The phone call that was to change my world and could eventually end up changing everyone’s world happened on the 4th August 2017. The day before I’d set up a crowdfunding page to raise money to help the Green Party contest a County By-election. We were looking for £2,000.00, but knew that was unlikely. I was out delivering leaflets when an unknown mobile number began calling. The caller introduced themselves as Jerry Williams and spoke with a soft London accent. He asked me how the campaign was going and said he wanted to make a donation. This was unexpected, but welcome. I informed him of the crowdfunding page and he said he was aware of it. I resisted the urge to ask how much but he volunteered the amount anyway. “Richard I’d like to make a donation of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.” I stopped walking. Was this one of the opposition parties messing around? Was it some kind of scam? Was it one of those radio pranks? Was there any chance this guy could be for real? The chances of it being real were close to zero. The one niggly doubt I had about it being unreal was the amount. A few months before someone had apparently offered the Green Party the same figure to stand down in a Westminster by-election. The offer was refused even though such a sum to a small party like ours was huge. I told Jerry he was very generous and played along a little. I joked that larger amounts are best paid in cash in person. As soon as I said it I realised that it was a stupid thing to say, if this was being recorded that ‘joke’ could be taken out of context. Before I could retract, Jerry said “Exactly what we were thinking. When can we meet?” I said for £250k I could clear my diary. “Do you know Bethnal Green at all?” Jerry asked. I didn’t, but it hardly mattered, I wasn’t being pranked into going to London. We’re about 30 miles north of Birmingham. I told him I couldn’t get there but perhaps I could arrange for someone else to meet him. There was still that tiny part of me that thought ‘if this is genuine and I don’t take it seriously, I’ve let my party down.’ I knew the rules around Party donations, everything over £50 has to be checked to ensure the donor is on the electoral register. Surely the national Party has a donation checking department/person who I could pass this guy on to. I started to outline my understanding of electoral law, if this was a test from the electoral commission, (something I hadn’t previously considered) I wanted to pass it. I asked if I could get someone to ring him from our compliance unit. He said he’ll be in touch and ended the call quite abruptly. As I tried to save the number I rang it by mistake (something I often do). I got the ‘number not in use’ response. I tried the number a few more times and got the same response. I saved the number regardless.
I carried on delivering leaflets as I thought about the call and what I should do. Whilst I was tempted to call our candidate and laugh about it, I wondered if he had set up the prank and maybe I should think of a counter-prank or something first. I resolved to do nothing until Monday but that didn’t stop me thinking about what had just happened.
The next day, (Saturday 5th August 2017), I was parking outside a café in Hednesford; I was ready for breakfast. A car pulled up behind me and two men in their early thirties got out and headed straight for me; one carried a large sports bag, the other extended his hand to me “Richard Jenking”? “Yes” I said, taking his hand. I have an awful memory for faces and but was sure I didn’t know either of these men. “Jerry Williams,” said the man whose hand I was shaking “and this is Gregory Fitzpatrick. We spoke yesterday.” I was a little shocked but pleased to see them as hopefully it would clear-up what was happening. “Is their somewhere we can talk?” asked Gregory in a soft American accent. I invited them for breakfast but they preferred to talk in my car. My car was, as ever, a mess but I made room for Jerry on the back seat and Gregory joined me in the front. “You must be wondering if we are genuine.” said Gregory. I said I was a little curious as to what was going on. Gregory unzipped the sports bag; it was full of money. I was shocked and speechless, rather than resolving what this was all about, the sight of so much money led to a hundred new questions forming instantly in my head, but I couldn’t articulate any of them. Fortunately, Gregory was doing all the talking. “We’re looking for people that share our group’s values and wanted to ask you a few questions.” They then proceeded to ask me in detail my thoughts on nuclear weapons. I’ve been an opponent of nuclear weapons for as long as I can remember. I’d never really campaigned on the issue but for me it was a no-brainer; we needed to rid the world of nuclear weapons as soon as possible. The pair threw various scenarios at me asking under what circumstances I’d ‘press the button’. There are no circumstances in which I’d ever press the button and this seemed to be the answer they wanted.
Then came the bombshell!
“What if we told you that every countries’ nuclear arsenals had been hacked and they were now all under the control of our group?” I responded that I wouldn’t believe him and enquired what group he represented. He replied that his group was called HobelGell[RJ6] and that yesterday I wouldn’t have believed two men would now be sitting in my car with £250,000.00. He had a point, I’m not sure if I believed it still.
“We’re going to fire an unarmed rocket on the 29th August from North Korea over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. Then will you believe us?” I said it would certainly help their case, but they shouldn’t be firing rockets just to convince me. They then said they’d be in touch after the 29th August. They returned to their car and drove off - with the money!
