerks. A clerk receives Linda's quickly typed letter from Peter Johnston addressed to Richard Jonas. The clerk takes some time to scan the page before calmly reaching for the black formica telephone receiver that sits on his sparse desk.

'Hello, operator, put me through to the Back Office., please Yes, very well. Back Office? Yes, we have a leak in Liverpool I'm afraid, I suggest we alert the local plumber immediately to take action at RadioWaves, Aintree, Liverpool, L34DP. Yes, this is in reference to operation Vincent. Very well. I will leave it in your hands.'

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# CLASSIC MONDAY BEHAVIOUR

On the plane home from Athens, I took a leaf out of Oscar Wildes book and got completely pissed on small cans of Heineken and snored my way through 1,653 miles of sky. It was only when the wheels screeched down at Manchester airport and I felt the soles of my shoes hit British tarmac did I feel safe again.

I was finally back on home ground - what a fucking relief. I spent a total of ten days in Athens, and I wasn't sure I'd be back to tell the tale. I almost wasn't. When the work was all finished and my hosts had what they wanted, my nagging concerns over my eventual fate lead me to flee Athens without telling anyone. I decided that I wasn't going to let fear sit between me and my destination, like a fat guy in a cinema. So I slipped away to the airport early one morning, it seemed like the thing to do given the circumstances. I'd rather not show up for work than run the risk of a 'mission-accomplished' hammer to the head.

I know what goes on in workshops, they can be brutal and unforgiving places and those particular people were unfamiliar and unpredictable. We can all remember what happened to Postnik Yakovlev after he finished building St Basil. The 17th-century architect was blinded by Ivan The Terrible after he completed construction so he could never build anything to compete with it, and that wasn't going to happen to me over a fucking Klystron Amplifier. I mused on this as I let go of the worlds biggest belch into the back of another passengers head, accidentally, but that didn't stop him being offended (and to that passenger in 25C - I am sorry I laughed so much).

My laughter masked my concern. I was genuinely worried, and I didn't know how to get out of this situation. The future felt uncertain, I felt uncomfortable and generally boxed into something I couldn't handle, like the rent boy locked in your Mums wardrobe.

I need to reach out to the DTI agents to better understand the legality of this and to get some assurances about my safety.

By the time I retrieved my car from the airport carpark it had racked up a bill so big that I thought I that must now own the parking spot for life. Feeling grumpy, poor and endangered, I headed home to gather my thoughts before I could scatter them around again.

The front seat of the Capri was cold and reassuring, at least I had that going for me. It was only when I had reached the outskirts of Liverpool's city limits did I notice something else that put me ill-at-ease.

I was being followed by a battered old Ford Sierra. It was a distinct purple colour, with a strangely tinted windscreen that stopped me seeing into the car. I didn't pay it much attention at first, but I did feel the usual trepidation of being followed by bad intentions - it was not uncommon to be followed by would-be carjackers in Liverpool in the 80s, they'd usually follow you to learn where you parked your car at night. With this in mind, I did my usual thing of driving to a police station and, with relief, watch the thieves zoom rapidly away.

Back at home the milk bottles were piled up outside my house, I had left a note for the milkman, but since a disagreement over a bottom of Chocomel he's taken to pretending that he speaks no English, 'Sorry, mate, I don't speak English', he'd say, which doesn't fool me, I know a thick Kirby accent when I hear one.

It took ten minutes to find my front door key in my hastily packed and overstuffed suitcase, but once I was at home I felt calmed, until the phone greeted me with a sharp ring-ring, as if to welcome me back.

'Hello, Oscar Wilde here.' I said.

'Fletcher, I'm glad I got you. Where have you been? This is Richard.'

'Fuck knows, Rich. I feel like I've been shit out of a bears arse. I'm exhausted. Ah, wait, yes, that's right, I remember, Athens, to L'Elettronica. I've been building a radar jammer at gunpoint.'

'L'Elettronica? You know the owner is an operative for the Iraqi government?'

'Couldn't you have told me that before?' I said.

'If I'd have known you were going I would have told you, Fletcher.'

'I know mate, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm nakard, Rich I'm going to get my head down.'

'Before you go, I called to let you know that Peter Johnston, our MP, is taking up the case.'

*CLICK*

'You wha'?'

'Peter Johnston, MP, he's going to address parliament about RadioWaves. According to the 1985 parliamentary guidelines for exporting to Iraq what RadioWaves is doing is illegal, even if it's only surveillance systems it's still for military use...'

'They are also working on a power supply for Scud missiles.'

'Well, that should put them in the dock for sure. *CLICK* Peter Johnston is going to raise this in parliament directly. He wants to start an official government inquiry.'

This was big news but I couldn't absorb it, much less understand what it actually meant. I wound down the conversation with Rich. After the ten days I'd had, all I wanted a night in my own bed and a dump in my own toilet. I was happy to be home, and to have the chance to shut-out the world for a few hours before I had to return to work at RadioWaves in the morning.

*

The sleep was deep, but not nearly long enough, and I woke the next morning with a start, and a porno mag stuck to my face. I had Lucy's jugs transferred onto my left cheek. I shouldn't have had half a bottle of gin last night, that was the mistake. I was late for work, and I really wanted to catch-up on the latest news at RadioWaves before I called the DTI.

Being late is such an annoyance. I hate being late, but once I realised I was an adult I stopped rushing around for anyone. I refuse to get hurried, stressed or in a muddle over it, and I was certainly in no rush to get to work, especially after recent events. I took my time, I had a slow breakfast before I cruised to work at low speed to admired the sheeps and lambs frolicking free in the farmers' field on route with my coffee-to-go in my hand and Adam Ant on the radio.

Enjoying my morning in the spring sunshine, I glanced at my rearview mirror and saw a familiar slight; another car on the country lanes.

'How odd', I thought, and after a slow moment, it got even odder, the car was my friend from the night before; the battered old purple Sierra with the strange windscreen. I've never been followed twice by the same car, so I was starting to get spooked, I felt a little breathless for a moment and I turned off the radio and gripped the sterling wheel for comfort while I searched for a rational explantation.

The Sierra would stay back a good hundred yards or more, but it was obviously following me. We are quite country lanes with only a few cars on the road throughout the day, so it's not like the Sierra could blend into the traffic. You thought they would have picked a more usual colour, something that blends in a little bit more? Green maybe? Defiantly not purple. Indeed, as I said, these people are unpredictable, they have no reason.

Perhaps they were making a point? The noise of stress started to increase in my mind, and I looked back to memorised the registration plate. I resolved to bring this to the attention of the DTI as soon as I got a quiet moment near a telephone that wasn't already ringing.

I continued to drive in silence and with some fear in my stomach, always glancing up at the rearview mirror for hope that the car had made a turn off the road. No such luck, anticipation gripped me and the dreadful drive would continue for some miles along the quiet, desolate lanes and it occurred to me that there would be no one to help me for miles around, should I need someone to come to my aid. I pressed onward, making quicker than normal progress, I pushed down on the accelerator using speed was my only ally to assist in my escape from this tension. Fortunately, the closer I got to RadioWaves HQ the further back the car dropped until it was no longer in sight and my mind began to simultaneously cool down and rise to a rapid boil, as new questions of the drivers' identity and intentions presented themselves in my mind.

RadioWaves HQ came into view looming over the horizon like a tombstone. How times have changed from the innocent days, I mused. I called to the reception desk to see if Helen was around, but there was no sight of her, it must be her day off, so I couldn't lean back on her lovely presence for motivation. Ho-hum. Well, since I was late for work I thought I should make an appearance in the workshop.

'Nice Tan, Fletch! HA-HA-HA!' Jom said with a mid-morning smile and his usual obnoxious laugh.

'Piss off, Jom, it's too early for all that, mate.'

'Early? It's noon you tit! That's classic Monday behaviour!'

'I know, sorry mate, but I'm sick.'

'How sick are you?'

'I'm shagging my mother.'

'Hahaha! So how was the holiday in Athens then, you big wanker?' More laughing.

'You don't want to know. Or maybe you do? Do you know what they are building over there at L'Elettronica? It's a radar jammer! Did you know? They had me at gunpoint working on it.'

'Shit, that can't be legal. It's very much news to me, mate. Are you OK?'

'Yeah, I'm alright, thanks. But Tony and Vincent can both go and fuck themselves. One of them must have known and they sent me there alone, anything could have happened! And what's that?' I said pointing across the warehouse. 'We don't usually work on those? And it's definitely not a fridge power supply, I can see that.'

Behind Jom, in the back of the main workroom, I could see the large white fuselage of a curious-looking aircraft. It was the middle section alone, its wings had not yet been attached, but from nose to rudder it stretched almost 8 meters, about the size of a large microlight, but infinitely more menacing to be in the presence of. It stood tall amongst the people around it, yet there was no space for a pilot on its smooth, crisp featureless form, as it was to be un-piloted, instead, mounted to the front of its torpedo design, just under the nose cone, sits a large Sony video camera. Old fashioned by today's standards but the latest tech at the time, the camera was massive, as big as a microwave oven. This was a drone, which at the time was referred to as an 'RPV' - remotely piloted vehicle, and it should not be in the walls of an amateur radio company.

'What is that!?' I asked incredulously.

A voice boomed out of nowhere, 'That is Skyleader.' It was the deep intimidating voice of Tony McDermott.

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# SKYLEADER

Tony had walked over and was now standing next to Jom. I had to rewind and review the conversation I just had, loose lips and all that. I felt red in the face as I tried to remember if I just slagged Tony off or not. Shit, I think I did. I was unnerved by Tony, but fuck it.

That thing isn't leading anything without any wings. What's it doing here? What the plan?' I said pointing once again at the menacing form in the corner.

Tony jumped ahead of Jom 'We are fitting the telemetry hardware to it. There are three parts to this, one - a receiver supplied by STE in Italy that will live inside the nose of the plane and two - a transmitter, again from STE, to control it from the ground. The final component of the system is a telemetry unit that we are building to drive the transmitters.'

'How far along are you with it?' I asked. Tony left a gap and looked over to Jom to queue him in for an entrance into the conversation.

'Not very. Can you tune the transmitters and receivers, please mate?' Jom asked.

'Fine. Is it shipping like this? As a plane with no wings?' I asked. Tony cut in again.

'No, it's just going as the three units, transmitter, receiver and line-driver board, and it will be finished off on-site by the client.'

'Oh, OK, who's the client?' With that, Tony pretended not to hear me, he turned his back and strolled out of the warehouse into the offices. I can't put my finger on that makes Tony so intimidating, he's not excessively tall, aggressive or physically threatening, but he is a reminder to all that sees him that the successful white businessman will always be the bogeyman of the world.

He is right about the shipping, it makes some sense to dispatch Skyleader as individual components, presumably to be assembled and finished in Iraq so it wasn't coming from Liverpool as a box full of tricks. I know one thing though, I won't be travelling to Bagdad to service any faulty equipment for this project, fuck that!

I took a look at the telemetry board as it was being assembled and I noticed that any identification markers on the board had been completely stripped off. Have you ever seen a 2716 EPROM, the military version that's made of ceramic, the one with the purple lids? It's completely ceramic, hard as hell, you can scratch glass with it. If you turn it upside down you can use it as a little chisel and use to scrape all the information off silicone chips. That's what they had been doing at RadioWaves, scraping the markings off all the chips on the board that they were manufacturing, so you couldn't tell where it came from. Special attention was paid to the Texas Instrument chips - they have a little flag imprinted on them in the shape of Texas. Can you imagine how the America government might react if they found out their chips are being used in Iraqi weapons? So they scraped off all of the chip ID's, or as much as they could, at least.

It's funny how life is. One moment you are an electronics engineer working for a respected amateur radio company with prestigious clients like the British Home Office, and the next moment you're building a drone for Saddam Hussein, a man that would later be found guilty of crimes against humanity.

It's also funny how Tony Blair managed to get away with his war crimes but Saddam did not. Maybe, if Saddam had the flair of Blair, or perhaps just better timing, he would not have met his doom. Tony, perhaps the most unpopular living Englishman, has had something of a career resurgence of late. He seems to have made war crimes socially acceptable again, perhaps even fashionable among those that can still stand to look at his face. Human rights are soooo 2006. No, a tyrannical leader is something that the people seem to want today, they respect and admire racist Labour ministers and bigoted Presidents, but what do I know, I'm just an electronics engineer.

'Ah, change of plan, mate, this shipment just came in. It's a box of faulty RF transceivers, they were being used by a taxi company in Algeria and the units have shit the bed. Can you have a look at them, I want to ideally ship them back to them next week' Said Jom, humourlessly.

As Jom left me to my new duty, I dug through the cardboard box to find four faulty pieces of equipment in a box lined with thin polystyrene sheets. As I removed the last unit from the box I removed the sheet of polystyrene from the bottom, to accidentally reveal a piece of yellow parchment paper. Upon the paper were characters I did not instantly recognise:

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إلى الملحق العسكري العراقي في لندن ، إسق.

السيد (ص.) عبد القادر ، إسق ،

مع تحياتي،

1. من الواضح أن المعدات المرسلة إلينا Power amplifiers‪)‬) ليست هي ما طلبنا لأنه يعمل على 72 ميغا هرتز ، في حين أن المعدات التي أردنا أن تعمل على 1،68 جيجا هرتز ، أي. 1680 ميجا هرتز.

2. أبلغت Telex الشركة بأن شخصًا من خارج سفارة لندن سيتصل بهم مباشرةً لتنسيق إرسال الطلب الجديد ، مع الأخذ في الاعتبار أن سعر مجموعة 12 واط هو 4600 جنيه وأن سعر مجموعة 90 واط هو 12500 رطل ، وأن الوقت اللازم لإنتاج الأول هو 8-10 أسابيع وكان الأخير 4 -6 أسابيع.

