The Partridge Kite Read Online Free Page A

- Sanderson went on - ‘has a cell structure but nowhere for a very sensible security reason will you find a membership file. The country is divided into fifty-two regions and each has its CORDON leader or Director. Their names are known only to six men - six anonymous men who make up the Board of CORDON, five Directors and the Chairman. The Chairman makes the decisions.’
    ‘How are members recruited?’ . . . Kellick’s taped voice again.
    ‘Are you a Mason, Mr Kellick?’
    ‘No!’
    ‘But you know something of how the first approaches are made before an invitation to join a Lodge is offered.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well, we owe much to that system. We owe much to the Lodges: some of our best members were recruited from them. That wouldn’t be surprising, though, would it?’
    Kellick said nothing.
    ‘Well, much the same kind of approach was made by us to prospective members. Usually it was left to the Area Director. K a man’s views were known to be close to those of CORDON, and consistent, then a first approach was made. The Director would engineer a casual meeting. . . the familiar places, the golf club. Rotary, trade associations, the man’s business. If the Director was convinced of the man’s availability he would sponsor the candidate to CORDON’S HQ staff.
    ‘To my knowledge over the past two and a half years the system has failed us so infrequently that it has never posed any real threat, certainly nothing to embarrass us. On only very few occasions in those thirty months did CORDON have to issue an execution order on people who had the authority to damage us because a mistake was made in our first approaches to them. Of course, this kind of vetting was only necessary in a fraction of the considerable number of our members - only among those we would call opinion leaders, men who would be privy to information that we could never afford to become public. The vast mass of our support, the fodder that provided the strength and money, the hundreds of thousands who will rally on the day, were recruited more casually because they did not know, will not know, until after the event exactly what it is they have pledged their support to. Our disguise to them was simple enough and we used many titles.’
    ‘Why have you defected, Mr Sanderson?’ Kellick’s voice cut in hard. ‘And why are you telling us all this?’
    ‘Because I am afraid. Not for myself: I consider myself dead anyway in my own mind. You really cannot expect police protection against CORDON. They’ll come and take me. They have marked me dead.
    ‘I am afraid for my country, for the friends I have, for the family I once had. CORDON is a monster, Mr Kellick. I’ve seen enough of its workings to be afraid. I’ve seen it grow out of its ideals, which were to me once fine and worthwhile, to become totally evil. All those like me who have sworn loyalty to it are caught up in its filth.
    ‘CORDON is preparing us for a society that would shock Orwell. Shall I tell you that 1984 is forbidden reading in CORDON - and can you guess why? I have seen the spectre of a Britain under CORDON. It is the end of a Nation and the rebirth I had dreamed of. We are to be governed by the Board. It will have powers no King of England and Empire could ever have dreamt of. We are to be employees of a monopolistic greyness, a corporation governed by computers programmed by the Chairman. CORDON’S control will be total. The word “individual” will be scratched from our language.
    ‘I am dead, Mr Kellick. I died the moment I saw that vision. I am a renegade “Brownshirt” - and I am giving your employers, the political bankrupts I once despised, enough currency now to destroy CORDON and the organisation within Britain they now control. Kill them, Mr Kellick, before they destroy a thousand years of democracy!’
    The cassette tape continued turning a few moments more before it stopped. Even then the slight hum from the machine was the only sound in the room.