Editor’s Note: This is the seventh installment of Scott McKay’s new novel, From Hellmarsh With Love, which is being launched solely at The American Spectator every weekend in September and October, earlier than its full publication on Amazon later this fall. From Hellmarsh With Love is the sequel to King of the Jungle, which was serialized at The American Spectator in Spring 2024. You should buy it on Amazon here. And you possibly can pre-order a signed copy of From Hellmarsh With Love at this link.
So far within the story, our intrepid hero, conservative podcaster and net writer Mike Holman, married the love of his life, former Secret Service agent and president-saving heroine PJ Chang. After the marriage, Mike and PJ hopped on a jet for a honeymoon in London the place all will not be accurately. Amid the rising chaos in Great Britain and the rising disconnect between its ruling class and folks, Mike adjustments his thoughts, due to PJ’s delicate affect, and begins doing interviews with a few of the nation’s movers and shakers.
The new Hard Left British authorities doesn’t like that one bit, and Mike finds himself arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit an act of terrorism. PJ is now thrown into a totally unfamiliar place, in another country, beset by a hostile institution that appears irrationally involved in persecuting her journalist husband. But she isn’t alone, and there are massive wheels turning to save lots of Mike.
Catch up on earlier episodes here.
PJ tells us what occurs subsequent…
Abbey Wood, London, September 15, 2024
On Friday we have been on the Central Criminal Court. It’s generally known as the Old Bailey. This was the bail listening to at which we have been hoping to show the madness of the fees towards Mike.
Brackett gave me the standard directions prematurely: costume elegantly, however don’t be showy. No outbursts, no visible indicators of emotion. When I acquired to court docket, I noticed why: the entire constructing, and the sidewalk exterior, was crawling with photographers and reporters.
And as I sat with Mom and Simon behind the protection desk the place Brackett was along with his different affiliate, a pleasant middle-aged black girl named Johanna Sturgill, I felt virtually each eye within the courtroom boring a gap by means of me.
“This is really uncomfortable,” I whispered to Simon. “They’re glaring at me.”
“Not all of them. Some of them like you.”
The Daily Mail and the Sun had each run constructive tales about Mike, and each of them had interviewed me. But all of the Labour papers had doubled down on Mike and me because the “Terror Couple From America,” and it appeared fairly clear that there was a ton of spin happening in an effort to again down the outrage that was constructing concerning the case.
One of the reporters poked me gently from the row behind a bit of earlier than it acquired began.
“Oi, ma’am,” he mentioned. “Who is this striking lass you have with you, yeah?”
“That’s my mother, Mary Chang,” I instructed him.
And Mom circled and checked out him. “You’re Daniel Howarth, right? With the Sun? Your piece on the case yesterday was quite good.”
His face lit up. “Thank you, madam,” he mentioned, in a bit of extra elegant accent.
That lit off a feeding frenzy of types as the opposite reporters then started scrambling to catch as much as Howarth and interrogate me and Mom, as a result of there couldn’t be a nugget of details about what was occurring in that courtroom that they didn’t know.
In different phrases, this was turning right into a circus. It was precisely what I used to be dreading.
Finally, issues acquired began, and Judge Choudhary sat at his bench. Then Mike was led in and sat within the dock.
Something was unsuitable with him. He was white as a sheet and he appeared like he’d misplaced his mother.
Which freaked me out to suppose. I hadn’t texted along with her in a day or so. Had he misplaced his mother?
I wasn’t supposed to make use of my mobile phone within the courtroom, however I texted her anyway. I mentioned Mike was at his bail listening to, and that I hadn’t heard again about her EKG.
“It wasn’t very good,” she texted again. “They tell me that I’m under too much stress.”
Which is best than lifeless, I assumed. “Be safe,” I texted her again.
So what was unsuitable with Mike? I checked out him, however he wouldn’t have a look at me. That made issues worse.
I poked Brackett, and he leaned again.
“Can you go and ask Mike what’s wrong with him? There’s a problem.”
He checked out me quizzically, then checked out Mike.
“Your Honour,” he mentioned to Choudhary, “before we begin might I have a moment to confer with my client?”
Choudhary gave a dismissive wave, so Brackett acquired up and went over to the dock. For a short time he and Mike talked, and I noticed Brackett’s eyes get large. He nodded and returned to the protection desk.
“Well?” I whispered.
“His cellmate died overnight,” mentioned Brackett.
“Oh my God.”
“He hung himself from the top bunk with a bedsheet.”
“And Mike didn’t know?”
“He says he didn’t hear a thing. The man was dead when he woke up.”
“We can’t do this today! Right?”
Brackett shrugged.
The bail listening to started, and the prosecutor, a mousy-looking girl named Sybil Courtson-Weill, introduced the Crown’s supply.
Brackett instructed Choudhary concerning the suicide. He mentioned given these circumstances and the absurd nature of the fees, it was inappropriate to impose any bail situations in any respect.
“These charges should be dropped, Your Honour.”
Choudhary mentioned no.
Mike needed to talk to the court docket in response, and Choudhary once more mentioned no.
So Brackett mentioned there was a press release the protection needed to learn into the document. Choudhary mentioned he would permit Brackett to learn it. Which is what Brackett anticipated.
So he started studying. I checked out Mike, and he nonetheless wouldn’t have a look at me. He was trying on the decide, and I couldn’t inform what the look was. Not concern, not anger. Curiosity? Not precisely.
Disgust? Yeah, in all probability. Disbelief. That was it, or no less than a part of it.
But Mike was rattled. And Mike was by no means rattled.
