The rain cracks hard on the cold London tarmac. The drumming rhythm vibrates through bone, into my head. I rub my jaw, yawning to relieve the tension.

Ahead, past the worrying commuters, a grim figure regards me through the gloom. Broad shoulders, baseball cap, partly shadowed face. He shifts against the railings, impatient. I approach, terrified and fascinated. A cigarette glows fitfully for a moment, beneath the hood of his sodden sweatshirt.

'Aw'right mate, follow me,' he orders. His features flash, lean and intense. I recognise the rough south London accent from our mobile phone conversations. It's blunt, uncompromising, simple. His eyes narrow. Then he turns, without another word. I stand there, water streaming down from my fingertips.

'Fuck.'

By the time I catch up, he's almost at The Princess Louise, a grand Victorian pub nestled close to the haven of Holborn Tube station.

Past the frosted glass and familiar chatter, staring across the broad expanse of tables, they wait. Their gear is casual, but the faces are hard, sullen, full of mistrust. Angry-looking tattoos poke out from under smart shirt sleeves. Mobile phones lie in a neat row, next to bottles of Bud and pints of Guinness. The talk, in a melting pot of accents from across London's council estates, is of football 'firms' (gangs), lads, and 'jobs' (robberies). I swallow hard and walk over.

'We don't want to live with Africans and Pakis, we want to live with our own people - don't we?' quips a Humpty-Dumpty figure with a receding hairline and a dull leer. He grabs a beer from my outstretched hand. Covered in a heavy lace of tattoos and carrying a bulky bag of CDs, Paul David 'Charlie' Sargent is a leader not so much by charisma as by force and fear. He has a habit of putting rhetorical questions at the ends of his sentences, leaving little room for discussion. His three companions drag on cigarettes and pull baseball caps down over their tight-cropped hair as they talk of revolution - White Revolution.

'Our kids are learning their way of life before their own,' laments Scott, a gruff-faced former squaddie. A clamour of guttural 'yeahs' supports him. 'They're taking us over,' adds Charlie in his animated, nasal voice. 'The whole of London is just becoming a cesspit.'

'The solution?'

'National Socialism.'

'Which is?'

'Racism,' he says, with a characteristically challenging look. 'The easiest politics in the world.'

To Charlie and the others, 'they' - meaning either the state, which they call ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government), or the immigrant communities - are the Enemy. So now they want no part of the system

'I don't vote. What's the point? I'm not gonna play their fucking silly little games,' spits Charlie.

These men are members of a paramilitary struggle, based on punishment beatings, control, and fear. 'I know perfectly well we're gonna win. I'm under no disillusions about it. Sooner or later we're gonna win.'

'But win what?'

'The War.'

'What war?'

'The war against the government and the people invading this fucking land.'

***