The Big Breach (50 page)

Back at the Copthorne, the receptionist insisted that as the hotel was full, he would have to give me the main suite at the price of a normal room. The hotel lobby and dining area were deserted and the hotel didn't appear full to me, but I shrugged my shoulders and took the key. As soon as I was up in the suite, the telephone rang. TVNZ had heard the news of my removal from the plane and wanted to come over with a camera crew to do an interview for that evening's late news slot. I agreed to let them come over and in the meantime started to unpack my suitcase which had been packed only a few hours earlier. They arrived at 8 p.m. and shot a short interview, during which I protested at the harassment I was receiving at the hands of the New Zealand authorities, then they rushed back to edit it for the main news at 9 p.m.

Alone at last, I grabbed a Steinlager from the minibar and sat down on the bed to decide what to do next. It was disappointing to be banned from Australia. Although as an New Zealand citizen a visa was not normally required, there was a clause in their agreement that allowed each country to ban nationals of the other if they were of `character concern'. The clause was drafted to allow each country to ban the other's serious criminals such as rapists and murderers, but Australia had invoked it to keep me out. The Australian authorities had nothing against me but just like the New Zealand authorities, they had been asked by MI6 to make life difficult for me and so had obliged.

Lying on the bed, I dialled a friend in Sydney to tell him that my trip was off. No sooner had he answered than there was a soft knock on the door. I told him to hang on for a minute, put the phone down on the bedside table, and got up to answer. My previous arrests made me suspicious of unexpected visitors. `Who is it?' I asked cautiously, without opening the door.

`It's Susan. Is Caroline there?' a female voice answered.

`Sorry, wrong room,' I answered, and went back to the phone. But there was another more impatient knock. Somewhat irritated, I got back up to answer the door again.

`It's Susan here, I think I may have left something in the room.'

There was no spyhole so I slipped on the security chain and turned the key. The door smashed to its limit against the chain, then again and again. `Police, police, open the fucking door,' shouted an irritated male voice. `All right, all right, calm down,' I replied, slipping the chain to avoid a big bill from the Copthorne.

A pugnacious-looking Maori led the charge. `Get back over there, in the corner,' he yelled, shoving me backwards away from my half-unpacked suitcase. Two more officers followed him up.

Once the room was secured and they had me under control - not that I was resisting - a fourth entered. `I'm Detective Inspector Whitham, Auckland Threat Assessment Unit,' he announced, flashing his ID at me. He introduced the glowering Maori, who looked disappointed I had not hit him, as Constable Waihanari.

`We have a warrant to search you and your belongings,' announced Waihanari, waving a sheet of paper at me. `Strip,' he ordered. While my clothes were being searched, a female officer and a portly fourth officer pulled on latex gloves and started a careful search of my belongings. The telephone was still off the hook, with my friend listening in from Sydney, so the female slammed down the receiver and for good measure pulled the telephone lead out of the wall socket.

`Can I see the warrant?' I demanded after Waihanari had allowed me to get dressed again. I checked it for accuracy - any discrepancy would make it invalid and I could force the police to leave - but every detail was correct. They even had the correct hotel room number, explaining why the receptionist insisted I took the suite.

I heard other voices lurking outside in the corridor and as I finished reading the warrant they entered. To my surprise, one was Ratcliffe. `What the hell are you doing here?' I shouted, leaping to my feet and causing Waihanari's eyes to light up. Ratcliffe had flown all the way to New Zealand at the British taxpayer's expense (and I later learnt that Whaley had accompanied him) for this latest episode of petty harassment. `Get out of this room now!' I shouted. Waihanari was limbering up with a gentle haka and I turned to him. `If he doesn't get out of here right now, you can have your fun.' Ratcliffe held up his hands to calm me down, and backed out of the room. He knew this latest piece of harassment would be relayed to the press the next day and he did not want a repeat of the bad publicity of the Paris.

The New Zealand police searched my hotel room more professionally and thoroughly than the French. Anything unscrewable was unscrewed - all the light fittings, electrical sockets and desk fittings, and they dismantled all my personal belongings. They found the Psion disk after an hour and a half, hidden inside a clunky British adaptor plug. The porky officer smiled with delight when he opened it up and pulled it out. I smiled too, as I had backed a copy up on the internet that morning in an Auckland internet caf‚.

Just after 11 p.m. the police left with the disk and a few other pieces of paper that they decreed were evidence that I was `endangering New Zealand security'. Feeling bloody annoyed, I went out into downtown Auckland to get drunk. The second pub I stumbled into had a promotion evening for a canned vodka cocktail called `KGB'. When I was halfway through my first can, a young man came up to me and clapped me on the shoulder. `I know you, mate, I've seen you on telly every night this week. You're that fella those pommy bastards have been chasing around the world,' he grinned. `Here, have a KGB on me.' He waved over the waiter and got me another can.

Soon all his mates joined in and I knew I was in for a long night and a rough tomorrow. `Stick at it and put one over the bastard poms,' they urged me. Their fighting spirit and irreverent attitude to state authority was a refreshing contrast to the attitude of many people in England who limply advised me to give in to MI6.

Despite the support from the drinkers that night in the pub, and from many other ordinary Auckland folk who approached me on the street during the next few days, one even asking for an autograph, I reluctantly decided that it was not advisable to stay in New Zealand. If MI6 had twisted the arms of the New Zealand authorities into the confiscation of my property, then it was inevitable that sooner or later they would try to press charges against me. I decided to go back to Europe, and chose Switzerland because of its reputation for neutrality.