I felt like I wanted to leap in and assist, someway. But there was no approach to assist him. All the eyes within the courtroom have been him, and he appeared like he was utterly depressing.
It didn’t assist that he had on a jail uniform that match him poorly. They wouldn’t permit him to placed on actual garments for court docket.
“My client is an innocent man,” Brackett was saying. “He is responsible merely of airing controversial views which aren’t even his personal. The Crown would have Your Honour consider {that a} protest, of which Mr. Holman had no plans to attend and isn’t an organizer of, is someway a venue for violence he’s conspiring to direct.
“This is a lie, and an apparent lie. Here is a person imprisoned unjustly in entrance of the world for committing the crime of journalism.
“It is an affront, a grievous affront, to the idea of a free press. This is a really darkish second for British liberty. And why? Because, we’re instructed, of nationwide safety. That we can’t afford to offer a platform to speech the federal government dislikes for concern that speech may trigger political hurt.
“Is this a free nation?”
“As the good British topic who lived on the opposite facet of the pond Benjamin Franklin as soon as mentioned, those that would commerce liberty for safety deserve neither and can quickly lose each. We are in grave hazard, Your Honour, of changing into these individuals.
“I implore you to consider the place in history this matter will occupy. If we allow this to continue we will look back upon this case with extreme regret, Your Honour.”
I appeared across the courtroom. The reporters and observers weren’t rapt as I’d hoped they’d be. Brackett wasn’t unhealthy, however he wasn’t killing it, both. He was OK.
And if Mike had been giving the assertion it might have been rather a lot higher.
Mike was lastly me. I gave him as cheerful a smile as I may, and I acquired a weak one in return.
“I’m really worried about him,” I whispered to Mom.
“It’s such a horrible thing to have happen,” she whispered again. “I can’t even imagine.”
Brackett continued for a bit longer after which he wrapped up the speech…
“And when Mr. Holman was positioned in a cell with a mentally unstable prisoner who made an try on his life after which, simply final night time, dedicated suicide, one should query simply what it’s the Crown intends.
“We have clearly seen that Mr. Holman is to be silenced by these proceedings. Not solely on this courtroom, Your Honour, however by the fees themselves. And the supply of bail on this matter is of the identical character — to flee jail for a time, he should conform to be silenced.
“Well, Mr. Holman does not accept quite so easily. If it is the Crown’s wish to silence him, the Crown must do so in full view of the world, who will know they have made of him a prisoner. He rejects the Crown’s offer of bail under any conditions of silence, may it please Your Honour.”
“So be it,” mentioned Choudhary. “The defendant is remanded to HMP Belmarsh without bail.”
And after a couple of minutes extra, that was it. Mike was led away, and the reporters pressed in with questions. Brackett answered for us, saying all of the belongings you’d count on him to.
It was miserable. We hadn’t made a distinction in any respect. And Mike was no nearer to escaping this nightmare.
As we have been leaving, I requested Brackett if he may get me in to see him at Belmarsh given what he’d skilled. He mentioned he’d do what he may.
The subsequent day was Saturday, and Mom and I checked out of the Savoy with like a dozen baggage between us. It was embarrassing, however the excellent news is that once I’d texted Colin from Sentinel Network Security to see if he may assist us get out of there, he really confirmed up in a van and loaded us up.
Colin was a sweetheart. I insisted on shopping for him lunch at this Caribbean place not removed from the brand new home. He was appreciative, however the meals was … I’m not even going to say it.
The very nice locations in London, the meals’s good. The common locations there, it’s fairly hit and miss. This was a miss.
But after lunch he took us to the home.
Pierce wasn’t mendacity. It was a dump with a brand new coat of paint on it, however it was large.
It was pink brick, with an enormous bay window within the entrance that didn’t actually seem like it belonged. But all the different homes on the block had the identical factor. Mom joked that we have been going to be residing in a Benny Hill sketch for some time, which was a humorous line, however that wasn’t what hit me.
“Wait,” I mentioned. “What do you mean, we?”
“Well, I’m not going to leave you alone here, Pauline.”
“Mom? Did you … leave Dad?”
“Pauline, I’m not going to leave your father. But my daughter has a crisis, and so I’m going to be at her side as long as she needs me.”
“But this could — probably will — go on for months.”
“Well, then it’s good that we have a house to live in, don’t you think? You should send Pierce a thank you message.”
I acquired the impression there was rather a lot Mom wasn’t telling me. She and I talked about all the things, actually, besides her relationship with Dad.
Dad is a jerk. He’s not abusive to Mom or something, however he’s all the time handled her like a trophy spouse. She’s a bit of youthful than he’s, however Mom will not be some bimbo. She’s the one who held our household collectively when Dad was flying everywhere in the world constructing the enterprise into what it’s, and on prime of that she was a high-end industrial lawyer.
I spent most of my childhood in awe of that girl, and it by no means occurred to me that there was something unsatisfactory about her life or our household. Later, I spotted she’d made a lot of sacrifices to maintain all the things. But it by no means occurred to me till that time that Mom was able to strolling away from Dad.
She mentioned she wasn’t, although. And I didn’t have the stones to ask her about that.
I questioned if my state of affairs wasn’t an excellent excuse — a pretext, I assume — to get Mom out of the home.
She was puttering across the place, making an attempt the taps, flushing the bathrooms, turning the lights on and off, and making a lot of psychological notes about issues which wanted enchancment. Meanwhile, at her urging, I despatched Pierce a textual content telling him the home was fantastic and that we have been checking it out now.
“Sit tight,” he texted again. “There are movers coming in like a half-hour.”
“Movers?”
“Well, I wasn’t gonna buy you a house and not have it furnished for you, was I?”
