Prague
Czech Republic
Prague was, as I'd been told a charming city. It was
a great pity I wouldn't be allowed to enjoy it. When you've lost your
place at the top of the food chain it's hard to relax out and about.
They didn't have a large force on the ground like Berlin, but it only
took a day or two to get that way. One guy was particularly obviously
showing up wherever I was & sticking to me like glue. Some of this
kind of behaviour would have
been innocent, it was the frequency of suspicious behaviour that was
wrong, and seeing it where and when I'd come to expect to see it. It
wasn't just me reading them, they would try to read me too. For example
I approached a tram with the intention of getting on. 
A guy who was showing no interest in that it was there
noticed me and quickly jumped on ahead of me. Seeing what he'd done I
stopped and let the tram go, he looked back with frustrated expression,
so smiled at him as he went up the street. I dodged through some back
roads and hailed a taxi in one of them. Nobody saw me get in I was
sure. The next I knew the taxi driver called someone on his cell phone,
and chatted a while. Slavic languages are very similar, Czech for 'I'm
taking your colleague home' was virtually the same in Polish, that part
I understood. I guess Prague's a small enough place to be able to rig
the taxis. He then asked me where I was planning on going next. I told
him I wasn't sure and asked him if there was a big Mafia problem in
Prague. "Mafia?" he said sounding genuinely surprised, he was quiet a
moment, then quietly said "no". He was silent for the rest of the
journey other than to ask what number in the street I wanted. I said to
drop me where we were. I left the street and went around the block
hoping to be elusive, but when I put the key in the door I could see
someone at the end of the road watching.
The next day I awoke, which is what always happens,
yet though my faith is strong it was often puzzling that I find myself
with another day ahead of me. That part is engineered on a level beyond
my understanding. They were so frequent now that I couldn't relax
anywhere I went. I knew they knew where I was staying, and on the
street outside I experienced the same odd peace which I had outside my
hotel in Olesno. They weren't there, but they wouldn't be far, and
there'd be lots of them. I bought a Czech Sim card which didn't require
any ID and went and sat in a cafe to load it up. When I emerged from
the cafe there was a Boris Yeltsin look-alike sitting on a bench giving
me a 'you'll get what's coming to you soon enough my boy' look. I stood
around a corner and called the cab number of a previously trustworthy
looking firm. As we pulled away Boris was on his cell phone. I took the
taxi across the river and through the underpass which led to the
Northern part of the city, and got out at a hotel. It was just a few
seconds before someone pulled up and got out, phone to his ear and no
destination. OK, enough, I didn't go into the hotel, but a nearby
sports arena, where I hoped to slope out of the back door. They were
all locked and I had to return to the front. The first man had gone
somewhere, but a grinner arrived, reversed to face the road out of the
car park, and sat blocking the entrance. I went down an access road, up
a steep bank, across some railway lines, that'll slow the cars I
thought, and down to a riverside path. I would've been visible from the
road along side the path, but was able to obscure my self by crouching
whenever I heard a car coming along. End of the path I had to cross the
road into a park. A car pulled up ahead of me and a big man got out
holding a huge spanner. He looked amused at my reaction to it, then
proceeded to check his wheel nuts. I then took a tram out of town to a
large area of hilly woodland.
One evening when it began
to get dark I heard a vehicle pull up on the track a little farther up
the hill, somebody got out. Not long after a trail bike came along and
stopped around the same area. The rider spoke to somebody who gave a
thick headed 'hurhurhur' laugh, then rode away. It was about 3 am when
I heard what sounded like the low trill of a cell phone. It could've
been some local insect I'd not encountered yet, so I let it pass
without too much worry. Next it was the single beep of somebody's watch
chiming the hour. This was to become a very familiar situation for me
as time went by, I'm not going to mention every instance or detail here
in case it makes problems for me if I find myself on the road again.
This was standard procedure, the mushroom man had given my location
last seen, and I'd been sent an Assassin to watch & listen, to stop
me
if I made a night move or a noise that would locate me. In the light of
the next morning he'd gone.
