2 Birds..?
(begun Friday 26th July at 8.50am)
*My right ovary area threatens to burst under the assault it's taking, as I sit down here at the computer to update my blog*
The Backfire frequency had arrived here at the desk within minutes, followed soon afterwards by a nasty little ache to my right temple... Anyone dare to suggest it's in any way psychosomatic?
He'd dropped the Polo off at Alpine at sparrow's, and I'd met up with him later in my little banger.
It had been my old man who'd suggested we take a ride up to Kloof to check out the Abductee's address..
He'd known Galloway from his time spent working in the Sugar Industry, so I figure he had a personal interest, and I was all for it..
What I was after were the unmistakable signs of Sutcliffe's Smart City technology, and I wasn't disappointed... There were the usual Telkom wireless boxes strapped to the poles, the larnie streetlight cowlings, clear scars cut across that road, and every now and then, the stump of an enormous tree that had been felled on the verge, with no sign of disease or white ants to be seen on the remains...Bingo.
Will they give the man time to breathe after his lucky escape, before they're whispering in his ear that the trees in that leafy street are providing cover for the criminals, and that many of them should be cut down as soon as possible?
That's the problem right there, is it not Mr. Swart? Not something you want to know about, right? Specific crews go in to assess the situation for LOS and after that it's out of your hands how they go about 'persuading' the locals to remove the worst of those obstacles? *vomits...
Galloway would've been the easiest target, as it would've been noted that he was an early riser, and would often be outdoors and unprotected in his yard, at the crack of dawn...
The Eavesdroppers in his home and on his cellphone and landline will have probably picked up a casual remark to the effect that he would pack the car for his trip early that morning, and they'd have had the thugs lined up and waiting for him...
As much as I've shrieked here, you've simply never gotten quite how simple this technology has made it for the Organised Crime teams to target a specific victim to be used as a clear message to the rest of the residents... A message designed to convince the other home owners on that street that the PRISM surveillance technology is all that can save them from a similar fate... So yeah - That good man was subjected to that horrendous abduction simply because of the amount of trees on the properties in that street, that will certainly cause problems for the nearby Monitors to access ALL the homes via their powerlines..
As long as Christo Swart isn't told the details of how this is to be achieved, he can happily kid himself his hands are clean... It'll be a simple enough matter for the computerised laser program users in the area to access at least some of the homes via their powerlines, but to harness the entire street and create a signal powerful enough for the job, many of those trees will have to come down... Those residents needed a wake-up call, and the unfortunate Bruce Galloway was chosen to provide it, dead or alive...
I'd been undressing to get into the bath around 5pm yesterday afternoon, when the little dogs had gone mental.. Someone up on the road was banging away at the metal bar on our gates, and eventually this had been accompanied by much hooting as well... I wasn't expecting anyone at that hour of the day, and the GW wasn't due home for another couple of hours, so I decided to ignore it... As you know, we don't have an intercom system on our gates for obvious reasons..
My visitors were having none of it, and stepped up their banging and hooting until I'd lost patience and mounted the stairs two at a time, in a purple rage...
In my typically polite fashion, the minute I'd glimpsed a face at the gates I'd stopped and roared WHAT?? and the woman had laid into me for my rude attitude.. Seriously... She'd gone on the attack with gusto, while her partner had just stood there with a smile...
Anyways, once the two of us had calmed down and stopped bellowing at each other, they'd turned out to be fairly pleasant characters... A SAPS Captain Patsa and a Warrant Officer Maluleke, from Pretoria nogal, in an unmarked vehicle, who wanted to interview me on an important matter and take my statement. Could they come in?
I swear it never occurred to me once to recall the recent stories of pseudo-cops carrying out criminal activities.. Not once... No, it was late, and I needed to bathe, and they weren't coming in, and that was that..
What Section were they from in Pretoria? Intelligence? They both said no, but with hindsight maybe if I'd said State Security? *winks... Once again, if you've the clout to insist on seeing the footage stolen of that entire exchange, do it, as Balliram's Beemer had been on his drive only minutes before I was due to bath, and the entire episode will have been monitored and recorded, whether he denies it or not...
It had been like drawing blood from a stone to get either of the Officers to tell me what it was all about, but I did manage to establish that they were at my gate on orders from one Lt.Col. van Rensburg, although they declined to tell me his Unit.... Friend of yours, Agent 247? *waves...
WTF were you guys thinking? The corny old frighten the bitch routine, using authority figures? You should all know by now that simply doesn't work with me... I told them both several times that I would be writing of the incident and publishing it online, names and all, though neither of them seemed particularly concerned, and all they really wanted was for me to open my gates and let them in...
Eventually the charming Warrant Officer Maluleke had asked me whether I knew of one Natalie Webb of British descent, and whether she'd ever stayed on our property, and I'd said I'd never heard of her, and that it was just us two oldies living here...*at this point I'm still editing before hitting publish, and there's the familiar pink Error Saving bar just bobbed up...*
I'd asked W/O Maluleke if he knew Richard Mdludli (sp) and he'd laughed and said yes, but he's not with us any more... I'd said that our home was the most heavily monitored in the southern hemisphere and had explained that we and several of our neighbours were guinea pigs for the new surveillance technology, and he and his partner had had a quick exchange in Zulu, (edit: Tsonga as it turned out) before he'd said to her in English that he was aware of the technology I'd mentioned...
