Milkshake (15 page)

“Shit damn and bugger!” Ed stood up and began pacing the
floor, agitated, scratching his head and rubbing his unshaven face,
wrestling with what to say next. Slowly he pulled his hands down
across his cheeks and bearded chin before letting out a long
sigh.

“Tell me what you know about Cowood, Ed.”

Ed pulled his chair around the perimeter of the table until he
was next to David. He spoke in a hushed tone. “Cowood is the
biggest single threat this country has ever faced. It’s an
invasion, a take- over, a complete desecration of the land and
people of New Zealand, and only a handful of people even know its
happening, let alone are trying to stop it. Look at me, Dave.
Tonight I’m stone cold sober, so believe me, what I am about to
tell you are cold hard facts, mate. Firstly, you are part of the
invasion, Dave. You and hundreds like you are being innocently
recruited to bring money into the country, barely hidden within the
thin magnetic strip on a credit card. During the last two years, we
reckon about $180 billion U.S. dollars have been brought in by
unsuspecting tourists and immigrants like you. It’s a brilliant
plan. Plant the cards at the point of departure and then let them
travel into the country. Our Immigration Service and Customs
haven’t a hope in hell of even beginning to know where to start as
far as confiscating credit cards from everyone coming in, so in
they come, tourists and immigrants carrying that valuable piece of
plastic, sometimes minus a few hundred bucks if they have found the
card during their journey. Once they are here, the card is
retrieved, usually within twenty four hours and usually by
pickpockets or bribed hotel cleaners. Occasionally the couriers
deviate from their expected itinerary. Sometimes the card has to be
retrieved by force. So we see a small but steady number of
foreigners apparently dying on our roads, or in climbing accidents,
or getting lost in the bush. Of course, the police never
investigate the theft aspect of these murders because as far as
they are concerned the card was never there in the first place.
Once the card is back in the possession of Cowood, the money can
begin its slow journey buying up the land beneath our feet. The
cards are used to buy high value items, mainly from Asia -
electronic goods, cars, boats, that kind of thing. It’s no
coincidence New Zealand now has one of the highest rates of boat
ownership and the highest rate of car ownership per head in the
world. These goods are sold off primarily on a publicly accessible
internet auction site which is controlled by a Kiwi holding
company, but it’s ultimately owned by the American parent through a
complicated series of offshore trusts.”

“A bit like EBay?”

“Kind of. Cowood realised they needed a legitimate way of
laundering the money, so they set up a complex system, relying on
New Zealand’s physical isolation from the rest of the world. There
are a number of agents who import these goods and advertise them on
the auction website under the guise of being one of the hundreds of
thousands of legitimate online traders. In reality there are
probably only about seventy-five to a hundred Cowood agents trading
on the site, but each has several hundred online pseudonyms. Of
course, they set a reserve price to cover the cost of the item and
then, if the item sells for more, Cowood makes a small profit as
well as successfully laundering the money. The bizarre thing about
all this is that, as a result of Cowood coming up with this scheme,
New Zealand now has one of the most enthusiastic online trading
populations in the world. So many Kiwis have signed up to buy or
sell their own stuff perfectly legitimately that, in the past year
alone, the population of New Zealand has contributed around
eighteen million dollars in commission to Cowood’s online trading
scam and therefore is actually willingly bankrolling its
oppressors. So there you have it, Dave. A subtle invasion. The
money comes in, gets laundered and is absorbed into the economy
with the tacit co-operation of the population. The money is then
used to purchase vast tracts of land, again with the entirely
reasonable aim of establishing forestry or dairy herds. The profit
from these operations will then be used to construct the conversion
plants to produce the bio fuel and connecting pipe work
infrastructure, and eventually a Trans–Pacific pipeline. Because
all the profit is re-invested in the business, there is very little
the regulatory authorities can do to either influence or stop how
the business grows. It’s only a matter of time before Cowood
actually achieves its aim. They’re obviously very secretive of
their true intentions, and we have a hell of a job trying to
convince people any of this is happening at all.”

That was it. Right at the end, just then, the confirmation
David had been waiting for. Ed had finally let slip an innocuous
‘we’. He was involved in this far more than he had let on up until
that moment. Sure he knew the background story and seemed to have a
good grasp of the bigger picture, but with that one small slip of
the tongue he had confirmed a suspicion that had been increasing in
David’s mind ever since they had reunited the day
before.

“You said 'we'.”

Ed sat back, momentarily startled. “What do you mean?” he
said, defensively.

“You said
we
have a hell of a job. Who
are
we
?”

Ed shook his head, trying to find the right words. ‘However I
say this, it’s going to come out sounding melodramatic and overly
sensational, so I’m going to just say it, OK? I’m with the
resistance.”

A smile turned into a gentle chuckle, which developed into
full scale laughter as, in David’s mind, Ed was now speaking in a
French accent and wearing a beret.

A momentary grin crossed Ed’s face also. “Piss off, Dave! I
can’t think of any better way of putting it, alright?”

“So what does this resistance do then, Ed?”

“Well, we try and find out what the Government knows about
Cowood, try and resist by stopping the money coming in. That can be
the most difficult thing. We know the New Zealand Secret
Intelligence Service has agents in all the major cities around the
world that immigrants originate from - London, Johannesburg, Los
Angeles and about a dozen others. For example, in London the SIS
placed an agent in a senior position in the Royal Mail. He, in
turn, handles a number of other agents who are employed as sorting
office supervisors. The SIS have trained them to re-programme the
sorting office technology to recognise the distinctive pre-printed
envelopes that the Associated Bank of Monaco uses for mailing out
the credit cards to potential couriers. They can then send a list
of who the bank has targeted to be cross-referenced with passenger
lists for flights inbound from the UK to Auckland.”

