Terror Illusion
James R. Conway
Published by Island Publishers
www.islandpublishers.co.uk
eBook Edition
Copyright 2012 James R. Conway
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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious and a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Prologue
When he looks into their eyes, none of their thoughts are safe.
Jonathan knew that his working life as a Hollywood special effects expert was over after a devastating car crash but he was still searching for something to challenge his mind. That challenge came from an entirely unexpected direction. Following a chance meeting on a train journey, he finds himself being drawn into the shadowy world of “Operation Checkmate”, an organization dedicated to exposing corruption and deceit in the British government. Jonathan did not realize just how useful his strange mental powers could be, but Operation Checkmate does and they will make good use of the powers that he acquired as a result of the car crash and the brain changes it caused.
Jonathan meets Sir Fergus “Mac” McKinnon, a retired MI5 officer who runs Operation Checkmate from his castle in Scotland. Soon, Jonathan is involved in his first front line operation. Using his ability to see into the thoughts of people and induce hallucinations into their minds, he uncovers a British government conspiracy to bring terror to Britain’s railways and blame it on al-Qaeda.
He puts himself at great risk by surreptitiously delving in to the mind of the government minister in charge of the conspiracy and he and Mac track down the former IRA bomber Sean Donnelly, who MI5 Black Ops have selected to carry out the dirty work.
But their pursuit of the bomber takes an unexpected turn when they discover that they are not the only ones who have an interest in catching him and it soon becomes a question of just who is chasing whom. And why?
Chapter 1
Jonathan Long needed a project. He was supposed to be enjoying his retirement but idle retirement did not suit Jonathan. He had spent most of his life as a creative problem solver and his retirement had been unexpectedly forced upon him at the relatively young age of forty-eight.
So, Jonathan had taken himself off on one of his occasional trips to London. Perhaps, he thought, a change of scene would provide some mental stimulation.
He was not really a “city man”, having spent years in the busy, noisy, bright lights of Los Angeles and the Hollywood movie industry. He was happy and somewhat content to be living in the place he had selected to enjoy his retirement, high in the Pennine hills in northwest England. However, occasionally he needed a change of scenery to get his brain back into gear, so he had left his Pennine idyll and taken the train to London for a three day midweek trip. One of the things that Jonathan loved about England was the railway system. From Ravensgill Bridge, the train would take him two hundred miles, right into the heart of London in a little under four hours. Of course, he could drive himself but why bother facing all that traffic and once in London he would have to find somewhere to park, probably paying an outrageous parking charge and a good chance that someone would steal his car or at least kick in the door or break the window. The train fast clean and comfortable, was a much better way to travel, especially at this time of year. Early December brought rain, ice and all sorts of other challenges to drivers.
Jonathan had checked into a small hotel in South Kensington. He had planned to spend most of his time in London visiting the museums. He particularly enjoyed the museum district of London. As a college student in London many years ago, he had found that the museums offered a cheap way to occupy a Saturday or Sunday when his meagre student finances were running low. His favourite was the Science Museum with its fascinating working models of all sorts of inventions and machines.
The problem with being a tourist in London in December was that outdoor activities were rather limited both by the weather, which was often windy and rainy, and by the short winter days. The sun would rise at about eight in the morning and would set again by four in the afternoon. However, to Jonathan these were not so much limitations as charming quirks of English life. The early darkness of the evening meant that the London streets and shops, decorated for Christmas, looked bright and cheerful, as did the London pubs.
To Jonathan, there was nothing in the world that even came close to an English pub, whether it was a charming old country pub with flagstone floors and oak beams or a typical Victorian London pub such as the one he was in this evening. It was very different from his local pub back in the Pennine village of Ravensgill Bridge. This London pub looked like something from the Hollywood set of a Sherlock Holmes mystery but it was a genuine pub, probably here more than a hundred years. Away from the brightly lit bar area, each table had an old fashioned oil lamp which provided a warm glow, illuminating photographs of Victorian London on the wall, street markets, railway locomotives, horse-drawn brewery wagons carrying casks of beer. Outside, a steady drizzle spattered against the window as office workers headed home.
It was early evening and Jonathan had enjoyed a delightful afternoon in the Science Museum, studying the history of film special effects. He planned to travel back home to Ravensgill Bridge tomorrow. He thought he might get a train late morning so that he could have lunch on the train and complete most of the journey in daylight. Tonight he was going to enjoy a couple of beers and a pub meal, then take a cab back to his hotel. Maybe if the rain stopped he might walk.
Jonathan ordered a pint of beer at the bar, paid for it, and took it over to a table by the window. He watched the pedestrians rushing by outside, under a forest of umbrellas, watched the raindrops trickling down the window and he had a feeling of warmth and security. He had lived in California for nearly twenty years but he had never truly felt that he belonged there. But here, tonight, he had a strong sense of peace with the world.
He had brought a book into the pub with him. When he visited museums, he always stopped by the museum bookshop and picked up something related to what he had been studying. Jonathan was not an idle browser when he visited a museum. He would pick a subject and seek out all the information that he could. This particular afternoon he had decided to study special effects in films.
As Jonathan enjoyed his
beer and got absorbed in his book, the pub started to fill up with people, mostly commuters who had decided to shelter from the rain and wait for the rush hour to die down. Jonathan mused that his retirement had allowed him to escape from the workday rat race but in the back of his mind, he also envied these people their sense of identity, their sense of purpose. Since he retired these were things that he had come to value. There was no way that he wanted to get back into the rough and tumble of the corporate world but he still needed to find some sense of purpose and direction in his life.
The pub had become considerably more crowded by the time Jonathan was ready for his next pint of beer. When he looked over towards the bar, he saw that it was packed two or three deep with customers holding up empty glasses and waving five or ten pound notes, trying to attract the attention of the one overworked barmaid who was rushed off her feet.
Leaving his book on the table and his overcoat over a chair, Jonathan stood up and walked over towards the bar. He saw that there was slightly less of a crowd at the one end of the bar so he positioned himself there to wait for his fresh pint. Sarina, the barmaid, always got stressed at this time of day, the evening rush hour. The wet weather made it even busier as more commuters dropped into the pub to escape the rain for an hour. She tried to remember who the next customer was among the sea of faces, money and empty beer glasses. Her eyes fell on Jonathan who was quietly waiting at the end of the bar with his empty glass.
“I’m next!” shouted a man over near the middle of the bar. “A pint of bitter, please!”
Sarina turn round to collect a clean pint glass from a shelf behind the bar. When she turned back, she could see no one at the bar except Jonathan. She shook her head and walked over to him.
“What can I get you, luv?”
“A pint of Best Bitter, please,” said Jonathan.
Sarina turned around to get a fresh glass for Jonathan’s pint. When she turned back, she saw the crowd of faces again. Confused, she drew Jonathan’s pint and passed it across the bar to him, then went on to serve the next customer without even asking Jonathan for the money for his drink. Jonathan, being a generally honest soul, placed the money on the bar and carried his pint of beer back to his table.
His ability to produce hallucinations in people could prove very useful at times.
Chapter 2