I laughed.
“No, I guess not,” I messaged again. “Pierce Polk does nothing that isn’t first class.”
“Well, the stuff we bought is pretty mid, but since the place is, too, we didn’t want to go overboard. But the couch is awesome and the beds are memory foam, so there’s that.”
He instructed me he had a designer select the stuff and beautify it from the ground plan and the pics of the place {that a} professional photographer had taken on Thursday.
“When do you get time to do this stuff?” I requested him.
“I work 20 hours a day, PJ. And this was the easiest thing I’ve done all week. Sasha is Brienna’s designer; she’s right there in London. She nailed all your stuff down in like six hours.”
I instructed Mom what Pierce had finished for us and he or she simply grinned.
“That man can do literally anything,” she mentioned.
“I hope that includes getting Mike out of that prison,” I mentioned.
We have been really inside pretty simple strolling distance from Belmarsh. It was like twelve blocks away. But Brackett had emailed me that they wouldn’t allow us to go to see him till the Friday of the subsequent week.
So what was the purpose? We may as properly have stayed on the opposite facet of London.
The different factor that wasn’t unimaginable was the mosque down the road. I’d Googled it and there was some indication it was a “bad” mosque.
It appeared like this was all an enormous mistake.
And then the movers got here and all the things acquired higher.
Yes, Pierce picked out some very nice stuff. He mentioned it was all fairly moderately priced, however it didn’t actually look that approach. Everything he’d purchased us was rather a lot nicer than what had been in my residence in Virginia, and after they’d completed shifting us in, the home unexpectedly appeared like … one thing.
But that’s not what modified my perspective.
Because the movers have been Pierce’s guys.
I imply, they have been his guys. Like, they have been the blokes who’d been with Pierce in Guyana through the battle with the Venezuelans.
I noticed Roman Jefferson as quickly as he acquired off the truck. It’s not possible to not acknowledge Roman. He seems to be like a cross between Idris Elba and a middle-aged John Amos, he’s tall and he’s constructed like a linebacker.
Nobody is aware of for certain, however the suspicion by many, Mike included, is that it was Roman who took out Nicolae Madiera and ended the battle in Guyana. It was virtually a 2,000-yard semi-obstructed shot from a tree overlooking the little space subsequent to Kaietur Falls the place Madiera was declaring victory, however Roman — no less than, the rumor is that it was Roman — nailed it completely.
He was a legend within the black-ops neighborhood. He’d finished three lifetimes’ price of issues he may by no means discuss. And then Pierce employed him away from the navy or the CIA or wherever he’d been.
And Pierce had employed a few of Roman’s colleagues, too. The guys who had equally finished not possible issues. I’d met a few them in Guyana.
They have been right here with him, unloading furnishings from the truck and strolling it by means of the entrance door.
I knew higher than to blurt out Roman’s identify on the road. So I waited till he and one other man had positioned a few overstuffed leather-based chairs subsequent to the overstuffed leather-based sofa within the den, after which I sidled as much as him.
“You’re not Roman today, are you, Roman?” I requested him quietly.
“It’s OK,” he mentioned. “Place got swept for bugs this morning. It’s clean.”
“Oh, good.”
“And to answer your question, call me Donovan on this trip.”
“Nice to see you, Donovan.”
“And nice to see you, too, ma’am,” he mentioned, in an ideal Jamaican accent. “Let me introduce you to my colleague here. This is Handsome Rob.”
His colleague was a really massive, very burly and never very good-looking Englishman. Handsome Rob’s face was pockmarked with scars and he had a cauliflower ear, plus I seen that one in all his huge forearms had some main burn scars throughout it.
“It’s nice to meet you, Handsome Rob,” I mentioned as Mom came to visit.
“Why do they call you Handsome Rob?” she requested him.
“Why, isn’t it obvious, love?” he deadpanned.
Roman/Donovan defined that Handsome Rob was former SAS, however of late his profession path had led him into corrections.
“He works nearby in his straight job,” Roman mentioned.
“For now, at least,” mentioned Handsome Rob. “One never knows where the path may lead, hey?”
“I think that’s right,” I mentioned.
“So you’ll know, ma’am,” he mentioned, leaning in to me, “I’ve got an eye on your man. No one’s gonna bother him where he is. He’s safe, yeah?”
“That’s good to know. Is there any chance I could give you stuff for him?”
“We’ll work it out, love.”
And similar to that, Roman and his guys have been again in character. They completed unloading the truck, refused our presents of meals — Mom was going to order some supply — and mentioned goodbye.
Roman did depart me a enterprise card. “For emergencies,” he mentioned, “but we’ll see each other again in not too long.”
The entire time the movers have been getting us arrange, Mom had a pocket book out and he or she was making an enormous record of issues we would have liked. Bedsheets, silverware, kitchen issues, a TV, towels, toiletries, all of the stuff you’d make a large Walmart run for after you moved in someplace.
But we didn’t have a automotive, and after the movers left she acquired all fussy about how we’d make it work and not using a automobile.
Meanwhile, I used to be letting my butt sink into that overstuffed leather-based couch Pierce had introduced us and questioning how I’d get it residence to the place in Florida Mike and I might be residing in as soon as this nightmare was over.
It struck me that it might in all probability be cheaper simply to purchase one other one. But the extra snug I acquired on that couch, the much less I cared. I used to be retaining this factor.
“Mom, come and sit on this couch,” I mentioned, as she fretted about paper towels and hand cleaning soap.
So she did.
“Oh, wow,” she mentioned. “This is nice.”
“I’m keeping it. I don’t care what it costs. This is coming home with me when we’re done here.”
“I agree.”
