Downtime - Marc Platt [4]
‘Good Lord, old chap, even you whisper about it. And the government invent a nuclear accident that didn’t quite happen.
Very clever, isn’t it? The public are so relieved, they seize the official line without a second thought. And now there’s the Ulster situation and the hippies to occupy them. And Whitehall must thank God for the Vietnam demos.’
‘All right, the invasion was restricted to London. But who says it didn’t constitute a global danger?’
Gilmore’s indolent smile suddenly filtered up into his eyes and became something more knowing. ‘Absolutely. It’s happened before, after all.’
‘What?’
‘Shoreditch. The winter of Sixty-three. Different circumstances and not quite so disruptive as your “London Event”, but still an incursion by aggressive alien lifeforms.
And all hushed up of course.’
‘Yeti?’
‘No, no. More technological than that.’
‘Then I’m not wrong. They must know that.’
‘Of course they do. I’ve been lobbying the government for five years now on the same principles.’ Gilmore leant in and topped up the Brigadier’s tumbler. ‘I soon realized that to get anywhere I’d have to spread my net considerably wider.’
‘NATO?’
Gilmore shook his head grimly. ‘No. I went underground.’
The Brigadier raised an eyebrow.
‘I set to gathering as much top-secret information on extra-terrestrial encounters as I could lay my hands on. In the States, I was able to pull rank often enough to see files that would make Harold Wilson choke on his prime ministerial pipe.’
‘UFOs? But have you actually seen any?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Gilmore, and the smile flickered on his lips again. ‘Shoreditch. Sixty-three.’
‘You were there?’
‘All documented. My own report.’ He patted the briefcase beside his chair. ‘And the Yanks have at least two classified craft stashed away on secret airfields in Arizona.’ He waited for the statement to sink in. ‘Over the past few years, we’ve been sending probes further and further out into space. Hardly surprising that we’ve been noticed.’
He dug into the briefcase and tossed a packed ringfile onto the table. Lethbridge-Stewart opened it and flicked through the copious notes and cuttings held in clear plastic sleeves.
Gilmore was now into his well-tried routine. ‘There are archive files here on world-wide alien encounters and activity.
The States, Australia, Peru.’ He pointed to the photograph of a crumbling parchment. ‘This one dates back to twelfth-century Romania. But there are stories going back to the Pharaohs.’
The Brigadier squinted at the document. ‘Sorry, my Latin’s not up to much,’ he admitted. ‘But surely most of these only amount to fairy tales and myths?’
‘Good,’ said Gilmore. ‘I don’t deny most of these stories are nonsense. But how do we know? Healthy scepticism is just what we need. Don’t want any of these psychedelic namby-pamby chaps. “God is a Spaceman...” Damn silly occultists and flower children.’
‘We?’ Lethbridge-Stewart intoned.
‘Hmm. Once I’d got a substantial amount of this material together, I took it to Geneva.’
‘The UN. That’s ambitious. And what did they have to say?’
‘The Security Council were interested from the start.
Especially the Australians and the Soviets. Any chance to outgun the Yanks.’
The Brigadier nodded. ‘And once the Soviets are in, the Yanks will have to follow suit, with the UK trotting obediently along behind.’
‘Oh no, old chap.’ Gilmore sat back, suddenly weary. ‘I allowed myself the luxury of imagining that once our government found out where the initial idea came from, they’d try to take all the credit for themselves. In fact, they’ve gone into an almighty sulk. Hence the response to your letter.’
He drummed his fingers on the ancient leather of his armchair. ‘If we get any sort of squad set up here, it’ll be a miracle.’
‘But you said that my letter stirred up a degree of interest.’
‘In the lower echelons maybe.