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Authors: Laney Salisbury
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an improbable stew of wartime tales. Harris introduced him to Carroll and suggested that the two probably had a lot in common.
Carroll had studied physics and gone on to work in the field of artificial intelligence. Drewe said he had studied abroad, at Kiel University in Germany, and then in Paris, where he had taken to the streets during the May ’68 demonstrations. Subsequently, he had worked at the city-sized atomic energy research complex in Harwell, near Oxford, where he’d made substantial and lasting contacts with the police and with MI5. Those contacts were useful in his current line of work, which included consulting for the Defence Ministry.
Carroll said that he too had worked at Harwell, back when he was a young physicist analyzing various materials with the use of neutron beams. Harwell was so enormous that most employees knew only a small fraction of the layout, but Drewe recalled the place as vividly as if he’d been there the day before.
Whenever Drewe spotted Carroll at the pub after that first night, he greeted him warmly and bought him a beer. Usually he dominated the conversation. He liked to talk about defense technology, and said he was developing a handgun that could fire a thousand rounds a minute. On a good night, he sounded like Ian Fleming on Dexedrine. He told Carroll that once, after a meeting at the Defence Ministry had gone late into the night, he was accidentally locked in the parking garage. Fortunately, he had recently been demonstrating the effects of a powerful explosive called pentrite, and he had a small supply on hand. With it, he had blown the garage door off its hinges.
Carroll found the story amusing and a little strange, but he didn’t ask for details. He knew quite a bit about pentrite from his own army training, and it was obvious that Drewe was well versed in detonators, boosters, and initiators. The man was an all-rounder, he thought.
Drewe never forgot a name or a face, and seemed able to retain every last stray piece of data. He could recite Newton’s laws of motion, Maxwell’s equations, and the principles of quantum mechanics. Carroll envied his ability to remember it all. Drewe explained that he compartmentalized information so he could call it up for use whenever he needed it. It was effortless, he said, like pulling documents out of a filing cabinet. He could remember every room he’d been in, every nuance of every story he’d been told, every twist and turn. No bit of information was trivial to him. He was a data sponge, a Hoover of books, journals, and news.
“John was able, almost at will, to drop in important parts of the history of physics from memory,” Carroll recalled, “and in doing so to convey the impression of a much greater understanding of the subject area in which he purported to be expert.”
Drewe created an entire informational universe from other people’s lives, storing potentially useful morsels and retaining details of the quirks and professional habits of each of his acquaintances. He would look them straight in the eye with his flat, unwavering stare, listen intently, and come away with flakes of character and personality, pieces so small his marks hardly knew anything was gone.
“He was like a shark that doesn’t bite but rubs up against you and takes away little bits of your skin,” said one such acquaintance.
Drewe often boasted to Terry Carroll that he had a pilot’s license, that he loved flying helicopters, and that he was an accomplished hang glider. Carroll thought it would be nice to surprise his friend with a private visit to the Concorde, and on a clear day the two men drove out to Heathrow in Drewe’s Bentley. On the giant airliner, at the pilot’s invitation, Drewe took the controls in his hands. He looked as excited as a four-year-old with a lollipop, and asked a variety of technical questions. (Interestingly, Goudsmid would later tell police that Drewe had a mortal fear of flying.) On the way home he expounded
Carroll had studied physics and gone on to work in the field of artificial intelligence. Drewe said he had studied abroad, at Kiel University in Germany, and then in Paris, where he had taken to the streets during the May ’68 demonstrations. Subsequently, he had worked at the city-sized atomic energy research complex in Harwell, near Oxford, where he’d made substantial and lasting contacts with the police and with MI5. Those contacts were useful in his current line of work, which included consulting for the Defence Ministry.
Carroll said that he too had worked at Harwell, back when he was a young physicist analyzing various materials with the use of neutron beams. Harwell was so enormous that most employees knew only a small fraction of the layout, but Drewe recalled the place as vividly as if he’d been there the day before.
Whenever Drewe spotted Carroll at the pub after that first night, he greeted him warmly and bought him a beer. Usually he dominated the conversation. He liked to talk about defense technology, and said he was developing a handgun that could fire a thousand rounds a minute. On a good night, he sounded like Ian Fleming on Dexedrine. He told Carroll that once, after a meeting at the Defence Ministry had gone late into the night, he was accidentally locked in the parking garage. Fortunately, he had recently been demonstrating the effects of a powerful explosive called pentrite, and he had a small supply on hand. With it, he had blown the garage door off its hinges.
Carroll found the story amusing and a little strange, but he didn’t ask for details. He knew quite a bit about pentrite from his own army training, and it was obvious that Drewe was well versed in detonators, boosters, and initiators. The man was an all-rounder, he thought.
Drewe never forgot a name or a face, and seemed able to retain every last stray piece of data. He could recite Newton’s laws of motion, Maxwell’s equations, and the principles of quantum mechanics. Carroll envied his ability to remember it all. Drewe explained that he compartmentalized information so he could call it up for use whenever he needed it. It was effortless, he said, like pulling documents out of a filing cabinet. He could remember every room he’d been in, every nuance of every story he’d been told, every twist and turn. No bit of information was trivial to him. He was a data sponge, a Hoover of books, journals, and news.
“John was able, almost at will, to drop in important parts of the history of physics from memory,” Carroll recalled, “and in doing so to convey the impression of a much greater understanding of the subject area in which he purported to be expert.”
Drewe created an entire informational universe from other people’s lives, storing potentially useful morsels and retaining details of the quirks and professional habits of each of his acquaintances. He would look them straight in the eye with his flat, unwavering stare, listen intently, and come away with flakes of character and personality, pieces so small his marks hardly knew anything was gone.
“He was like a shark that doesn’t bite but rubs up against you and takes away little bits of your skin,” said one such acquaintance.
Drewe often boasted to Terry Carroll that he had a pilot’s license, that he loved flying helicopters, and that he was an accomplished hang glider. Carroll thought it would be nice to surprise his friend with a private visit to the Concorde, and on a clear day the two men drove out to Heathrow in Drewe’s Bentley. On the giant airliner, at the pilot’s invitation, Drewe took the controls in his hands. He looked as excited as a four-year-old with a lollipop, and asked a variety of technical questions. (Interestingly, Goudsmid would later tell police that Drewe had a mortal fear of flying.) On the way home he expounded
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