But first I had to find myself a lawyer who could help me get back my confiscated property, as once back in Europe it would be impossible to act for myself. One of MI6's objectives in continually having me detained was to force me to spend my savings on lawyers to recover property that they confiscated from me. Whilst they had unlimited legal resources at their disposal, they knew that my reserves were finite. I was therefore pleased to find a lawyer who was prepared to represent me
pro bono
. Warren Templeton, a diligent and independent barrister from Auckland, had seen coverage of my case on TVNZ and tracked me down to the Copthorne Hotel. I accepted his kind offer gladly and he has worked ceaselessly ever since to put an end to MI6's treatment of me, not only in New Zealand but also elsewhere around the world.

15. SINISTER CIRCLES

SUNDAY, 30 AUGUST 1998

JOHN F. KENNEDY AIRPORT, NEW YORK

`Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. For security reasons would all passengers kindly return to their seats.' There was a collective groan as passengers replaced their coats and hand-luggage in the overhead lockers while the Swissair captain repeated the message in French. I hadn't stood up to join the rush to the exits and paid little attention to the delay as I buried my nose back in
The Economist
. My neighbour in the aisle seat sat down impatiently. `JFK's a goddarn disgrace,' he drawled grumpily to nobody in particular.

I took a circuitous route from Auckland to Munich via Singapore and Bangkok, hoping MI6 would lose my trail somewhere along the way. After two days in Munich, rollerblading in the English gardens to keep any surveillance on their toes, I took the train to Zurich then Geneva, where I found some digs. There lawyers for Mr Al Fayed contacted me, inquiring about my knowledge of Henri Paul's relationship with MI6. I had not given it any thought since posting the letter to Harrods a year earlier, but after a casual comment to a journalist who realised its significance, his lawyers wanted a full statement. Judge Herv‚ Stephan, the magistrate in charge of the inquest into the crash that killed the Princess of Wales, Dodi Al Fayed and Henri Paul himself, invited me to Paris shortly afterwards to give evidence. It was a breach of the OSA for me to do so, but I felt entirely justified, given the significance of the tragedy. I told Stephan about Paul's MI6 file, the notes I saw of his meetings in 1992 with his MI6 case officer, Fish's plan to assassinate President Milosevic in a tunnel car-crash and about the
paparazzi
photographer who worked for UKN. I do not know anything more about the fatal crash, but I am convinced that there is information in MI6 files that would be useful to the enquiry, in particular concerning the movements of Henri Paul on the evening of his death. For despite thorough police inquiries, his whereabouts for an hour have not been accounted for. I suspect that he was having a drink with his MI6 handler, as a large sum of cash was found on his body later that evening. Examination of his MI6 file would clarify this and might shed light on the mysteriously high levels of alcohol and carbon monoxide found in his blood. Disappointingly, Stephan did not request the files from the British government.

NBC wanted to interview me live on their
Today
news programme on Monday, 31 August about this evidence and MI6's pursuit of me around the world, hence my flight to New York. But, watching a group of uniformed, armed men methodically counting down the seat rows of the MD-11, I feared MI6 had other ideas.

`Can I see your passport please, sir?' the badly overweight INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) officer asked politely as he and three colleagues stopped at my row. I handed over my passport, open at the page with the multiple-entry indefinite visa issued while a student at MIT. The official flipped to the photograph and glanced at me to verify the resemblance. `Come with us please, sir,' he ordered.

My grumbling neighbour stood to allow me out and as I stepped into the aisle, two INS men grabbed my wrists and slapped on handcuffs. `Where's your hand luggage?' one snapped, and picked out my canvas shoulder bag from the locker I nodded towards. I smiled back at the hostile glares from the plane's passengers as they frogmarched me off the plane, two in front, two behind, through the docking gantry into the crowded arrivals area, then down into the bowels of the airport.

The INS detention centre was dominated by a substantial desk on a raised plinth, behind which two officials surveyed the detainees sitting in a row on a bench against the opposite wall. My captors uncuffed me, sat me down between a snoozing Mexican in a sombrero and a greasy-haired Russian in a tight T-shirt, and manacled me to the bench with leg-irons. `I thought you gave up legirons for new arrivals 200 years ago,' I quipped.

`We've been ordered not to let you into the United States,' a marginally slimmer officer replied humourlessly. `Wait your turn here, and you'll find out why.'

Fortunately my turn for an interview came quickly. `Sit down over there,' the INS officer indicated a plastic chair in the corner of a small interview room containing a desk and computer. `Right, Mr Tomlinson,' he announced as he fired up the PC and took his seat. `We've got here a standard list of questions that we put to every alien who has been denied entrance to the USA. First, I expect you'll be wanting to know why you've been denied entry?'

`I already know,' I replied. `The CIA told you not to let me in.'

`How did you know that?' he asked, confirming my guess. He pushed over a directive from the State Department denying me entry at the request of a `friendly government'.

`But what reasons are you giving me?' I asked, knowing that a request from another government, no matter how friendly, would not be sufficient legal reason to expel me.

`We haven't got to that yet,' he replied, tapping my passport details into the PC. `Right, first question. Have you ever been convicted of any offences relating to the supply or smuggling of drugs?'

`Nope,' I replied confidently and waited while he tapped in my answer.

`Have you ever been convicted of any firearms offences?'

`Nope.'

`Have you ever been convicted of any serious offence carrying with it a jail sentence of more than one year?'

`Nope,' I replied truthfully.

`Have you ever used any alias names?'

`Oh yes, indeed,' I replied cheerfully.

`Well let's have them,' he ordered.

`Daniel Noonan, Richard Harwin, Richard Ledbury, Ben Presley, Tom Paine, Alex Huntley,' I rattled off. One by one he tapped them into his computer, asking me to spell them out. The last must have flashed up an INS record because he examined the screen for several minutes when it went in.