The Watchers (5 page)

– 4 –

Committee Room 10 is the grandest of the committee rooms, all high wooden benches and deep green carpet. Located on the first floor of the House of Commons, it has an arresting view over the Thames, but at this time of year the room possessed a gloomy atmosphere, thick with dust and the scent of political blood.

‘Right, that’s enough rehearsal,’ said Bestford just as Big Ben struck four o’clock. He didn’t thank me for the time I had just spent coaching him for the afternoon session, but when did he ever?

My boss removed his spectacles and pinched the top of his nose, and as he did so I recognized the strain in his face.

‘You’re sure you’re up to this?’ I asked.

‘Just about.’ Today he looked every day of his fifty-three years. His voice was husky, his eyes red.

I hope he hasn’t been drinking
.

‘As soon as this is over, we need to focus on the constituency. There’ll be an election soon; a new political generation is preparing to take power, and every day the newspapers bring more depressing news. Just look at what’s happening in Northern Ireland! And last year in Lebanon, more bombings. People think we’re out of our depth. They want law, order. I can’t risk looking out of touch.’

‘It’s not just about how you look,’ I said sharply. ‘This is about what matters.’ I could have added,
It’s your duty too
.

It was Paul’s role, along with twelve others on the committee, to scrutinize the policies and expenditure of the Ministry of Defence. Not bad for a man whose maiden speech had focused on the problems of poverty within farming communities. Since then he had grown quickly into the role of Pembrokeshire’s Member of Parliament, piggybacking on the expansion of RAF Brawdy in his constituency to help secure another election victory. New houses were built; a runway was added. A winning move for Bestford and the local economy.

I tried adopting a more reasonable tone. ‘Paul, outside that door is a pack of journalists who’ll be hanging on every word uttered this afternoon. You must make Corso confess to what happened at RAF Croughton – somehow.’

‘Don’t forget, that base was made available for use by United States visiting forces under the terms of the NATO Status of Forces Agreement of 1951. Whatever happened at that base, we need to show some restraint.’

‘We’re not here to show restraint; we’re here to make a difference!’

His eyes flashed. ‘Our relationship with the Americans. Do you know why it’s special? Why it matters?’

‘It’s not special if it’s illegal.’

‘It matters for our morale, Robert. We’re not at war with the communists, but we soon could be, and the UK is utterly dependent on the Americans. The public need to know that Britain could repel an invasion from the Soviet Union.’

He was right about that, unfortunately. I thought of the leaflets explaining the different emergency sirens, how to protect yourself from radiation, how best to dispose of dead relatives’ bodies, but my patience was shot.

‘Their bases are out of control, Paul! They’re putting innocent lives at risk. If we don’t prevent serious violations of international law, who the hell will?’

I expected him to come back at me, but at that moment there was a rapping at the door. A policeman entered, ushering in our star witness, Lieutenant Colonel Conrad Corso. Bestford stood and extended a welcoming hand to the American officer while I took my seat behind a long table at the side of the committee room, opposite high leaded windows and wood-panelled walls. My notes and files on the inquiry were spread out before me. Every document. Except one.

I thought of the admiral’s warning with deepening unease.

All thirteen members of the Defence Select Committee filed into the room, taking their seats around an enormous horseshoe table. John Myers, Labour Member for Lewisham, drummed his fingers impatiently on the table; Joanna Winterton, Conservative MP for Eastleigh, raked her hand through her limp brown hair. Here were my boss’s challengers and colleagues. You could see the mix of emotions on their faces as they exchanged private mutterings. Hope. Uncertainty. Fear. In their own constituencies they were in control. Not here. The shadow of the Cold War and other geopolitical tensions had forced this inquiry on them, and there was no telling the extent of the damage that it would wreak.

‘We should make a start,’ said Bestford, watching as journalists and members of the public took their seats on the rows of benches at the back of the room. Then, with relief, I spotted Selina – she had been seated on her own, near the windows. She had made it just in time. I smiled fleetingly but thought she looked nervous. Was it the job interview?

‘Welcome, Colonel Corso, to this evidence session on the defence implications of American activities on British soil. You are the deputy base commander of RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire.’

‘Correct.’ A thick drawl from one of the southern states of the USA.

‘Colonel, this committee has the power to compel any witness to swear an oath. Now, I assume or rather hope I don’t need to remind you that the NATO Status of Forces Agreement requires that US bases on British soil be fully accountable to Parliament and compliant with British law.’