I took the cab to the Airport. When I arrived there
was a round faced black leather jacketed Russian sitting outside on a
wall watching. I hunted for cheap flights far away and settled with
Düsseldorf. It was three hours until my flight left. The Russian came
and spoke to a group of backpackers behind me as I bought a ticket, but
he was some distance still. I passed my destination to the vendor
written on a piece of paper. He read it out loud, but too quietly for
the guy behind me to hear. He came by me again later with a big guy, he
said hello, which I ignored. The big guy was whistling would you
believe. They must've got my number from the taxi firm somehow because
my phone rang, it was a Czech number which rung off as I went to answer
confirming for those watching that it was my number. Trying to impress
I thought, the Czech number would soon be useless. I'll be impressed
when they show some basic concept of morality.
When the plane touched down I took a taxi to the
city center and went into a kebab shop where I ordered a small pizza
just to ask them to call me another cab. While I was waiting for it to
arrive things didn't look good outside. A car pulled up in that slow
silent sinister fashion and the occupants remained seated, the Kebab
shop visible in their rear view mirror. My taxi came and the car pulled
out ahead of us. Also there was a car waiting to pull onto the main
road we were to join, from the road opposite us. It looked conspicuous
because there was no traffic on the main road, and it could've gone,
yet it waited until I'd loaded and we'd pulled away, then followed. I
told the driver I thought we were being followed and asked him to lose
him for me. He did a bit of signaling and half lane changing, then
agreed and pulled an astonishing maneuver U-turning the wrong way into
a narrow one way street. The car behind pulled to stop. He told me he
used to be a driver with the Military police. I asked him to take me to
Cologne, which would cost a fortune I knew, but I hadn't paid for a
flight to let them stay with me now. On the Auto Bahn we passed a
Porsche which was traveling slowly in the center lane, a few minutes
later it came zooming past us. The road behind looked clear, which made
my driver happy, but since Czestochowa I knew better.
Cologne
Germany
Arriving in Cologne my driver lost three more for me
simply by pulling over to let them pass & then turning around. Then
I changed cabs at a taxi rank near the Cathedral, I think unseen. The
Porsche showed up again as I was leaving for a small town just outside
Cologne called Bergish Gladbach. I Moved to the city center when they
were obviously around me anyway. The next hostel used an excellent cab
firm,
unmarked chauffeur driven cars. I could even feel I hadn't been
followed into town. At my hostel I had two young men who took it in
turns to watch at the bottom of the elevator. Nearby was a coin
operated Internet machine. One of them once tried to see what I was
doing, but It wasn't important, it had been rigged anyway. Every time I
visited a web page I automatically registered a visit to
av.rds.yahoo.com in my 'visited addresses' bar. I'd had so much yahoo
related trouble that when somebody got me the message that they are
largely Mafia owned & cooperating with NaStudio it was no surprise
to me, just confirmation. I looked at a map of European regional
climate. I'd assumed that the further south I'd manage to get with
winter approaching, the warmer it would be. This wasn't the case. There
were warm spots, usually created by warm winds and cold spots, usually
associated with height. I saw that the region of Poland I was in when
the heavy snow came was a cold spot, that was either unlucky or
destiny. Not so far was Slovenia, It's Western coast heated by
Mediterranean winds was about 10 degrees warmer than 7 miles further
inland. That's where I'd go for the winter, I certainly never wanted to
see snow again if I could avoid it.
I went out one day not
comfortable about leaving my things in my room. I carefully placed a
packet of needles on my books in a specific position that I'd
know if it had been moved. I also noted the way my back pack lay.
Packing it correctly required skill, I'd know if it had been touched at
all. When I went out of the front door two people
who were stood there immediately turned and went in. I walked back in
to see where they were going. They'd queued to speak to staff. Around
town they stuck closely to me, at least one in every street. I went to
a book shop and looked at maps of Europe, one followed me from one part
of the store to another, when I looked at a book he'd note it, wait
until I moved on, then go see what it was. I took an atlas and sat
around a corner. He came there and I tutted at him. Staring had no
effect, but now he looked embarrassed, like he'd gone from being a
covert operative to being a pest, and kept his distance. When I got
back to my room I looked to see if the packet of needles had moved
slightly from it's position on the books. They were lying on the floor
next to them. The backpack hadn't been touched. The most important
things, that is Diary, mobile phone & passport, I never left
behind. I hoped they hadn't somehow managed to cut a key. It looked
like they might've tricked or bribed staff into showing them my room.
