13th June 2004

Well that was…fucked up. What exactly happened? Zinedine Zidane, that’s what. Can’t say we shouldn’t come out of that with a dash of pride and there’s no shame in losing to the French anyway. Two games to go…shouldn’t be too hard to win – best get out of the pub before the nutters take over.

It’s game over – Steve’s still based in Teddington – I’ve got a flat in Hammersmith, everyone else heads everywhere else. My flat’s just down the road from the pub – so I might as well walk off the booze.

I certainly wasn’t expecting company:

“Are you Rick Francis?”

Voice certainly isn’t familiar. Which means…OK…could this mean…I take a look…grey haired couple 50s-60s…and if they’re after what I think they’re after then they’re fucking mental!

“You know my name but I don’t know yours” I definitely sounded the worse for wear after the beer.

“Mike Forbson” the man introduced “and this is my wife Sheila” we shook hands slowly. ”we were hoping…you’d join us for a drink at home” I didn’t make any commitments “Perhaps we could invite you in for some coffee?”

Well…even if they were just a kindly old couple offering a drunk guy coffee – yeah right – then who was I to complain – I was out of coffee as it was! And listening to their story wouldn’t do any harm.

So it’s back to their place – talking about the match as we went – they’d watched bits of it at a friends place – and bumped into me on the way back from LaMarr’s. OK – so I’d been hanging out at LaMarr’s more often than the Fishermen recently anyway but all that did was confirm my hunch that they’d been looking to grab me for a while.

The only question now was, were they for real or were they another Greg Markson, trying to set me up?

Coffee served and slurped at – I get down to business “OK…you don’t get many kindly old couples offering drunk guys coffee – so what’s all this in aid of?”

“A friend of ours…told us…that you might be able to help us” That was Martin

A friend. ‘Hmmmmm…chill Rick that’s nothing to freak out about’ I thought.

“And your friend said what about me?”
“Our friend says that you are available to…expose people. To find things out. She says you are…a reliable last resort…for someone who doesn’t think they can count on the authorities”

‘Reliable – a mug is a more appropriate description after last time’ I decided to be less attention getting than that when speaking out loud “Yeah well…I’m trying to stay away from that sort of thing, don’t want to get caught – you know?”

“We understand” replied Sheila “but please, at least listen to what we have to say”

“OK – I’ll listen” I allowed.

“Have you heard of our son, Martin?” The answer was no. “He’s a freelance journalist” Mike continued “He’s worked…for pretty much everyone in the business, and a few months ago the Guardian hired him…to investigate what they called…the ‘American Underground’”

“Which means…what?” I wondered “The weirdo cult scene? What exactly happened to him?”

A pause – it was Mike that answered “He got himself killed…in New York. We were told…about a week ago, we were originally told… he died in a car crash. But we have…reason to believe there’s more to it than that”

Ouch! “Are you saying you think he got assassinated? some cult he was investigating got pissed off that he was sniffing about?”

Sheila handed some paper over “This is his last email.” She was struggling to contain herself – it certainly didn’t look like an act.

The email was basically a diary entry that Martin had sent to his folks detailing what he was doing in the US. Bottom line, he was starting to sniff around a group that was calling itself H21 – some kind of secret society that he’d heard rumours about that were looking to become a political force and he was planning to sniff out possible H21 activity in New York. Taking out someone like Martin would certainly make sense on their part – but there were a variety of reasons why I was reluctant to accept the Forbson’s request.

Even assuming this wasn’t another set up, the logistics of this operation were mad. I needed to get myself a fake passport to get out there, US ID once there and my game plan once I got to New York was unknown. Just because H21 operated in New York didn’t mean that they were based there my best idea once I got there was to have a talk with NYPD, see what the reaction was if I suggested Martin had been murdered – the whole thing was really slightly too Sherlock Holmes for my liking.

“Do you know exactly why your friend recommended hiring me to find out what happened to Martin instead of leaving it to the locals Stateside?”

Sheila was a bit vague “She said…something about the investigation needing someone with no strings attached – she…doesn’t like the sound of this H21 group – and she says… you can take care of yourself better than Martin”

I exhaled “Tell your friend that I appreciate the complement but that if she was expecting me to pull this off easily…” I trailed off for a bit”…I’m not saying no, I’m saying I’ll get back to you – there are some bits and pieces I have to take care of before I decide to do this.”

The Forbson’s gave me their phone number and let me out.

17th June 2004

Well the result was a bit more like it at least – Rooney took care of business nicely, however I had business of my own to take care of.