They'd said they needed a detailed statement from me saying I didn't know the lady they were looking for, and giving my details of birth etc, and I'd replied that I'd write it out and they could collect it in the morning...
You want to know what I did next? I tottered off back downstairs and fetched my CPF brick to give them my cell number, and in a moment of rare genius I opened Lt. Col Augustine Mngomezulu's treasured text and gave it to the Captain to read for herself... Game over dudes... I'll see your Lt. Col. van Rensburg and raise you with mine...
A frivolous misuse of State resources, sending those two Officers on a wild goose chase to a residence that's been running a Truman Show for eight years?
The Captain had taken my number and had said she would call me in the morning to arrange a time to come visit me and collect my statement.... I went down and bathed, and then called my Vice Chair to fill him in..
He advised that I was on no account to grant them access to my home, without a warrant, no matter how genuine they appeared, and that I was to tell the Captain when she called that I would meet them up at Sydenham Station at a designated time...
I'd sat down at the computer and bashed out my idea of a statement, and had sent it off to the Honourable Man who'd offered to print it out for me and give it to me this morning... Under the circumstances it was poorly written, but he'd read it (along with the rest of you nanas) and had said it would do, and by the time the GameWrecker arrived home from the shops I was happily back on the addictive Facebook pages, reading about Galloway's astonishing recovery...
LATER at 7.50am
I haven't the time to care about the Grammar Nazi's sensitivities right now, and you'll simply have to overlook my increasing incoherence, and make the best of decyphering it...
So, eventually my old man sat down and I'd filled him in on all the excitement.. He'd gone quiet for a moment before telling me that a year or more ago, (he couldn't remember exactly when) he'd been up on the drive when a car had stopped and disgorged a large man in civvies from the passenger seat. He'd shown a picture of a white rat of a girl to the GW, and asked if he'd seen her or knew her, and the old man had replied in the negative, and that had been that... (Had that gentleman perhaps been our Durban-based Lt.Col van Rensburg?).
Last night, the GW had gone online shortly after our discussion, and had called me to see what he'd found on this 'Natalie Webb' person. Apparently she's also known as the White Widow, and is a British-born Muslim terrorist whose real name is Samantha Lewthwaite.. Currently wanted by the East African authorities (Tanzanian?) for crimes commited up that way. Hau! One of the images googled, showed her different passports, and there it was, 8 Harris Crescent Sherwood, given as one of her many addresses, including the fact that the search for this woman had been recently resumed...
I've just been chatting to my Vice Chair again, and he says the thing that puzzles him the most is how this terrorist ended up with our address on one of her fake passports...
A random shot-in-a-million? C'mon now, you know you don't believe that crap... Anyone got the answer to that riddle? If Glen Nayager hadn't been terminally silenced, I'm betting he'd have an explanation for that bit of mischief, but as it is, I'll have to turn to Agent 247 again... Frosty? Did your Lot ever discover who it was, here in Sherwood, that was pro the now dead Osama Bin Lauden? I've blogged here often enough over the years that there were some fine candidates living just up the road on Jan Smuts, who might bear investigating?
While it's common knowledge that I have the highest regard for the Muslim Community here in Sherwood and Sydenham, I hold no bloody truck with fanatical zealots who callously murder innocents in the name of Allah and Islam.... Nor do I have much time for their somewhat better disguised, though equally murderous counterparts, do I Mistuh Sutcliffe? Professor Petruccione? I think by now you'll have gathered you two are not among those I most admire in the world?
We'd been up in Pinetown around midday yesterday, when I'd had an sms from the Microwave Boffin to say that there were lots of heavily armed police at the Madressa in Candella Road, who wouldn't say what the problem was...I'd replied 'thanks. I'll warn my old man' and had forwarded it straight away to my Sector Policing Vice Chair... Five minutes later I'd sent Les another text saying 'BTW, I had no idea there was a Madressa in Candella Road. Just shows you.' and then I'd gone on to say to my old man how happy I was that Telkom's finest had bothered to text me, and apparently didn't hold a grudge for being regularly blogged...
Funny thing is, that I'd thought he'd made a typo, and had meant to say the Madressa in Harris Crescent, but as he never got back to me, I'm still none the wiser... *sniffs the air with interest...
Ag, I've blethered on long enough.. If, and when Captain Patsa calls me later, I'm to say that we will meet up at Sydenham Station, and not at my home after all.. If there's a problem, I'm to give them my Vice Chair's number to call...
A massive effort to refute my allegations that we are the most heavily monitored residence in the area, or more mischief and abuse of State resource's time and employees? Your guess..
Peace...
---oOo---
Friday 26th July 2013 at 9.55am.
