Stephen Leather - False Friends

‘Chipped?’ repeated Sharpe.

‘They’ll do away with money and you’ll have a chip under your skin that you use to buy everything, and the moment you step out of line your chip is wiped,’ said Thompson. ‘It’ll be the ultimate controlling tool. If we get to that stage it’s all over. The rich will get richer and richer and the poor will stay poor.’

‘I’m not poor, mate.’

‘Compared to the Russian oligarchs? Compared to Tony Blair and the Bushes and the rest of them? Compared to the bankers? They’re the ones who are taking over, unless we do something.’

‘You’re a great one for conspiracies, aren’t you?’ said Shepherd.

Thompson’s eyes hardened. ‘You need to read more,’ he said. ‘You know what a false flag is?’

Shepherd did but he wanted Thompson to continue talking.

‘It’s when the government does something but blames it on someone else. Hitler did it when he burned down the Reichstag. The Yanks did it in the Tonkin accident when they claimed that the North Vietnamese attacked one of their destroyers. The biggest false flag of all time was Nine-Eleven.’

‘You think the Americans killed their own people?’ asked Shepherd.

‘It was Bin Laden who brought down the Twin Towers,’ said Thompson. ‘I’m not one of those morons who think they used explosives. Of course they used planes and of course it was Bin Laden behind it. But who was behind Bin Laden?’

Shepherd didn’t say anything. He sipped his champagne.

‘The Americans,’ said Thompson. ‘They trained him, they funded him and they told him what to do. And afterwards they killed him. Why? Because they wanted Iraq’s oil and they wanted the world in fear, because a population living in fear is easier to control. You’ve read 1984 ?’

Shepherd shook his head.

‘You should,’ said Thompson. ‘George Orwell was way ahead of his time. Read 1984 and Animal Farm and you’ll see exactly where the world is headed. It’s one huge conspiracy, Garry. They wreck our economy, they keep us in fear, they destroy our national identity, they take away our faith, and then one day we wake up and we’re all slaves. Unless we do something.’

‘I’m starting to wish I hadn’t asked,’ said Shepherd, trying to lighten the moment. Kettering and Thompson were both staring at him intently.

‘It’s not a joke, Garry,’ said Kettering. ‘This isn’t a race war; it’s a fight for the survival of our species. Because once the elite has total control there’ll be no going back. They’ll control the food, the water, the money supply, the land, everything.’

‘So what do you guys do, when you’ve got the guns? Do you attack Downing Street? Do you take hostages? What’s the plan?’

Kettering grinned and tapped the side of his nose. ‘That, Garry old lad, is on a need-to-know basis.’

‘And you don’t need to know,’ added Roger.

‘Amen to that,’ said Sean. He raised his glass and smiled thinly. ‘No offence.’

‘Well, that was just plain weird, wasn’t it?’ said Shepherd as he drove away from the pub and headed to Hereford. He beeped his horn at Kettering and Thompson, who were climbing into their Jaguar. They waved as he drove away. Sean and Roger were sitting in the back of the Jaguar, deep in conversation.

‘What was weird was the way that you brought Ray into the frame,’ said Sharpe. ‘That wasn’t right, you know that?’

‘I needed to find out what they were planning to do,’ said Shepherd.

‘Yeah, but mentioning Ray like that just makes them associate us with him even more. It made it sound like Ray had been talking to us about them and they won’t like that.’

‘It went okay,’ said Shepherd, accelerating past a mud-splattered tractor.

‘We should tip Ray off and give him the option of pulling out.’

‘You’re over-thinking it, Razor,’ said Shepherd. ‘It was a brief conversation and then we were straight on to the great conspiracy theory. They were so fired up about that they won’t remember where it started.’

Sharpe sighed and folded his arms. ‘Aye, maybe.’

‘The Roger guy, the bald one, is Roger McLean. Button reckons he met with that Norwegian who shot all the kids. He’s anti-Islamic, big time. Button’s going to be very interested to know that he turned up.’

‘And that Sean, what do you think? UDA?’

‘Military-trained, that’s for sure. He knew how to handle the Yugo. I’ll run him by Charlie, see what she says. So what’s your take on the Bin Laden thing?’

‘The conspiracy?’ Sharpe shrugged. ‘I can just about buy the Americans getting Bin Laden to attack the Twin Towers, but the whole global-conspiracy thing is a bit much. But it makes for a good story.’

‘What about the theory that the West demonised Bin Laden?’

‘That’s true enough,’ said Sharpe. ‘And they used him as an excuse to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. But that doesn’t make it a conspiracy. A conspiracy needs some very clever people and it was George W. Bush, for God’s sake. Didn’t he have an IQ of 91?’

‘I think that’s an urban myth,’ said Shepherd. ‘But what they seem to be saying is that it’s bigger than politicians. And it was the bankers that caused all the problems we have now, right? So I guess there are two options — either the bankers did it deliberately, in which case it is a conspiracy, or they were all just plain stupid. In which case why are they getting million-pound bonuses?’

‘Yeah, well, my vote’s for the latter,’ said Sharpe. He looked across at Shepherd. ‘What’s your interest?’

Shepherd shrugged carelessly. ‘The Five case I’m on at the moment is about fundamentalist terrorism and there’s an al-Qaeda angle. I just wonder how much of what al-Qaeda does is about Bin Laden and how much is just disaffected Muslims. I don’t get the feeling that there’s a master plan at work. But maybe there is. Maybe there’s someone pulling all the strings on this, keeping our population in fear so that they won’t notice that one by one their civil liberties are being taken away.’

‘I think it’s much simpler than that,’ said Sharpe. ‘I think that there are a lot of unhappy people in the world and terrorism is just an excuse for them to vent their frustrations. A big chunk of the population is unhappy, unhappy enough to kill and maim civilians. And that’s a pretty scary thing to admit.’

‘And what about those guys?’ said Shepherd. ‘Kettering and Thompson.’

‘Them? They’re as mad as bloody hatters. But with guys like Sean and Roger with them they could be dangerous. If they know more guys like Sean they could do a hell of a lot of damage with those guns.’

‘And the grenades,’ said Shepherd. ‘Let’s not forget about the grenades.’

They drove in silence for a few minutes, then Sharpe sighed and stretched out his legs. ‘I sometimes wonder if we should even bother fighting this whole Muslim thing,’ he said.

‘What?’

Sharpe grimaced. ‘Well, first of all, they’re going to win in the end, aren’t they? They’re ten per cent of the population now, give or take. But they’re breeding way faster than us.’

‘Us?’

‘You know what I mean. I’ve got two kids, which just maintains the status quo. You’ve got only the one and there’s no sign of you having any more. But your average Muslim family breeds like rabbits. Six kids. Seven. Eight. And most of the guys have more than one wife. So they’re breeding faster than us. And it won’t be long before there are more of them than us and then they can vote in their own government and everything changes.’

‘You’re crazy,’ said Shepherd. ‘Even crazier than usual.’

‘You can’t argue with the maths,’ said Sharpe. ‘And if Turkey joins the EU then it’ll happen even faster. How many Muslims are there in Turkey? A hundred million? How many do you think will head over to the UK for benefits and the NHS? I tell you, Spider, we’ll be a Muslim country by the end of the century and probably a lot sooner.’