Question: Who does a guy like me ask for advice on dealing with an offer like the Forbson’s?

Answer: A guy who plays the same game.

I happened to still have Abdul Shareem’s email address from when I contacted him to get Neil Taggert a job at his Bristol based construction company – given the fact that he turned out not to be an Al Queda operative I wasn’t dead cert if he’d forgiven me for putting him in jail despite the fact that I corrected my fuck up later and subsequently he got released.

Well at least he replied to my very basic ‘could you help me out’ email with something that wasn’t a flame – rather it was an invite to a private IM chat with him on Thursday at 8pm using private software that he’d hired someone to create – no authorities knew the program existed to the best of his knowedge - which I had to download
It was now Thursday – and a chat window started up with the following message.

‘You’re a fucking idiot – you know that?’

OK – so he hadn’t quite forgiven me – so after I told him to stop being an arse over an event that was done and dusted and that I had learnt my lesson blah de blah, he eventually settled for:

‘OK so the people who asked for your help are fucking idiots – who are they?’ The guy was certainly perceptive – I brought up Martin Forbson’s name. Abdul knew of Martin and said he heard he was working on something in the US.

‘So he’s for real?’

‘Yes – he’s for real. One of the most accurate reporters around in my opinion’

‘He’s dead – his parents say he got killed in New York, officially he died in a car crash – they’re pretty sure it was murder and that they know who did it but a friend of theirs is recommending me for the job instead of the locals who aren’t taking it too seriously anyway – as I don’t actually feel like making the same mistake twice, I need info on Martin Forbson and family and a US group/society/whatever called H21’

Abdul had never heard of H21 – turned out he didn’t have any contacts Stateside – he did back up what the Forbson’s had been saying about their son and turned out to be a big fan of his – as a result he wanted me to put him in contact with the Forbson’s so that he could grab the op

‘The intel I’ve got from the Forbsons says that these guys are basically all-white right-wing power grabbers – if or rather when this thing goes undercover, which one of us are they more likely to accept?’

‘I’ll send one of my white contacts over there then’

‘Why bother? The Forbsons want me for the job – they might as well have me – it looks tricky but if you say Martin’s clean…’

Abdul still wanted to set up some backup for me though and told me to hang tight for a while.

3rd July 2004.

The train pulled into Bristol Temple Meads station at 12:25. Abdul was on the platform.

On the weekend after the lat meet he’d contacted me saying that if he wasn’t going to take down Martin Forbson’s killers himself, he was going to make sure whoever did so was well set up, and so, could I swing by Bristol to pick up some bits and pieces whenever I was ready for my trip to the US.

At that point I contacted the Forbson’s and charged them 15 grand for my services, mentioning that the op looked anything but straight forward – money only to be paid if I was successful.

I also told them that I had no plans to head Stateside till after Euro 2004. Well it was now the day before the final,which England had failed to make AGAIN, but then again neither did France, Germany, Italy…anyway I’d booked myself some time off to visit friends in the US so it was a case of pick up whatever Abdul had this weekend and get the first flight to NYC that I could fix up on Monday.

“Rick” Abdul offered his hand “How was the journey?”

“Fine” I replied “thanks for helping me out like this.”

“Well, this is more for Martin than for you.”

Abdul then started a euology – which went right over my head.

“What’s your timescale?” he asked after he snapped out of his reverie.

“Spend the night here, get as far as Heathrow tomorrow then have whichever alias you’re going to set me up with get a morning flight to New York on Monday. That work for you?”

“It works well enough” was the reply, as we got into a cheap Volvo of his. The destination was Clifton – initially for a bite to eat. The next stop however was an OK looking place. Abdul rang the bell. A more oriental looking guy answered us with a grin and shakes Abdul’s hand before we’re introduced.

“This guy calls himself Daco” Abdul started “Daco, meet Rick Francis”

“Hi” Daco shakes my hand “Come-on-in”, he invited nervously lead us down to a basement and flipped on a light switch. Revealed was an office, of sorts. One PC, one printer and a variety of cabinets.

“This place is…what exactly?” I wondered

“The nearest thing I’ve got to a Bat cave” replied Abdul with a smirk

“Cool” as in ‘gotta get myself a set up like this’ “OK…” I addressed Daco “what do you know about what’s going on?”

“You…want-to-go-to America to…expose – is that the word? - a group who you’ve been told has killed a man called Martin Forbson. I will give you an…alias, false passport, cover and disguise”

“Thanks” I went to have a chat with Abdul.