‘I am very well aware of the law, sir.’

‘Well then, over the last few months we have been examining evidence relating to various United States bases in this country suspected of illegal activity. This has led to a specific allegation against your own base, which, we have heard, was the site of a deeply worrying incident in February 1963, during an anti-nuclear protest. An explosion on the base. And a series of violent arrests outside the perimeter fence.’

He paused briefly, and I felt a sadness so intense it was equalled only by my hope.

‘Civilians were seriously injured. As a result of direct action taken by serving American officers. This is the reason we have asked you to come here today. We need answers. We need accountability. You understand?’

Corso smiled confidently, fixing his eyes on my employer. And for a long moment said absolutely nothing.

My hope turned to anxiety.
Answer him, answer him!

‘Colonel . . . perhaps it would be fitting for you to begin with an apology?’

‘An apology?’ Corso squared his shoulders. His face was heavy and lined, the battle scars of a difficult career, but his smooth uniform and polished medals lent him an easy authority. ‘For what, exactly?’

‘People died that day – a woman blinded – all British civilians. And you have the audacity to stand before us and question the reason for an apology? Sir, have you no respect at all?’

Over poised pens and raised heads my employer’s question rolled across the room all the way to the pack of journalists at the back. For all his faults, Bestford could be powerfully arresting when he concentrated.

He raised his voice. ‘Who authorized the security team to carry weapons and apprehend the protestors?’

‘That I do not know.’

A wave of muttering swept through the room. My eyes fastened on the nearest window.

‘You don’t know who gave the order?’ The question hung in the air. ‘Or do you deny that they were carrying weapons, that shots were fired?’

‘What I deny,’ Corso snapped, ‘is the improper insinuation that US Air Force personnel acted inappropriately. Croughton is a Strategic Air Command base. The protestors were a security risk. They breached the perimeter fence nearest the hardened armament barracks. We needed to act.’

In my head familiar images flashed: Mum leaving the hospital with dressings over her eye, the scabs on her face.

‘Then you’re saying your actions
were
justified.’

‘I’m saying it was necessary to exercise sufficient force.’ Colonel Corso was leaning forward, defiantly tilting up his chin, and as I watched him, feeling my own fury burn, all I could think about was the secret document in my possession. How it could make all the difference.

‘Colonel Corso,’ Bestford continued, ‘please tell us precisely what sort of weapons are stored within Croughton’s hardened armament barracks.’

The witness dropped his gaze. At the far end of the room a huge portrait of Winston Churchill glared down upon him.

‘Our security systems are classified.’

Bestford bristled. ‘Then tell us the
nature
of the work carried out at Croughton!’

‘The activities of US Air Force bases are determined by the Pentagon. Perhaps your question would be better addressed to them, Mr Chairman?’

Bestford straightened in his chair. ‘Tell us then how can the British government sanction the presence of bases like your own when we have no idea what you’re doing on them? There is a broader point here, the significance of which should be noted by everyone present. The world is just the push of a button away from Armageddon. Need I remind you that if only a small proportion of the nuclear arsenals possessed by our countries or the Soviet Union were to detonate, the entire northern hemisphere would be plunged into nuclear winter.’

‘We all have our fingers on the red button. That’s why no one presses it. You’re an intelligent man, Mr Chairman – I assume you understand the concept of mutually assured destruction? Bases like mine are the first line of strategic defence, for your country and for ours.’

The pencil between my fingers snapped. How could a soldier who was a guest in our country dismiss these concerns with such casual disdain?

Beyond the latticed window, out on the Thames, a distant siren wailed.

‘US nuclear-armed bombers operate from the UK,’ Bestford continued. ‘One bomber caught fire on the runway at Croughton in February 1963. The day of the protest. Is this true?’

It wasn’t. The truth was far worse.

‘February 1963?’ Colonel Corso hesitated. ‘No, no, I’m sorry. I don’t recall.’

‘But you . . . ’ Bestford hesitated, and I felt the colour drop out of my face. His knuckles were turning white from gripping his fountain pen tightly to prevent his hand from shaking. He’d promised me he wouldn’t drink this week!

He found his voice again, but it was a shade quieter, or perhaps the siren outside was louder. ‘You . . . are the base liaison officer. You
should
know!’