The day before I left I
walked some back roads briskly and purchased a packet of envelopes, I'm
sure unseen. One from earlier that day came by the store as I left. Too
late pal. To get a bus to Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia I needed to
travel to Frankfurt. On arrival I booked into a hotel & left in the
morning, it was raining. There was a man at the end of the street with
an umbrella which he held in a fashion which obscured his head, he also
had his back to me. My suspicion aroused I looked back when I passed
him. It was the Boris Yeltsin look-alike from Prague, and he was on his
phone again. I walked into a bank, a couple of Polish speaking men came
in and joined the queue behind me. I'd had too many Polish speaking men
around me, it wasn't normal that they could afford to be here other
than on a working trip, and here they all were bumming around on
weekdays. I went into a shop to buy some string, when I came out the
poles were at a nearby bus stop. Without even looking at each other
they both came my way the moment they saw me. Way too obvious. I went
and bought a ticket at the Euro lines office shortly
before the bus was due to depart.
Ljubljana/Trieste
(Slovenia/Italy)
I arrived in Ljubljana & got some detailed maps
which were easy to find because the country is so small. Next train was
to Trieste,
which was actually in Italy, opposite Venice, though I'd thought it a
part of Slovenia, it looked as if it ought to be. I arrived in the
evening and did some letter writing because I didn't think they'd
likely interfered with the Internet cafes on my route so quickly. Next
day I walked around a bit being elusive, then got on a bus halfway to
the Slovenian
border, walking the final part
Rather than use a plane here
they'd park high on a mountain side overlooking areas of open ground.
This would sometimes catch me between trees below. Being on high ground
often betrayed their positions to me too. I found that it was best to
be high, not just because they wouldn't follow on foot, but to see what
was around. High ground had to be worked for and it was best to try to
keep to it as I traveled. It was easy to lose it taking the easy trail.
I found one of them as I turned the corner of
a high roadway. He was in his teens or early twenties parked with a
view of fields below. He was engrossed in a book and didn't see me. I
traveled back the way I'd come, then trapped by a river I had to travel
through sometimes light cover along a railway line within the zone
guarded by the book reader. I ran where I was visible and hoped he
wasn't watching. I got across the river via a small bridge to a
village, it wasn't the first time they'd overlooked minor bridges
across rivers which otherwise would have contained me. I remember
another one maybe two unguarded in Poland. I had purchased envelopes
secretly in Berlin, compiled letters on arrival in Trieste I'm sure
unobserved, and now I was posting them in secluded places whilst away
from them. I was confident of a surprise hit. I didn't know what
difference that made, but they went to an awful lot of trouble to know
when I was posting what to who. Back in England later I realised they
interfere with mail easily enough. postboxes, the sorting office &
delivery to my house were all used to prevent my communication. After a
time I head back
to Ljubljana to fly home because my funds were gone.
Ljubljana
Slovenia, KGB
Back in Ljubliana I crossed a car park to a Hostel
entrance. I turned to check behind me
because the car park was dark, and I knew how their Assassins liked to
do business, sneaky. A girl had appeared from nowhere, she wasn't in
the street a moment ago, but she was there now, and coming in my
direction walking as fast as was possible without breaking into a jog,
which looked awkward & silly. She glared at me, coming in
my direction purposefully. I slowed to a stroll to let her past. I
didn't want her to follow me into the Hostel. She walked past the
hostel entrance, I went in. While I was at reception she came in,
overshadowed by a big rough looking man, and as I passed the bar to
take the stairs to my room she was sitting alone at a table glaring
again. I wondered for a moment how come so many Mafia were ugly. Walt
Disney came in for criticism for making the evil characters ugly, and
the good beautiful. Maybe he knew some organised criminals. 