يرجى التنسيق مع الشركة لضمان الحصول على المعدات بالطريقة الأنسب. عنصر الوقت مهم جدا لنا. لقد أرسلنا لك نسخة من التلكس.

3. رقم هاتف الشركة هو 051-523-4011 ليفربول.

ملاحظة \- يرجى إرسال المستندات الفنية للفقرات السبع التي أرسلتها شركة Skyleader ، وخاصة الفقرة 5 ، والتي لم يتم إرسالها حتى الآن. يجب أن نحصل على هذا قبل أن تتمكن إستراتيجيتنا الهجومية القادمة من المضي قدمًا.

صديقكم المخلص،

العقيد المهندي

مجاهد عادل لطيف

I knew from a piece of world service radio equipment that my father had that this is Arabic text. I decided to conceal the letter and deliver this to Richard, it might be the evidence he was hoping for. I folded it up and stuffed it into my pocket.

'Anyway,' Jom said with a startle, I was so consumed with the letter I didn't even see him walk over, 'We are having a super 8 party on Friday night in the warehouse. Tony has brought some movies back from Soho. We're gonna get the beers in and make a party of it. There are some reps and the IT guys are coming, it'll probably about a dozen of us, are you up for it?'

'Is Helen coming?'

'Oh really? Someone's got a thing for Helen! HAHAHA. I highly doubt she will be coming.'

'Why do you say that? Either way, count me in, why not? What movies are we watching?'

'Blue ones!' Jom declared emphatically with wide eyes and a manic grin.

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# SUPER 8 PORNO PARTY

Nostalgia nerds would tell you that everything was better in the good old days, they'd have you believe that before the internet and mobile phones everyone in the world was best friends, and childbirth was painless. But one thing that defiantly wasn't better in the past is porn.

You're too young to remember, but there was a time before everyone carried around access to unlimited free porn of every kind in their pocket. Before every person in the developed world had instant 24-hour access to every adult movie and ever made at the touch of a screen. In the bye-gone era of the 1980s, all that most young men could hope for was that they might find a porno mag hidden in a bush because for some reason that's where people used to put them, as if it was a first-generation organic hard drive.

Occasionally, you might hear about a friend of a friend who had a terrible quality VHS tape that you could borrow and make an even worse copy of. What I am saying is that in the 1980s porn was rare, very rare. Today, of course, I can watch porn while I'm getting my haircut or when I'm in church, and if it's not a grade-A quality I can find a million others that are. What a golden age.

Such was the scarcity of porn that watching it could become a notable and communal affair. RadioWaves used to hold occasional Super-8 Porno Parties at the warehouse, and it would attract about a dozen men, and sometimes women, who would give up their Friday night to attend. Tony McDermott laid on ice buckets full of beer behind a makeshift bar while music played quietly in the front of the room and they had chairs set out at the back, which were all pointing at a large projector screen that had been set up next to the drone we had been working on all day. It was like a little movie theatre and Tony McDermott was the perverted projectionist with a pile of porno.

That might not be how you usually watch porn, but we'd all get together and laugh at the hammy acting on the big screen, tell jokes, drink and talk amongst ourselves, the porn was just the backdrop to the party, as a still night fell over the warehouse and a discreet moon peered over our shoulders. On occasions like this, it was only a matter of time before the cocaine came out and the drinking got serious. I'm not a fan of cocaine, people don't know themselves on the fanny powder. Chris is a good example of this. He's our five-foot-tall IT guy with closely cropped hair and eyes that are too close together. After some pepper, he decided that he wanted to rugby tackle the six-foot potted plant in the reception area. He was on his way back from the toilets when he locked eyes with the shrub. Chris asked Jom to hold on to his beer before he proceeded to dive headfirst into the topiary and disappear into a shock of green, seemingly oblivious to the brick wall behind it.

Blood flowed freely after Chris went nose-first into the brick. He nearly wet himself with panic at the sight of the rich red stream that was now flooding his cotton shirt. He was living proof that some men can not be trusted. One of the sales reps had to escort Chris to the bathroom for a cleanup operation because Jom was too busy laughing himself to death. Which is further proof that Jom is a twat, and a concussion is the price of stupidity and hubris.

After Jom recovered from his hysteria he buddied up to me.

'I've got four packets of these mints for some reason, take one off me, Fletch', he said as he handed me a packet of Boner Mints.

'You must have bought them because of the name, Jom.' He agreed with a smile. This party was a Boner Mints kind of crowd.

As I chomped down on my newly acquired refreshing cool mints, Allen, a freelance low-level worker at RadioWaves, became confused. Drink and drugs, it seems, scares the living daylights of out him so much I wonder why he puts himself through it. I remember thinking that he doesn't make intoxication look enjoyable in the slightest. One moment he was falling asleep stood-upright, nodding his head to some painful and unpredictable rhythm, bobbling and flinching his face with his eyes closed so hard he looked like an upset child feeling a flash of pain for the first time.

He was trapped in some kind of inner nightmare. Then would then bobble himself awake in startled fashion and immediately begin discussing the pitfalls of outdoor urination to the big red toolbox he had previously been resting his beer on. For his part, Allen absolutely insisted that 'NO-ONE HAS EVER SEEM ME URINATE AND THEY NEVER WILL!' I left him to argue with the thing knowing he has no chance of winning. Both he and I knew that a bloody rugby tackle was the only real option for a man like him.

Despite his temporary madness, Allen was a good man, but a tragic case, and it pains me to see him some days, days like this, in particular, knowing that once he was the biggest winner in the history of the football pools, and now he has been reduced to emotional rubble. In 1972 Allen won a record total of £512,683, that's over four million pounds in today's money.

It was a landmark figure and a landmark day. Most people would expect to be set for life with a sum that large, but that really depends on how long you plan to live. It took Allen ten torrid years to burn through all of his cash and he ended-up homeless at the age of 63. Sure, he had some fun, he bought a Lamborghini, flew on private planes to Paris to enter gambling tournaments, probably smoked the best cigars in the company of the most expensive women, but it's all gone now and it's not coming back.

When he first started working at RadioWaves Richard was good enough to let him sleep in the warehouse until he had found a small one-bedroom flat to rent, where he drinks and chain smoke cigarettes and, yes, gambles, hoping for that one lucky winner, again. You only need that one winner, people say, poor Allen needs two. He is now an elderly man with problems. I am sure he never intended to live hand to mouth as a freelance labourer long past his prime years and Allen serves as proof that your own life can be either an example to others or it can be a warning.

Allen left my thoughts as I wondered the night time warehouse carnival. The music grew loud in the warehouse and the pornography on the giant projector screen became uncomfortable to watch. The ironic light-hearted titillation mixed with the sound of 'Do the Locomotion' on the sound system had faded away, and in its place 'The Killing Moon' by Echo and the Bunnymen was reverberating at maximum volume. Playing on the projector screen was some grainy amateurish footage of a young woman with a dog collar around her neck, being violently dragged around the floor on her hands and knees by a man pulling on a leash before the whips came out to draw blood. The party, much like the woman on the leash, was starting to go sideways, and I had almost run out of mints.

Tony started getting loose-lipped to whoever would listen. 'I was 35 when I realised I was a nihilist.' He started with. 'It made me instantly free. Free of all the bullshit, of all the keeping up appearances and pretending to care about the bollocks people tell you that you should care about. Fortunately, we live in a world where a nihilist can flourish while all of the good people who give a shit constantly confront themselves with reasons why they can't be happy or successful,' he said as he loosened his tie, 'morality, fairness, fear, social pressure, reputation, worry - it's all tripe. Look at my ol' pal Richard - any good dog trainer will tell you that it's important to socialise your dog, it will make it easier for them to go into the company of other dogs later life, and give them a better chance of being the leader of the pack. The problem with Richard is that he grew up poor and he cares about it. Deep down he is still that little miserable poor fucker in that shitty council house who's too ashamed to play out with the neighbourhood kids.

'If Richard were a dog he'd be the old, nervous kind that barks at everyone. He means no harm, he just had an under-developed social sense and he never developed the confidence to just make fucking money and to hell with the rest! I don't blame him though, no, not me... Liverpool is a cruel place to come from, most people who live here don't have a clue. They'd all tell you that they are proud to be from here, but it's common for twats to become aligned to where they live simply because they were born here. And they defend it, no matter how shit it actually is. But how would they know?' He spread his hands out wide and asked the room with searching eyes, 'They've never left to see how it is anywhere else. They haven't realised that it's not meant to be this shit!'

'It's not as bad as Iraq.' I said giving him a full contact smile. 'People are dying over there.'

'And?' Tony said with a blank expression. 'Fletcher, isn't it? Ask yourself this, what is life actually worth? Not your life I mean, someones else's, someone far away that you never had to meet, someone that you never knew existed in the first place? Who really gives a shit?' I shrugged and said nothing back. You can't win an argument with someone who is that stone cold.

After about the sixth movie, I heard a stern knocking at the warehouse door. I looked over at the now sloppy looking Tony McDermott, who rose from his chair, stiffened his tie and un-stiffened his trousers to answer the wrapping of knuckles. He marched over confidently and opened the bugger without fear. On the other side of the void stood two respectable-looking police officers, honest bobbies on the beat, the sight of which made Jom and myself instantly wet ourselves laughing, but no-one else seemed to see the funny side.

'Hello, sir, are you the owner of this building?'

'Hello officers', said Tony, enunciating away his tipsiness, 'My name is Tony McDermott, I am the owner. Can I help you?' He said deliberately.

'Yes, Sir, do you mind if we take a look around?'

'Hmmm...'

'We saw the lights on from outside, and as you can imagine that caught our attention being as late as it is and we want to make sure that everything is ok. It's not often you see people at work at this hour.'

'OK, look, officers, it's like this. I have some adult movies, and me and the lads are making a party of it. Would you care to join us?' Tony always had a way of charming authority and to see his skills close up is really something to learn from. To my surprise, the policemen came in for 30 minutes. The men were simply doing their nightly rounds and they had a whale of a time watching Debbie on the big screen while only a few inches to the right stood the illegal drone that the company was building. They left with smiles on their faces and never thought to ask about the 30ft killing machine in the corner or even the blood pool in the reception.

'Fletcher, gimme a lift home, it's late and I've had enough', Jom said hazily staring downward.

'Fine, but no vomiting in my car, you stain it you pay for it'. Jom answered with a muted smirk.

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# FEAR AND LOATHING IN AINTREE

We were somewhere around Aintree on the edge of Liverpool when The Mints began to take hold. I remember saying 'I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...' And suddenly there was a terrible roar from underneath me and my stomach did a frightened summersault.

Then it was quiet again. Jom was fast asleep in the passenger seat with his face smeared against the window and his spectacles pushed unevenly against his open face.

'What the hell are you yelling about', he muttered.

'Never mind' I said. He was too far gone, too drunk, too much of a mess to drive. No point mentioning the smell, I thought. The poor bastard will smell it soon enough.

It was almost 4 o'clock in the morning and I had 10 miles to go before I got to the blessed relief of my bathroom. They would be tough miles. But there was no going back. I would have to ride it out. I was starting to worry, my stomach was cramping up and it was making my whole body physically contract inwards.

'I don't think I'm gonna make it' I blurted to myself, urging my body to hold under the strain. This was an emergency. Which for some reason, stirred Jom, who awoke chuckling to himself.

'What have you done to me you rat bastard!? What have you done!?' I said.

'You know The Mints, well, they weren't mints. You just ate a whole pack of mint flavoured laxatives!' He said and his laugh started to accelerate.

'That's for changing the words around on my driving club notices, you dick!'

'What?! Are you fucking crazy! This could kill me!'

'Shitting to death? HAHAHA! Fucking brilliant!'

'You're coming to my house and you're going to sit outside the toilet so I can scream while I shit out my kidneys! You really are a fucking bellend!' I winced as I said that. It was bad. It was very bad. I hit the gas, but I knew I was done for.

'Help! You bastard!' I cried.

'Don't try to fight it, or you'll start getting brain bubbles.' He was hysterical with laughter.

I would have to pull over. There was no avoiding it. There is no way to escape what happens next. I can imagine it now 'Sorry officer, yes, I do appear to be on the street, performing a bowel movement outside of the Red Cat pub at 4 am, but you see, the pub is closed, it's 4 am, the wolves are out and I can't seem to stop, call an ambulance, this is a medical emergency!' Would he believe that? No.

I'd be given a set of regulation disposable trousers and taken away for questioning as soon as I was able to stand, which might take some time. I might be stuck by the roadside until morning, not in control of myself as the 8 am traffic strolls by and gawks at my shameful form. The case would be reported to the Liverpool Echo newspaper by an eye witness (Jom). The story would read 'Respected designer of electronics caught in dirty protest at the entrance of the Red Cat pub. The pub, a favourite amongst families in the area and winner of the "community pub of the year" award 5 years running was attacked by Fletcher Nelson, 24. Mr Nelson has been charged with damage to private property after Police Officer Bugeye discovered him defecating in the entrance to the local inn, for reasons no one understands. An eye witness has come forward to say 'He just kept going and going, it was like something from a horror movie'. Approximately £4,670 worth of damage has been reported to insurers, who are keen for Mr Nelson to feel the full wrath of the justice system. Mrs Goodheart, a widow and the elderly owner of the pub, has said of the damage 'I've never seen anything like it, not even during the war.'

It was too late. I screeched the car over to the roadside and jumped out of my seat like I was shot out of a cannon. The seatbelt did its job and pushed me back into the seat. I was panicking, 'Get this thing off me! It's not funny!' I pleaded as I fumbled around for the seatbelt button. Finally, with a click, I was free. I immediately leapt out to the back of the car and squatted down. It felt like the end had come. Wave after wave of Dantes hell and battery acid.