‘Ordinarily, indeed. I would agree with you.’

‘Ordinarily?’

Bestford then turned and looked at me with some anxiety – a sudden realization surfacing there – and my stomach swooped. Had I missed something?

‘Mr Chairman,’ said Corso, ‘I did not arrive at Croughton until two weeks after the protests.’

Suddenly the admiral’s warning about the secret document clenched between my fingers was as distant as the winter my mother had joined the protests.
No matter! Thirty million spent on upgrading your base since the disaster – new runways and secret armament barracks!
I wanted to shout.
What are you hiding about what happened there? What the hell is Project Caesar?

I was struggling not to stand up and hurl these questions at him. Would I have risked my job and my relationship with the admiral to breach parliamentary protocol and intervene? Considering the heat of my anger, I honestly believe I might. But it’s senseless speculating about that now because what happened next eclipsed everything.

A policeman dashed across the room to one of the windows and pressed his hands against the glass, peering out.

‘What is it, what’s wrong?’ asked Bestford as the thundering beat of a helicopter somewhere above us filled the room.

‘Get out!’ the policeman yelled. ‘Everyone out!’

No one moved. No one said a word.

‘Get out, now!’ shouted the officer, in motion, grabbing the nearest journalist and shoving her towards the door.

The room erupted. Cries of alarm rose. Chairs crashed down. People were trampled in the scramble for the door.

Someone screamed, ‘Call the sergeant-at-arms! Get away from the windows!’

‘Robert, come on!’ Bestford yelled at me. He had made it to the door.

I should have run. But from what?

I turned. A powerboat was throwing up a great white plume of spray as it carved through the choppy grey waters towards a row of boats tethered immediately below the Houses of Parliament. It was burning. Out of control.

‘Robert!’

This is the end
, I thought.

I leaped for cover behind the nearest bench and braced myself for the impact.

– 5 –

An iron taste in my mouth. I could still feel the heat from the blast on my face when I opened my eyes and squinted into the chaos. My head was throbbing. I saw the door and wanted to go to it, but somewhere near me a woman was crying out, ‘Help me, please!’

The thud of the explosion had pressed painfully on my ears. I struggled to my feet, coughing against the fumes, staring into the flames licking at the tables and green-leather chairs. A terrible acrid smell hung in the air, burning my throat.

I might have staggered to the door, to the safety of the Committee Corridor. Instead, I saw her. The slim young woman in the dark blazer lay on the carpeted floor like a broken doll. There was a deep wound on her forehead, and her face was covered with so much blood that I didn’t recognize her. Until my eyes fastened on the silver crucifix around her neck.

Crouching down at Selina’s side, I squeezed her hand and pleaded with her to say something, anything.

‘What’s happening?’ she managed. ‘I . . . I can’t see you.’

‘Help’s coming,’ I said confidently while looking frantically around me.

No one was coming.

‘Robert, please . . . I feel like I’m drowning.’

I looked down to see . . . blood, blood everywhere, an open wound in Selina’s stomach, and in her hand a huge splinter of glass she had pulled out. I pressed my hand against her body to stem the flow of blood. The nights I’d dreamed of touching her, tenderly, gently. Not like this.

One bloody hand flew up to clutch at her necklace. She hesitated, as if struggling to remember something, then, gasping for air, managed to say, ‘Robert . . . I’ve seen them.’

‘Don’t try to speak.’

‘Their faces . . . Robert . . . their faces are made of shadows.’

Those words, that familiar phrase, struck a new kind of fear into me. Was she hallucinating?

‘Robert!’ Bestford’s cry broke in suddenly from behind me, and I turned to see him emerge from the billowing smoke.

‘Selina,’ I said. ‘We can’t move her . . . ’ I was fighting a losing battle with the pulsing wound, blood gushing through my fingers. If I moved her, she would die. I knew it.

Bestford was coughing. ‘We must get out!’ he gasped.

Selina was trying to talk, panic etched onto her face, but I shushed her. ‘I won’t leave you,’ I told her.

I looked around desperately. I couldn’t see Bestford now, but someone was coming towards me out of the smoke and orange glow thrown out by the tangled wreckage. A man. I could see his mouth moving, but all sound was dead. I seemed to be suspended underwater, watching his movements as if in slow motion, observing every line on his face, his uniform, his badge.

