Terror Firma
‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall be stamped upon.’ From the massively successful author that brought you exploding sheep (Before & After) comes the conspiracy theory to end them all.If you’re a cynic, you’re a sucker. ‘They’ want you to believe in aliens, UFOs and ghosts, because if you go chasing lies, you never get to the truth. ‘They’ are the ultra-secret world ‘Committee’ – the real decision makers who tell governments what to do, dictate which way the stock market’s heading, start up a few wars when things get boring. They’ve had five centuries’ experience at the top to know that nothing spreads a rumour faster than a carefully worded denial. Unfortunately, the ‘Committee’ have been so busy manipulating the entire globe they haven’t realised that they themselves are being manipulated.From opposite sides of the globe, former US commando Frank MacIntyre, and UFO enthusiast Dave Pierce, are about to stumble on the biggest conspiracy theory of all. And it’s a discovery that threatens to destabalise the whole planet.The meek have just put on their boots, and they’re ready to do a bit of stamping themselves.
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MATTHEW THOMAS
Terror Firma
Voyager An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
A Voyager paperback original 2001
Copyright © Matthew Thomas 2000
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780007100224
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007485413 Version: 2015-12-16
For Lisa and Dan
‘There are two secrets to the successful clandestine management of human affairs. One, never let on all you know.’
Becker, MJ13
Contents
1. All Good Kings Must Come to an End
9. If You Tolerate This Your CD Collection Will Be Next
16. Hypemeister Extraordinaire
25. Terminal Termination Blues
38. The Emperor’s Real Clothes
1. All Good Kings Must Come to an End
Present day, somewhere, South Pacific
Elvis knew his days were numbered.
Over the past few hectic weeks he’d noticed a number of disturbing trends – a sharp decline in his ongoing manifestation schedule and a steady increase in his already abundant food allowance. They’d upped the steroid dosage too; he was feeling younger than he had for years. Last Tuesday he’d caught himself gyrating his pelvis while pitch-forking a specially prepared ‘King’-sized sausage from the weekly beach barbie. He hadn’t even known he was doing it. Worse, he’d grabbed John Lennon’s guitar as he led the evening campfire singalong and told him to quit with that hippy shit and play somethin’ rockin’.
But the implications of what were behind these changes were less palatable that the triple cheese-burger with extra gherkins he’d polished off for breakfast. There was no escaping the conclusion that his time on The Island was coming to an end. He could tell by the way his strange guards watched him that the moment for one last final mission was at hand. And they wouldn’t be bothered about stepping on his blue suede shoes, not even ramming their steel toe-capped jack-boots down his throat for that matter – their dull dead dark eyes held no pity, and no understanding as far as he could tell. Elvis felt certain this would be a come-back tour without an encore. He wouldn’t be returning from this gig – a final deadly road-trip to end them all.
This knowledge stirred little emotion in his straining drug-drenched heart, apart perhaps from a sense of weary relief. There was only so much of The Island you could take without losing what was left of your sanity – and he’d lounged in this hellishly opulent five-star prison for the best part of thirty years. After the first decade the rejuvenation treatments and brain-washing began to take their toll. So a big part of him – which meant all of him, because all parts of him were big – would look forward to the onset of the warm smothering blackness he knew would accompany his final sortie.
He didn’t have to look forward for long. As the sun reached its zenith over the crystal-shimmering lagoon the King watched the black triangular craft, all sleek lines and eye-watering inhuman curves, skim towards him with unnatural speed. It didn’t so much glide over the waves as bully them into submission – splicing the whining air-molecules with a low-pitched electromagnetic hum. Then he saw others approach suddenly, right across the horizon, winking out of nothingness. He had seen many different types of such runabouts in his time – ridden in quite a few on his short bewildering trips back to civilization – but he’d never seen such a density of air-traffic as currently hovered over their lush tropical atoll. They were all there; the usual triangles and glowing orbs, plus the ones disguised to look like clouds – even some of the old steam-powered saucers that were crashed on purpose to mislead those Air Force suckers.
