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    The Need for Fear
    The Need for Fear
    The Need for Fear
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    The Need for Fear

    By Oisin McGann

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    About this ebook

    A young journalist uncovers what might be the world’s biggest conspiracy—if only he can prove it

    For years, Chi Sandwith has written about things like alien abductions, puppet masters, and brainwashing. He’s not a “conspiracy theorist” though—he’s a serious journalist and a seeker of the Truth. When Chi meets a man who claims to be a former secret agent, it looks like evidence of a huge conspiracy has landed right in the reporter’s lap.
     
    But can Chi believe a single word he hears from the professional liar? And why is the old spook so intent on introducing Chi to a woman who could expose the agent’s dark past? Over the course of 1 day, Chi is faced with spies, anarchists, a tough-as-nails policewoman, a highly valuable refrigerator, and a very harsh truth: He is a rank amateur in a world of dangerous professionals . . .
     
    The Need for Fear is a companion novella to Strangled Silence. 
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateJul 28, 2015
    ISBN9781504021401
    The Need for Fear
    Author

    Oisin McGann

    Born in Dublin in 1973, Oisín McGann spent his childhood there and in Drogheda, County Louth. Art college ruined any chance he had of getting a real job, so when he left in 1992 he set himself up as a freelance illustrator. In 1998, he moved to London, and through no fault of his own, he ended up working in advertising as an art director and copywriter. After three and a half years, he began to fear for his immortal soul. He returned to Ireland in the summer of 2002 much as he had left—with no job, no home, and some meager savings. Ever the optimist, he now works once more as an illustrator and mercenary artist by day and escapist writer by night.

    Read more from Oisin Mc Gann

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      Book preview

      The Need for Fear - Oisin McGann

      Chapter 1: Evasive Maneuvers

      The moment Chi realized he was being followed, he started taking measures to lose the tail. But that realization didn’t happen all at once. He spotted the old man for the first time on Charing Cross Road. The rigid figure wore square-framed glasses on his dour, creased face. His upright, almost military poise was emphasized by his dull-gray trench coat. He was entirely unremarkable, except for where he was standing: in front of the street display of a shop that sold accessories aimed at people who wanted to dress like art students. The guy looked like he was in his sixties. Chi would have bet money that the old geezer had never in his life worn an eyebrow ring or a pair of multicolored Doc Martens. There could have been all sorts of reasons he was standing there, yet it ticked the Odd-But-Not-Yet-Suspicious box in Chi’s brain. His well-trained memory filed it away.

      Chi was coming out of a shop that specialized in books about the Truth. It was a gnarly old place, full of indie publications by writers who questioned the blinkered perception of the masses. On the dusty old shelves, you could find works by visionaries, real investigative journalists. Not the puppets who worked for the mainstream media and were controlled by the military-industrial complex; no, here, you could find writers like Chi himself. Conspiracies were his passion and it had made him somewhat paranoid, his senses more attuned to his surroundings than the average Londoner—which was why he noted the old man who appeared to be minding his own business in the wrong kind of place.

      Chi’s own attempts to avoid attention were foiled by his eye-catching appearance. His wire-wool fair hair was pulled back from his pasty, babyish face into an untidy ponytail. That face sat atop a stocky frame that was over six feet tall. His wraparound prescription shades and knee-length leather coat spoke of someone who craved a cool image but wasn’t sure how it was done, and had nothing but contempt for anyone who followed contemporary trends.

      Chi saw the old guy for the second time when he was sitting outside a café on St. Martin’s Lane, reading on his laptop. The man walked right past him and sat down at a table at another café across the street. He opened up a newspaper, shook it out, folded it back to his chosen section and started reading. This ticked the Coincidence? box in Chi’s brain and he filed that away, too. A newspaper—yeah right. He snorted to himself in derision. As if any news in mainstream print was worth reading. The center of London was a busy place, but it wasn’t unusual to see the same person more than once as you went about your business. People often followed parallel routes through town; the human mind was prone to accepting established patterns. Two ticked boxes was not enough reason to get worked up, but it did cause Chi to pay a bit more attention to the stranger.

      Half an hour later, as he was crossing Trafalgar Square in front of the National Gallery, Chi held up his phone as if looking up a location on a map, but instead he used the camera over the screen to look at what was behind him. And there he was: the same old man, walking at a leisurely gait about thirty paces behind him. Chi felt his heart thud in his chest as he realized that it had finally happened. This was it. He was being watched. Perhaps he’d even been Targeted. His breathing quickened and he had to suppress a nervous smile. He was where every writer of the Truth aspired to be: He’d finally pissed someone off enough to make the big time. They were paying attention to him now.

      Well, he wasn’t some chump who walked around with his eyes closed. Let them try and keep up. Gripping the shoulder strap of his laptop case, he crossed Haymarket and Regent Street; strode down the wide, busy stretch of Pall Mall; then darted left into St. James’s Square, veering off the path, following the shadows of the trees and jogging across the small park. It was a warm day, the bright sunshine tempered slightly by an easy breeze, and he was already starting to sweat.

      Out on the road again, he waved down a cab, jumped in, had it drive around the block to Piccadilly Circus, then paid the cabbie the minimum fare. He wrapped up the shoulder strap of his case and tucked it under the handle so he was holding the bag like a briefcase. He took off his coat, draped it over the arm holding the case, then, putting on an AC/DC baseball cap, he jumped out of the taxi, and hurried down a couple of backstreets, using windows and mirrors to check for his pursuer. It looked like he was in the clear.

      Doubling back on himself, he followed St. James’s Street back out to Piccadilly, made his way to Green Park, turned his coat inside out so it showed the tan-colored lining on the outside, and put it back on. He changed his sunglasses for his normal glasses, taking off his hat again. Mingling, rather incongruously, with a group of Spanish students wandering through the park, he finally flopped, wheezing and out of breath, on a park bench, beneath some trees, that offered an almost three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the space around him.

      There was nobody suspicious in sight. He sat there, starting to feel secure and allowed himself a relieved grin of satisfaction. The long days spent preparing for a moment like this had finally paid off.

      Then the old man came up from behind him, sat down on the bench and turned to look at him with an expression of bored contempt. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

      If you’re done screwing around, the

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