sThe Quiet Wart (4 page)

The comment hit Sean hard and his paranoia immediately went into overdrive.
Is this just a way of getting rid of me?

Moving quietly in front of Sean, Liz took his other hand. She stared into his eyes. ‘Don't worry. We'll work it out. We don't have to do anything yet. We've got until the end of the school year.'

A sense of foreboding still growing inside him, Sean lent forward and kissed Liz gently on the lips. ‘I love you,' he said quietly. He meant it with every bone in his body, but he knew that if it came down to a decision between Praew being returned to Thailand, or their splitting up, he‘d have no choice.

• The European Battle Groups (EUBG) come under the direct control of the EU and command 60,000 military personnel, which need to be mobilization-ready with just 5 days' notice.

• EUROCORPS directly employs 6,000 soldiers.

• The European Gendamarie Force is a 3,000-strong militarised police force, directly accountable to the EU.

‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?' Liz asked, as the breakfast waitress poured a coffee for Sean.

‘She's right, Sean. I would've preferred that you met him in his office. It'd be a lot safer,' Clive added.

‘He thinks it's bugged,' Sean said.

‘I'd like to say that he's mad, but given what Terry saw, he's probably right. He's got two groups of people following him, not just one. One group look like MI6, but it's hard to tell. I'm not sure who the others are, but they seem to be watching the MI6 guys, so they may well be his own people. Either way, he's attracting some pretty serious attention.'

‘Do you think he's a Nazi?' Sean asked Clive.

‘Yes, I do,' Clive answered quickly.

‘Then what do you suppose he wants me here for?'

‘I don't know, but I'm fairly sure you're the first journalist to ask him about his Nazi ties. Our previous operation was very hush-hush.'

‘It can't have been that hush-hush; he knew you were watching him,' Liz commented.

‘As I said, he's got some pretty serious protection,' Clive defended himself.

‘Do you think I'm in danger?' Sean asked.

‘I've no idea. It's certainly a possibility. We've checked out the bar that he wants to meet in and it seems pretty kosher. It's been there forever and hasn't changed hands recently. Just stay in the public areas and if in doubt, run.'

Sean breathed in deeply. Allsop didn't seem dangerous, but then neither had David Findlow at first. He instinctively touched his injuries: it was a nervous reaction, they were fully healed and he was as fit as he'd ever been.
Am I really ready for this again?
‘Will Terry's men be watching?' he asked.

‘No. Too many others and not enough space.' Clive shook his head.

‘What's he been up to since he got to Strasbourg on Monday?' Sean asked, changing the subject.

‘He's been attending the Parliament during the day and at night, he seems to spend his time in the company of Anna Faustein, the German MEP.'

‘Maybe there's something in the affair rumour then?' Sean said.

‘That's not what we're here for. Let's leave sex scandals to the tabloids,' Liz countered.

‘We may need to sell this to a tabloid. If we want to make money, that is,' Sean said.

‘I'd rather not make money that way,' she replied.

The urge to say that it was easy for her to make those judgements when she was sheltered by one of the richest families in Korea came to Sean, but he bit his lip. Since their discussion in Lincoln's Inn, they hadn't talked about the situation with Praew again, but he had a nagging feeling that Liz was becoming increasingly distant; maybe trying to prepare herself for the inevitable decision that had to be made.

‘Anybody else hanging around?' Sean asked.

‘We couldn't get close enough, given all his current tails, so who knows. The hotel he's staying in is full of EU types and lobbyists. He could've met with any one of them and we wouldn't know.'

‘Okay, I guess the only way to find out what he wants is to meet him,' Sean ended the debate.

*

Le Petit Bière bar sat between a cinema and a shoe shop on Rue 22 novembre, in the old heart of Strasbourg, well away from the modern hub of EU buildings to the north. Allsop was already seated and nursing a half-full glass of beer when Sean entered. Before he was allowed to sit with him, he was searched by one of Allsop's guard detail. There were no other customers in the small bar and the barman quickly dropped a glass of beer in front of Sean, before returning to his spot behind the wood panelled counter.

‘Sorry about that. I had to make sure you weren't wearing a wire,' Allsop said, grinning through his tobacco-stained teeth.

‘Why do you need all this security?' Sean asked.

‘You'll find out.'

‘When?'

‘Tomorrow.'

‘Then why meet tonight?'

‘To give you some background.' Allsop lifted his arm to order another beer. With his other arm, he deftly dropped a USB stick onto Sean's lap. Taking the hint, Sean slipped it carefully into his pocket. ‘We're being watched, but we can't be heard,' Allsop added, lifting his eyebrows.

‘So what's on the stick? Why not just email it to me?' Sean asked.

‘My emails are being read, no matter what I try to do to stop it. Read it and we'll talk tomorrow: 7 p.m. in the lobby of the Hotel D. Anna Faustein will be with me.'

‘Where are we going?'

‘You'll find out tomorrow. Now just ask normal interview questions and make notes. In half an hour you can go.'

‘Are you having an affair with Anna Faustein?'

‘Blimey! If that's your standard interviewing technique, I'd hate to see your interrogation style. The short answer is no, I'm not. We're just very close friends and Anna has far better taste than that.'

‘Why should I believe you?'

‘First, Anna is a beautiful, intelligent, thirty-eight-year-old woman and I'm a pot-bellied, fifty-seven-year-old man, who's never been good-looking, or particularly intelligent for that matter. Second, I don't care whether you believe me or not. What's important to me is that my wife and children believe me, and they do.'

