If The Bed Falls In Read online

  They drove for another hour, then pulled into the car park of a motel.

  The receptionist looked up from a newspaper.

  “Yes, gentlemen. Can I help you?”

  “Do you have a twin room?” asked Joseph.

  “Certainly, Sir. How long will you be staying?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Just tonight for now.”

  The room was on the second floor and exceedingly basic, but the beds looked clean and anything that allowed Joseph to be comfortable in a horizontal position was all he wanted just now.

  The night was uneventful, but devoid of sleep for Joseph. He tried to joke with himself that losing his wife so many times should be making it easier, but the truth was that it got harder each time. He checked his watch. It was four o’clock. He got out of bed and made himself a cup of tea, then turned the TV on. Cyril seemed to be having no trouble sleeping, but judging by the sweat on his face and his sporadic, jerky movements, he wasn’t enjoying his slumbers. By four-thirty Joseph felt no better and Cyril had shaken himself awake and had joined his friend in front of the screen. They stared at the TV in silence. The coloured light flickered over their sullen faces and around the room. A retrospective on Jimi Hendrix ended and was followed by a news documentary on the Greek economy.

  “As much as I understand people, I don’t understand this Greek thing,” said Cyril.

  “It’s simply bad people doing bad things,” Joseph answered.

  “But what would motivate people to knowingly do bad things?”

  Joseph turned to Cyril.

  “Do you think you’re a bad person?”

  Cyril pushed his lips together.

  “No.”

  “People don’t. Even those that think they do, in reality they don’t. Everyone justifies what they do because they think they have good reason. Everyone thinks they stand firmly on the side of the righteous, but the truth is, there is no side labelled righteous; there is only what we choose to do and the consequences of those choices.”

  “But what about the greater good? You talk about what you do; that although it’s… unsavoury… it’s for the greater good.”

  “And that, Cyril is my defensive justification. I don’t choose to do what I do because of duty. No one does.”

  “Then why?”

  Joseph sighed deeply.

  “Why does anyone do anything?”

  “Well that’s a very big question,” said Cyril.

  “And that’s the other problem we all give ourselves. The answer to what motivates people is not a very big question, it’s a very simple one. The only reason we do anything is because we want to. Even if you think you are being coerced, even if you think you have no choice, no one would get out of bed if they didn’t want to.”

  “Well,” said Cyril with conviction, “I do what I do because I want to make a difference. I want to use my talents to do the right thing.”

  “Exactly. You want to do the right thing.”

  “No, it’s more than that. I see what the world is like, and I want to make it better.”

  “Cyril. You can’t make it better. We all think we can, but we’re wrong. We all think we have the power of gods to change the world for the better. We can change shit. Haven’t you noticed that in spite of all the thousands of people that have tried to change things for the better, nothing has got any better?”

  “Well that’s just not true, is it?” countered Cyril. “The world is a much better place than it was years ago.”

  “Really,” Joseph said, and pointed to the TV, “does that look like a better world?”

  “Well, if we can’t make things better, what’s the fucking point?”

  Joseph turned to Cyril with a shocked smile on his lips.

  “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you swear.”

  “Well, you’re talking nonsense. If you’ll forgive me saying. Making the world better is the only thing we can do. If you take that away, nothing’s left.”

  “Not true, Cyril. We can’t change the world, but we do have the freedom to respond to it. If we don’t like something we immediately jump to wanting to change it for what we do want. And even though we have thousands of years of seeing that all we are doing is going around in circles, we keep pounding the same stupid path. It’s time to do something different, Cyril. Rather than trying to get rid of what we don’t like, how about simply accepting that we are a fucked up species, living in a fucked up world that we can never change, but we do have the choice to work with it instead of against it. Accept what the world throws at you and just fucking make it work!”

  “Okay, I see what you mean, but how do we actually do that?”

  “Now that is a very big question.” Joseph slapped Cyril on the back. “If I find an answer I’ll make sure you’re the first to know.”

  Joseph got up and stretched, then went over to the table and turned the kettle on.

  “Tea?” he asked.

  Cyril nodded. He continued to watch the TV with confused interest. Joseph handed him a waxed paper cup containing a tea-like substance, and sat on the bed beside him.

  “So what is really behind this?” Cyril asked.

  “A conspiracy two hundred years in the making.”

  “Two hundred years!”

  “Pretty much, yeah. It started with the Rothschild family during the Napoleonic wars, and the banks have been running things ever since. They worked out that control of a country’s money supply has far more power than any government department. Amschel Rothschild famously said, ‘Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws’. The banks have been systematically taking over control of the world by acquiring control of the money.”

  “But a few bankers can’t control a government who have a whole military armed to the teeth,” said Cyril. “They’re just bankers.”

  “Okay,” reasoned Joseph, “why do the army do the government’s will?”

  “Patriotism. Because they care about their country and want to fight for what is right.”

