Local time – 5.10pm, Sunday 17th June, 2011.
London, England.
Gerome sat in front of his television, watching the crowd at the Washington Monument growing steadily larger. The last time he had seen such an enormous attendance on the lawns was at Santos’s inauguration. On that day, the scene was one of joyous celebration. But now, the news cameras scanned the faces of thousands of angry, unhappy people.
There was still no news of the President’s condition and Gerome couldn’t help but fear the worst. It was three hours since the shooting. The unbroken news coverage made three hours feel like three years. Surely information would come soon, officially or in rumour? As a seasoned editor, Gerome knew how fast news could spread from a hospital about a famous patient’s condition. A nurse texting a friend, who leaks it to the press. A doctor Tweeting a hint to his followers. If the President had survived the shooting, why didn’t his press secretary announce the good news? And if he hadn’t survived, what was the point of waiting any longer to tell the world? The same question was written all over the faces of the Santos supporters, who huddled together desperately waiting to hear something. Anything.
Gerome was worried about the President’s condition, but even more, he worried that news about the President one way or the other was just the beginning of that day’s problems. Something else was definitely going on.
Gerome flicked over to more American channels, peering closely at the various views sweeping across live news bulletins, searching for any sign of the police, army and white buses described by Peter. But there was none. His young freelancer had not been contactable since their phone conversation ended so abruptly. Gerome felt like his staff had abandoned him one by one, sidelining him from a story that was just out of his reach. Except Bernie. Bernie the spy. Bernie had never meant to leave his story as a few jotted notes by his bed.
Gerome absentmindedly opened his laptop and clicked on the email from Laura. She CC’ed him when she wrote to Alex, begging her to contact them and filling her in on Bernie’s notes. He ignored his annoyance at Alex’s failure to respond to the message, and instead focused on Bernie’s cryptic scribbles. Opening up a Wikipedia page, he searched for a page about Nicholas Winton. He recalled Bernie interviewing the old man, and writing an article about his knighthood. It must have been nearly five years ago. The Wiki page didn’t tell Gerome anything he hadn’t already learnt from the article. Winton saved over 600 Jewish children during World War II by organising their safe passage from Prague to London. It did seem a coincidence that Bernie was about to visit Prague, but Laura had been adamant this wasn’t just Bernie chasing up an old story.
Gerome then searched for ‘Patria’. The Patria disaster too was an event he recalled Bernie writing about. The ship had transported 1,800 Jewish refugees, most of whom had fled Nazi Germany, from London to Mauritius in 1940. Passengers on board planted a bomb, hoping it would stop the ship from going any further. But the bomb was much more powerful than planned, and killed over 200 refugees. What this event had to do with a story about the Bilderberg conference, Gerome couldn’t imagine. Again he learnt nothing new from the Wiki page, so he moved on.
For his next search, he used Google to see if there were any news stories which matched the words Edmund Maxwell with Bilderberg. Impatiently scanning the results, he clicked a link to a conspiracy theory blog. The page was dedicated to rumours about the Bilderberg conference. He had seen Bernie looking at many such sites whilst researching his story on the conference. Or that’s what Gerome assumed he was doing. Using his keyboard to bring up a search command, Gerome found the word ‘Edmund Maxwell’ half way down the page. He hadn’t realised that Maxwell had attended the Bilderberg conference in 2010. Nor did he realise there were rumours of a rift. The short section read:
Insiders have confirmed to the author of this blog that one Bilderberg member did break the rules last year and stormed out of the conference before the closing address. This member was none other than American billionaire industrialist Edmund Maxwell, who is rumoured to have secured himself a place at the conference by lobbying other members for months. It is unclear why Maxwell chose to leave, but one thing is for sure, he won’t be invited again in 2011.”
This was more interesting. Maxwell was an ex Bilderberger. Gerome read down the page a bit further, but that was the only mention of Maxwell.
Gerome glanced between the laptop screen, and the television, hoping not to miss anything in Washington. But the news anchors were again repeating the non-news that the crowds were still waiting for answers.
Sitting back in his chair, he tried to focus on Bernie’s notes. There was a link between Maxwell and the Bilderbergers, but there was still no link with Maxwell, Winton and the Patria disaster. When his mind wouldn’t work fast enough, Gerome let his fingers think for him. He opened a new word document and typed a bullet point list, trying to map the links between the information he had. *World War Two. *Jewish. *Nazi Germany. *Escaping by train and ship. While his fingers hovered over the next bullet point, he was again distracted by the television. The anchors had thrown live to a reporter who appeared to be standing among a mass of Santos supporters at the Washington Monument. Her sudden shrill, tense voice carried an urgency that made Gerome’s heart skip a beat. It wasn’t just what she was saying that scared him. He could now see for himself the soldiers Peter had described. And not just a few of them. As the camera scanned over the head of the frantic reporter, it was immediately clear that a large section of the crowd was flanked by fatigue-clad, stony faced American soldiers. And each of them carried a semi automatic weapon.