“And look — let’s not worry about going out to the store. We’ll just order everything from Amazon and have it delivered.”
“You don’t want to explore the neighborhood and see what’s around?”
“Well, there’s a big prison, and there’s a forest, and a bunch of houses like this one. This isn’t a very happening part of town, Mom.”
“Well, while we’re here we should at least take in London.”
“Sure. That we can do. But something tells me we aren’t going to like our neighbors any more than they’re going to like us.”
“You don’t think going running around here is a good idea, do you?”
“Sure. Put on your sports bra and leggings and take a jog past the mosque.”
“Hmmm,” she mentioned.
Mom stayed in form.
So we spent the remainder of the day on Amazon ordering an insane quantity of stuff for the home, after which I discovered that the Tesco not removed from the home did supply, so there was the grocery buying.
We’d be blissful little shutins. Pierce had even gotten us arrange with wifi.
But no sooner did the Whoosh man — that’s what Tesco calls their supply service — present up with a ton of groceries and necessities, however I acquired a name from Brackett.
“Hey,” I answered as Mom began placing away that first spherical of purchases. “What’s going on?”
“I have a very serious question,” he mentioned. “Were you absolutely honest with me when you said that Mike hadn’t been out of your sight from the time you landed in London to the time he was arrested?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Then I have another question. Have you been honest with me regarding all telephone conversations he had?”
“Thomas, what’s this about? I’ve hidden nothing from you.”
“The Crown is claiming they have a recording of Mike with Thomason discussing the planting of a bomb at Number 10.”
Hellmarsh, September 21, 2024
For the subsequent week, there was a media firestorm over the tape of Mike and Robby Thomason supposedly plotting to bomb Number 10 Downing Street … and what occurred after it was leaked to the general public. Brackett had gone in to see Mike about it, and Mike denied ever having that dialogue. He mentioned, and I confirmed, to the most effective of my data, that he had by no means really talked on the telephone with Thomason in any respect; the one time he’d ever conversed with Thomason was at that airport lounge at Heathrow after we did the interview.
And from Cyprus, Thomason launched a video echoing that and making a full denial he’d ever been concerned with bombing something.
“Piers!” Thomason barked at Stormer on the video, a stunning Mediterranean seaside within the background, “Yer so afraid of the people coming to your door to tell you what we think of ya, you had to frame us about a bomb. I don’t need a bomb to sort you out, you bloody wanker!”
I don’t know whether or not Thomason’s video helped.
It definitely didn’t cease the standard retailers from operating away with the story and turning it right into a narrative. By Tuesday, Mike was being denounced by celebrities and politicians virtually in all places; Katrina Duvalier, the White House Press Secretary, known as Mike a “perfect example of the derangement a certain kind of declining demographic is capable of,” which she refused to defend after Dieter Poocy of Fox News instantly challenged her on it.
And Hillary Clinton mentioned Mike was precisely the sort of individual she’d been speaking about when she mentioned the “basket of deplorables.”
And in Britain, Piers Stormer was decrying the “ugly contagion of the American Right and its unhinged, violent stench of rebellion” having made it to the U.Ok.
Mom had insisted on taking a run within the neighborhood regardless of my warning to not. She ended up coming again in an Uber, like an hour later than she mentioned she was going to.
“What happened?” I requested her when she got here in. “I was worried sick about you!”
“Why didn’t you call me? How come you didn’t get my text?”
“Because I lost my phone, like an idiot.”
“There was a man following me, and I didn’t want him to see where we live. So I ran to the Tesco and called an Uber to take me home.”
As my sigh of reduction melted away at this ominous information, I may hear my telephone ringing. It had fallen underneath the sofa. I reached down and picked it up.
Pierce was calling. I answered, and he requested me how I used to be holding up.
“I feel like I’m living in crazy-town, Pierce,” I mentioned. “This supposed terror tape, it’s a lie. Mike never said any of that. I’m sure of it. Why would he want to?”
“It’s an AI fake,” he mentioned.
“Well, I guess it’s a good one. Everybody seems to believe it’s real.”
He laughed.
“Don’t worry about that. They won’t believe it for long.”
“I sure hope you’re right.”
“Well, what you should do is check out the Holman Media site in…fourteen minutes.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re releasing a terror tape of our own. And it’s much more shocking than this one.”
I couldn’t assist however grin.
“This is gonna be pretty good, huh?”
“Yeah. It should. Oh, and I’m gonna be on Sky News tomorrow night for a half-hour.”
“You are? To talk about Mike’s thing?”
“To talk about the dockworkers’ strike that started last night at midnight. And the cyber breach at the London Stock Exchange which is triggering a colossal selloff in the market today. And the dump the British pound is taking against the dollar. Plus Mike’s thing.”
I hadn’t been listening to the monetary information, however Pierce wasn’t mendacity. The FTSE 100, the British equal of the Dow, was down greater than 8 p.c. And amazingly, the pound was buying and selling near even with the greenback; it had been tanking for 3 weeks and was now in obvious free fall.
“These are things you know a lot about.”
“Of course. I’m losing a fortune in Britain today. And I’m awfully pissed about it.”
He didn’t sound very pissed.
But a couple of minutes later, Holman Media launched an audio recording which was sure to trigger a worldwide controversy. The voices on the recording have been fairly clear. One of them was Piers Stormer, and the opposite was King Charles.
On the recording, Stormer was saying that too many individuals have been flying on planes and if one thing wasn’t finished, there could be no approach to reverse local weather change. King Charles was agreeing, and he requested whether or not there wasn’t one thing that could be finished about that.
