THREE

December 1969

Just a few weeks after my abruptly curtailed interview with Professor Cornish, the Mars Probe crisis exploded across the headlines. The round-the-clock live broadcasts from the British Space Centre generated incredible tension and soar-away ratings for the newly launched BBC3.

The nation seemed to sap=#whomenu border=0>

Who Killed Kennedy Picture Files From the collection of James Stevens #11: Victor Magister. This is one of the several photos that were provided to the media soon after his arrest. (see Chapter Sixteen). Back to Photos

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s who seemed to have been stationed across the road from our flat working on the lines for days on end.

My requests for official information also seemed to be affected. Queries to which I could normally get an answer within hours now took days or even weeks to bring a reply. Some of my most reliable sources within the halls of power became reluctant to talk to me, and certainly not while they were at work.

'The word's been spread James, anyone seen or heard talking to you is persona non grata, dear,' whispered Martha, a friend from the Ministry of Science. 'I'd keep my head down if I was you.'

These little niggles did not worry me. I only started to become truly nervous when the phone calls began. Strange messages were left for me at the Chronicle, sending me on wild goose chases for meetings with people I had never met but who wanted to give me information. I started receiving information packs at work for all manner of bizarre items: wheelchairs, stair-lifts, home loan offers...

Then the packages began to arrive: scraps of blood-stained clothing, crudely constructed figures of dead soldiers, information packs from funeral houses, and even a smashed and splintered crutch with my initials burnt into the wood. All were accompanied by threatening notes made up of letters clipped out of headlines published in the Chronicle. I tried to track down the culprits but there was virtually no way for the Royal Post to find the person responsible. 'I'm sorry, but the postal service is open to abuse,' explained a bored postal manager at the local sorting office. All very petty stuff but it was beginning to mount up, playing on my nerves.

Gradually, little by little, I was becoming more and more paranoid that an active campaign of harassment was being directed against me. I had the feeling of being watched all the time, as if my movements were being tracked by a person or persons unknown. Then the threatening phone calls started.

'Is that James Stevens?' said a male voice with a distinctive lisp.

'Speaking.'

'I understand you're working on a story about UNIT. I might have some information for you...' That got my interest. I grabbed a pen, waiting for the caller to continue. 'Unless you want to spend some time in the Glasshouse, we suggest you go chase another story. This one could be hazardous to your health - permanently, if you know what I mean.'

'Who is this?' I demanded furiously.

'Just something you could give some thought to...' the voice trailed off as the receiver clicked, then went dead.

'Who is this?' I demanded again impotently before slamming my phone down and cursing out loud. I told the chief reporter about the call but he was dismissive, saying it was probably just some crank. I shifted desks and changed my direct-line phone number the next day, only for more threatening calls to come in on my new number. Eventually the chief reporter took it more seriously and called in the police.

By the time the police arrived in the form of two beat constables I almost felt foolish at having been so easily panicked. I apologized as they checked over my phone and took down the details of the calls. The young WPC was sympathetic, but she said there was little the police could do beyond putting a trace on my line. That would have to be approved by CID and that could take some time, but she promised to get back to me.

Her burly companion remained sour-faced and mono-syllabic throughout the short interview. Just before they left I noticed a glint of metal on his right hand. It was a gold ring with three raised symbols on its surface which read C19. I almost asked him why a beat constable was so conspicuously wearing such an item of jewellery, but his presence was quite intimidating.

The threatening phone calls continued and soon Natasha was receiving them at home too. She said the caller was a man with a lisp and he claimed to have some information about me and my personal habits she might find very revealing. I had our home phone changed to an ex-directory number, but still the calls continued. Natasha called in the police, but they also said their powers were limited in such matters. Eventually we installed a phone that only accepted outgoing calls and employed an answering service to screen out the threats.

Once everything had settled down to normal again, I asked Natasha to describe the police officers who had visited the flat. Their descriptions matched those of the policeman and woman who had visited me at the Chronicle office in Fleet Street, despite the fact that both pairs claimed to have come from the local police station. Something very strange and disturbing was going on. Natasha had even noticed the policeman had something written on his signet ring, as she described it.

'What, like his initials?' I asked carefully, trying not to let slip my suspicions. She was only just recovering from the phone calls, I did not want her frightened any more.

'No, it was two numbers and a letter. I think it said C19,' she replied thoughtfully. 'I noticed because I thought it odd they had consecutive serial numbers on their epaulettes - C19101 and C19102. Does that mean anything to you?' I turned away and shook my head, not wanting her to see the fear on my face.

Now I had something new to investigate. I knew about C19's role as liaison to UNIT, but why was C19 trying to intimidate me? Was there any link between this and UNIT's role in recent incidents like Black Thursday and the Mars Probe crisis? Was this taskforce a force for good or some secret counter-insurgency agency that jealously protected its true identity? Could UNIT be fighting terrorism, or was it a covert terrorist force itself?

To find out more about UNIT, I would need to devote myself fully to an investigation of its origins as well as its current status. Citing my 'Frontier Science' feature series, I took a seven-week sabbatical from the Chronicle offices to concentrate solely on my UNIT investigations. After nearly two years working non-stop at the Chronicle, I had two months holiday owing to me anyway; indeed, my honeymoon with Natasha had been just a weekend in a suite at the Savoy, I recalled guiltily.

I set up a private office in the spare bedroom of the flat, forbade Natasha entry to it, and even barred the cleaning lady from taking out the rubbish. I was determined that there could be no distractions and no chance for anyone to intercept the work I was doing. From now on, all my calls to contacts were made from public call boxes, meetings took place in a different location every time, and I took elaborate steps to make sure I was not being followed.

At times I felt foolish for such paranoid measures, but the threatening phone calls had chilled me to the bone. I had been warned off stories before, but never with such ferocity. I was taking these threats seriously. As the news editor at the Chronicle had once told me over a drink, 'If you want to play with the big boys, you've got to be prepared to fight dirty. If they've got things to hide, there are people in this country who are prepared to do anything to protect themselves. Anything.'

* * *

The information I gathered over those seven weeks of intensive detective work came from a variety of sources. It was surprising what information was freely available if you knew where to look for it, while other facts that seemed far more trivial were bound up by the Official Secrets Act and would not see print until long after I was dead. My contacts within various Government ministries and outside agencies proved invaluable, as did the staff at the Chronicle's reference library.

Almost nobody would go 'on the record' to talk about UNIT, its members, or its relationship with C19. Those in official positions were risking their jobs and perhaps much more just by talking to me. Others would only speak in riddles for me to decipher, or merely confirm or deny any facts and suppositions I put to them. One person was willing to talk to me on the record, but how much credence I could place on what she said was another matter. Her name was already a standing joke in Fleet Street.

A rising star in the world of fashion photography, Isobel Watkins was most famous for a series of wild c