THIRTEEN

January-March 1971

My series of interviews outside London had been only partially successful. Several of the people I wanted to talk with about UNIT and its activities were happy to speak with me but only as 'deep background', meaning they would never be identified in print and would only confirm or deny facts I had already gleaned from other sources. Others were dubious about talking with me at all, while several threatened to get the authorities on to me. But nobody was willing to go on the record and speak publicly about UNIT, C19 or the Doctor.

One of my primary targets was Professor Elizabeth Shaw, who was leading a highly secretive new research project at Cambridge. My old contact Martha at the Ministry of Science had tipped me off that Professor Shaw had been seconded from Cambridge in 1969 to work with a certain top secret intelligence taskforce, but had left after a year to go back to Cambridge. If I could get her to talk, it would be a major breakthrough for my investigation. After several of my messages for Professor Shaw met with a stony silence, I gave up for a while and got on with other work.

The new Heath Government had a very short honeymoon, with blame for the collapse of the World Peace Conference in November 1970 being laid squarely at its door. There were rumours circulatin

Who Killed Kennedy

Picture Files From the collection of James Stevens #4: Tobias Vaughn, the head of International Electromatics, who died in mysterious circumstances. (see Chapter Four).

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ence. I happily played along. 'Friends of mine?'

By now the caf\xE9 was emptying out and the seats around us were empty. Cassandra bent forward to whisper a name in my ear, checking first to make sure no one was within hearing. 'UNIT.'

'What?!'

'I thought you'd appreciate that. I told the Minister that UNIT was impossible to control and had been a thorn in the side of the intelligence community for years. It needed a strong-willed dynamo who would not be put off by rules, regulations or red tape. Confidentially, I also told him that by putting the highly combustible Horatio Chinn on UNIT's back, he could pit two of his biggest irritants against each other, thus killing two birds with one stone. With any luck, at least one of them might self-destruct - certainly they would cancel each other out for a while and the Minister could get on with some real work.'

By now I was intrigued but did not start taking notes of the conversation. Cassandra and I had an unspoken agreement that his information was strictly deep background and certainly never for attribution. I spent our rare talks desperately cramming his information into my brain for later recall and investigation. 'So, what happened?'

'A battle royal apparently, between the civil servant from hell and the career soldier with a mandate from Geneva, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Just when Chinn was beginning to wear Lethbridge-Stewart down, UNIT was called to an "incident" near the Nuton Power Complex. Nuton is a nuclear power station which supplies power for most of Southern England and any threats to its safety are taken very seriously.

'A discovery was made near Nuton, something of great importance to the world - that was the whisper around Whitehall.' Cassandra held up a hand to silence me before I could speak. 'Don't even ask me what, I am not at liberty to reveal that information and you wouldn't believe me even if I did tell you. Suffice to say, Chinn seized upon this discovery as his ticket to the top.

'But something went very, very wrong and the power complex itself was affected. Nuton was within minutes of going critical and most of the Home Counties would have been utterly irradiated in the resulting meltdown. Considering the number of Tory voters that would have vaporized, you can understand the Minister's irritation. UNIT's operatives were able to prevent the disaster and the highly classified official investigation into the incident laid the blame for the whole fiasco firmly at the door of Horatio Chinn. He got an early retirement - with a generous pay-off and full pension, of course! - and UNIT became flavour of the month with the Minister. As I understand it, they're still rebuilding parts of the power complex destroyed in the incident.'

I wanted to press Cassandra for more information but had learnt to take whatever he was willing to let slip and carefully follow it up afterwards. We left the caf\xE9 separately, with Cassandra slipping out first, leaving me with the bill and a lot to think about.

I spent the rest of January trying to discover more about the Nuton crisis without success. The Government had slapped enough D-notices on the incident to wallpaper Whitehall and no-one intimately involved with what had happened was willing to talk. I got a few hints, a description of one of the UNIT operatives that matched the Doctor operative I had seen at Stangmoor, and a bizarre story from a former worker at the complex about orange monsters from outer space trying to take over the world. But after nearly three weeks investigation, I could find nothing concrete or useful. Intriguing as Cassandra's tip-off had been, it was just another unanswered riddle in the larger mystery about UNIT's activities and the enigmatic Doctor.

In late February 1971 I realized I could easily spend the rest of my life researching a book about UNIT, C19, and the Glasshouse without ever getting any closer to the truth. It was time to start writing. I was certain that once the book was published it would bring all manner of hell down upon me. But I also believed it would encourage a lot of people to come forward who had so far been unwilling to talk. But before I could begin writing, there was another twist of events.

* * *

The phone call from Cambridge came as a complete surprise. It was just after nine on a chilly morning in March 1971, and I was finishing my daily trawl through the papers in search of leads on new UNIT activity or appearances by one of the men known as 'the Doctor'. On my office desk the page proofs for my JFK book awaited my attention. I was just about to tackle them when the telephone rang.

'Is that James Stevens?' a haughty female voice asked.

'Yes, speaking.'

'I understand you've been trying to contact me.'

'Quite possible,' I replied, slightly mystified. 'What's your name?'