I found a kitchen on the next
floor and put the kettle on. A small girl about my age came into the
kitchen from down the hall. "Is there tea or coffee?" she asked. I
couldn't see any so I went to my room to fetch her a couple of my
cherry tea bags, which I recommend by the way, also banana. I made the
tea for us both as she began to tell me why she had booked into the
hostel, though she lived in Ljubljana. She said that she was avoiding
some criminals who were putting pressure on her to do some work for
them. "Criminals?" I said, "not Mafia?" she thought a moment, then
nodded yes. I laughed and said that they were in the hostel looking for
me. "Really?" she said in surprise. "You know, I saw one that I know
downstairs". I asked her why they wanted her to help them. She told me
that she was former KGB, "a spy" she shrugged in a way that led me to
believe people usually found that impressive and interesting. It wasn't
very impressive for me. Not considering that I'd read a Wikipedia entry
that when the KGB was disbanded it's former members had found
employment with the Russian Mafia. I asked her if that was true, now
she had the glare of the girl downstairs. This being the case I later
established it to be a resentment filled kind of glare, at having been
quickly rumbled as the enemy. She didn't say anything. There was the
possibility I'd insulted her. "Didn't some of them do that?" I asked,
"I read that somewhere". "I don't know" she said, her eyes then turning
to the floor. "Yes, I also read that the Russian Mafia top man is a
former KGB officer". "I don't know" she shrugged, looking like she'd
prefer I changed the subject.
I asked her what it was that she
used to do. She replied that she didn't want to talk about it. Instead
she spoke about her child. That she had had it taken from her by
authorities, due to her alleged mental instability, she blamed Mafia,
she said they tried to make her look insane. She exclaimed this leaning
forward, eyes bulging, certainly looking the nut. This was genuine, I
believed that she had lost her child, it was a preoccupation and source
of obvious frustration for her during the rest of our chat. She asked
if she could take some of my hair, for luck. It was long and straggly
so I let her cut a small lock where I didn't think it would be noticed.
I worried about it a little after in case they tried to fit me up for a
crime with my DNA, but that could be got at any room I stayed in. As we
spoke she had far more interest in what I was doing next than what I'd
done. When I smiled to her that I was able to stay hidden in Slovenian
woodland for weeks by rationing my food and finding a huge crop of tree
fungus, instead of smiling along with me at my escape as people would
when I told them these kinds of stories, she looked annoyed. She made a
few mistakes as the evening wore on, dispelling any doubt. Another time
when I'd said it was looking like they'd manage to follow me where ever
I went, she replied "hopefully", looking downward with a little smile,
perhaps a mistake, perhaps deliberate, I don't know why she said that.
It wasn't that she was no good, her acting skills were very good, she
did say later in conversation that her job involved working between
enemies. I assume she was chosen to speak to me because it also
involved extracting information. It went into the early hours and we
were both tired. I'd let slip I was flying out of the country. There's
no substitute for silence. I should have cut it short and gone to my
room.
I went to make tea in the
morning, she was hanging around in the kitchen, so I went back to my
room. I waited a while, but accepted she wasn't going to go away and
went back up. We had a short chat about her son. Then I mentioned I was
going to another hotel. "Are you?" she said, quickly turning towards me
displaying too much interest, "where?". I did go to another hotel, but
only to use their Internet access to look at flight info. When I got
there the computers had as usual been tampered with. I found an
Internet cafe which displayed no suspicious signs, could be some were
too secure for them or reset. I booked a flight to England with Easyjet
possibly exposing my debit card details, but there wasn't much I could
do about that, I'd tried unsuccessfully to book over the phone. I had
to fly home now, all of my money was gone, I had to try to get a job.