'God's Mercy on you, you swine!' I yelled to Jom, which alerted some curtains in the bedroom window of a house close by. And that is when I realised that I had left the car headlights on. Illuminated in a fine rear headlight beam I was haunched for 30 minutes, groaning under the pressure while Jom alternated between laughing and sleeping. People yelled from windows 'You dirty pig!' And 'You are a fucking animal' and 'You should be ashamed'. I didn't care, my focus was elsewhere. I was poisoned and I will have my revenge.

'By the way mate, I'm quitting. Fuck RadioWaves.' said Jom through the passenger side window, as if it were the perfect time and place to make the announcement.

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# THE DRINKING ELITE

Deep in the House of Lords sits a bar, an austere, shady watering hole for the drinking elite to unwind in, to generously hold court and to tell stories until the small hours of the morning. This is not a place for the press or public to attend. At the entrance, there is an official parliamentary snuffbox in case MPs want perking up before a long drink. The bar is a short walk from the 25-yard rifle range that's hidden away in the basement of Westminster Palace where you can wear ear defenders and borrow a .22-calibre single-shot rifle and be told to 'Squeeze the trigger, don't pull on the bloody thing'.

In this 19th-century smoking cabin Benjamin Disraeli could easily pop up and not be out of place. David Lloyd George is probably due at any moment. The surrounding are of fine oaks, leather and golds that absorb the eyes, brushes of rich deep reds and fine mahogany picture frames with decorative, lavish portraits collect on the walls. The brandy is aged, the cigars are precious and the lights are dimmed to a comfortable half-light. In this room money means little, when you are immersed in the finest of things, the concept of money simply does not concern.

Sat opposite each other by the fireplace is Peter Johnston MP and Mr Jack Heseltine MP, locked in discussion.

'Read this', instructs Peter, offering a letter to Jack with one outstretched hand, as he reaches out across the divide he explains, 'It's in Arabic, I've had it translated. It's addressed to a British company based in Liverpool called RadioWaves. It was found by an employee in a shipment of returned equipment sent back from Iraq...'

To the Iraqi Military Attache in London, Esq.

Mr. (Am. R.) Abdel Qader, Esq,

Regards,

1. Clearly the equipment sent to us (power amplifiers) are not what we requested because it functions on 72 megahertz, whereas the equipment we wanted should function on 1,68 GHZ, ie. 1680 megahertz.

2. The company has been informed by Telex that someone from out London embassy would be contacting them directly to coordinate sending the new order, keeping in mind that the price of a 12 watt set is 4,600 pounds and that of a 90 watt set is 12,500 pounds, and that the time necessary to produce the former is 8 - 10 weeks and he latter 4 -6 weeks.

Please coordinate with the company to ensure that the equipment is acquired in the most appropriate way. The time element is very important t us. We have sent you a copy of the telex.

3. The company's phone number is 051-523-4011 Liverpool.

Note - Please send the technical documents for the seven paragraphs that were sent by the company Skyleader, especially paragraph 5, which has not been sent to date. We must have this before our next offensive strategy can move forward.

Faithfully yours,

Col. Al-Muhannadi

Mujahid Adel Latif

'Mr Johnston, I can see the reason for your concern, and I admire it, but we've been around this issue before. Strictly speaking, it is not illegal. You have got to see if from the governments perspective.' Insisted Jack.

'Jack, you have to be kidding me, legally, politically and socially we can not have British private companies supporting the Iraqi war effort, and I think this is just the tip of the Iceberg, I think there are lots of other small suppliers across the country and across Europe.' Countered Peter.

'That may well be the case, but the government is really under the cosh here, Peter, over these grey market arms deals and I'm afraid this goes much deeper than you think. This goes back to the Iran hostage crisis in '79. The Americans will never forget it.'

'The American's, huh' Peter chuckled, 'Have you read Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? By my reckoning, America is at about volume four!'

'Indeed, but you know our friends over there will hold a grudge to the grave, and there are people in their current administration to this day, like the current US secretary of defence Dick Cheney, who was in office when the Iranians took those 52 Americans hostages for a year and a half, and they've been waiting for an opportunity to pay Iran back ever since. Let this go, Peter, let it go. And be careful who you talk to, especially on the phone in this place.' Jack declared as he handed back the letter.

'What do you mean?' Said an upright and now disquieted Peter.

'What I mean is the only phone that is not tapped in this building is the phone on the top floor, why do you think Younger has his desk there. Oh, come now, don't look at me like that, it's a known fact, that's the floor that all the spooks are on - Spies, agents, etcetera.' Jack said calmly while reclining further back on the plush brown leather wingback chair to puff on his cigar.

'You're pulling my leg, this isn't my first rodeo, Jack, give me a break. I'll be raising this in Parliament and I want your support.'

'I can't give you that, Peter, you know that already. You are Labour and I am conservative, and there are things the government can not tell you. This whole issue is under a D-notice, so the press can't talk about it and neither can we. Let it go.'

'I can't do that, Jack, and tall tales about a Deep State Secret Government and American orchestration isn't going to put me off. You and I both know the D-notice is a classic government move, sheer bureaucracy to bury anything that's uncomfortable for the government, it's censorship and it's just plain lazy. Now, more brandy.'

*

It's been a few days since Jack advised Peter to forget about RadioWaves and the whole issue of grey market arms to Iraq, but Mr Johnston could not let it drop. He presided over his desk on a quiet mid-morning, perched on his chair with his hands clasped under his chin, he stared deep in thought out to the horizon beyond the walls of his office.

His silver hair curled over his distinguished brow and suddenly his eyes started with an idea. He looked over at the black formica telephone on his desk. The phone was a classic design and it must have been here for 50 years. He stood up and out of his chair and walked around the back of his desk to the telephone, to look for what? He had no idea. The idea of his phone being tapped stuck with him, and he was curious to look for evidence of normality, that his phone was a bog-standard phone and nothing more, and the talk of such surveillance is pure folly.

Behind the phone, Peter saw a common all-garden telephone wire plugged into the back of the base, but to the left of the socket was something he had noticed before. A second wire trailed out from underneath the base. Peter lifted the phone to inspect it, the cable did not go into a connector, it simply went through the metal base plate and wired directly into the internals of the phone.

With determination, it only took a few minutes for Peter to rip up the carpet from under his desk. He resolved to find out where the second mysterious cable from his phone ran to. Having never lifted floorboards before and he was surprised how easy it was, but the area under his desk now looked like a DIY project in disarray with the floorboards lifted to expose a void beneath. The cable did not run far, it ran into a little metal box with a stamp on it that read 'MOD'. And that was all he could discover before he was startled by the sound of very loud knocking at his office door.

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# NEWS REPORT

Treasury Secretary James A. Baker 3d, who has begun a trip to Saudi Arabia, will pledge that the United States will be ''strictly neutral'' in the Iran-Iraq war and will not try to exchange arms for hostages, according to officials traveling with him.

The officials said Mr. Baker, who arrived today on a three-day visit, would also try to reassure the Saudis about currency fluctuations. The dollar's decline over nearly two years, coinciding with falling oil production and prices, has pushed Saudi Arabia into a recession and is causing a Government budget deficit for the fourth consecutive year.

Mr. Baker's trip to Saudi Arabia is the first by a senior Reagan official since the eruption of the Iran arms affair. American diplomatic officials said King Fahd, whom Mr. Baker is expected to meet, is dismayed by what he sees as a breach of faith in the selling of arms to Iran to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon.

''This is a particularly important time to reassure the Saudis that they are our close friends,'' a senior official aboard Mr. Baker's flight here said. ''Despite what happened with the shipment of arms to Iran,'' the official said, Mr. Baker will tell Saudi leaders that ''the policy of the United States will not be to ship arms to Iran for hostages or for anything else.'' Mr. Baker's other message, the official said, is ''that the United States will remain strictly neutral in the Iran-Iraq war.''

A Saudi diplomat added: ''We have always said, 'Stop this war; come and talk.' We're a sister of both.'' Affirming Policies. In affirming these positions, Mr. Baker would thus reassert policies that the Iran arms affair put in question. ''We'd like to have them believe us again,'' said James Akins, a former United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

New York Times February 3, 1987

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# THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

Yasamin's Dad was not nearly as tough or as mean as the thought himself to be. After week-long harassment by both of the women in his life the correct amount of pressure had been applied and had the desired effect. Her Farther relinquished his objections with a roll of his eyes and an exclamation of 'Fine!' He would let Yasamin visit Kamran's house to watch the FA cup final. Her first-ever date.

The big day came up soon and she was dropped off outside of Kamran's door. She nervously knocked and waited for an answer. 'Ah, you must be Yasamin, come on through, he is in the living room', said a comforting older voice of Kamran's Dad, who spoke in warm tones that sounded vaguely of tobacco and coffee.

The first thing Yasamin noticed was that Kamran has one of those fancy L-shaped couches that he was laying across in an upside-down fashion, attempting to drink a milkshake through a straw.

'Hi! I love milkshakes', Kamran said by way of greeting her, immediately making himself feel like an idiot. 'Me too', Yasmin said forgivingly.

'Let me make you one.' Kamran leap off the sofa and into the kitchen, 'Is chocolate OK?' On the fridge, Kamran had lots of photos of him and his Dad, one at the zoo, one at the park and lots from around the house and the garden. Kamran noticed her inquisitive eyes look over the images and explained 'My Dad loves taking photos, he takes dozens every week! He says he regrets not having more of my Mum. He promised himself that he would take more photos, memories, ya' know.'

'Yeah. Where is your Mum?'

'She died when I was little, it's just me and my Dad, but it's OK, we have fun. Here is your ice cream, it's chocolate, that's the best one so it's all I have.' He said smiling.

As kick-off loomed, Dad kept a watchful eye on the young couple from afar. Watching the game with Kamran was something of a father and son tradition in this household, and as much as he wanted to watch this game, he thought there was something more significant to keep an eye on. He smiled from the doorway and Kamran turned up the TV as the match was nearing kick-off. Dad sneaked away quickly before returned to the doorway with a camera, quietly wound the film and pressed the shutter with a click.

'DAD!' exclaimed an embarrassed Kamran, don't sneak up on us and take photos!'

Dad laughed and so did Yasmin. 'Hey, son, one day you will thank me for this photo! It will be a beautiful memory and proof that you once talked to a girl!' Yasmin laughed with Kamrans Dad, and they both managed to break a smile out of Kamran, he couldn't be sour with Yasamin and the sound of her laughter in the air. 'OK, OK, I'll leave you two alone, just don't go crazy with the milkshakes, you know how you get!'

'He is so embarrassing!' Kamran turned to Yasamin, keenly aware that they were both alone. As the match played out on the T.V in front of them they drew a little closer, and a little more, until hands were touching hands, Kamran was so nervous he didn't even notice that Liverpool was one-nil down. Delicate first love was in the air.

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# NO COMMENT

*Click* 'This interview is being tape-recorded and may be given in evidence, if your case is brought to trial. We are in an interview room at Walton Lane Police Station. The date is the 10th of May 1988 and the time by my watch is 19:23. I am Inspector James. The other police officer present is Sergeant Baker. Please state your full name and date of birth.'

'No comment.' Said MP Peter Johnston's proud voice.

'Mr Johnston, do you agree that there are no other persons present in this interview room? Yes or No'. 'No comment.'

'Before the start of this interview, I must remind you that you are entitled to free and independent legal advice either in person or by telephone at any stage. Do you wish to speak to a legal advisor now or have one present during the interview?'

'No comment.'

'You do not have to answer my questions. However, should this matter go to court and you tell the court something which you could have reasonably told me during this interview, the court may be less likely to believe you and that could harm your defence. The tapes of this interview may be played in court, so the court will be able to hear what you have said.'

'No Comment'

Mr Johnston kept a steadfast council in the strange and oppressive pea-green coloured walls of the police station. Or perhaps they are supposed to be gunmetal grey? In any case, the 4x4 meters of the room made it an uncomfortable setting for Mr Peter Johnston MP, who had already been held in a claustrophobic holding cell for three long and serious hours prior to being led into the interview room. The reasons for his arrest still alluded him as his late-arriving solicitor finally burst into the room. 'Hello, Mr Johnston, Inspectors, I am sorry I'm late.' Said a thin, clean looking legal man with a briefcase and glasses, 'My name is David Morris, Mr Johnstons' legal counsel.'

'For the benefit of the recording, please note that Mr Johnston's legal representation has arrived into the room, a Mr Morris,' announced Inspector James as he leaned into the microphone on the single desk.

'Mr Johnston, I have been briefed on the charges and I recommend proceeding with 'no comment' to all question until we have talked.' Peter raised an unimpressed eyebrow to the advice he had been waiting on for some hours, but he kept his counsel and gestured silently to the inspector to carry on with the interview.

'Mr Johnston, we believe that you are in breach of the Official Secrets Act of 1911, whereby you have received confidential information that puts the safety of the nation in jeopardy, do you acknowledge these charges?' 'No comment.'

'What is the information that my client is alleged to be in possession of?' Said David Morris as he took a handkerchief to his forehead to mop away his perspiration.

'It is communication from a military general of the Iraqi army to a British concern. Is it true that as a Member of Parliament you are bound to the Official Secrets Act, Mr Johnston?'

'No Comment.'

'Are you aware that the Secrets Act is designed to prevent acts of spying and espionage?'

'No Comment.'

'Are you aware that you can be prosecuted for any unauthorised information disclosure?'

'No Comment.'

'Are you aware that this could lead to 14 years in jail, Mr Johnston.'

'No Comment.'

'Are you aware that under the secrets act any sensitive information that you received should be passed directly to the Prime Minister or to a registered member of the British constabulary?'

And with that David Morris took a deep breath, and with confidence declared, 'Well, Inspector, I think we can end the questioning here. You see, Mr Johnston is a registered member of the constabulary. He is a special constable for Lancashire. I think we are done here.'