“Why yes,” Stormer mentioned. “In fact, we have a very good way to discourage air travel. It’s somewhat drastic, but surely effective.”
“I am for whatever means you may have,” mentioned the King.
“A surface-to-air missile,” mentioned Stormer. “Perhaps several. Enough of them, in a short period of time, and people will stop flying altogether.”
“Yes!” mentioned the King. “Brilliant! Spread fear among the populace and they will cheerfully obey.”
It was completely absurd, in fact. But it certain did sound like Stormer and the King.
When Holman Media launched it, it was instantly picked up by conservative media in America, principally in a tongue-in-cheek approach. “Are Britain’s Leaders Trying To Kill Their Air Travelers?” The Blaze’s headline learn. At PJ Media, the headline was “Holman Media’s Terror Tape Isn’t More Absurd Than the UK Government’s.”
Neville put out a press release proclaiming himself “utterly shocked and dismayed” that Piers Stormer could be considering “the murder of his countrymen in their hundreds in the name of climate change.”
It was a “cheeky bit of tongue-in-cheek,” as Simon texted me when he shared the hyperlink.
Of course, the recent denials flowed.
Stormer appeared at a podium later that afternoon to bemoan the “low-rent parody” of “a terrorist website in America” which was “giving comfort to those undesirable elements standing against societal order.”
The royal household put out a press release that learn, partly, “Clearly the King would not engage in such foolish sophistry as that depicted in the recording in question.”
And then Pierce dropped a video on X taking credit score for the deepfake.
“And I did it because the British government has done the same thing,” he mentioned. “They used artificial intelligence to gin up a fake conversation between Mike Holman and Robby Thomason which is just as ridiculous as the one on this recording of mine and announced it publicly to poison the jury pool in Mike’s case. And this I can prove.”
And then, Pierce demonstrated how a commercially-available AI app could possibly be used to generate the deepfake of Stormer and the King. Next, he demonstrated how the identical course of may create the audio of Mike and Thomason.
“And I’m using the Audiomonster app for these for a reason: it’s what a lawyer at the Crown Prosecution Service named Andrew McClain, used to create the deepfake of Mike and Mr. Thomason which kicked up such a fuss this week.”
McClain, he defined, was a younger subordinate of Sybil Courtson-Weill on the CPS. She was the lead prosecutor in Mike’s case,
Pierce then went by means of a sequence of screencaps displaying that McClain — or somebody utilizing his pc on the Crown Prosecution Service’s London workplace — had gone on the app, uploaded audio recordings of Mike and Thomason talking and had uploaded a textual content script. The app did the remaining, significantly as McClain tweaked it utilizing the adjustment sliders. Pierce confirmed how he’d run by means of a number of iterations of the recording earlier than getting it good.
He had all this info, he mentioned, as a result of when Sentinel Network Security had remotely scrubbed Mike’s laptop computer after it was seized by the police, they’d put in a virus onto the machine that was triggered by efforts to retrieve deleted information — and when the Counter Terrorism Command officer from the London Metropolitan Police main the investigation into Mike had emailed McClain an replace on the arrest, the virus handed to McClain’s machine.
The virus gave the individuals at Sentinel full entry to all the things that occurred on McClain’s pc.
And they have been monitoring and recording that machine, down to each particular person keystroke, in actual time.
The video went on for 28 minutes documenting in painful element that the Holman–Thomason deepfake had come straight from the prosecutor.
“It seems to me that the British government has far bigger fish to fry than to continue pursuing this absurd persecution of my friend Mike Holman,” Pierce mentioned. “If it doesn’t stop, be advised that there are some really amazing revelations to follow.”
Mom and I watched that video with our jaws on the ground.
“This AI stuff is the end of the world,” she mentioned. “It’s the end of truth. Nobody will ever know what’s real and what isn’t again.”
“That’s true,” I mentioned, “but I’ll say this, you might as well fight fire with fire.”
She nodded.
And then my telephone began ringing off the hook.
Two days later I used to be again doing interviews on TV channels and podcasts on either side of the Atlantic. We’d turned one of many spare bedrooms right into a podcast studio so I didn’t have to go away the home, and that was an excellent factor — after Mom’s episode with the scary man following her as she jogged, we have been basically locked into that home aside from after we may have Roman and his guys offering us safety to go someplace. And to observe the home after we have been gone.
Because there have been individuals watching the home from the road, and so they didn’t seem like they have been pleasant. Roman came to visit on Wednesday once I known as him about that, and he walked over to speak to a few South Asian–trying guys who have been leaning towards a lamp-post close to the curb. They left simply after that and Roman appeared again at us with a smile.
But it didn’t cease the surveillance. People have been staring on the home all day, on daily basis. Which was why Roman had a few guys in a van parked on the road close by, and why they’d put in safety cameras on the skin of the home masking all of the doorways and home windows on the bottom ground.
We weren’t actually prisoners, in that we may go locations after we needed, and we did. Mom dragged me out of the home to see some sights, and it was enjoyable. I’d fairly have seen them with Mike, however it was good to get my thoughts off the ordeal for a short time right here and there.
I don’t understand how I might have managed with out her.
And what I came upon was that the large media blitz trying to demonize Mike wasn’t actually working with the British individuals, or no less than it wasn’t with quite a lot of them.
Roman had despatched one in all his Guyana guys, a critical badass named Charlie who’d been with him in Iraq and another locations he couldn’t actually discuss, alongside as our bodyguard. Charlie didn’t seem like Arnold Schwarzenegger or something, however with a bit of examination you may inform he was not a man you needed to mess with, and he was critical about being our bodyguard.