I'd waited for my feet to heal to the very last. Even after a year, the
poor circulation that comes with frostbite injuries meant that they
were still healing and still painful to do any serious walking on, if I
tried my wounds got worse again. I'm not too sad that I didn't make it
to Israel, stopping and being stopped are not the same. It was my body
that broke down, not my spirit, that was the important thing, I never
gave up, and that's good enough for me. I went back to the hostel
because I'd seen a cabbie's business card offering a cheap fixed rate
to the Airport. Outside the hostel were the KGB girl speaking to
someone I didn't recognise, the big guy who came in with the glaring
chick the night before and the moon faced instructor was there too,
when I got into the cab he flicked his cigarette and got into a car,
looking like he was enjoying himself.
England
I arrived back in England at Stansted airport in the
evening of Monday the 9th of January 2006, about 21 months after having
left. I needed to take a connecting train to passport control. Almost
all of the passengers on the plane were English natives, with just that
I was feeling as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. One
looked very foreign, he also looked very much the convict type, he hung
back not going far from me. When the rest of us approached passport
control he was bringing up the rear, then he was gone. I knew they'd be
cooperating with English Mafia now, they'd done it wherever I'd gone. I
took a car park bus to as close to an exit as it would take me. When I
got arrived there was a car parked at the road side. I stopped in my
tracks when I saw it. The car immediately killed it's lights. I could
see a garage and a hotel within the grounds. I went to the hotel. I
asked them to call me a taxi. When it arrived a few minutes later The
hotel front was obscured, so that I couldn't be seen getting into it by
anyone other than who was standing near reception. I got in, and asked
the driver where there were woodlands nearby. He suggested Hatfield
forest, so we went there.
He dropped me at the entrance and
I went into the darkness, the road behind me was silent, nobody had
seen. I stayed there a couple of days in light cover, then moved my
tent somewhere safer. While out collecting water one day I'd seen a
young couple behaving abnormally. My suspicions were confirmed not long
after collecting my daily water. I approached with caution because
a group of deer had fled from something ahead. As I got nearer I saw
someone move behind a bush, then out he came, pacing away quickly, not
noticing me among the trees, looking like he'd been disturbed. That was
close, it was a camo jacketed shaven headed doorman type I recognised
from hanging around me in a square in Ljubljana. He was near where I'd
previously had my tent and standing by my stream. There was another man
who wore Slovenian blue farming overalls, a jacket over the top,
hanging about nearer my new position a few days, walking the wood
perimeter. I saw him disturbed the same way as the bald headed man
once. It was the weekend and the place was alive with people. When food
ran short I called a taxi to take me to Scotland Yard.
London
When I arrived at Scotland Yard I spoke to the
Policeman on duty who told me to speak to the CID at Belgravia. I
started to
look around for somewhere to sleep, a derelict building or something. I
passed a tube station with two young men stood at the entrance. One of
them nudged the other who looked at me shocked, then quickly spun away,
as if he'd just remembered he'd been told not to pay me too much
attention, his friend kept his eyes down. I avoided tube stations now
and found somewhere to sleep in St. James park.
When I got to Belgravia I told
the reception Policeman what I'd been involved with and that I
needed to speak to somebody about the 2257 list of business associates,
the policeman said it was too much for a small station like theirs. He
said I'd need to go somewhere bigger, but didn't know where. He gave me
the 'Crime Stoppers' phone number and said that they'd refer me to the
correct people. When I called Crime Stoppers they had no idea who I
needed. I asked whether It might be MI5 or MI6, but they didn't know. I
knew the MI6 building was on the Thames somewhere, I hailed a cab and
he took me there. The security guard was friendly. I told him I
didn't really know where I should be, were they interested in Mafia?
very interested he told me, so it seemed I was in the right place. I
filled out a short form to say what it was I wanted to speak about and
another guard took it upstairs so it could be established whether or
not I'd be invited in for an interview. After ten or fifteen minutes
the second guard came down and said that
he'd been told to tell me it was a police matter, but didn't knbow
where I should go. So it was back to
square one. I passed a tube station
a little further down the road, where there was a man stood at the
exit, smiling a sneery smile and nodding at me that he knew who I was.
I don't know how, I was even now wearing my red pac-a-mac and jogging
bottoms disguise. I supposed they must have some good photos.