'This is Inspector James terminating the interview with Mr Johnston on 10th May 1988 at 19:33 hours'. *Click*

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# OFF THE ROCKER

The Mint Incident, which is how it shall now be forever known, left me physically exhausted. It must have been 6 am before the evil had ended, and I was too drained to do anything at all, apart from making and eating a fry up, drink more beer and watch a VHS tape of some more light-hearted porn to make me feel better. OK, maybe I wasn't completely exhausted. It was the early hours of Saturday morning and I planned to have a much-earned lie-in after I eventually got to bed.

The small hours gave me a fitful dream sleep of a vision that was disturbing. I was trapped crouching down on a high ledge, with no way to get down from the top of a tall, narrow atrium. Teeth spat out of my mouth like crushed mints and the slippery, smooth ceramic surface I found myself perched on seemed to invite me to slip off the high mantel. I stirred and woke myself up slowly and learnt that I was on the couch fully clothed, 'Ah, another day another dinner,' I thought to myself as I tucked my knees and rolled myself off the couch in the time-honoured de-couching process.

I grimace as I got up from my knees, as bracing myself on the arm of the couch as I quickly remembered my ailment from the night before. I had only one thing on my mind - coffee. Lots of coffee.

*Ring-Ring* *Ring-Ring*

'Who the fuck is this now!?' Disgruntled I picked up the phone while holding my head.

'Fletcher!'

*CLICK*

'Yes! Hi, mornin' Richard, what's up?' I said yawning and rubbing my sore brow.

'Fletcher, and I've found something that might be of interest to you. You know the clicking sound we had on the line a few weeks ago, and again just now?'

'Yeah...'

'Well, being the man I am I dug out my oscilloscope and did some testing on my phone line.'

'Ah, alright. What did you find?'

*CLICK*

'Everything is fine when I call anyone else, it's you, Fletcher. When I call you the line level voltage drops.'

'OK, well why would that happen? Hey, what's that sound? Can you hear that? Some footsteps on the line now? Rich? Rich?' I could hear distant footsteps reverberating down the telephone receiver with a loud booming sound that made my blood run cold. Richard did not answer me, but another clear, deliberate sounding voice did....

'Mary, Mary quite contrary... where's your cunt of a son?'

I paused to hear more, but the voice disappeared. My hands felt uncertain as I lay the receiver down and my mind began to race as dread took over me. My Mum was called Mary. God bless her, she passed on a year earlier. It seems like someone was making a deliberate attempt to arouse fear in my mind. Even know I knew this, it didn't stop the feeling of fear from rising-up inside me. I began to panic. It was time to finally call the DTI.

The large receiver in my hand felt intimidating, but the reassuring sound of the dial tone eased me as I dialled the number the agents had given me in the Five Ways pub some weeks earlier. The call was quickly answered.

'Yes, it's me, hi. Look, I'm having some very weird stuff going on with my phone line, would you know anything about that? And I've been followed, do you have someone following me in an old purple Sierra?'

'A purple Sierra? Tell me more...' Said a clear voice.

'I've got a reg plate, can you use that? Its PLE08H.'

'Stay on the line, Fletcher.' After some moments the agent got back on the line.

'Fletcher, you need to come and see us immediately.' He said in a stern tone. 'Meet me at the same meeting point as last time ASAP.'

Still drunk from the night before stress began to gnaw at my nerves, I felt in no state to drive. Instead, I walked to the Five Ways pub to catch up with the agents, and most probably have breakfast - maybe they'll pay? I thought. It was quiet inside the pub, with only a few regulars at the bar watching Grandstand on the TV. By the time the agents arrived, I was already halfway through my full English and I was on my second cup of tea.

'Hey, fellas. It's not too late for breakfast if you want to order.' I said. They sat down and quickly ordered breakfast and we got down to it.

'It's not us. We can do it. We can tap your phone, Fletcher, but this time it's not the DTI. We generally do it by the exchange, I'm not saying it can't be done anywhere else, nothing stopping someone lifting a manhole cover and installing a voice recorder, but if we do it, it's typically from the exchange and its known as being Off The Rocker.' Said the agent. 'As for the purple Sierra, that's more worrying. It's not one of ours and it not showing up on at the DVLA. Naturally, none of our vehicles flag up at the DVLA, just as the Prime Ministers or the Queen's cars don't. No secret service car appears on the register so they can be untraceable.'

At this point the Scouse bar lady walks over to deliver some bad news to the agent, 'Sorry luve, we're all outa black puddin', do ya wan sum eggtra bacon, instead?'

'Yes, that's fine, thanks, and can I have my eggs turned, please?' Said the agent.

'You wha'?'

'Turned - So they are, like, turned over when they are being cooked?' The bar lady nodded, 'Yes, love, OK. TURN THEM EGGS, EDDIE!' She shouted over the bar as she walked away.

'YOU WHA'?' Shouted Eddie.

I cut in - 'If it's not you then who could it be, following me and tapping my phone?'

'It appears to be another secret service organisation. Like I said to you last time, Fletcher, there are many pillars of the secret service, and none of them share information - in case one rotten apple comes along and spoils the whole barrel, it's best to keep every department isolated to prevent the whole secret service from falling like dominoes if there was some corrupt information distributed amongst the agencies.'

'OK.' I said, swigging the last of my lukewarm tea, 'So who controls all of these agencies? There must be one person in charge of it all, who do they all answer to? Richard told me that the courts have no record of a hearing that I went to a few weeks ago. Who has the power to make a court case go away? Who is at the top? The Queen?'

'Well it's not me, Fletcher, I can tell you that with certainty.'

'Oh, OK then. Athens was a nightmare, by the way, thanks for asking. Let me tell you all about that-'

'No need, Fletcher, we have had a full debrief from Rushin.'

'You wha'? Rushin is one of your lot?'

'Of course, Fletcher, we wouldn't have had you go alone. It sounds like you had fun, we had no idea you were into tranny bars.'

'Fuck off, that's your fella that!'

'Don't worry. We don't discriminate, Fletcher. Thanks to your work we were able to get access to what L'Elettronica was really working on. As soon as you left Greece the local force raided L'Elettronica and arrested everyone inside. We were able to retrieve the radar jamming equipment. It was a mission well accomplished.'

As he said that he handed me a wad of cash. Like last time, in crisp new notes with sequential serial numbers held together with a staple.

'Cheers. You paying for breakfast, an'all?' The agents smile and nodded.

'Next topic, Fletcher. Skyleader. What do you know and can you get us the plans?'

'I can maybe get them on Monday, I can smuggle them out after work.'

'Monday might be too late. We need to make this happen ASAP, you have a key for your works unit. Go there now. We will wait for you here and, Fletcher, be quick.'

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# BREAK-IN

I reluctantly went home to get my work keys. While I was there I decided that I should try to contact Richard to see if he was OK and tell him the latest news. I picked up my phone feeling a little nervous after the last call. I was curious to see if the phone worked and if I could reach him after the last call we shared. Thankfully he picked up. He coughed down the receiver, he seemed wheezy and tired.

'Richard, you there?'

'Yes, Fletcher. I lost you on the line earlier, my phone cut out so I rang BT to see what's going on and guess what?'

'Yeah?'

'About 10 minutes later an unmarked transit van arrived and started lifting manhole covers on the street outside my house. A few lads took out some devices and left.'

'Wow...Look, Richard. RadioWaves is under investigation by the Department of Trade and Industry's intelligence unit. I've been talking to them over the last few weeks, they came to see me before I went to Athens, but they said it's not them tapping the phone.'

'I know, Fletcher. I was the one that told them to go and speak to you. I know you could help them with what's going on at the company.'

'It's bad news for your share price, Richard. They want me to get them the schematics for Skyleader. They have already shut down L'Elettronica and RadioWaves is next.'

'Good, *cough* it's never been about the money, Fletcher, You know me. I grew up poor. Really poor. We were below the breadline but we made It work. As I child I was overtly aware that I was a "has not" and that people could tell from a mile away. I remember showing up to school in the only thing I had to wear, which was an old football kit that had been in the family for years. *cough* I remember the teacher looking at me, along with the entire class as I walked in and seeing pity on their faces. That never left me. I never want to feel anyones pity ever again, I never asked for it and I didn't invite it. I was born poor and now I may die poor, but I'd rather die without a penny than profit from bloodshed. I'll be glad for Tony and Vincent to get what's coming. And I'm glad that the DTI is stepping in, Fletcher, before it's too late. Skyleader has horrible potential in the wrong hands. It's more than an RPV with a camera attached. With minor modifications it could be used to deliver chemical attacks.'

'...Fuck. They want me to go over to RadioWaves today and get the info, I'm headed there now.'

'Be careful, Fletcher.' And with that, I ended the call and jumped into the Capri, destination - RadioWaves HQ.

It's Saturday and after the boozy night of adult entertainment I reasoned with hope that there will be no one around.

The drive to RadioWaves was eerie quiet without the usual weekday traffic, I drove with no music on and in an uneasy mood, checking my mirror for pursuers, just in case. I looked out over the field where the spring lambs frolic, but something was different today. The farmers field was empty of the young joy and the new mothers who usually lived their. I slowed to look around over the hedges but the abundant life that once lived upon the green grass was absent from view, so too were the cows in the adjacent field. The beautiful browned animals that lay in the morning sun were nowhere to be seen. I felt loss and sorrow because I know where they had gone and I missed them. I thought of the actions and of the consequences of the farmer who would have loaded them into the livestock lorry, and of the final, fearful, confused moments that the animals had endured and it left me feeling tortured.

A sombre 35 minutes later I arrived at RadioWaves. There were a few legitimate looking taxis at the cab rank but no cars were in the carpark of RadioWaves. It was when I approached the reception entrance that I noticed something strange. The window that looks into the main workspace had been removed. It was not a glass window, instead, it was a thick plastic sheet, and it has been pushed in and removed from the window frame with suction cups. The window frame still had the security bars intact, running from top to bottom.

I put the key in the front door to discover it was already open. I entered to see that in the reception area was Helen, the beautiful receptionist, looking through papers on her desk.

'Helen?'

'Oh! Fletcher! Are you here because of the break-in?'

'Yes!' I blurted instantly.

'OK. I'm taking an inventory before I call the police. Have you seen this mess!' She exclaimed.

'I know, what happened? I tell you what, why don't I have a look and see what's been taken from the other departments?'

The break-in was convenient for my purpose, it gave me the latitude to walk freely and disturb anything I needed to. I looked around the R&D department, but there was nothing taken, not until I hastily grabbed the Skyleader schematics. I rolled them up and shoved them in my back pocket with the roll sticking up out at my waist, which I concealed by draping my shirt over it. After the briefest of chats with Helen, I made my excuses and left. I wish I could have stuck around to talk to Helen, but I had to get these plans to the DTI to hopefully end this situation, and I knew that one day I would have my chance with Helen, but that day was not that day.

Back in the Capri, I boomed out of the car park and back down the country lanes to meet the DTI to hand over what I had stolen. I hit high speed to calm myself down. Relax. Everything is in hand. Everything is OK. The tension in my mind was passing and I felt calm for a moment. But that moment soon past when I looked up and saw what was in the rearview mirror.

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# THE BATTLE OF THE FORDS

I heard the revs of a car coming up fast behind me and with a bang it hit me. I could instantly feel a pain in my neck as my head was thrown forward into the sterling wheel by the impact from behind. The pursuing car again ploughed straight into the back of my Capri at top speed, sending my rear snaking from left to right across the tarmac. I struggled to maintain control with both hands gripping the steering wheel. The tyres screeched I my mind shook with panic. The impact was no accident. I hit the accelerator and forced my car to find a straight line and regain traction.

I glanced again in the rearview, and I could hardly believe what I saw, the overbearing sight loomed large in my rearview mirror snarling at my rear, it was the Purple Sierra. With those dammed tinted windows I could not make out the driver, but I could tell that this time he wasn't just following me, it was out to ram me off the road! Whoever it is they must know I have the Skyleader schematics and they are clearly prepared to take extreme force to get them back. My heart was pounding and the stress was enough to make my head swell and my saliva taste of adrenaline.. With no other cars on these tight country lanes, the chances of help were a fat zero.

One frantic moment passed before I regained composure enough to mount my attempt at a get away. 'Right, FUCK YOU!' I shouted out loud and I beat the car horn as the tension in my mind exploded into a snap of rage. A quick gear change and a heavy foot on the accelerator blasted my car over a small rise in the narrow and pot-holed road surface. The purple Sierra was right on me, inches away. We were bumper to bumper over my every bob and weave. We blitzed passed 60mph and were reaching 70mph on the narrow winding country tarmac. I know these roads very well, I've driven them to work and back every day for almost 13 years, I know where every pothole is, where each tree that imposes itself on the road's edge is, every rise and dip of the surface, and I know that there are hardly any straights and that each bend in the road is blind. There is no pavement to buffer the road and the trunks of the trees grow dangerously close to the edge of the tarmac, jutting out at angles like elbows pushing into the middle of the road with full flourishing leaves that drastically reduce visibility. We were reaching the crest of Crank hill at speeds too fast for the road. If hit the breaks now we would both die in a roll of metal.

It was just me and the pursuing Sierra, zipping passed the farmers fields and blind curves and I was being practically pushed up Crank hill by the car behind. There was no letup, no room for hesitation or thought of any kind just high revs and top gear maxing out my Capri. I kept one eye on the side mirror at the menace behind and it was gaining ground then - BANG! Shit! Another hit and an almost total lack of control, but somehow with sheer momentum I kept my line on the road. The Sierra has got more power than me, there was no way to outrun the maniac in my rearview. Dread loomed over my helpless Capri. There was only one thing for it, and I better get it right.

