Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [64]
REPORTER [voice]: In this building, tucked away between a pizza restaurant and an office-supplies shop, he and his colleagues buy and sell technical equipment the British government doesn’t even like to admit exists. Over the next three weeks, we’ll be revealing evidence which proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the people in this office have been involved in sales of military hardware to countries such as China and Iran, sales which are not only illegal under British law, but also in breach of every European code of human rights.
[The camera zooms in on the window.]
REPORTER [voice]: But what’s disturbing isn’t the fact that the dealers are operating from a location as innocuous as this one. Nor is it the fact that our subject, and others close to him, are also responsible for selling instruments of torture to countries as diverse as Algeria and Colombia, countries well known for their appalling civil-rights records. What’s disturbing is that this office is just one part of an entire underground subculture of illegal and morally suspect technology, at work right in the heart of suburban Britain.
[Scene change. We see the reporter, standing in front of the House of Commons, facing the camera.]
REPORTER: This is a story of corruption, deceit and hypocrisy. It’s not exactly the story of a conspiracy, but it involves the complicity of the British government, not to mention the involvement of several paramilitary organisations under the control of the United Nations. And at the centre of it all is a clique of people so secretive, it can only be described as a cult.
[We return to the footage of the office building. The previous sequence repeats itself, so we see the businessman climbing out of the car again. This time, however, the picture freezes, and we zoom in on a close-up of his face.]
REPORTER [voice]: His name is Peter Anthony Morgan. And, to discover the truth about the strange and disturbing world he inhabits, we had to go undercover.
[Scene change. We see the silhouette of a man’s head against a dark background.]
REPORTER [voice]: This man used to work in Britain’s ‘internal-security’ industry, and is familiar with the methods employed by operators like Peter Morgan. For his own protection, his words are spoken by an actor.
WITNESS: Well… I don’t know what you want me to say. They can do you anything, if you can pay for it. I mean, they sell arms, but it’s not really their line. It’s more a defence thing. We do… I mean, we did nerve gas. Fragmentation grenades. But that wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t what we liked to specialise in. It was more the police kind of angle we were into. Electric riot shields, cattle prods, that kind of thing.
INTERVIEWER [off]: Was any of this material illegal?
WITNESS: Oh, the police gave us the nod. You know. Nobody asks questions, do they?
[Scene change. We’re watching footage that seems to have been taken by a hidden camera, so the picture’s blurred and shaky. We’re walking around the COPEX exhibition, the camera squeezing between businessmen from several continents. We see people inspecting oversized handcuffs, and testing the weight of (unloaded) machine guns.]
REPORTER [voice]: ‘Nobody asks questions’. During our investigations, we discovered the frightening truth of this claim. For example, nobody asks about the ethics of allowing the world’s largest ‘internal-security’ fair to be annually held in Esher, no more than fifteen miles from London. Nobody asks why representatives from some of the most brutal regimes on Earth are allowed to visit this fair, at the expense of the British taxpayer, and rub shoulders with people chillingly close to the heart of this country’s government. Nobody asks what kind of merchandise is sold here, or to whom.
[We see the REPORTER again. She’s still standing in front of the House of Commons.]
REPORTER: The government – or those close to the government – know exactly the kind of material Peter Morgan and his friends deal in, and how little control there is over the trade. But they don’t expect anybody