And I felt sorry for Charlie, as a result of individuals saved coming as much as us after we’d go on these excursions round London. At the Tower of London, for instance, a middle-aged girl in a Nike hoodie sweatshirt got here as much as me considerably abruptly and requested me if I used to be “that PJ woman what’s married to the American prisoner?”
“Yes, I am,” I mentioned, ready for the worst.
“I have something to say to you,” she mentioned. My coronary heart sank.
“Sure,” I mentioned, in as pleasant a tone as I may. “What’s that?”
“God bless and keep you, love,” she mentioned. “It’s a horror what they’ve done with him. You’re in our prayers, and we’re so sorry you’ve had to endure this.”
“Hear, hear,” mentioned a person standing close by.
“Utterly disgusted with that lot in Westminster,” one other girl mentioned. “Be strong, because it won’t last.”
“You aren’t alone,” mentioned one other man. “My cousin is in Bedford for demonstratin’. He did bleedin’ nuffink.”
At least it got here out as “nuffink.” I’m fairly certain he meant “nothing.”
“Thank all of you,” I mentioned. “It’s been hard, but I know we aren’t alone in this.”
And it drove me loopy, however I began tearing up once more and we needed to reduce the journey quick. I used to be virtually bawling by the point we acquired again to the automotive.
I used to be apologizing for being so emotional. Mom would have none of that. “What you’re going through would break somebody weaker,” she mentioned. “But you’re going to be fine. I raised you to be tough and you are.”
“You’re doing great, PJ,” Charlie mentioned from the motive force’s seat.
Anyway, on that Friday I used to be lastly capable of see Mike once more.
He was skinnier and paler than he was once I’d seen him on the Old Bailey, however curiously sufficient, he was in significantly higher spirits. I peppered him with questions concerning the lifeless cellmate, and although he was nonetheless fairly freaked out about it he dismissed the entire thing.
“The guy was crazy,” he mentioned. “It was probably bound to happen at some point.”
“But how did he hang himself and you didn’t know?”
“I don’t know, PJ. All I know is when I woke up, he was dead. He’d been talking to himself nonstop for four days, and I’d been ignoring him. It’s gotten to the point where I can sleep through an earthquake. It’s never quiet in that jail.”
I gave him a quizzical look. But it appeared like he was telling the reality.
In any occasion, he mentioned, issues had gotten significantly higher afterward. Mike mentioned they moved him to a person cell in a unique constructing, and he was now on the finish of a hallway on the primary ground.
“It’s a little quieter,” he mentioned, “and there’s a lot more space. They tell me this was Julian Assange’s cell when he was here.”
He additionally mentioned there was a guard, whose identify was Rob, who was answerable for the wing. Rob instructed him he’d make certain nothing occurred to him.
“You mean Handsome Rob?” I requested.
“Ummm, well … I don’t know that I’d describe him as handsome. Guy looks like he’s been in more than a few fights in his time.”
“Yep. That’s him.”
“You know him?”
I nodded and smiled.
“Well, this is good stuff.”
I used to be joking with him about what Hillary Clinton had mentioned about him.
“There’s a reason that old bitch couldn’t get elected,” he mentioned.
Then I instructed him concerning the pleasant reception from the opposite guests on the Tower, and it made him smile. Which made me really feel actually good.
Then he shooed me out of the guests’ space. Mom and I had determined to go for a pleasant dinner at an Italian place in Chelsea that night time, and Mike mentioned he didn’t need me to be late.
”I certain want you may include us,” I mentioned. “You could ask Mom about her marriage.”
“Oh yeah? What’s going on there?”
“She won’t tell me, but I think she’s separating from Dad. And I think it’s over this thing.”
“That’s too bad.”
“There’s a lot I haven’t told you, and I’ll give it to you eventually I guess.”
“PJ, I don’t want you to fall out with your Dad.”
“Might be too late for that.”
“Well, try not to make it worse. When I get out we’ll fix it.”
Abbey Wood, September 30, 2024
After I left Belmarsh that Saturday, issues began to get very, very loopy.
We have been within the automotive on the way in which to Chelsea when my telephone rang. The caller ID mentioned Stoke-On-Trent. When I answered it, Robby Thomason was on the opposite facet.
“PJ, love,” he mentioned, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t call you before. I feel terrible about what’s happened to Mike.”
“That’s kind, Robby,” I instructed him, “but it’s nothing to do with you.”
And sure, I gave him the Jason Statham accent.
“Are you having me on?” he mentioned, chuckling.
“It’s kind of an inside joke with Mike and I. I can do the cockney accent thing better than Mike, but yours is better than mine. I had to do it anyway.”
He laughed.
“My accent’s not that thick, love,” he mentioned. “I can show you some blokes what can’t make themself understood at all.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it.”
“Listen,” he mentioned, “I want to make sure you’re all right. I been where Mike is, you know, and what ate at me was not knowin’ my family would be OK.”
“I’m fine, Robby,” I mentioned. “I have some pretty good friends, you know.”
“What I hear you got the best,” he mentioned. “If not for my cause I’d be beggin’ for a place in the jungle with him.”
“You hear right. We’re well taken care of.”
“That’s good. But you ought to know that while the people are with you, what’s happening is gonna generate a backlash, yeah?”
“Meaning what?”
“The things that Polk is doin’, they’re havin’ an effect. But it’s ordinary folks that get hit hardest, innit?”
“You’re saying he’s hurting people.”
“Most understand. My phone won’t stop ringin’. They all tell me the people hate Stormer and they blame him for this, not Mike. But that’s not everybody, you know.”
“I’ve been glued to the TV and the internet since this thing started,” I mentioned. “I know what’s being said.”