‘I won’t leave her,’ I yelled at the policeman.

More figures moving slowly through the smoke, mouths forming words I suddenly couldn’t hear. Then I passed out, I think.

*

My vision was hazy, my head pounding as I squinted into the harsh light.

Where am I?

In a few seconds my eyesight adjusted, sharpening into focus: bright sterile walls, a row of beds and a strong scent of medicinal alcohol.

‘Welcome back,’ said a rough voice. ‘You had me worried.’

Bestford was sitting at the bedside wearing an expression of intense anxiety. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up. His tie was loose.

‘How long have I been here?’ I asked in a hoarse voice.

‘Two hours, perhaps.’

I tried to move and found that I could, pretty easily, but that didn’t stop my heart from racing. The adjacent bed was empty.

‘Where’s Selina?’

‘No more questions. Try to rest.’

‘Where is she?’ I shouted, jolting upright.

He gave me the sort of look I hadn’t seen since the day my grandfather told me of my parents’ deaths, and a terrible realization stunned me into a long silence.

‘I’m sorry, Robert. I’m sorry.’

Selina was dead. And it was my fault.

My fault.

Bestford was talking to me, but I wouldn’t listen, I couldn’t. Selina, she was all I could think of. It didn’t seem possible that she could be gone.

‘Robert . . .’

I saw her now, standing in the living-room doorway that morning, a blue towel covering her chest, her hair tumbling loose to her shoulders, her lips curving in an easy smile.

‘Robert!’ Bestford’s face loomed over mine. ‘She’s not responding, but they have her under constant surveillance.’

For a moment the words just hung there. ‘Then she’s alive?’

‘In a coma,’ he said quietly, stepping back.

‘But I . . . It’s my fault. I asked her to come to the inquiry after her interview.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You couldn’t have known. No one could.’

I swung my feet out of the bed, only now realizing I was wearing a hospital gown. No matter, I had to see Selina. She would be here somewhere. I stood, but a sharp pain exploded in the side of my head and made me pause.

‘Take it easy now. You took quite a blow. Flying glass and debris.’

Defeated, I sank back onto the bed. A thought struck, and I grabbed Bestford’s arm. ‘What happened to Colonel Corso?’

Bestford shook his head. ‘Vanished. We’re trying to trace him.’

‘Listen to me, Paul. We need to talk to Corso. Immediately.’

Before I could move, Bestford reached into his suit pocket and produced the slim document I had kept to myself. Only Selina and the admiral had known about it.

He saw my questioning expression and said, ‘They found it on you when they brought you in. Robert, what the hell were you thinking?’

‘It’s everything we need,’ I said, meeting his watery eyes. ‘Something called Project Caesar, run out of RAF Croughton. I’m sure it’s linked to the incident in ’63. We have to find out what it is.’

He looked at me despairingly. ‘You just don’t give up, do you? You’re a man obsessed. You’ve made your mother’s battle a crusade.’

‘This inquiry was always going to take time.’

‘And we’ve run out of that.’ Bestford’s face had closed off.

‘Paul, this means everything!’

‘And we have nothing!’ he said, standing abruptly and crossing the room to the window. ‘No evidence that nuclear weapons were stored illegally at Croughton, no real information about what happened that night in ’63. And I am under considerable pressure to give an accurate picture of what
did
happen to the Secretary of State for Defence, who’s very quickly beginning to suspect that the whole thing is nothing but a wild conspiracy theory cooked up by left-wing campaigners drunk on their own imaginations! Don’t you get it, Robert? It’s
my
credibility on the line, not yours.’

He shook his head, looking away from me, perhaps thinking, as I was, about the long hard months we had spent pounding pavements together on the campaign trail in the Havens.

This was a crisis. If Bestford gave up, how would I ever learn the truth about the protests at the US base at Croughton back in February 1963? How and why Mum was blinded, what had caused the explosion that had scarred her face.

‘Robert, the inquiry will be postponed until further evidence comes to light that more convincingly demonstrates the illegal operation of American facilities on British territory.’

‘But the biggest clue you’ll ever have is in your hand!’

He looked down at the secret document I had procured, the only evidence we had that might explain the explosion that had happened at RAF Croughton. ‘If the ministry knew we had this . . . we’d be finished.’ He fidgeted nervously with the document.

And then I had to look away as he meticulously shredded my every last hope.