Daco of course was one of Abdul’s guys, Abdul had helped him out of trouble in Indonesia back in ’97 and he’d been doing this sort of job for him ever since.

“Any more of those guys around?” I wondered

“Maybe…” replied Abdul with a grin

‘Dream on mate!’ “You’re talking to a guy who turned down an offer from Her Majesty’s Secret Service a couple of years back…what makes you think I’m interested in being in your pocket long term?” Abdul’s face fell slightly “Can’t win ‘em all mate” I smirked.

“Neither can you” he replied coolly “Maybe you’ll learn that one day”.
“Look Abdul, if I couldn’t take care of myself in this game I wouldn’t be in this little Batcave of yours – I needed to double check my intel with you this time out, but I’d rather not make a habit of it.”

“I’d rather you did – where you going to find another Daco anyway?”

An hour after that line Daco come up with the goods for me. Alias – Nick Banks – another British journalist, press pass, equipment, passport, a bit of hair dye, brown eye lenses…I must admit I was sorted.

“Nice one!” I commented to Daco, though later when he wasn’t listening I flashed Abdul the British passport and smirked at him “You do realise I’ll need to change aliases once I’m in the US.”

5th July 2004

It turned out that there were no direct flights from Heathrow to JFK that morning – so after leaving flipping into Nick Banks mode after dumping all the Rick Francis ID I had on me in the Islington lock up, I, got to Heathrow where I stayed the night and then wound up getting an 11:05am Air Canada flight which had me hanging around for a couple of hours in Toronto which pissed me off.

But now I was grabbing a room service burger and fries in a hotel in Queens, near where Martin got killed before grabbing an early night. Daco’s set up had gotten me to this side of the Atlantic pretty smoothly. Question was, how much further would it get me? I was a British journalist in New York looking to do a follow up investigation on a colleague, that would be easy enough to blag. H21 wouldn’t be interested in British journalists though, not in a positive way anyway – the wisecrack I’d made to Abdul back in his Clifton ‘Batcave’ was partly serious.

But, first move would be to contact NYPD to see what was already happening – there were a variety of solutions to the ID problem after that.

6th July 2004

I’d gotten up at about 6am due to the jet lag and so wound up grabbing a shower before a typically large NYC breakfast with coffee. It was then a case of contacting Lt Mike Fields, the cop in charge of the official investigation into Martin Forbson’s death for an interview that would become part of an article I was writing for the Guardian. He was mainly on his word that Martin’s death was considered an accident.

I’d gotten Field’s office number from that email that the Forbson’s gave me a copy of…turned out Field couldn’t see me till after lunch so an appointment was made at 2:30.

The precient office was a couple of blocks down the road from the hotel – it looked like Queens was still cleaning up after the 4th July parties – the cops in the station still looked hungover. Lt Fields was still business though.

“You the guy from England?” he asked once I’d entered his office.

“Yes” I replied in a slightly posh voice while offering my hand, which Fields shook “Nick Banks, I work for the Guardian – the same paper Martin Forbson worked for”

“I see – and you want to talk to me about it” His tone of voice suggested he could think of better things to do.

“Yes – I’m doing an article about the police investigation concerning Martin’s death”

“Interesting…” he noted

“Do you have a problem with this?” I asked

“Why should I?”

“Well you see, the official NYPD position is that Martin’s death was an accident, correct?”

“Are you implying this was homicide?”

“I don’t believe it should be ruled out”

So I started up with checking what sort of evidence they had for Martin’s death being an accident – I then brought up the possibility of one of the groups Martin was investigating being behind his death. It didn’t go down to well – I got chucked out of the place pretty sharpish. Now what?

Lunch was at a Greek restaurant in Astoria, munching a falafel and coffee before heading back to the hotel, to possibly see what the Web had to say about H21 – well that was the plan before a fist came out of nowhere.

Whoever the fucker was, he’d picked a quiet time to take me on. I ducked his second punch which instead went into the wall – causing him to yell out – unfortunately that just caused him to redouble his efforts, doing a number on my chest which caused me to hit the deck. Hardly any breath in my lungs, the opposition was about to reach inside for something – before I heard a bang and he crumpled.

“Welcome to New York buddy” A black guy in a leather jacket helped me up – I groggily followed him to an apartment that turned out to be his – and he got me to rest up for a while.

“Thanks” was my response while still making an effort to stay in Nick Banks mode. “Who are you?”

“My name’s John. Yours?”