There was no contact from the two men for a few weeks. I didn’t tell anyone about my encounter (who’d believe me?) but I did try to find out a bit more about Greg, Jerry and HobelGell. I couldn’t find anything about either of them on Google and the Facebook profiles of all the people with the same name didn’t match the men I’d met. I’d assumed they had given me aliases anyway so didn’t spend too much time trawling through all the possible variations. I kept a close eye on the news; I’m a bit of a news Junkie anyway. A few days later North Korea stated it was going to fire a missile over Guam. The trajectory of such a missile would indeed take it over Hiroshima in Japan. Japan threatened to shoot down anything that crossed its airspace and Trump vowed to unleash ‘fire and fury’ if the US was threatened. Guam is a US colony/protectorate. “Now what do I do?” I thought to myself. Should I tell anyone about my visit and explain that these men are giving me the date for the missile launch and that it’s not really North Korea firing the missile, ‘just’ some hackers who have taken control of the whole world’s nuclear weapons! No-one would ever believe me! I wasn’t warned not to say anything or asked to publicise it. I tried ringing the number I had for Jerry, but it was still disconnected. I really had no idea what I should do. So, I did nothing; except worry.
As you all now know a missile was fired over Japan from North Korea on the 29th August landing in the Pacific. Japan hadn’t tried to shoot it down. Many people were stunned, but none more so than me.
I awaited contact. I drove down to where we had last met and waited to see if they would reappear. After an hour or so they did. They pulled up alongside me and invited me into their car. I was a little worried, but these guys could apparently control missiles so if they wanted to do me ill, they could with very little effort. I got into their car and Jerry drove, seemingly knowing where he was going. We drove to Castle Ring and met another car with two occupants - one male and one female. They introduced themselves as Wally Hineburger and Mickey van Balkever (presumably short for Michelle). They both had faint Dutch accents and were both in their early thirties. Mickey now took the lead and what she told me was fascinating.
“We’re going to get rid of nuclear weapons” she told me. I was all-ears. “And we’re going to do it by democratising their use, and making them more effective.” “More effective?” I queried, “they can already destroy the world several times over, how could they be more effective and why would you want them more effective if you want to get rid of them?” My head was swimming, “and how do you ‘democratise their use’ hold a referendum before you fire one?”
The answered truly shocked me, and I was getting used to being shocked.
“We’re going to finish off retargeting every weapon and linking them all up so if one missile is fired, they are all fired and the targeting will kill every person on the planet. Anyone pressing the button will be committing suicide. Then we’re going to give everyone the button.”
Not for the first time I was speechless. Mickey continued. “If everyone knows that everyone else can press the button the whole world changes. No longer will larger powers be able to bully smaller countries. Every deployment of troops risks the destruction of the planet, but more than that, no more will governments ignore the needs of the citizenry. If they know that anyone with a grievance can take away everything you hold dear, you have the motivation to end all grievances. You’ll want the homeless homed, the hungry fed, the mentally ill to receive proper treatment. People too will also become friendlier towards their neighbours. Would you risk losing your temper over a minor road accident if the other person could get pissed-off and destroy your world?”
In theory, she made some sense, but we were talking about the placing the power to destroy worlds into the hands of everyone including drunks, crack addicts, the jilted, the sacked, the victims of crime and the mentally unstable. How was this ever going to end well?
Mickey replied that at the moment it was destined to end badly anyway and at least this way the Earth has a chance. She also said there’d be ‘checks and balances’ so the planet wasn’t destroyed on a whim; there’d be a cooling off period between pressing the button and launch to allow people to change their mind. My mind truly boggled, this wasn’t like buying a washing machine over the Internet, this was the difference between life and Hell. I started to explain the numerous flaws with their idea and mid-rant two things occurred; firstly, I now believed 100% that these people controlled the Earth’s future and, secondly, why were they talking to me? A question Wally answered. “We’re all involved in the hack and our skills are irreplaceable. We wanted someone committed to ridding the world of nuclear weapons and…(there was a pause)…expendable. Also, you’re going to be the first person outside the group trusted with the button so we wanted it in safe hands.”
I hardly ever swear, but WHAT THE FUCK??!!
I still didn’t understand how this crazy notion would rid the world of nuclear weapons. Gregory explained. “Firstly, Governments will start cancelling new projects, there is no way their citizens will accept new missiles. Secondly the existing stockpile will start to be reduced. The ‘overkill’ will be seen as wasteful and missile numbers will be reduced to those that are absolutely necessary to kill everyone on the planet. We then expect the number to keep falling by negotiation. Russia will give up half of its weapons in exchange for only half of its territory being destroyed if the someone pressed the button. Eventually, probably after some scares, the lunacy of having a system that can destroy the planet being controlled by everyone will become evident and nuclear weapons days become numbered.”
In my dazed state, this was actually starting to make sense but I needed more time to get my head around it. I was reassured that this was fine, nothing was going to happen overnight. There would be no ‘retaliation’ from America; the president who mocked Obama for imposing and then ignoring redlines is impotent and has no control at all over his own arsenal. At least that was reassuring.
I asked what I was supposed to do now.
“Write your experiences on your blog. No-one will believe you, of course, but one day they will.”
They dropped me back off at my car and I returned home to write up this blog. In my daze, I had forgotten to ask about the money.

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