The stress was near fever pitch and it was starting to burn a hole in my mind. I knew the tight right-hand hairpin turn at the top of Crank was coming up, obscured by the brow of the hill. I couldn't afford to lose any of my speed. I braced my self and put my fingers around the leathery hand-break as my heart pounded, I had to time this perfectly.

With my foot to the floor, both cars reached the top of the hill where Crank bends brutally. I threw my steering wheel around and yanked the hand-break and locked into a skid that nearly threw me out of my seat. I maxed out the grip of the tires and all four screamed out pain, the front end of my car veered violently left and right as I fought to maintain control. I just made it around without ploughing into the farm fence. Seconds later, I heard a loud crash from behind me, the Sierra didn't see the corner coming. It had smashed straight through the barrier and into a farmers field where it ditched itself.

I blazed away, flying hit on adrenaline and fear. 'God dammit God! What are you doing to me! You owe me for this!' I shouted into the roof of my Capri.

Soon the country lanes gave way to outer suburbia and I found the usual kind of midday Saturday traffic and a sense of normalcy that made me feel unnerved. My silence was broken only by the sound of the indicator. Every few seconds I looked up at the rearview mirror to expected to see a refreshed purple Sierra in a new hot pursuit, but it was gone, lost to the field. The Five Ways pub was only moments away, I was almost there in one piece.

I powered into the carpark of the pub and jumped out to see a gathering of people outside the building. Then I remembered - today is the FA cup final and the 5 ways pub was no-longer a good place to meet, certainly not the place to hand over top-secret documents to a department of the secret service.

Liverpool FC is playing Wimbledon today and the place is packed with red-shirted fans drinking heavily. I went inside and delicately made my way through the brood to find the booth with the DTI waiting while I clutched the designs for the worlds first deadly drone.

According to the designs, the aircraft could be driven by remote control up to 100 miles, it has a camera that relays video footage back to its operator on the ground. The design document details modifications that have been made to install a holding bay area that can carry up to 10kg of content. The hatch of the holding bay can be opened during flight at any time and deliver whatever is on board as a mid-air payload.

I tried to look over the crowd to see if the agents were still around when I heard a familiar voice, 'Ey, Fletcher, I didn't know you were much into football, kid.' It was Joe the handyman from RadioWaves.

'Ey-up, Joe No, I'm not into the football, I'm here to drop off some top-secret design documents to the secret service'. The truth is as good as a lie when it's so implausible, and Joe didn't even blink.

'Oh, I see. You've come into use the crapper, then? You know where it is, don't you, James Bond? Just down the far end of the bar.'

The pub was loud with the sound of 50 men shouting advice to the television in order to better coach the players on a pitch that lay 20 miles away. I was feeling lost in the crowd, trying to find my way through when there was a sudden outcry from every square inch of the pub. It was like a hurricane. Shouting and bad words flowed from everyone, the atmosphere had turned ugly.

I looked up to the TV to see a replay of Dennis Wise delivering a free-kick into the box for Lawrie Sanchez to nod in a goal for Wimbledon, and it's sent the locals bat-shit. Fuck this place. I was turning to leave when I saw the DTI wave me over from the booth.

I gingerly made my way through the masses towards the agents and I threw the folder on the table. The DTI agents were all smiles. They glanced through the files and concluded, 'We have all we need, good work, Fletcher.'

'Good work? I was nearly killed on the way back from RadioWaves! The purple Sierra I told you about, it tried to ram me off the road! Who's going to protect me? Who's going to stop 'em? Who's going fix my fucking car?!'

The agents exchanged glances but didn't appear to much care. 'It is now time we put this behind us, Fletcher. We are going to raid RadioWaves and it will all be over very soon. You can leave now. To avoid suspicion you need to continue to go into work'.

'But what about the purple Sierra! I'm being chased!'

'We have your back Fletcher, we will put you under 24-hour surveillance. Don't worry. We will put our top men on your protection detail.' This didn't give me any reassurance at all. I was pissed off and I wasn't sure where to turn to. I left the pub with a searing pain in my neck and frustration painted on my face. I headed home to try and make sense of it all.

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# HANSARD

Editors Note:

At this point, we can look to parliamentary Hansard to witness the political position of the UK government on the issue of RadioWaves and the number of other companies that are operating in the interests of the Iraqi regime. What follows is a transcript of the House of Commons debate, March 14th 1988.

8.17 pm Mr. Peter Johnston (Liverpool, Aintree): I am particularly taken with the statement in the Government's amendment that their overriding consideration was not to supply any lethal equipment, and to restrict the supply of any defence equipment to Iraq. There is an impression abroad that one or two companies in Europe are involved in this scandal of trading with Iraq. Here in the UK, despite our guidelines, it is not a question of if UK companies are trading in this manner, it is a question of how many companies are involved.

I draw attention to a company in my constituency called RadioWaves. The company has been illegally involved in supplying intelligence surveillance equipment to the Iraqi regime. The company has dealt with two agents. One of the agents is a Colonel in the Iraqi army, Mr. Al Muhannadi, and the other was a procurement agent for the Iraqi Government in the United Kingdom.

The information available shows that the company is deeply suspect in a variety of ways. It is dealing with several other companies. The names of those companies will ring a bell. For example, RadioWaves has shipped via the Iraqi embassy and London, and my investigation shows me much has been shipped through Reynolds and Wilson in Surbiton, masquerading as equipment which was designated for agricultural use. The former director of the company became concerned when he discovered that his company, RadioWaves, had purchased shares in a company called RPV Ltd. - a company which designed and manufactured pilotless aircraft for crop spraying. Sky News carried an item which suggested that technology made by British companies could be deployed against allied troops in the future. The company Reynolds and Wilson has an Iraqi director who was shown in customs investigations to be involved in the importation of krytrons, nuclear triggers and capacitors which were seized at Heathrow.

8.19 pm Mr. Rod Richards (Clwyd, North-West): Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

Mr. Peter Johnston (Liverpool, Aintree): No. I shall come back to the hon. Gentleman later. RadioWaves did not apply for an export licence. The equipment has been described as a special power supply for the Iraq state electricity board. Without being too technical, the equipment has a specified duty cycle with an on-time of 45 or 59 minutes, but no specified off-time. That suggests a one -time use. Similar technology, developed by Paige Aerospace in Sunbury and seen by the Government, suggests the accuracy of the definition that I supplied earlier to the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West of a power control system used in missiles fired by an explosive charge--that is, a scud missile or even the Iraqi project they call 'Supergun'.

One of RadioWaves founding directors resigned when he discovered the way in which the firm was operating, and that products that he thought had been developed in good faith for harmless purposes were being traded with the Iraqi Government. Ever since, he has been attempting to persuade someone in authority to take his charges seriously. He has been frustrated at every turn and still has received no answer. I await an explanation from the Government of why no inquiries were made in respect of a company manufacturing items which, in the circumstances, can only be seen as a vital component to machines of death, like drone technology, scud missiles and the now infamous Iraqi supergun plan.

8.21 pm Mr. Jack Heseltine (Blaby): It is not often that I find myself mentioned in a motion, albeit not by name but as a British service men who may have once been exposed to fire from shells and rockets made in munitions factories equipped by Britain.

It is true that ploughshares can be turned into swords. Screwdrivers and spanners are necessary in munitions factories. The machine tools in question could be used, and perhaps they are, in the Iraqi armaments industry. However, which Member of Parliament representing the Aintree constituency, who has taken a rather unconventional view of life, would he not protest to the House if RadioWaves had been forced out of business because no export licences were available to the company?

There is a need for balance. At the time of which we speak, the west is buying oil from Iraq. Some friendly countries, including Japan rely on it. We are not at war with Iraq.

Ministers are motivated by an attempt to help British industry, not Iraqi munitions factories. At this time, there are dealings between Iraq and Saudi Arabia and between Jordan and Iraq, and even Kuwait itself was assisting Iraq. In the eyes of those involved in such dealings, they were necessary because of the strength of their neighbour, and at that time there was a fear of Iran.

We are most frightened of Iraq's chemical and biological warfare capabilities. It appears that most of that capability comes from Germany, which is the top western exporter of arms to Iraq. The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee listed 87 companies exporting to Iraq. Defence products worth billions of deutschmarks were legally exported to Iraq in the 1980s so far. As my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade pointed out, besides constructing Sadam Hussein's bunker, the Germans supplied chemical warfare technology and substances to Iraq and upgraded the Scud missiles for delivering them.

8.25 pm Mr. Peter Johnston: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Jack Heseltine: No. I will come back to you if I may. My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) made mention of France, which exported Puma helicopters, Mirage and Etendard aircraft, and Exocets. We remember the damage the Exocets did in the Falklands in 1982. Most worrying of all, the French were instrumental, at the beginning of the 1980s, in helping with the construction of a nuclear plant at Osirak which, fortuitously, was destroyed by Israel in 1981. Even now, I remember the howls of outrage from Labour Members when Israel destroyed that plant. Thank goodness it did so. I suggest that Labour Members concentrate on raising with the European Parliament the issue of those exports by our European partners. Sadam Hussein's armaments are mostly Soviet and east European--T62s, T54s, Scuds, and AK47s. The debris on the battlefield was like that of the old Soviet army.

Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) would not be keen on us marching on Baghdad. Whatever mistakes Lord Justice Scott finds, I am sure that he will not discover a conspiracy, yet Labour Members continues to claim that one exists. In The Sunday Telegraph yesterday, the hon. Member for Livingston is quoted as saying : "The Conservatives not only ensured that Britain provided the machines that made the weapons but that they will ultimately be turned against British troops."

Britain did not provide machines or make weapons for Iraq. That is complete nonsense.

Those who see conspiracies everywhere tend to be either deranged or dictators. Sometimes they are both. Hitler firmly believed in a worldwide conspiracy of international Jewry and of freemasons to boot, a curious combination. Saddam Hussein, rightly, suspects a conspiracy behind every door. I do not suggest that the hon. Member for Aintree is deranged, or has delusions of authoritarian grandeur.

8.29 pm Mr. Peter Johnston: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Jack Heseltine: I fear that I cannot do so at this stage. We must judge the concern expressed by the hon. Member for our service men in the light of his past position in regard to defence. We must bear in mind his determination to do away with our nuclear weapons; only last year he described himself as a unilateral nuclear disarmer and now he plans to disarm our own private industry [Laughter.]

8.30 pm Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry, but the time limit has fallen. We must adjourn this debate for the evening. Order! Order!

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# WHAT DO YOU WANT?

For hours I restlessly kicked around my house before I realised that I need to reach out for guidance from the man who gave me my first big break all those years ago when I was a wide-eyed young man fresh out of school. I dialled Richard's number but the phone rang out. I waited 30 minutes then tried again, and again. And again. Finally, the call was picked up.

'Hello, Dorothy speaking.' Dorothy is Richards wife, his sweetheart since high school. I've watched them grow older and greyer and slightly more fragile as the years have passed. She still makes a brutal Pimm's punch. It's so strong it's practically undrinkable, even by my standards.

'Hi Dorothy, I'm glad I got you, is Richard about?'

'Oh, Fletcher, I'm so sorry to say but Dicky has been taken to hospital this morning. He collapsed. I've just had to pop back home for some of his things, he might be in for a while. They've managed to stabilise his condition and he's awake now. Oh, Fletcher, it was horrible, it was.'

'Oh, no Dory! I'm so sorry. Can I come and see him? Where is he?'

'It's all the stress, Fletcher. The situation with Tony and Vincent has really taken its toll on his health. Come and see him, cheer him up. He's at Liverpool Royal, he'd be glad to see you.'

*

I soon arrived at the cardiac ward in the sprawling Liverpool Royal to be greeted by Richard laying in a bed in hospital issue PJs and oxygen mask.

'You cheeky monkey! You had me worried sick.' I said as he smiled back to me.

'Well, it gets me out of dinner with the neighbours,' he chuckled weakly but in good spirits. 'Fletcher, I'm glad you're here, you've always been a good friend. There are things I want to talk to you about.' Richards' voice was raspy and soft as he spoke through the mask.

'Like what? Oh, have these grapes. Yeah, I bought you grapes. Green ones.'

'Thanks.' he said still smiling. 'Anyway, about RadioWaves. I believe the DTI will be shutting it down very soon?'

'Yes. Within the next few days, they told me this afternoon. They have the Skyleader design, it's been modified to include a holding bay, so it looks like bad news for the company and I'm glad, but now I'm out of a job and my career is about to go up in smoke.'

'You'll be OK, Fletcher, a bright young man like you.'

'I've only ever had this one job, Richard. It's all I've known. I've spent 13 years of my life at Radiowaves. I learned everything I know there. I have no formal training or qualifications. I've no idea what life is going to be like without RadioWaves.'

'Life will be like it's always been, Fletcher. It will be exactly like the last however-many-thousands of years that humans have been around. There will be difficulty mixed with opportunity. You know that.'

'What opportunities. The job market is awful. We can't all be retired, Richard.'

'Retired? Ha! Forcefully retired, you mean? A man never retires if he does what he loves and I loved RadioWaves, it was a good company at one time. We employed people, we paid people honest money that paid for their mortgages, their cars and put food on their table. We had a good heart. We donated free equipment to local schools, we trained school leavers, like yourself. We did our bit. When Chernobyl blew, we sent the Russians emergency services radio equipment that could penetrate the fall out zone for free. When the British armed forces wanted better radios in the Falklands, we were there for them. But we lost our way.'

'I'd forgotten all about that.'

'Yes, it's easy to forget the good things, the honest things.'

'But what am I going to do? It's tough out there. I don't want to join the dole queue.'

