Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [68]
INTERVIEWER: Tell us about Cold.
WITNESS [pauses]: I don’t want to have to think about that.
INTERVIEWER: Can you tell us what it was?
WITNESS: I don’t know. Nobody did, did they? Some stuff Guest’s people were trying to sell. It was like… like it was everything to them. Like they worshipped it or something.
INTERVIEWER: It was some kind of chemical agent, though.
WITNESS: I suppose. It made people vanish, if that’s any help. State-of‐the-art material, Guest’s people said.
INTERVIEWER: Did Peter Morgan have anything to do with the Cold?
WITNESS: God, he would have loved it, wouldn’t he? He would have gone down on his bloody knees to get that stuff in the office.
REPORTER [voice]: The exact nature of the product called Cold isn’t known. Sources we’ve talked to have suggested that it may be a new type of nerve agent; such substances are common in the security underground, despite many of them being banned under international law. Certainly, our witness showed signs of exposure to a nerve agent of some kind. During the interview, he seemed nervous, and unusually erratic. He told us disturbing stories of his encounters with Guest, many of which can only have been hallucinations. We asked the United Nations – not UNISYC, this time – to comment on this equipment, and on the suggestion that some of it may already be in the possession of the Saudi Arabian authorities.
[Rostrum camera shot of a letter, on notepaper headed UNITED NATIONS. The letter reads:]
In response to your query, it is true that much of the material you describe may be in breach of UN civil-rights resolutions. You have our assurances that this matter will be thoroughly investigated, and any violations dealt with in the appropriate manner.
REPORTER [voice]: The UN claims that it’ll look into these allegations. And perhaps they will. After all, it’s only cliques like UNISYC that seem to be involved with the technology underground. But how effective can any investigation possibly be, if parts of the UN organisation are themselves involved in the supply and research of illegal, or at the very least morally suspect, hardware?
[Freeze-frame shot of Morgan, being led out of the office by the police. Over this, we hear more of the reporter’s telephone interview with him.]
REPORTER: I was wondering about the kind of, um, official sanction that’s involved here. These connections of yours…
MORGAN: The police?
REPORTER: I was thinking more of… the DTI.
MORGAN: Oh, well, you know… it’s not… ‘connections’ isn’t the word. The DTI people are pretty close to COPEX. You’ve probably met some of them. You can’t help running into people like that.
REPORTER: It’s just that, if, um, if I want to supply any of my clients with those riot shields of yours –
MORGAN: These’d be your clients out in the Gulf, yeah?
REPORTER: Possibly.
MORGAN: Right. Right. I get the picture.
REPORTER: I want to know if there’s any chance of… of any problems. With the government.
MORGAN: No, no. Nothing like that. The government’s interested in free trade, that’s all. As long as you can brush the mess under the carpet…
REPORTER: Does the Cabinet actually know about this kind of thing?
MORGAN: Yeah. Yeah, I’d say so. But it’s not them we have to think about, you know? Because, obviously, whoever’s in Number 10, it’s the same people who are really running the show. There are… well, maybe I shouldn’t say this, with you being a woman and all, but there are groups. You know what I mean by that?
REPORTER: You mean, like the Masons? That kind of thing?
MORGAN: No, I… well, no, it’s not that formal. But the kind of people we’re dealing with, the cream of the cream, if you like. They’ve got their own little clubs and things. There’s this one group, meets on Baker Street… they’ve got shock batons there, you know? Strictly off the record. They use them on each other.
REPORTER [shocked pause]: They…?
MORGAN: On each other. Not at full voltage. It’s kind of like an initiation. They get a new member, they give him a little burst, just enough to… you know. Tickle. Then they turn the voltage up,