I went back to Scotland Yard and
inquired where there was a large police station in London, since
Belgravia hadn't felt they were a good station to deal with the matter,
the Policeman suggested Charing Cross. When I arrived there they were
busy and clearly didn't care at all about what I had. They kept looking
for excuses why they shouldn't take it further, which I countered until
they simply said "we are busy, you have to leave now". I went to Savile
row
station where they seemed busier, but somebody agreed to pass my
documents to an inspector. I could try to get away now. I got into a
black cab, which are absolutely everywhere, all looking the same, it
had to be impossible to follow one through London, but to get far
enough away to walk around town safely would be expensive.
Blackheath
I went to Blackheath where I found an abandoned
block of
flats, 'Glenie house' just a short distance down Blackheath hill. There
were one or two flats which hadn't had their windows broken, one had a
good front door & so put a new cylinder barrel into it's lock. I
didn't want to use my cash card locally in case it brought them to me.
I took a bus to Russell Square in central London with new cropped hair
and new outfit from a charity shop. Then I had a cab wait for me while
I withdrew my money. I took the cab about a mile, then got a bus back
to Blackheath under cover of darkness. Living like a vagabond, and not
being able to find a job was depressing, I missed the purpose of my old
life. The idea was that I'd keep my head down and earn some more money
before I went back to business, but it wasn't really happening. I went
back to Central London on the bus one day, a couple weeks after having
left, and into an Internet cafe to do some discreet business related
searching through a proxy. I was there about an hour when I noticed a
teenager peering through the glass door at me with a smile of a kind
you might expect from somebody who'd spotted someone famous while out
shopping. I don't know if it was my searching led them to me or if they
were doing Internet cafe walkbys, but I'd been seen.
I left and got into a cab, which
I took to my bus stop. I wasn't there long before two young men came
sprinting in my direction from another street, stopping when they made
eye contact with me. I moved out of their sight behind the bus shelter,
then looked again, they'd vanished. I got the bus home, I'd been seen
at that bus stop anyway and they'd look where I was staying wherever I
tried
to lead them now. I was optimistic that perhaps I was wrong this time.
Increasingly about town over the next few days the usua 
Further up the platform was a man who looked guilty as I explained
about the captive girls and Mafia pursuing. The two policemen didn't
speak English, so they went and fetched the local priest. I began to
tell him what was happening, he sat there smiling pleasantly. Then when
I paused he said "OK, so what drugs are you taking?" I was speechless.
I showed him a copy of the letter from the St. Petersburg
administration regarding the ministry of interior 'investigation'. His
face changed and I could see he believed now, but I got no apology. The
police chief told him to ask me what exactly I wanted him to do about
it. You'd think that if you go
to police with a crime story they would know what to do, not ask you.
By trade I used to mend shoes, if somebody brought me a busted shoe I
didn't ask them what they expect me to do about it. He wasn't very
cooperative because he thought it hard to believe there were Mafia in
his small town, I told him that they were there because I was there. I
said that I'd called the police because Mafia are police business. The
priest told me that it wasn't, that there are special police who deal
with that. I asked for their address so that I might visit them. They
were in Bydgoszcz.
Outside
was a young
man sat at a bus stop. When we got out he got up and walked off. Some
people never sleep! commented the taxi driver. I could have told him
why this one wasn't sleeping, but he wouldn't have believed me. It
meant they must've been covering every hotel in and around Berlin, that
was incredible. I'd shown an interest in traveling to Germany, so they
had some prior warning. I thought it likely this wasn't the first time
they'd used a system like this here, requiring a large amount of
manpower short term (more usualy boy power at this level). Presumably
every metro station was covered too. I
was later told by a cab driver that the Russian Mafia were a big
problem in Berlin. This was worse than Poland. It was also a lot more
expensive for accommodation, taxis and food. I did some shopping in the
morning and headed off to some woods we'd passed in the cab to make
camp while things cooled down. I left the road into the trees, where I
unloaded and sat to rest on my pack. 