'Fletcher, don't wish things were easier, wish that you were better. You'll find a way. Take it from me, but the one thing you must do is enjoy your life. Take the time to relax and consider your next move. You have all you need. If you have Time and Energy you can achieve anything. Trust me, you can not get more time. It is the great leveller, the poor have just as much time as the rich and it can not be exchanged or bought. Use what you have wisely. Each moment, Fletcher, is a fresh opportunity, brand new, to reach your goals and be happy, each moment is unique and it will never come again. Don't waste it. Decide what you want and go and get it.'

Richards breathing was heavy and he slowed his voice and gazed out of the window by his bed to the hospital gardens outside. 'I've always loved listening to the birds sing, there is something contemplative about the delicate, beautiful sound of birdsong. I like to walk through the woods near my house and listen to the birds and watch the trees move in the breeze. Seeing each individual leaf move in such a complex dance, every one of the thousands of leaves on a tree is unique and each movement will never be repeated in exactly the same way twice. It reminds me that now is the birth of a new moment and I should be grateful. Times may be tough, but all you really have to do is answer one question - what do you want? That's it. Find out the answer and commit yourself to achieving it and let nothing stop you. So, what is it? What do you want?'

I couldn't answer the question. Richard and I talked for hours and I pondered the question more. It's not an unfamiliar question to me, I've asked it several times but I assumed that it didn't have an answer. I've never known anyone that got what they really wanted. Richard could tell I wasn't convinced.

'Look, Fletch, you need to stop believing that there are limitations and you must start understanding that there are none. Go out there and take some risks, find your own path, as the saying goes, go the path least tread and leave a trail behind you as you go.'

'All I've known are factory jobs, Richard.' I retorted.

'You get what you tolerate. If factory work is all you see then that's all you'll get. Surely you want more? Take it as an opportunity to grow and do something new. You might feel down right now, but winners always get back up again. Do whatever it takes to be successful in happiness. Everyone was born great, Fletch, but most people forget it with age. Don't be like most people. Let me explain something about life from the perspective of an old man lying in a hospital bed. The ideal situation for a man to die is for him to have his family around him, praying for him as he crosses over, that's the way it ought to be. But imagine, if instead of your family being at your death bed, standing around you are the ideas and dreams that have been given to you by life, the talents and gifts that you never nurtured and the skills you never did anything with are all standing around looking at you with angry eyes, saying we came to you, only you could have given us life and now we die with you. If you were to die now, what dreams, what ideas, what talents, what great novels never written, classic songs never sung would die with you?'

*

My hospital conversation with Richard was still circling in my mind later in the day as I sat at home flicking through the local paper at the job section. I don't want a job. I want a life I can enjoy on my own terms, one I have designed for myself, and I can't give up and settle for some crappy job out of a newspaper. If a man gives up he's 100% dead. 'Wish that I was better', that's what Richard said. If I were better I would leave Liverpool. John, Paul, George and Ringo didn't stick around when the money bomb went off. They were in the glamour states of the American Empire, laughing at us all like fools. If I were better I would be rich and I'd be laughing too. I'd travel, I'd have five Rolex's, a Porsche, a holiday home in LA and one in New York. I'd have long hair and hang out with rockstars. Some people say the American Dream is dead, even if that's true at least America had a dream - There has never been such a thing as the British Dream.

There is nothing to aim for here, no noble great ambition to swing for. We have all been reared like serfs, generation after generation, it's bred into us. All we know is toil and reproduction and many of us never stop to realise that it should be better than this, we should have more, we should have what we want with no excuses or drawbacks. But here in England, you can't have it. You can be successful here, just not too successful. The English have a masterful grasp of the Tall Poppy Syndrome; England will build you up to knock you down. So watch out, don't dare be happier than your neighbour otherwise you will be considered dangerous.

Later that evening I was rifling through the pockets of my jeans when I accidentally pulled out a business card that read, 'Parker, Sound Engineer to the Stars' in bold blue coloured lettering. I had long forgotten about the boozy night in SoundControl with A Boy Called Doris. It was fun, the booze, the volume, the falling over on Slouch, I smiled as I remembered his cockney face laughing at me as I bumbled around the backstage area. That night felt a lot like happiness. An approximation of the life I want to lead.

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# WHIPPED

The parliamentary smoking room was busy, at least as busy as the exclusive club gets. Peter and Jack sit at their usual wingback chairs by the fire and waited for the service to bring over a second brandy and a choice of pre-cut Cigars. Lighting his pick from the silver platter Jack blows out a small cloud and turns to Peter. 'I'm sorry, I am. I was under orders, you know the game by now.' It was an attempted to comfort Peter by citing the grim realities of party politics. Earlier in Parliament, Jack had not offered the support that Peter was hoping for, quite the opposite in-fact.

'Jack, as a member of the opposition it's my job to extract answers from the government, all I can do is ask the question and hope the government takes it seriously enough to take up the issue. As we saw today parliament is a splendid machine that has been designed to hold on to secrets via omission or simple ignorance. It holds the truth too close to its bosom. I know we can't lose face internationally but not can we let British companies continue to support Saddam.' Peter felt he made his case well enough for Jack to understand.

'Peter, It might comfort you to know that I've been informed that we can offer a sacrificial lamb of sorts. A company by the name of Matrix Churchill, an engineering company in Coventry. It's been acquired by Iraqi interests for exactly zero pounds. The current directors have been known to work with the Iraqi security services. They are supplying Duel-Use machinery for Iraqi factories that can be used to make shells and parts of medium-range missiles. The products they make are among the highest quality of their kind anywhere in the world, all totally illegal. One of the directors is a British agent and the company has been of some use, but it's now considered expendable. This is a win for you Peter. Also, your party is planning to make you Chief Whip. Take the win and drop RadioWaves.'

'And if I don't.'

'The Whip will be removed, basically, you'll hang on you your seat but you will be effectively expelled from your party. You're a good man, Peter, take the win.'

Peter sat silent and none-comital for a moment to better ponder the motivations that have lead to him being offered this Pyrrhic victory.

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# BRIEFCASE

The argument started with Vincent saying 'You have to contribute on the fridge power supply project, Fletcher.' What came after Vincent's opening line was a series of low sloping threats to my health and character, which did nothing to move me in his direction, it simply made me what to see his teeth in the dirt.

In the heat of the argument, he became the physical form of my stress and fear, he became the men clutching rifles in Athens, the driver of the purple Sierra and every other source of recent angst in my life. With unemployment looming, concerns over my safety and the ill health of Richard, plus a raging hangover, I was mentally red-lining. Vincent's threats continued to hang over me all morning, like towers casting a shadow that doesn't move with the sun, as a harbinger of doom stood tall on the horizon. I could see the destruction of the company before my eyes and I realised that I could not tolerate working for anyone other than myself, I don't want to sell my dignity for pennies. I'm done with meeting someone else's demands and fulfilling their dreams. Fuck these people.

Helen was still off on holiday and I was desperate for someone to talk to. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Nick, the sales rep from D&D, a company that we buy equipment from, mostly high-end radio frequency analysers. Nick is a nice fella, very wordy, he likes to throw plenty of polite words around in a sheepish way. He drives a green Morris Minor as a company car. I've always like that.

'Hey, Nick, how's tricks, mate?' Nick is usually very chatty, but at this moment he looked drawn and preoccupied. He had just returned from a holiday in Corsica, it's always struck me as odd that this island for some men means exile, and for others, it's the perfect holiday.

Nick has a gentle soul and I want to make him feel good every time I see him. He had to endure something so awful I can hardly imagine it. His twin brother, Leyton, was beaten to death last Christmas Eve. Leyton had taken a break on Christmas Day and left his wife and two small little girls to enjoy the Christmas TV at home while he walked the family Jack Russel. He wasn't far from home when a bodybuilder called John Engelwood crossed his path, and according to a witness, Englewood exploded in a rage that has never been explained. The two men did not know each other and had no prior interaction in any way before the much bigger Englewood started repeatedly smashing Leyton's head off the ground. Leyton cried for help, 'scream all you want! Nobody can hear you! Shout it louder! Tell them you're not coming back! Tell them you'll not be back!' Englewood taunted him. The victim was dragged across gardens to the streets and left in a puddle where he died. I walk those streets myself, it's the route I take home from the pub and one evening I noticed a note where the puddle had been that read 'I love you so much, Daddy, fly high'. Nick says he felt Leyton pass. Liverpool breaks my heart and it was this that made me realise that one day I have to get out.

'Fletcher. I just had the weirdest experience of my life.' Nick said.

'Brilliant! Go on then! What happened?' I said playfully.

'I was told by the office this morning to drop off an analyser someone had bought, it was the T-Max450, you know, the really high end 19" rack mount unit. All I was given was an ordinance map grid reference for Burtonwood and I was told to drop it off in the building. I assumed it would be an office block or warehouse or something. I followed the coordinates through all these country lanes right to the end of one to a dead end. All I could see was empty farmland and one derelict old barn with a big hole in the roof. I expected to knock on a door, but there was nothing, no door, just a shelter for the animals.'

'Yeah?' I urged him to continue.

'Well, there was nothing around apart from this deserted old barn and I didn't know where to leave the analyser, its four grand worth of kit. But the instructions were to leave it in the building, so I did. I left on the ground in the barn and went back to my car. I must have only been 30 seconds at most, I was about to drive off and my conscience got the better of me - no one had signed for it, it was exposed to the elements, it just didn't feel right, with the roof leaking and everything, that's why I was worried, I thought "Christ I can't do this" so I went back within a minute to get the equipment and it was gone! I physically looked around and there was not a soul about, I looked and looked, it wasn't there, it had vanished. It was like something out of Dr Who! Obviously, there must have been some sort of very secretive trap door or something.'

'Nick, there's plenty of that kind of thing around, my friend is a life long metal detector enthusiast and he's a real authority on it. He also used to be a councillor in Warrington. He says there is an underground tunnel from Warrington town hall to Burtonwood. I didn't believe him until he showed me a picture of himself in the tunnel shaking hands with Elvis! Can you believe that! Elvis came to visit the American troops stationed there! This must have been in the late '60s. He says and the grass at Burtonwood is retractable, it opens up like something from Thunderbirds and underneath are loads of nuclear warheads, controlled by the yanks. He says the Greenham Common nuclear protests a few years ago were a decoy, to distract everybody from what was really going on, and you know that rise in the M58 at junction 5? The big hill? That's all the soil they excavated from under Burtonwood. He also said that he knows of underground cavities around the area. Apparently, they are developing underground means of communication, because, in the event of nuclear disaster, radio antennas and top of ground communication will be wiped out, they are working on how to communicate through the ground, I mean through the actual soil!'

Nick looked shaken, I made him coffee while the lads thoughtfully took a car jack to the rear axel of his Morris Minor, just propping it up enough to slightly lift the rear wheels off the ground in such a way that he wouldn't notice. Later that day Nick got into his car and attempt to drive away, he got nowhere because the rear wheels being lifted off the ground by the jack. He called the RAC for help and before they arrived the lads ran out and removed the car jack, making poor Nick look like a fool. Poor man. People can be twats, the world is full of spite and harassment so what does one more nuisance act hurt? And with that thought, a very loud crack was heard from the reception of our building and lots of men in uniforms rushed inside the building to the sound of shouting and trained movement.

'We are here to search the premises of RadioWaves, here is our warrant.' Said the DTI agent, flanked by a uniformed police search team, explosive experts and bomb dogs. I guess they decided that it was better to take no risks. The squadron poured through the reception area and into the main warehouse to greet the shocked faces of the RadioWaves employees with a comforting announcement - 'This is a raid by the Department of Trade and Industry, put down your tools and report to the reception area for interviews. If you try to leave you will be arrested.'

Outside the building, police cars were posted at every entrance and exit. Employees were taken for interviews and documents were being carried off-site and our inventory was recorded. A full clear out of the main warehouse was underway and it was time for the agents to go to the rear works unit, to where Skyleader was being developed.

The agents had organised a special container which is carried by a flatbed truck to transport the remote-controlled plane off-site, to a secret facility at Burtonwood. Unusually, the rear unit is locked so they bring in a battering ram which reduces the door frame to splinters. The two DTI agents gingerly stepped inside and flicked on the main lights, with a blink the lights reveal an unmistakable vision of a completely empty warehouse...

The unit has been gutted and cleaned out. There isn't even a single document left inside and no trace of the 30-foot aircraft the agents expected to find. The agents were shaken. Someone had got to it before them, or someone had warned RadioWaves about the raid. They had no idea which scenario was more likely.

'We caught this guy shredding documents, sir'. Said one uniformed policeman to the agents as he pushed a handcuffed Vincent into the main warehouse towards them. 'Where is it, Mr Schultz? Where's the Skyleader project?' Vincent was shaken and looked stunned, he didn't, probably couldn't, say a word. 'Arrest him and take him away for questioning.' And with that Vincent was bundled out of the building.

Their question to Vincent proved one thing; the DTI had been blindsided. For all their intelligence, Skyleader has slipped through their fingers. They had staked-out my house, as they told me they would, to keep me safe and to make sure I didn't tip anyone off about the raid. They even put my phone on The Rocker, to be on the safe side.

'OK, we need the money.' One agent said to the next.

'Our reports tell us that £200,000 cash entered this building as payment from the Iraqi government for Skyleader's development. We know that money never left the building. It must be here. Find it. And if it's not in the building I want you to dig up the lawn, and if it's not there dig up the car park. FIND THAT BRIEFCASE! We will not leave empty-handed!'

Each employee was taken into a car and taken away to make an official statement. When my turn came I walked outside flanked by the DTI agents who said nothing to me until I stepped into their car.

'You have never worked for or even heard of a company called RadioWaves, do you understand? Your involvement in the case is now over, thank you for your co-operation, Mr Nelson. If you have any problems what so ever call us. Don't worry. We will continue to keep your home under surveillance, we will make sure you are safe.' They had dropped me off at home with reassurances and nothing more.