  “Ah, we’re back to righteousness again, are we? Cyril, no army in history has stuck with their rulers for very long if they were not paid. Patriotism promises you a place in heaven, money buys you one.”

  “But how do the banks get control of the money? I mean, it’s the government that print it.”

  “Well, that’s the trick, you see,” said Joseph, “governments haven’t printed money for a long time. Take the Federal Reserve in America. Everyone thinks they are part of the government, right? Wrong. They are a private bank. Rather than the US treasury printing their own money, they buy it from the Federal Reserve and pay for it with government bonds. In other words, the US government put the population into debt, with the private Federal Reserve bank, for currency. And where do the Federal Reserve get the currency they sell to the American people? They just print it out of nothing. It has no more value than Monopoly money.”

  “Except that I can actually buy things with US dollars, but I don’t think a shop will accept Monopoly money,” said Cyril.

  “That’s true. But if you could pay income tax with Monopoly money suddenly those worthless bits of paper would have real value. Whatever the government demand in taxes becomes a valued commodity, because if you don’t pay your taxes, in the currency the government demand, you get put in prison. Simple really. So, people need the currency to pay compulsory taxes and the government acquire that money, and then spend it into the community, by borrowing it from a private bank saddling the population with that debt. Over time, the whole population becomes so indebted to the banks that they end up more enslaved than any shackled African ever was.”

  Cyril drained the last of the light brown liquid from his cup.

  “Then when the debt is so big that the people have no possible way of repaying it,” Cyril reasoned, “the banks call in the loan…”

  “Go on,” said Joseph.

  “… and the only assets the people have, to pay the debt, are their labour,
their land, their houses and… that’s what’s happening in Greece, right?”

  “Bingo!” said Joseph, “and it’s about to happen right across the world.”

  The speech from the television changed to a signature tune as the current programme ended. A news flash appeared reporting on US President Harrington’s UK visit. The two men watched the screen absentmindedly as they contemplated their recent conversation. The President’s plane was landing at Andrews air force base. The camera followed the blue and white 747 as it taxied from the runway. A stairway was driven into place, and President Harrington emerged at the door. Joseph’s eyes suddenly widened as the screen cut to a close-up of the President. Cyril looked at Joseph.

  “What is it?”

  Joseph did not respond, but continued to stare at the screen.

  “What’s wrong, Sir?” Cyril repeated.

  Joseph knew he could not answer truthfully without causing Cyril to doubt his sanity. And moreover, Joseph could not believe this reality himself. The man that he knew to be the US President was also known to him in a different role. He had seen this man laugh and taunt him. He had seen him beat his mother to death. This man haunted him as he sat in an old armchair in the garden shed with his head blown clean off. This was his father. No, not his father… Tom’s father. The US President and Tom Friday’s father were the same man.

  “What is it, Sir?” repeated Cyril for the third time. “Can I do anything?”

  “My god, Cyril. My god… I know… I know,” Joseph said, breathing heavily.

  “What, Sir? What do you know?”

  Joseph looked Cyril direct in the eye.

  “I know what the Spring was going to do.”

  Part Two

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  Chapter 22

  Two years earlier – Berlin, Germany – September 2013

  Joseph was used to physical hardship. The SIS were not known for their generosity when it came to the corporeal comfort of their field operatives, but someone had slipped up back at HQ and his request for a room at the Adlon Kempinski hotel had been granted. Joseph wondered if his guardian angel Simmons might have had something to do with it.

  The room was beautiful. It shimmered with elegance and German efficiency. A cream rug, over-polished oak floorboards, contrasted with the darker varnished wood of the built-in wardrobes. A large bed sprawled invitingly against one wall, while the door to a sumptuous en suite bathroom faced it from the other end of the spacious accommodation.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “It’s open,” Joseph called out.

  Sherry Goodman entered and looked around the room.

  “Nice… real nice.” She looked at Joseph. “A bit too nice for MI6, don’t you think?”

  “They obviously think I’m worth it,” replied Joseph.

  “Really? You think you’re that good?”

  “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

  “Is that a crude invitation or an example of your lack of originality?”

  “Well,” Joseph said with a smile, “I know I don’t lack originality.”

  “So you are trying to get me into that wonderful looking bed, then?” Joseph cocked his head to one side. “But maybe US-British relations are not as sanguine as you seem to think.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “My number one is concerned that you might want to lead your team in the recovery… alone.”

  “As I said before,” Joseph stifled a sigh, “each of our teams are five strong. Ten people going in is both unnecessary and stupidly dangerous.”

  “Then let me go in with my team – alone.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you love me,” Sherry said affecting coquettish body language.

  “I love my work. I have no desire to two-time her.”

  “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

  “I do,” Joseph agreed without resistance.

  “So why are you being so fucking competitive?”

  “Why are you, my dear Sherry?”

  “Because it’s our goddamn operation. You Brits are just along for the ride.”

  “Not true. This is a NATO operation, and as far as I can remember Britain is as much a member as America.”