I was still going to try and play it cautious – I still hadn’t a clue who this guy was. “Nick Banks – who was that nasty little character?”

“A member of a nasty little organisation” John replied.

“I believe a nasty little organisation killed a colleague of mine”

“Martin Forbson” A statement from John, not a question.

“Impressive – so who’s the nasty little organisation then?”

“First up – who the hell are you? You’re a regular Brit who’s tryin’ to stick with a high class accent but too punch drunk to pull it off – stop trying”.

‘Bastard’ I thought. Having said that, he didn’t look like he was going to kill me any time soon. “I want to have a sniff around that nasty little organisation that killed Martin Forbson” was my slurred reply “I believe their name is H21” Discreet as I was going to get

For a second, the guy looked like I’d just farted.“I know H21 – I got no love for them either”. “Now who are you?”

“Rick Francis” I then drifted off.

I came round a couple of hours later – my saviour’s full name was John Sullivan – turned out to be ex-FBI. He’d gotten himself fired from the ‘Beureau’ a year back after investigating H21 – thanks to H21 infiltration of the New York Beareau office – he’d been looking for a way to get back at them since.

In return I gave him a rough guide to my background – non-trained, freelance spy from London, with a dayjob in IT who’d been hired by Martin’s parents to track down H21 - perhaps he could help me out?

Result: Steak sandwiches at a place called Chowhound, John paying. The conversation starts smoothly enough.

“First time in New York?” John asked.

“In New York, yes. Was working out of Colorado for a bit a few years back though”

“Well Colorado this ain’t. What were you doing there?”

“Long term job with the US military is all I really want to say – other than that, any further info would be more trouble than it’s worth – trust me!” John showed a slight sign of nerves “I’ve had fuck all contact with those guys for two years though”

“OK” he replied before brought me up to speed on the upcoming opposition.

H21 had been set up by a former veteran CIA agent called Carl Reynolds in 1989, John said the guy was pretty much a war-junkie, couldn’t live without some kind of major conflict – he’d recruited 20 guys that he’d worked with in the Agency – Reynolds was now in his 60s and planning to retire though until then he still ran the show, the youngest of the ‘Originals’ was now in his mid 30s. Between ’89 and 2000, each of the ‘Originals’ recruited 21 more agents personally though since then some guys have been coming in semi-independently through online feelers. The primary name of the game for these guys was infiltration - Police(Lt Fields was in fact Mitch Feltham – one of the younger ‘Originals’, military, FBI, a few were still in the CIA…their aim was to basically take over the US – John wasn’t sure whether they’d infiltrated the political system at all by now - he wasn’t betting against it, but he didn’t have sources that high up who could confirm anything.

Their base of operations was in a small town called Danton in Texas. “So, what else do you want?” John asked.

“First up, I’ll need US ID, social security, passport, the works” was my opening request.

“Can do”

“I then want to grab one of their online feelers and get a plane ticket to Texas”

“I got guys that can take care of that but it’ll take a few days. You cool with that?”

“Yeah”

11th July 2004

Less that 24 hours previously an American airlines plane came into Dallas-Fort Worth airport at about 11:30am local time having arrived from JFK. On board was a certain Chris Curtis – born in Alabama who’d lost friends while at college in New York on 9/11 and developed a major grudge against the Arab world after that. Chris had a social security card, New York drivers license, and passport. OK, so someone like Chris would be unlikely to have a passport but after this I had to get home somehow and Nick Banks’s passport was now just ashes in a New York warehouse.

A taxi through Dallas got me to the train station and I arrived in Danton in time for Saturday lunch.

It had been four days since Chris Curtis received an email from Carl Reynolds himself giving the OK for a meet. Everything else got sorted out from that – and so now I was in Danton’s local church, getting into character – it would make sense if Chris was a born again Christian.

Religious services tend to bug me a bit but I guess this one had it’s uses – and it was a bit more lively than church services back home at least. Someone else had turned up in the congregation as well.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” I asked in my good ol’ boy accent.
“Mahight do” replied a ‘fellow’ Southerner “Ma name’s Carl Reynolds”

“Chris Curtis” I offered my hand. A spark of recognition got me lunch.

Carl Reynolds was a man who was very proud of his former career. Danton was his home town, but he went to college in Arizona before joining the CIA in 1961 as an analyst before going into the field in ’64. By 1989 he’d spent over half his life playing ‘The Great Game’ all over the world and was in no mood to stop playing. Bottom line, H21 got started up because an old-timer didn’t want to get bored.