“So you knew I was at the airport waiting to come
here?”

“Not exactly. I found out about four hours into the flight
that it was you, after the stuff happened with the SIS agent being
murdered.”

“You already knew about that?”

“He was working as a cleaner at the airport and was trying to
intercept you and get the credit card before you left. It was the
poor bugger’s first proper mission and he decided to take on the
guys who were planting the card on you. The poor sod was
overpowered and thrown off a roof. Anyway, your name sounded
familiar. I ran a quick check on your last address and confirmed it
was the same fella I went to school with. Meanwhile the SIS put
what they call an Alpha One Zone in place. They kept watch and
guided you all the way to the seat you’re in now.”

“All the way?”

“The intercept at Changi Airport was the SIS. They can only
work officially within our own border, so had to assume British
identities before the Singapore authorities would allow them to
question you. The guy at the car rental in Auckland was also SIS. I
didn’t anticipate you trying to track me down, and you threw them
off for a bit when you booked that flight south. They traced my
email reply back to you, which they could only do when you went
back online at the ferry terminal in Auckland. We didn’t count on
them having a cover story ready and coming here quite so
soon.”

“So how did you get involved in all this, Ed?”

“It was when Trevor, the sales guy from the Pharmaceutical
division of Cowood, came to the island and started promoting their
so called wonder product. Being a vet myself, we got chatting about
this and that, and one night after our third bottle of Pinot his
tongue loosened up. At first it all sounded wildly far-fetched,
until a few days later when a farm hand called me to come and look
at an animal. When I got there, we drove out in the 4x4 until we
got to a deserted paddock. Not a bloody cow in sight. I stopped the
engine and we sat there for an hour while he confirmed not only
everything Trevor had said, but far more stuff. Trevor had painted
this rosy vision of a hugely successful multi-national conglomerate
that was investing in the future of this country and would make all
the farmers - dairy workers and everyone in between - stinking
rich. This farm hand said he had heard another darker side to what
was going on. He explained how Cowood was about to move onto the
next phase of their plan. Coffee?” Ed decided now would be a good
time for a break, stood up, and made his way towards the kitchen.
“He said the biggest obstacle Cowood would have to overcome, when
the full extent of their plans eventually became public knowledge,
would be the huge international and local opposition to their
proposal. They would need friends in high places, and lots of them,
when the time came.”

David interrupted as Ed continued making the coffee. “So who
is going to support this supposed invasion if everything you have
been told is true?”

“The Greens.”

David was surprised by this unexpected reply. “The
Greens?”

“Exactly, the Ecological Political Assembly of New Zealand.
EPANZ, is our equivalent of the European and North American Green
parties. They have a significant groundswell of popular support in
New Zealand, especially in the middle class. Cowood recognised this
early on. Slowly and methodically they have infiltrated the Party.
Just think about it. Cowood advocates sustainable, renewable energy
using existing resources and infrastructure. The tree huggers love
the idea but the poor bastards don’t realise their principles are
being manipulated for massive corporate gain. The next general
election is in three years time. Between now and then Cowood aims
to have a leader of EPANZ who is completely sympathetic to their
aspirations. They’ll pump huge dollars into EPANZ, quite legally,
through member donations from ordinary Kiwis; farmers, land owners
and the like who traditionally would have been the last people to
vote Green, but who now, of course, sell their products exclusively
to Cowood, who in turn will exercise complete control over the
manifesto of EPANZ. In three years, New Zealand will be the first
country in the world to elect a leader from a Party founded solely
on ecological issues. They will have such an overwhelming majority
that they’ll be able to pass any bill in Parliament that Cowood
needs in order to begin work on the construction of the
interconnecting pipelines and the consequential destruction of the
land in-between.” Ed passed David his coffee and sat back down.
“Believe me, Dave, it’s going to happen. In fact, it’s already
started. Today is evidence of that.”

David sipped his coffee. “Ok, Ed, so how do you stop
it?”

“We can’t really stop the money; we can only slow it down.
Each card brings in such huge amounts of the stuff it’s like
fighting a forest fire with a bucket of sand. There are some guys
on the mainland who are starting to take direct action, mainly out
of frustration. Some of the smaller landowners feel they are being
intimidated into selling out when Cowood buys up the surrounding
acreage. These fellas might start a fire and destroy a few hectares
of Cowood forestry, but Cowood just ignores it or puts it down to
personal grievance or jealousy. So, for the moment, they don’t seem
to be aware that there is any kind of undercurrent of unrest or
resistance to them.”

“But what about what happened at Heathrow? Surely that must
have shown them someone is trying to sabotage their
plans?”

“The Government managed a pretty good cover story with that
one. The High Commission in London issued a press statement saying
the murdered agent was part of a criminal gang at the airport who
were employed as cleaners and who then branched out from pick
pocketing and petty theft in the public areas to stealing from
vehicles in the car parks. The press release said the car parks are
the territory of the Asian baggage handlers who work at the
airport. He was busy casing vehicles when they saw him in his
cleaner’s uniform and took exception to him working their patch, so
they threw him over the wall as a signal to the other cleaners to
stay away. Unfortunately, the fact that he died in the line of
duty, trying to protect his country, can never be revealed to his
family or the public.” Ed glanced at his watch. It was six-thirty.
“Go upstairs, grab a bag and meet me by the truck. We don’t have
much time. MAF have called a public meeting in the Memorial Hall at
seven to brief the farmers and the rest of the islanders. It’s
going to be our best chance to get you off.”

David walked into the bedroom. Katherine was lying on the bed,
sobbing. She looked over to him and another wave of salty tears
rolled down her left cheek to join the others steadily moistening
the cotton sheet beneath her head. She sniffed. “Do you know where
they are taking you?” She seemed to have known the next step before
he did;