  “You’re a fucking asshole!”

  “Yes, I heard you the first time.”

  Sherry walked over to the bed, kicked it then turned to Joseph.

  “So, you gonna fuck me or what?”

  The ten agents were roomed at the hotel in pairs, except for the team leaders, Sherry and Joseph, who had their own individual accommodation. There was no official connection between these six separate bookings, and the pairs never interacted with any other pair in public. This was standard policy. Meetings of the teams were clandestine and took place in the team leader’s room. Sherry and Joseph were also supposed to keep themselves separate, but they had not. The two agents had bumped into each other a number of times over the years, and on this mission had begun to bump more intimately. Their respective teams had voiced distress regarding this ill-advised contravention of agency protocol, but the seniority of Joseph and Sherry had easily quashed their complaints.

  Sherry and Joseph sat in the dining room together. The other eight agents sat in their designated twosomes strategically separated by space and anonymity.

  “So,” said Sherry, refilling her wine glass with a medium priced Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Riesling, “we still haven’t decided who’s going in.”

  Joseph looked around the room.

  “How’s the wine?”

  “Peachy,” Sherry answered.

  “As in, ‘good’?”

  “No, as in, it tastes ‘peachy’. The Mosel-Saar-Ruwer is renowned for its peachy accent. You really have no sophistication at all, do you?”

  “And that coming from an American… interesting,” countered Joseph.

  “Stop avoiding the goddamn question. I want to go in with my team. The order came from the White House. It’s our operation, and you guys are just here for support.”

  Joseph leant forward and spoke quietly.

  “As I told you before, this is a NATO operation. The device we are to recover is stolen NATO property, and we are as much NATO as you Yankees.”

  “Look, Joseph, we have a history with the Russians. This is our fight, not yours. I thought the British were supposed to be gracious and have good manners.”

  “We’re also known to be chivalrous. What kind of person would I be, putting a lady in danger?”

  “Joseph, don’t make me play hard-ball. If I have to get heavy, I will. Don’t be fooled by my goddamn lady-like manners.”

  “Why do the Americans always think their guns are bigger than anyone else’s?”

  “They’re not bigger, Joseph. We just have a fuck load more of them than anyone else.”

  “And if President Harrington gets his way, you’re going to have even more,” said Joseph.

  “So, what’s wrong with that? You didn’t have a problem taking our guns during the war, did you?”

  “No, just paying for them afterwards.”

  “You get nothing for nothing,” Sherry stated emphatically.

  “So, what do I get for stepping aside and letting you go in?”

  Sherry sipped her wine and studied Joseph’s face.

  “I don’t know. What do you want?”

  Joseph’s mouth tightened, then he chewed his lip.

  “A credit,” he said finally.

  “A credit?”

  “If I were to agree to letting you go in alone, you’ll owe me one.”

  “What, you want me to agree to an open credit… with you?”

  “Them are my terms.”

  “Them are a fucking liberty! Look, I like you, but don’t ask me to trust you.”

  “Then, it seems we have an impasse.”

  “Only because you’re such a childish son-of-a-bitch.”

  After supper Sherry and J
oseph left the hotel together. They emerged into the chill night air onto Platz des 18. März which was teeming with people. They turned left, making their way to Wilhelmstraße. In front of them was the Brandenburg Gate, its brightly lit impressive proportions glowed golden against the black sky. It is said, among spies, that you never forget your first deletion. Joseph remembered every detail of his, and it had been here, at four o’clock on a cold November morning, under that iconic structure. Sherry could see the memories on Joseph’s face.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Just thinking…”

  “Just thinking, what?”

  He shook his head.

  “This is where I had my inauguration into my future.”

  Sherry looked at him quizzically.

  “This is where I had my first assignment,” he said.

  “You made your first kill here?”

  Joseph nodded towards the grand stone structure.

  “Right there,” he said.

  They reached Wilhelmstraße and turned right. Joseph was deep in thought; his mind wandering back into his past and his first kill.

  “How’s the training going?” said Simmons, his voice tinny and distant over the phone.

  “In some ways exactly what I expected, but in others…”

  Joseph trailed off.

  “What? What is it, old man? Something bothering you?” probed Simmons.

  “There are some strange philosophies down here.”

  “You can’t fight strange with normal, you know. We have to get a little… unusual ourselves.”

  “Yeah, well, I just wasn’t expecting so much of the off-the-wall stuff… that’s all,” said Joseph.

  There was a pause. Joseph was unsure if he had shared too much.

  “It’s time to earn your keep, old man. I have a job for you,” Simmons said finally.

  “Of course,” replied Joseph. A slight tremor added vibrato to his otherwise strong voice. “What is it?”

  “Really?” said Simmons, “you’re asking over the phone?”

  Joseph was on a plane to the UK within the hour. He was met at Heathrow airport by a young suited man driving a nondescript dark blue car, and taken directly to MI6 on the banks of the Thames.