'Shaw. Professor Elizabeth Shaw.' That got my attention. I had been leaving messages for Professor Shaw across Cambridge for months but had given up hope of ever getting a reply. Now, it seemed, she was calling me - but would she be willing to talk? I decided to take the gentle approach. Quickly grabbing a notebook and pen, I began scrawling down key points I wished to put to her, while asking my first question.

'I'm an investigative journalist looking into new advances in British scientific research,' I fibbed, crossing my fingers. This was not a complete lie, but it was pretty close. My caller could hang up at any time and that would be a wasted opportunity. With her apparent closeness to UNIT, she was potentially an incredible source of vital information about the taskforce's activities. I had no idea how delicate she was about the subject of UNIT, so I decided to work my way to the topic slowly. But Professor Shaw was rather more blunt than I expected.

'That's funny,' she said, 'I heard you were investigating a certain intelligence taskforce linked to the United Nations.'

'Yes, that too,' I replied with a smile, trying to keep the tension out of my voice. She had spoken the words that almost nobody else would even acknowledge as easily as if she had said her own name. I decided to shoot for the Moon. 'I was wondering if we could meet to talk about your time with UNIT?'

There was a long, ominous silence, finally broken up by a strange puffing noise that I could not identify, like some organic steam train approaching, coming ever closer. What the hell was going on? 'Professor Shaw, are you still there? Are you alright? Professor Shaw?'

'Sorry,' she laughed. 'I'm just lighting my pipe. Look, I don't get down to London very often, can you come up here to Cambridge?'

'Yes, of course. When and where should we meet?' We quickly arranged an appointment to meet at lunchtime in the science section of Heffer's Books for the following Friday. Professor Shaw bid me farewell and rung off, still puffing her pipe.

I sat back in my office chair, feeling elated. My armpits were drenched with sweat and my heart was racing. I had an appointment with a scientific researcher who was a former member of the UNIT staff. This was the breakthrough I had been working towards these long months. Of course, there was no guarantee Professor Shaw would talk. This could all be an elaborate plan to entrap me into some crime or some admission.

Yet, for once, I felt my paranoia was unjustified. I had not been threatened or followed for months as far as I was aware, and the strange clicking noises on the phone had stopped too. Since Dodo's arrival in my life, everything was better, happier and even the malevolent shadow of C19's dirty tricks team seemed to have lifted from my life. Also, Professor Shaw had been nothing but courteous and helpful, had not flinched away from talking about UNIT the way almost everybody else did. Perhaps, for once, I had found someone who was willing and able to talk about my quarry. All would be revealed at our meeting this Friday.

Despite myself, I could not help taking Dodo out for a meal to celebrate. Even if the breakthrough was just another wild-goose chase, it had lifted my spirits. Dodo said that was worth celebrating in itself. We went on to a nightclub afterwards and finally got home around three in the morning to discover the front door hanging off its hinges. The scene inside the house sobered me up damn quickly.

The interior of the house had been trashed, seemingly by burglars. Chairs and tables were smashed, obscene graffiti had been painted onto the walls, and the stereo and television were both missing. But there was something too precise, too measured about the damage. Even the graffiti was just too neat and grammatically perfect. Either the intruders were well educated, or else they were not really burglars at all. Sick realization drove me towards my office, where the triple deadbolts had been smashed open with a mallet, while the main lock had been delicately picked open first with no sign of damage - hardly the behaviour of petty criminals.

Inside, the floor was strewn with papers and notebooks, with a smouldering pile of documents burning feebly in the centre of the rug. The fire had gone out at least an hour before - the intruders had long since left the scene. Dodo was nearly hysterical at all the damage. 'Your notes, all your work!' she sobbed.

I did my best to soothe her. 'It's not that bad, I've kept back-up copies of the most important documents,' I reassured her. 'Why don't you fix us both a brandy for our nerves while I start cleaning up in here?' She nodded, her lower lip still trembling and went out of the room.

I pulled back my heavy wooden desk to reveal the old safe I had installed in the floor when I first moved into the house. At the time I had thought myself deeply paranoid but the last break-in at the flat in Chelsea had convinced me to take such extreme precautions. I had bought the floor safe from an old pawnbroker I knew, when he was going out of business. Saul had a shop near Fleet Street and had got good business from reporters through the years, who frequently went through periods of financial embarrassment. I had even bought my wedding ring from Saul.

He once told me he had hoped to pass the business on to his son, Jacob, but the boy had died during the war and now it was time for Saul to retire to the family home in Golders Green. I bought his own jewellery safe and now used it to store all my most important notes and files. But had the intruders discovered this vital hiding place?

I opened the safe to find its contents untouched and offered up a little prayer of thanks to Saul. He was still helping out journalists, even in retirement. After locking everything back into the safe and shifting my desk back into position, I went into the kitchen and shared a large brandy with Dodo to steady my nerves.

We spent the next three days repainting the walls and tidying up after the break-in. I never reported it to the police because I did not trust the authorities anymore. What would I do if two C19 operatives turned up to deal with my complaint? That was what I believed had happened when I was still at the Chronicle and I did not feel like inviting them into my home again. They seemed to be making their own