“I just think you wanna be careful. This is gonna come to a head, an’ Stormer an’ the Establishment is gonna lash out.”
“Robby, I would think they’ll lash out against you more than me.”
“And they will. When I come home they will put me in prison, no question about it. I’m preparin’. I know it’s comin’. But before I come, especially with you goin’ on air like you do, and you’re quite good, love…they might put a target on your back.”
“Well, I’ve lawyered up and I’ve got security, so…”
“Just be careful, hey?”
“I will. You do the same.”
He mentioned goodbye and Mom, who heard the decision as a result of I had it on speaker, shook her head.
“Can you imagine being him?” she mentioned. “He’s a marked man by his own government.”
“There’s a lot of that going around, you know.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. And then we hit that restaurant for the most effective osso buco I’ve ever had.
But the subsequent day, there was one other protest that turned ugly, this one in Birmingham. I’m not even certain what touched it off; at this level the record of doable causes was virtually limitless. Stormer was operating across the nation making speeches decrying the “pervasive and destructive influence” of a “global rebel consortium” bent on “destroying our democratic order.”
He’d on condition that speech a number of instances, and at UK News they have been laughing at him. Kristie Hodgkins, who Mike had interviewed a few instances and had written a completely scathing piece about his imprisonment per week earlier than, laughingly requested if Marjorie Taylor Greene was coming to Britain to “finish off the American revolution,” and urged that “our new American masters might do well to stop the rolling blackouts.”
They’d closed the final coal-fired energy plant within the UK a month or so earlier than, and thru some confluence of climate patterns in Wales and England the Guardian was blaming on “climate change” the winds had grow to be rather less persistent. Seeing as if one thing like 30 p.c of the ability grid in Great Britain relied on wind generators, that unlucky calming of the winds had left the electrical grid starved of power.
And when Mom went on-line to pick stuff for Tesco to ship, they have been out of half the issues she needed.
“We’re going to have to eat out, or get delivery food,” she mentioned. “Our supermarket is a bust.”
It was beginning to get bizarre everywhere in the nation. And no matter Thomason’s name, I really didn’t suppose Pierce was liable for most of it. It looks like Stormer had kind of crashed Great Britain’s financial system all by himself.
They’d introduced a metal plant in Wales was shutting down as a part of a “decarbonization” effort the Indian firm that owned the blast furnace was engaged in, inspired by the federal government. Three thousand jobs have been gone simply from that plant closure, and on TV they have been debating how a lot of an impression that was going to have on the neighborhood across the plant.
The BBC dismissed it. Sky News mentioned the place was going to grow to be a ghost city. Almost definitely Sky News was proper.
Then there was the Israelis taking out a complete host of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders with airstrikes and exploding pagers and all types of different issues, and that incensed the pro-Palestinian of us in London. At the mosque down the road, on the Tuesday after I visited Mike, there was what appeared like a block occasion; they barricaded the road and there have been audio system blasting “the Jews” and demanding that Stormer “stop the genocide.”
Roman known as and mentioned he was ensuring nothing got here to our facet of the block.
“I don’t know that it’s a good idea for us to be here,” I mentioned. “It made perfect sense to be close to Belmarsh, but Roman … this is starting to feel like Fort Apache. And I don’t have a gun.”
“I know,” he mentioned. “But you’ve got us.”
The drawback was that the subsequent night time, someone threw a brick by means of our bay window. “Racists OUT!” learn the notice on the paper wrapped across the brick.
They’d thrown the brick from a shifting automotive, which was a reasonably spectacular toss.
“There’s no accounting for f**king idiots,” Mom mentioned.
I gave her a glance. She’s the one who instilled in me the aversion to swearing, and right here she was dropping F-bombs.
Not that I didn’t wish to drop one in all my very own.
Roman’s guys had often been within the entrance, however they’d been strolling across the property when the brick-throwers did their model of a drive-by capturing.
And no sooner had we lined that window with plywood than one thing an excellent bit worse occurred.
But this time our little safety drive was prepared.
The home had a again yard bordered by a red-brick wall that was in all probability 5 toes excessive. Roman had put in a safety digicam above the sliding glass again door, and his individuals have been watching within the van on the road when two males came to visit the wall late the subsequent night time.
They let me see the video later. Those two guys have been wearing black and so they have been carrying balaclavas over their heads, however had these inexperienced headbands with the Arabic writing on them tied round their foreheads.
And each of them had large knives. Not swords; extra like Bowie knives.
But Charlie and Buzz, who have been within the van watching the digicam feeds as Mom and I slept upstairs, noticed them instantly and made their approach to the entrance door rapidly, let themselves in and took positions in the lounge.
When the 2 attackers have been capable of decide the lock and slide that door open, Charlie and Buzz waited till they got here into the lounge after which tazed each of them.
It was Charlie who woke me up.
“Hey,” he mentioned, as I got here awake and instantly startled at seeing him.
“What’s the…”
“Everything is OK,” he mentioned, “but we had an incident. I think you should know that we ummm, intercepted a couple of intruders.”
“Intruders?”
“Yeah. Bad guys.”
“This is why it’s so stupid they don’t let you have a gun here.”
“I know. Anyway, it’s taken care of. But Roman’s going to call you later, like in the morning, because I think he’s going to want to talk about some changes.”
“OK. What does that mean?”
“I’ll, uhh, let him talk about that. But I just want you to know that you’re safe. And I wouldn’t tell your mom until later. Like after you talk to Roman.”
“OK.”
“You can go back to sleep if you want. We’ve got reinforcements coming and we’re watching the house.”