Of course he was more than happy to have people of my generation get involved, as far as he was concerned, as long as there was an enemy and people were willing to fight it, he’d be happy. Reynolds himself was on his way out, and his long-term heir apparant was Blake Richards, a guy 15 years younger than Carl who Carl recruited into the CIA in the late 70s, was the very first guy recruited into H21 in ‘89 and they’ve been tight as anything ever since.

Well this was a first! Most of the fuckers that I’d dealt with, from Reg Porter on inwards suffered from severe arrogance – H21 on the other hand, appeared to be outright insane – hack, you could see Carl was more than slightly mental just by looking at him! This was going to be a laugh!

12th July 2004

First day working in Tech support at H21, small time op, run by an ex-CIA guy called Mark Christie – recruited in ’92 after five years in the Agency. I came in with a decent arsenal in terms of tech weaponry, supplied by John’s crew. Slight problem though – I wasn’t going to be able to use that weaponry for a week or so, they were going to stick me on a standalone PC while Mark showed me the ropes on how the show worked techwise.

H21’s communication network was pretty secure. A combo of 32 bit encryption on all files with a key written by Mark combined with use of anonymous ADA email services. You needed your own personal password to write or receive an email and upload or download an attachment or even work with an H21 file pretty much anywhere.

But given the tools at my disposal – this op was workable.

Internal security though, could potentially cause a headache. Jack Branch, a blond guy in his late 30s, early 40s and ‘Original’ was the guy who ran that show, wandered the office watching it like a hawk. He gave off the air of someone not to be fucked with.

20th July 2004

The previous day I’d been given H21 server accsess and in the morning I used my account to make sure I knew the procedure for sending out emails. Bottom line, the guy at the other end needed a password himself – I stayed on late that evening to run a dictionary assault tool to get on to Mark’s account and find the mission report of the hit on Martin – done by Mitch Feltham/Lt Fields. Why Mark’s account? Someone had to take the heat in my place for long enough for me to have buggered off back home.

24 hours later, I was back on to his account starting up an email detailing the various passwords required to get it working, attached the report and sent it to John in New York who was going to pass it on to the FBI – hoping the H21 guys there didn’t intercept it – before deleting the email and having the remains munched into a thousand pieces.

Next I disconnected the server from the outside world so that only the main Danton office of H21 would be affected by the virus I then uploaded on to their system. The potential damage was all repairable but in theory it would knock out their operations for long enough for the Feds to get on to them.

Oh and Mark? He was in the early stages of a long sleep on the floor of his apartment thanks to a thermostat turned up way high. By the time H21 eventually worked out ‘Chris Curtis’ was responsible(assuming they were still operational at that point) that particular alias would be toast and they’d need help from Interpol to find out what became of this particular Alabama boy – and somehow, I doubted that would happen.

By 10pm I was outside Dallas train station hailing a cab for the airport. At 10:30 I found out that the next plane to Europe that still had vacant seats was a 3pm flight to Paris the next day – furthermore, the airport hotels were all booked up so it’s back into town to find a bed for the night.

It wasn’t long before the cab into town drew to a halt

“Y’all right?” I asked the cabbie.

“Peachy, kid” The guy in the driver’s seat turned round after that grunt. Jack Branch. ‘Crap’

My fist connected with his face forcing him to drop his gun. My next instinct was to leave the cab and run as fast as I could back in the direction of the airport. It wasn’t long before I heard regular thuds behind me…followed by a click. I turn round. Jack doesn’t know what to do. So while this was the case it was head down and charrrge resulting in me bulldozing Jack to the ground. His hand went for another weapon – a taser.

“Thank you!” I smile, taking the taser out of his hand and shooting him with it – knocking him out. I drag him back to the cab where I find a bottle of whisky, dump some of that in his lips so that his breath is boozy and head back to the airport to find another cab into town.

21st July 2004

Well, that was another op over – now I was back at Dallas airport and as soon as the 3:00pm United Airlines flight to Paris took off, Chris Curtis was never going to be heard of on this side of the Atlantic again.

For me it was going to be touchdown at Orly airport, Paris Metro to Gare de Nord, Eurostar to Waterloo then home in time for dinner the next day after I’d burned Chris’s passport to ashes.

I had no idea what John’s FBI contacts are going to be able to do with the stuff I gave them – whether it was going to be H21’s death knell or they would fight another day..

Right then the flight to Paris was calling – and I had one thought.

Let’s get out of here!

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