*

The next day the carpark at RadioWaves HQ was torn-up by jackhammers for 8 hours straight, until there was nothing left but mounds of concrete rubble. I found this article in the Liverpool Echo to be interesting. It appears that something of a cover story was being rolled out, it read:

Investigation underway after multiple pieces of jewellery was stolen from a property in Aintree.

Police are investigating a burglary that occurred between May 12 and 14th of this year after a thief robbed a property on Abbey Road, Aintree. Someone of unknown description removed jewellery from a bedroom jewellery box. Police have listed the stolen items as follows:

• a Sapphire ring

• a three stone Diamond ring

• a Ruby ring

• an eternity ring

• an engagement ring

• a gold watch

Police said the items taken totalled to approximately £15,000. An anonymous tip-off has lead the police to dig up a carpark on the Long Lane industrial estate in Aintree, Liverpool. It is suspected that the stolen jewellery has been buried and was intend to be retrieved at a later day by the thief(s).

I also noticed this story on page 7, which seemed to be trying to explain away the purple Sierra's car crash:

A man has been charged over a car crash which saw a vehicle roll into a farmer's field.

Paul Fielding, of Mount Street, Preston, has been charged by police with driving under the influence of alcohol and driving a motor vehicle without insurance. He is set to appear in Liverpool Magistrates Court this week. The incident, which happened on Saturday afternoon, involved a purple car which appeared to have lost control on Crank Road, causing it to leave the road and stop in a field.

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# STAR CROSSED LOVERS

The day started with Milkshakes and progressed to lots of ice cream, leading to a textbook Kamran sugary overload that his Dad often warned him about. He promised to take Yasamin to the best ice cream parlour in town, and he did.

The ice cream hadn't long since melted when Yasamin and Kamran began coughing. A sudden dense fog appeared and hung heavy in the air before falling to the ground. Yasamin's eyes started to water and her face began to itch. Kamran started to feel a burning sensation all over his exposed arms. He looked at Yasamin with concern and she could see her eyes weep and then the coughing became uncontrollable. People all around were running and yelling in panic. Fear rose up sharply as the sound of aircraft blasted by at low altitude overhead.

'What's happening? I'm scared Kamran. Let's go home, please!' She pleaded. Kamran was as concerned as she was and he grabbed her hand. They ran together towards home, but they never made it. After only a few yards an immediate and deep-rooted confusion reigned on the streets of Halabja, it took over every soul within a 20 square mile radius. The survival alarm bells were ringing and the most mortal and primal fear over both Kamran and Yasmin. They looked to each other for help, but what remained besides fear was a desperate need to look after each other, to be close and to find safety. They were soon consumed by clouds as they looked for an escape. Together they coughed and struggled for air as their lungs burned and their skin peeled. They could only run as far as the ice cream store to hide underneath the counter with the shop owner, but it was no good, there was nowhere to hide from the permeating poisonous fog that lay heavy all over the city. The genocidal massacre covered 20 miles.

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# WE ARE THE ROADCREW

The bus was much bigger than I expected and much more Yellow! It was like a giant submarine coming down my cul de sac. You should have seen the faces of my neighbours as this giant double-decker tour bus took a full 35 minutes to do a 300 point turn. The bus in question belongs to 'A Boy Called Doris' and it's here to pick me up for our tour of Europe.

I decided to take action. I pulled out the card Parker had given me, and I must have looked at it a few dozen times over the last week before I eventually made the call. I felt like King Arthur before he pulled the sword out of the stone, he must have felt it too, the feeling of being somewhat daunted by the prospect of getting what you want. Thousands of men tried to pull that sword, so legend has it, and my theory is they were all too afraid of the power and responsibility to really try, success was just too daunting. It can be terrifying when dreams and goals become reality, it surges the blood to your head and your brain confronts you with questions; are you ready for this? Have you really thought it through? You know that life will never be the same once this happens, are you sure? A lot of people bring themselves back from the brink of success. Achieving everything you want is no small thing and it puts you on a knife-edge. To become successful you have a raise your head above the parapet, ambition stirs a lonely and uncertain feeling. Still, it's done now. Here I am and there is it is, a tour bus waiting to take me around Europe. I've never seen anything like it.

The door opened with a hydraulic whoosh at the push of a button. The driver came out to take my bag and put it in the luggage compartment at the rear. The bus was like the private lounge of a bar, with mood lighting and thick cushioned bench seats down the side and plush carpet under-foot. Near the door, there was a tall fridge packed with European beers of all kinds, from Romania, France, Poland, Germany. There was also a coffee machine, a toaster and a sink in what was a small kitchen area and a discreetly hidden room with a toilet inside on the opposite side, next to a dining table area which was surrounded by what looked like four first-class aeroplane seats, next to which was a staircase leading upstairs to the bunks.

I stepped on board to be greeted by Parker and Slouch plus some other members of the road crew.

'So this is the hole you crawled out of then, Fletcher?' Said Parker.

'At least he has a hole, Parker,' Said Slouch, 'Unlike you, you homeless twat, hahaha. Anyway, Fletcher, welcome aboard, son. This is Allen, the drum roadie and Hugh, the illegible Scottish buffoon that we call a keyboard roadie, this is Geordie, the tour Gordie bloke. Simons the name of our tall fella, these two are Jo and Fredrick, the wardrobe department, and this is Rory, he does the lights.'

Rory was a small man with a gentle French accent and a shock of black hair. He got up to shake my hand in deliberate style and he smiled deeply into my eyes and said, 'Hi, nice to meet you, you have no idea what you've gotten into, not a fucking clue. Green as grass. Don't come crying to me when you fuck it up.' I looked at Slouch, who rolled his eyes and said 'Rory is a bigger twat than Parker, isn't that right, Rory?'

'Yes, yes it is, Slouch.' Replied Rory with a big smile, still gazing into my eyes. These men spent their lives jumping from one tour bus to the next, and it might have rendered some them slightly odd, only time would tell.

'FYI, son, we're going to make a stop to pick up the new tour manager', said Slouch, 'She comes very well recommended. We're picking her up at Burtonwood services and that's the last time we'll stop until the ferry. As you've never been on a tour bus there are some golden rules you should know. Break the rules and you get left by the roadside. Rule one: Never, never ever take a dump in the toilet. It's for number one's only, and only when the bus is moving. If you poo in the bus toilet the driver will murder you and so will we. Rule two: If you're late for the bus call we won't wait, not even for 10 seconds. If you're not checked out of the hotel in time all that you'll see is an oil spot where the bus used to be and it's adios.'

I nodded and asked the group 'So how have Doris managed to get on a European tour then?'

'Self-financed.' Said Parker.

'What?' I asked with an incredulous tone.

'Yeah, it turns out Aiden's from money.'

'But he looks like a tramp!' I cried.

'Let's not complain, he's paying for us and the whole production to go on a six week holiday around European capitals under the pretence of a tour. Will be picking him and the band up in London before he head-off the Paris for the first show.'

I nodded and took it all in while I cracked open the fridge and helped myself to a beer. This was the life for me. I sat with Slouch at the table and I took one of the papers to glance through when I saw this news report:

"Thousands of people are reported to have been killed and many others injured in a poison gas attack on a Kurdish city in northern Iraq.

According to experts, the chemicals dropped by planes may have included mustard gas, the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX and possibly cyanide. The attack on Halabja, which is about 150 miles (241km) north-east of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, is the latest in the Iran-Iraq war and follows its occupation by Iranian forces.

Iraq was said to be keen to avenge the fall of Halabja, which is seen as an important centre for Kurdish resistance in their struggle for autonomy. The assault came after two days of conventional mortars, artillery and rockets from nearby mountains.

According to pro-Iranian Kurdish commanders in Halabja, there were up to 14 aircraft sorties, with seven to eight planes in each group. It has also been suggested that RPV aircraft have been deployed in the attacks. The planes were believed to have concentrated their attacks on the city and all the roads leading out of it.

Eyewitnesses have told of clouds of smoke billowing upward 'white, black and then yellow'', rising as a column about 150 feet (46 metres)in the air. Most of the wounded, who were taken to hospital in the Iranian capital Tehran, were suffering from mustard gas exposure.

Those who escaped death have developed respiratory or visual problems from the cocktail of chemicals dropped on the city. According to some reports, up to 75% of the victims were women and children.

The injured survivors seen by reporters showed the classic symptoms of mustard gas poisoning - ugly skin lesions and breathing difficulties. Some residents survived by covering their faces with damp cloths and taking to the mountains around Halabja.

One resident, Abdul Rahman, 60, an employee at the city's mosque, said: 'I do not know where my children are.''

\- The Guardian, 22nd March 1988.

My heart sank as I assimilated the news report. I was lost in thought for a while and before I knew it the bus was parked up at Burtonwood services. I left the bus to get some food and to take a brief break. I had a cold feeling that Skyleader had been used in the chemical attack. I never believed that the drone would get out of the country and to Iraq. I shuddered as I considered that it may have been used in war. I couldn't believe the tragedy that had been caused, and possibly by Skyleader. I always assumed that the DTI would catch it. How could it have slipped through their fingers?

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# SOMETHING IN THE WAY SHE MOVES

When I got back on the tour bus Slouch was sat talking to the new tour manager, who goes by the name of Margret Wood. 'Hi Fletcher, meet Margret. Margret, Fletcher is our new speaker-man.'

I was immediately stunned when Margret turned around to greet me because she had a strikingly familiar face. She had different hair and different make-up, but it was a face that I had already fallen in love with. It was Helen, from the reception desk at RadioWaves! There was no mistaking her. I was stunned into silence. It was so strange that, for a moment, I thought I was in a dream.

'Right, son' Said Slouch, snapping me out of my haze. 'The first gig is at the Bataclan in Paris for the European album launch, so we'll be taking the tour bus over on the ferry, is that right, Margret?'

'Yes, Slouch, that's right. We're on the midnight ferry from Dover to Calais. Then on to Paris. We should arrive at the hotel in time for check-in, then we have the rest of the day off and the first gig, the album launch, the following day.'

And so I started out on my first tour in the most bizarre circumstances, sat opposite a woman I knew well, yet pretended not to. I found a moment to talk to her discreetly as we both went upstairs to claim our respective bunks. The upstairs of the bus is where the beds are.

The sleeping quarters are made up of a corridor that stretches almost the entire length of the bus, and running down both sides, on the left and right, you will find bunks to sleep in. Take your pick. There are upper bunks and lower bunks, the former being on the same level as the floor. The only privacy is a small curtain that partitions off the interior of the bunk from the central walkway. There is a door at the back of this corridor, leading to a lounge area, that has comfy seats surrounding a TV, a pong game and a small fridge full of beer.

'Margret, come in here.' I whispered and gestured her into the lounge.

'Yes, Fletcher. There is no avoiding this,' she started as I closed the door behind us, 'Yes, you know me as Helen, yes I am working in conjunction with the secret service, and yes I am here to keep an eye on you.'

'Why? It's a little obvious, isn't it? You're hardly undercover? I've worked with you for over a year at RadioWaves.'

'The only people I need to fool are the rest of the crew and the band. I'm what's known as a sleeper agent. I'm placed on the staff of strategically important companies but have no direct assignment until the need arises.'

'So what need has risen? Have you been sent from the DTI?'

'The need is to make sure that you are not sharing Skyleader plans with any other parties. And the DTI?' She said with a puzzled expression. 'What the fuck is the DTI?'

Fuck is not a word the gentile receptionist I knew would have said, I felt as if I didn't know this woman in front of me, despite having talked to her almost every day for a year.

'I've been talking to two agents from the department of trade and industry about RadioWaves.'

'The department of trade and industry?' She said bemused, 'Let me ask you, did they wear matching blue suits?'

'Yes,' I answered encouragingly.'

'Did they both have umbrellas?'

'Yes,' I said emphatically.

'Fletcher, they were not the DTI. They were members of MI4 masquerading as the department of trade and industry.'

'WHAT!' I shouted before cautiously lowering my voice.

'They play-act as other government organisations because it's easier than explaining what MI4 is.'

'What is MI4?'

'Urgh. I walked into that. It's a long story and we can't stay in here gabbing about the secret service all night! When we get to Paris lets meet to discuss it. Until then keep it shtumm, understood?'

She left the lounge and headed back down the stairs of our rolling communal apartment. I liked this new Helen even more than the old one. She had a commanding, no-nonsense about her that excites me. And, if I'm not mistaken, she just invited me to a date in Paris....

*

As we rolled towards Paris the entire touring crew got straight to work on the fridge full of beer. Dover in the dead of night would be our first calling point, where we would have to disembark our yellow submarine for the night time crossing. In the meantime, I pulled out a cold beer. I decided that I'd sit by the fridge, which was also quite close to the toilet, and the stairs that lead up to my bed. Only, before I could sit down, Helen waved over to me from the other end of the bus. She was sat on one of the four seats that were stationed around a table, in the same fashion that a table and four chairs are arranged on a train. She pointed at me, smiled and announced sweetly to the bus 'You, Fletcher, are sitting next to me!'

I was quite taken by her new attitude. She had quickly become the centre of attention, a pearl in the middle of this travelling universe. We sped down the motorway, with car lights passing at our windows and everyone was happy. Everyone was sat around Helen and was beaming big smiles, the sound of laughter was regular and rich in the air, everyone wanted her attention and, if I let my ego talk for a moment, it seemed as if, for some reason, she wanted mine. We talked for a long while, just myself and her, and at some point our conversation blotted out the other people around us. I talked of photography and she talked of the Louvre, we agreed on the sexual appeal of androgyny and discussed the intersections of music and art. Her energy was intoxicating.

After some time I felt that there was no way I could keep up with her pace and spirit, so, to not make a fool of myself in front of her, or to become boring through fatigue, I made my excuses and headed for bed.