The interview lasted another twenty-five minutes. Sean asked questions about Allsop's political beliefs, his childhood and other background information. Allsop's responses were animated, interesting and eloquently delivered, and despite the nagging warnings in Sean's head, he found himself warming to the gregarious character. If he was lying and his outward image was a façade to hide deeper, more sinister, objectives, he certainly did it well. Sean didn't once detect the obvious signs of lying which all good reporters were trained to spot. His answers were direct, detailed and offered without pause. They were also very well thought out. Allsop clearly wasn't the extremist loony the British media liked to portray him as. In fact, he was far from it and possessed an intellect that would rival any in British politics.

When the interview finished, Sean shook Allsop's hand warmly and left through the front door of the small bar.

Back out on Rue 22 novembre, he scanned the area, before putting up his umbrella and walking back towards the small hotel, where Clive and Liz would be waiting. He hadn't thought it necessary for Liz to come, but she'd insisted and he wanted to avoid any chance of an argument.

During the walk, he had a feeling that he was being watched, but figured that it was probably just the power of suggestion playing tricks with his senses.

Then, when he turned onto the quiet street that his hotel was on, he saw a flicker of light reflected from a shop window and turned around sharply. A man wearing a long raincoat, standing in a bus shelter, had just lit a cigarette. He looked at Sean, but didn't move and Sean turned away, continuing into the dimly lit street.

Ten metres or so into the street, he could see the hotel lights in the distance and quickened his pace. The sudden appearance of footsteps behind him made him speed up more, until he was almost running. But when he turned to see who was following, he saw nobody. The nagging feeling of somebody's presence still with him, he broke into a run, then a sprint, until he reached the door of the hotel.

Breathing heavily, he pushed on the handle. It was locked.

‘Damn,' he remembered that the small hotel secured the door at 8 p.m. and fumbled in his pocket for the key that he'd been given. Again he heard movement behind him and swung around sharply, but as before, there was nobody there.

Trembling slightly, he pushed the key into the lock and opened the door, stepping quickly inside as the warm air from the lobby rushed over his face. Instinctively, he turned around to scan the area surrounding the entrance to the hotel. His eyes instantly darted to a point behind the trees on the opposite side of the road, where he thought something moved, but it was just a cat. Shaking his head at his paranoid state, he quickly locked the door and went to his room.

Liz downloaded the contents of the memory stick to her hard drive. There was only one file, numbered, but not named, and she opened it quickly.

‘It's in German,' Sean said, looking at the thick block of text over Liz's shoulder.

‘I think it's translated later on,' Liz replied, scrolling through sixty-three pages of German text, before the language changed to Greek. Six languages and 400 pages further on they finally came across the English version.

The dense text filled the screen; each paragraph was over one page long and punctuation was minimal. ‘Bloody hell! The words might be English, but they don't seem to mean anything. What is it?' Sean asked.

‘There aren't any headings, but I reckon it's an excerpt from a bill in the European Parliament,' Liz commented.

‘Excerpt? Its sixty pages long,' Sean said frowning.

‘I think they can stretch into the thousands of pages,' Liz replied.

Clive joined in, looking over Liz's shoulder. ‘Who could read thousands of pages of this pseudo-English legal mumbo-jumbo and make any sense of it?' he said.

‘Nobody; that's the point. Allsop told me that they pass hundreds of bills every day when Parliament is in session. There's no way any of them could be on top of the content, even if they had an army of readers,' Sean commented.

‘So the EU is passing laws that nobody has actually read?' Clive frowned again.

‘Except the people that drafted them, of course,' Sean replied.

‘Who drafts them?' Clive asked.

‘The European Commission,' Liz answered.

‘Is it only me that thinks that's rather dangerous: a group of unelected people writing laws that nobody ever reads, which bind whole nations to their contents?' Clive asked.

‘Allsop actually admitted that the members are rarely across the bills. There are just too many. In practice, the leader, or a nominated person from a political party, raises their hand with their thumb up or down, indicating how the other members of the party should vote,' Sean said.

‘Wow! That puts a lot of power in the hands of the party leaders. They could get their members to vote for anything if they haven't read it!' Liz exclaimed.

‘That's nuts. Why hasn't this been made public? I really don't think people know how it works. In fact, I doubt they even know that there are political parties in the EU,' Clive commented.

‘To be fair to Allsop, he has tried to let people know, but the media just portray him as a crank, so nobody listens,' Sean said.

‘Hmm. I don't trust all this Euro nonsense,' Clive huffed.

‘We should try to read this, so that I'm ready for the meeting tomorrow. Allsop said it would be the scoop of my life, so there must be something juicy in it,' Sean said.

*

Almost four hours later, at 1 a.m., they had all completed their respective reading.

‘What do you make of it?' Sean asked.

‘It's hard to tell. The language is so confusing. It's clearly something to do with EU bonds and the potential for default,' Liz started.

‘Clive?' Sean turned.

‘Absolute gobbledegook. I may as well have read the German version,' Clive shrugged.

‘It seemed to me like a series of measures that could be taken at the discretion of the Commission, should a member state default on a loan from the EU,' Sean suggested.

‘Did any of the measures seem odd?' Clive asked.

‘Not really. Some were a bit overbearing, such as forcing budgetary cuts in the country that's defaulted, but that's nothing more than they've already been doing,' Liz said.

‘There must be something else; something we're missing. Why was Allsop so secretive about it? Other than having the ability to bore whole nations to death, it seems pretty innocuous,' Clive said.

‘We need to read it again,' Sean said, ‘more carefully this time. There must be something sensational in there.'

‘It's late. You're not meeting him until seven tomorrow. Let's get some sleep and do some more research in the morning; maybe try to put some context to it. Ten o'clock okay with you, Clive?' Liz asked.

‘Yep. I'll come to your room.'

Finally alone with Liz, Sean reached out and pulled her towards him.

‘I'm too tired, sorry,' she said, turning away.