Local time – 4:30pm, Saturday 16th June, 2011.
Tallinn, Estonia
Alex took a deep breath and tried to gather her thoughts. Part of her still wanted to believe they were making it all up, but the journalist in her couldn’t help but wonder if there was a story here.
‘Why did you bring me along?’ she asked Henry.
‘We need to tell our story. You’re crucial to us Alex,’ he explained. ‘Credible credibility. The best kind.’
‘Why me?’
‘You’re perfectly positioned – young, passionate, doubtful of mainstream opinion... and here. That helps.’
‘And you work for a reliable independent newspaper,’ Ryan added.
‘But I wasn’t meant to be going to Bilderberg, Bernie was and he...’
‘We would have found someone else if you hadn’t made it. We’re just lucky you came.’
Alex bristled at Henry’s use of the word ‘lucky.’ She wanted to ask if he really thought it fortunate Bernie had died. But she didn’t push the guilt trip. She was glad they chose her. If even a tenth of what they were saying was true, she already had enough information for an entire newspaper of scoops, perhaps even a book.
She considered taking out the iPad and jotting down notes. But Ryan had said she could be tracked through it. And what exactly would she write down anyway? Her lifetime of cynical amusement at conspiracy theories wasn’t as easy to dent as Henry assumed. Bernie had taught her to keep an open mind. The things she was hearing were interesting, to say the least, but she still didn’t have enough proof to go anywhere near total belief. Her mind kept going back to the bomb in Prague. Surely evidence of the Bilderbergers’ role in that would be proof enough of any evil intent? Was Estonia really where this confirmation would be found? Another thought occurred to her, which gave her some comfort. Maybe I’m chasing the same scoop Bernie had inklings about? This spurred her on. And when Henry took her hand, she didn’t pull it away.
She hadn’t taken any notice of the landscape; her interest was totally focussed on the conversation inside the van. They had been driving for over an hour, and now she noticed Phil slowing down, and could see they were no longer on a main highway. They appeared to be driving towards the sea, just visible on the horizon between rolling green hills. After a couple of minutes of cautious under-the-speed-limit driving, they crested a rise and Phil finally pulled over. He spoke for the first time.
‘We’re here. This is as close as it’s safe to go.’ He turned the van in a tight circle, and parked facing back the way they had come.
Alex was the first to get out; a cool breeze erased the shreds of her nausea. The men all gathered around the open back doors of the van, taking out cameras and binoculars that looked as expensive as they were high-tech. Once again, Alex found herself behind a razor-wire fence, and she wondered what, if any, incriminating evidence they were going to see from this desolate spot. The fence stretched out as far as she could see in both directions. Looking through it, she could make out a cluster of buildings on the shore; these had an industrial look about them rather than a lazy, holiday beach feel. The only colourful structure was a red and white lighthouse and she also noticed a large wind farm set high on another hill looking over the scene. The town had several wide streets, but hardly any cars and she couldn’t see enough to work out if it was inhabited. Henry offered her a pair of binoculars.
‘This place used to be a Soviet naval base until Estonia’s independence. After the Russians left, it became a residential town to a few thousand Estonians, but now it’s been turned back into an army base by the Bilderbergers.’
‘How do you know that? Even if it is a military base, how can you possibly know it’s part of this Bilderberg army?’
‘The Bilderbergers are leading this coup, but they obviously can’t run it by themselves. They’ve delegated to most of the western world’s intelligence organisations to project manage things. We know someone who has chosen to dissent from the inside. It’s incredibly dangerous and we’re doing everything we can to protect his identity.’
‘And what has this mole told you?’
‘Not mole. Whistleblower.’
‘Interesting semantics. Let me guess, you can’t tell me what they told you, because otherwise you’ll have to kill me?’ Alex smiled at Henry, hoping to moderate his annoyance. It worked.
‘I can’t show you the document, but I can tell you what was in it. A list of these facilities. He took it from the Bilderberg conference last year, along with some other snippets of very useful information.’
‘But how can you be sure what it all means?’
‘We don’t have solid proof, but we have a plan to get some. We need to link the Bilderberg meeting agenda to their plans.’
‘So you could say there’s a hidden agenda at the conference?’ Alex quipped.
‘Very clever Alex. You can put that in your article.’