'Where are you going?' She instantly demanded of me.

'To bed. I'm nakard, I'll see you in the morning?' I told her apologetically.

'No! No, you will not! You will stay right here and drink with me!' And of course, I did. All the way to Dover, where at midnight, against our will, but in compliance with regulations, we all walked off the bus and onto the deck of the ferry very much the worse for wear.

But the time I got up the many flights of stairs I found some of my fellow tour members already asleep in various positions on the floor. I became separated from the crowd so I bumbled around the duty-free shops for a while. After buying a very large bottle of gin for my hotel room in Paris, I went out to the outside part of the deck, where the wind was strong and a fine midnight mist blew at my face. On the benches among the smokers, I sat and I felt an over-reaching sense of tranquil intoxication.

After some of hours of undulating on the sea's powerful surface, we all, in blurry-eyed style, boarded back onto the bus after passports were shown. We were in France and I was exhausted. In a stealth manner, I quickly headed for bed to make a clumsy drunken escape to sleep in my bunk.

I was halfway up the stairs when I heard Helen's still energetic, brilliant voice 'Fletch, Fletch!. It was Helen, I turned and smiled as I took a seat on a step. 'So what time then?' I looked at her confused. 'What time are we going to the Louvre tomorrow?'

'Oh, how about one o'clock?' I said hazily.

'See you then.' She said, adding the word 'buddy' at the end, in the most awkward fashion. I went to bed as the bus roared down the French roads, bobbling from side to side gently, and I was smiling uncontrollably.

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# HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE

The morning was waiting for us when we rolled into Paris. I was startled awake by Slouch peering through the curtains of my bunk, 'Wakey-wakey, son. We are nearly at the hotel, you might want to get your shit together.' My confused response was something like, 'Yeah, er, urmmm, thanks, Slouch, yeah.'

I jumped out of my bunk in my underpants and dressed in haste in the narrow bunk corridor, which was now filled with already vacated beds. Gathering my things I headed downstairs. At that same moment, the bus was pulling over to park on a busy main road just across the street from the hotel. It was daylight outside and the traffic was noisy. I had no idea what time it was or what the hotel would be like so I quickly raided the fridge for supplies, cola, water and beer.

It appeared to be rush hour as I stepped off the bus, clutching my fridge booty. Cars zipped past as the driver unloaded the bags and left them on the pavement by the loading bay. One by one, the crew picked up their bags and made their way across the busy traffic towards the hotel, each man and woman in exactly the same dishevelled state, apart from Slouch, who looked cool and relaxed as he helped the driver unload the bags so the bus could make a quick getaway into the morning traffic.

The check-in was swift, thankfully. I lumbered into my room, number 222, in a heavy mess. One of the key skills that a tour man picks up early in his life is how to make a hotel room a home. The idea is to take control and induce a feeling of familiarity. After a quick scope of the amenities and limitations (i.e. room service and bathroom) the curtains must be closed (when on the ground floor). Baton down the hatches, then break out the books, be sure to make a mess, order room service and phone home then crank up the music on the radio. I have never been one to carry a whole arsenal of paraphernalia with me on the road. I take precisely chosen artefacts that make my world shift into alignment; a camera and audio lectures by Dr Hunter S Thompson being of the highest importance. And with that done, I fell flat on my face on to the bed to return to a rough, but much more stationary sleep than the night before. RadioWaves started to feel like an increasingly distant memory.

I woke at noon and by the time I met with Helen I was showered, fed and feeling fresh. I waited in reception for her while I played with my camera. It was actually the contentious Nikon that I borrowed from Richard, which he was sued for by Tony. In a short time Helen radiated through the reception area, 'Fletch! Let's go then, shall we?'

We made our way, via taxi, to the Louvre, where I learnt that Helen speaks impeccable French. I was impressed as she laughed with the taxi driver and organised the purchase of entrance tickets. She appears to be as charming in French as she is in English. The Louvre opened its arms to us with its treasures on show as we entered through the classical hallway. We slowly meandered with care through the masters, with more interest in our own conversation than in the great works around us. We looked on at Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix. 'Why does lady liberty have her tits out?' I asked Helen.

'Because she's a proper slag, that's why. She'll give it to anyone.' she said laughing.

'Ha! Look at the fella in the hat, he's interested.' I chuckle.

She tapped my arm, 'Hey, the little lad on the left would rather have a go on that dead guy on the floor. Look at his face!'

We moved on in no particular direction.

'She's hot'. I said as we passed around the back of the Sleeping Hermaphroditus, which seemed to make Helen laugh, and I couldn't figure out why. We gazed at the fear in the eye's of San Sebastian's bound and helpless figure and paused. 'Do you think that the lack of control is the basis of all fear?' She enquired.

'Is that what the oranges mean in the painting over there?' I said pointing at some still life paintings of wealthy looking men across the room.

'What orange's? Oh, those orange's They were meant to symbolise that they were men of the world, they had travelled and had resources. So in a way, yes, they were in control.'

'How about their moustaches? What do they mean?' She laughed at me again.

'I'm not so sure. You're funny, Fletcher.'

There was a moments pause before she said, '...so, you know it was me driving the Purple Sierra the other day, right?' This I did not know.

'No, I didn't, but fuck me you can't drive!'

'Haha. Sorry about that. I wasn't trying to hurt you, just ram you off the road and steal the plans back, really nothing personal.'

I couldn't help but laugh-out-loud, 'No worries, then. I won anyway. How was that field?'

'You cocky shit,' she said keeping her earlier smile. On our way out we by-passed the Mona Lisa as she was being mobbed by around 300 people, so we glanced from a distance and left to find food.

'What's this place?' She asked. The sign read Monparnasse Panoramic Tower. 'Shall we?' She asked with bright eyes. 'Of course!' I said.

We took a long journey up in an elevator to the 59th floor of the 210-meter high skyscraper, which lies a small distance east from the Eiffel Tower. At the top, we marvelled at the clear view over Paris to Notre-Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, the Pantheon and all that Paris had to offer. I trained my viewfinder on Helen's captivating form and she looked directly into the lens into my eyes with a beautiful radiance. As the shutter closed the image captured was one of enduring beauty in perfect focus set in front of an eternally romantic cityscape.

'So where do you want to eat?' She asked.

'I dunno, the first place we come to, I suppose.' And so we left the panorama and resumed our day on street level. We wandered the street for some short while before we stumbled across a little restaurant sign.

'This will do, Le Coupe-Chou, I think I'm saying that right.' Well, I would live to be thankful for that casual choice of eatery. Inside the restaurant looked like an antique farmhouse, with red-worn banquettes with views looking over the monuments of Paris. We were seated by a comfortable log fire by a window, the floor was cobbled with beautiful tiles and a pile of logs sat by ready to feed the fire. If I'd have looked for a thousand years I'm sure I could not have found a more romantic place than this. My moment with Helen had finally arrived. The woman I have loved from afar is within my gaze, and I remembered how my crush has grown from casual affection into wanting to be around her all the time over the course of the last year.

We talked of childhood and friends though the meal, and we began to feel free and open in each others company, but as she raised a glass of red wine to her lips I noticed something that I never before had. A wedding ring.

After some feelings of rejection and emotional reversal I paid for the meal and we left for the hotel. In the reception, we turned to face each other.

'I know all the lads are going out to the Irish bar down the street, They've got a pub quiz on, apparently.' I said.

'Not for me thanks, she says. What are you going to do with the rest of your evening?' She asked.

'Me? Nothing, I'm going to retire to the gin palace?'

'Where's that?' She looked bemused and disbelieving.

'My room.' I said. I bought a bottle of gin on the ferry over here.'

'Well, I do love a gin and tonic. And I enjoyed today, Fletcher.'

I looked confused, which prompted Helen to ask 'What's wrong?'

'Well, Helen, I like you, but you're married! So...'

'What?! Married?!' She yelped.

'Your ring!' I explained.

'This? Oh! That's not a wedding ring. Well, it is, but I'm not married. It's part of my cover, it's not real...'

We retreated to my room in haste. We delighted in gin, in music and we spend a long night together. When we were not making love we talked on the balcony. We were young, we were feeling real love for the very first time. No naive teenage love, but real adult love and for the first time I understood what all the love songs were talking about, and what all of the films were getting at. Soon 5 o'clock in the morning came around, and we had to consider the work we had waiting for us in the morning.

'Fletch, I have to go! Stop kissing me! I have to get dressed!' She laughed. 'I'm a professional, I'm not allowed to be sleeping with the mission! I can't have my boss or the crew find out! I have to get back to my room before morning. People can't see me leave your room!'

'OK,' I said, 'Let me check that the coast is clear in the corridor while you get dressed.'

'Nah, fuck that,' and she put on one of my t-shirts and went around the floor, picking up underwear and her clothes and gathered them up in a big ball. 'Right, open the door.'

As I opened the door gingerly she ran out into the corridor and made a speedy, half-naked run to her own room, and I fell in love with her even more.

One sweet dream came true today. As I fell into a happy sleep.

Helen reached her room, unnoticed. She lay on the bed and was quite ready to sleep too. As she settled into a restful moment her hotel room phone rang with a sharp startle that woke up with a jolt. She picked up the receiver with quick fright.

'You do realise that this means that you are now off the case. We need you to return home immediately.' *CLICK*

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# BREAKING NEWS

Peter Johnston officially gone! BLOCKED by his Labour constituency from re-standing

Peter Johnston has been abandoned by his local Labour group after losing the party whip last night. The former Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade had hoped to continue as a Labour MP after being reselected by the local Labour association in his Aintree seat. However, the group confirmed they would now be seeking another candidate for any upcoming election.

Local party deputies were said to be "astonished" that Mr Johnston was stripped of the Labour whip - effectively barring him from standing for re-election as a Labour candidate.

Mr Johnston, who served as Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade for three years until March holds a majority of more than 18,000 in the Aintree constituency, polling a 60.9 per cent share of the vote during the last election. There has been no official statement from the office of Mr Johnston.

Mr Johnston's former local Labour group is quoted as saying: "A new Conservative candidate will be selected by the membership in due course."

The Sun, March 16th 1988.

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# LOVERS IN A DREAM

The next morning I called Richard to check on his condition after his collapse. He seemed spirited and more alive than before I left.

'Hey, it must be me, Richard. Ever since I left you sound better!'

'Oh no, no Fletcher! Haha. I do feel good, I am on the mend, diet and exercise that's all, well, that's not quite all. I had some rather good news yesterday.'

'Ah, I see, go on.'

'Tony McDermott was arrested and interviewed under caution, as was Vincent. But that's not the best part. The best part is that Tony was arrested while at Richard Charnock service station. He was found in a toilet cubicle giving one to a prostitute. Haha, how I laughed. His wife has left him, of course.'

'Haha! Well, I'd say I didn't know he had it in him, but it doesn't really surprise me!' I said, joining in with Richards glee. He went on, 'There is talk of a parliamentary investigation, a hefty fine and liquidation!'

'It'll be in all the newspapers, then?' I asked.

'No, afraid not. Peter Johnston tells me that this issue has been banned from the UK media. Banned perpetually, apparently. But you might find it in the press abroad, look out for it, send me anything you find! Mr Johnston has left his party, he is now an independent MP and he seems to be thriving! So how is Paris treating you?'

I talked with Richard for a short while longer before I went for breakfast, which I was late for, but the other crew were already there, with Helen, so I joined them. We played dumb with regards our day together.

'Morning, son. It's called the 9 o'clock club for a reason, you know. You must have had a good one. So what did you get up to? Anything good?' Asked Slouch.

'Me? Noooo, just chilled in my room, had a walk a little later on, but nothing amazing.' I said casually as Helen caught my eye.

The tour bus held-up traffic as we climbed aboard. Today would be the first gig and the album launch! Before I got on the bus, Helen grabbed me.

'Did you speak to anyone yesterday? About me and you?'

'Nope, you said it had to be a secret. Plus, all I've done since I saw you is sleep.'

'Well, they know!' She said angrily.

'Who? The crew? You sure?'

'Not the crew, my boss back at the MOD!'

'Well! Fuck.'

'Yes, well-fuck! They want me to go back to HQ asap!'

'Shit.'

'Yes, shit!'

'Soooo...'

'I'm not going back. I quit. This morning I filed my final report, my department now considers you to be low risk and officially of little importance. So, I'm a tour manager now, for real, so I can't fuck this up. Which means you and me are a secret right? I like you, Fletcher, believe it or not. I've liked you from the first time I saw you at RadioWaves. I also kinda like that It's our naughty secret. OK?'

I was more than OK. I was with the woman of my dreams on a bright yellow tour bus headed through Europe via Paris. I had a feeling that this tour was going to be a lot of fun and tonight after the gig we will party into the small hours, then, next stop, Hamburg.

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# EPILOGUE

"The international arms trade is a greater threat to world peace than the AIDS epidemic or the drugs trade, because it is supported by Governments. It props up dictators such as the Shah, Batista, Marcos, Papa Doc and Pinochet, who received the weapons to crush their own people. They did so in the interests of keeping down their people so that multinationals could make a profit for the super-powers that sold them the weapons.

There is a tremendous waste of skill. Some of the most brilliant scientists and engineers in the world are working on methods of death instead of means of life. Billions of pounds are wasted on weapons, when they could have been used to save life. A heavy responsibility rests on everyone who promotes the international arms trade--I know that all Governments have done so to some extent. There have been 134 wars since 1945, in which millions of people have died and in which the weapons used were often supplied by the super-powers. Millions more people died because they were denied the resources that were wasted in the arms programme. Every arms programme and every arms sale plants the seeds of a new war."

\- Tony Benn House of Commons Debate 7, 23 November 1992.

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Sincerely, thankyou reading! If you have spotted any error please feel free to reach out and let me know at moneybombbook@gmail.com. 