You’re in all probability considering there was no approach I used to be going again to sleep. You’d be unsuitable. I knew what Roman and his guys may do, and no matter what was occurring downstairs I had complete religion they’d have our backs.
But a bit of after daybreak I did get up, and I went downstairs to get one thing to eat. Roman was there.
“You want some breakfast?” he requested.
“Sure!” I mentioned with an enormous smile. “I heard you had some action last night.”
He smiled.
“It probably didn’t turn out how I would have designed it,” he mentioned, chuckling, “but I gotta hand it to my guys. They’ve got some flair to them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“OK, I’ll tell it to you because I know you can handle it. You were with us at Liberty Point, or at least for some of it.”
“Roman, just tell me.”
“So these two cats who came over the back wall last night? They were your classic old-school assassins. Like in the old Arabic sense, OK?”
“You mean like terrorists?”
“OK, fine, yeah. You’re Mike Holman’s wife and they can’t get to him where he is thanks to Handsome Rob. So they decided they’d get to you.”
“And we’re down the street from a bad mosque.”
“Exactly. That was Pierce’s doing. He figured the location was good because there was stuff nearby and this is close to Belmarsh and even though it’s ugly it’s big and kinda roomy.”
“The place is actually kinda growing on me, in a weird way.”
“Yeah, well, you stick out like a sore thumb here. I’ll be honest, from a security standpoint it isn’t good. I was against it and I was right.”
“You think we ought to go back to the Savoy or something?”
“No. Well, we’ll get to that. But you can’t really stay here. Not after…”
“After what?”
“After these two animals came, obviously. But especially after what Charlie and Buzz did.”
“Which was?”
“They stripped those two assholes down to their birthday suits, tied ‘em up like a couple of hogs, gagged ‘em and left ‘em on the front yard of the mosque. Then there was a little special touch I wouldn’t have recommended.”
“Namely?”
“Carving a Star of David into each of their foreheads with those knives they brought.”
“Oh, shit,” I chuckled, considering that I’d give Mike the pungent eye if he’d mentioned that.
“It made for a fun video that got uploaded to X a little while ago, for sure. But here’s the thing: I think you’re done here.”
“Probably right. So we’ll just get a hotel.”
Roman shook his head.
“I think it’s time you got out of Dodge.”
“What, like go see Stonehenge?”
“No, like go see Rome. Or Vienna. Or Marrakech or somewhere.”
“You want us to get out of the country?”
“That’s exactly what I want.”
I threw my head again and sighed.
“You don’t want me to ask why, do you?”
He smiled and shook his head.
“You’re definitely cooking me breakfast now.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he mentioned with a smile. “How about some flapjacks and a little bacon and eggs?”
“It’s not very British, but I’ll take it.”
Mom will need to have smelled Roman’s creating feast, as a result of she got here down a bit of later. And we insisted that Roman eat with us.
He wasn’t going to inform Mom all the things. She made him. And she had no objection to his command that we take off for some time. In reality, she had a solution for that.
“Let’s go and see the Giseckis,” she mentioned.
Mom’s maiden identify was Smithson. But her mother was a Gisecki, and my grandfather was Polish. He was from Gdansk and he’d fled communism in Poland within the 1960’s.
There have been nonetheless a lot of Giseckis in Gdansk. And Mom, being the large family tree knowledgeable who had traced her line, had discovered all of them. She’d been in touch along with her cousin Eligia, who was married to a man who ran an insurance coverage firm over there, and as she instructed us she’d been promising she’d ultimately get round to visiting.
“So we’re going to Gdansk?” I requested her.
“Yeah, I think so. You want to meet some of your relatives, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. But Roman, what does this mean about Mike? I’m not going to get stuck, like…”
“PJ, you will see him again,” Roman mentioned.
“Are you sure?”
He smiled, and he stole the final piece of bacon off my plate and laughed as he devoured it down.
So Mom fired up her laptop computer and booked two tickets on a flight from Stansted Airport, which was like an hour northeast of the place we have been, to Gdansk on RyanAir that left that afternoon.
“How long should we pack for?” I requested Roman.
He shrugged.
“Few days, I guess.”
“We’re not coming back here, are we?”
He cocked his head and made a face which instructed me the reply was no.
“Well, look,” I mentioned. “I know you have a lot to do, but if we’re done here I have a request.”
“Name it.”
“I really want to bring that couch and the two matching chairs to Jupiter so we can have them in the new house, when, you know…”
“When Mike gets there.”
“Yeah! That couch is an absolute God-damned grand slam home run.”
“Pauline!” mentioned Mom.
“Yes, I know, and I’m sorry, Mom. But it’s that good of a couch.”
“It really is,” she admitted.
“Anyway, Roman, I know that’s a real pain in the butt given what else you’re doing, but…”
“Say no more,” he mentioned in his Donovan-the-Jamaican accent. “We’ll handle it, ma’am.”
Charlie introduced us to Stansted, He didn’t say something about saving us. He didn’t should. I gave him an enormous hug when he unloaded our baggage, and he knew that I appreciated what he’d finished.
“It’s my honor,” he mentioned. “And tell Mike when you see him that I appreciate everything he’s done. For all of us.”
“Thanks, Charlie,” I mentioned.
RyanAir is like an Irish model of Southwest Airlines. It price like $150 for each of our tickets to Gdansk, which was a bit of greater than a two-hour flight. You overlook how shut collectively all these locations in Europe are in comparison with again within the States.
And for the subsequent couple of days we had a good time with the Giseckis, who couldn’t have been extra excited to fulfill us. They’re super-nice individuals, and their English is best than half the parents I talked to in England.
It was a improbable time.
Right as much as the purpose once I noticed on the web that Mike was lifeless.
