Sun of the Sleepless (32 page)

Senator Terence Dru looked up from his desk and gazed out of the leaded window panes across the calm black mirrored surface of the Rhine, taking some respite from his thoughts as he viewed the scenery of the dense coniferous forest on the opposite eastern bank, the firs imbued with the preternatural tint of an orange and red glow from the fading orb of the sun.

He sighed disconsolately to himself. His face was tanned but lined with the worry of ages, his forehead creased beneath the silken silver hair, cut into a spiky military style which helped to hide the inevitable thinness commensurate with his advancing years. His jaw-line was strong but the flesh and bones of his cheeks assumed a gaunt appearance as he tensed his teeth together, grinding the molars against each other in thoughtful silence. In spite of his outward languor, his blue eyes still sparkled and his intensely penetrating stare was always able to wither and quell dissent and authoritatively command attention without the utterance of a single word. Regardless of his own internal weariness, he naturally exuded an intense aura of incisive intelligence and stoic invincibility.

As head of the military arm of the Sun of the Sleepless - known as the Holy Order of Thrones - and ordained as the Cipher of Artemis for over nine years, subordinate only to the Sigulah, Queen Adrianna herself, his responsibilities had extracted a heavy toll over the years. With just under six months to go before his seventieth birthday, he had already decided that this operation would mark the end of his active duty, regardless of whether it resulted in a qualified success or abject failure. He was a realist, a pragmatist, if providence had nominated their enterprise as unworthy, then so be it. He would accept it with good grace.

Contrary to his assumed ruthlessness, he was emotionally afflicted simply by the fact that it had been deemed necessary to lie to the men and women under his own command and he was highly aware that there was a very fine line between so-called sins of commission and those of omission.

Many of his colleagues and staff would have been highly surprised to learn that it had caused him some considerable angst to order Knight Commander, Tribune Frans Sprenger, Knight Errant, Patrician Rey Faber and Sister, Mistress Kate Akosua to involve themselves in the hunt for
Dirigo Lux
and the
Sigil Ring
of their former Sigulah, Queen Maria Orsitsch. As it was, the whole operation was highly secret and compartmented so that not even the participants in the hunt really knew why they had been abruptly seconded from their previous duties.

The intelligence that Senator Dru had received confirmed that the book and the ring had served their purpose; the initial objective of the operation had been fulfilled and the thread of events that the search had precipitated would continue to weave and wind according to the decree of fate with only a little further intervention necessarily applied here and there to nudge circumstances for an even greater beneficial effect.

The time was upon him when the burden of the lie could be lifted. Frans, Rey and Akosua would undoubtedly swear, they would complain, but they would ultimately understand the reasoning behind the plan.

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly -

The twilight sky over The Hague glowed briefly as the Rayleigh scattering effect caught the last of the Saturday sun's glorious aura and delivered a short but spectacular display of deep blue, indigo and violet hues. The sky was unusually bereft of clouds, which promised an evening free of further snow flurries but warned of a sudden drop in temperature.

In spite of the apparent period of respite for the city, residents knew that even during the height of summer the weather could change rapidly from the clearest sunniest skies to the lowest leaden clouds. Even rain weary British citizens could compare their weather favourably with this part of The Netherlands and a common refrain to be accompanied by a sigh was that
it's turned out grey again
!

Jolene logged off her workstation and slumped slightly, easing back in her chair to relax the muscles that now ached from the hunched position she had assumed. She had been using the internet in an attempt to cross-check some of the details that Jackson had provided although it had been incredibly difficult to locate verifiable sources. One thing was clear; there were a lot of people out there who were obsessed with the idea of The Vril Society and they had created a miasma of misinformation and downright fantasy.

Few of the facts that Jackson had been able to ascertain from the historical intelligence reports were referenced or even inferred by the web community; her mind had started to spin and her attention dwindle as she speed read the wild tales of psychic communication with alien civilisations, conspiracy conjecture of advanced Nazi propulsion systems and kitsch speculation on the occult proclivities of the so-called Reich elite.

In contrast to the frivolous results of her public domain searches, she had at least received some good news from Langley. An e-mailed report on the RF Chip that Jackson had scanned and submitted had identified it as belonging to a batch that had been sold to a company called Open-EZ Incorporated, specialising in electronic supply chain solutions. The company was based in the US but a subsidiary was also operating in the UK and she had rapidly requested a full personnel list analysis for the entire global operation; she wanted to know everything that the intelligence services could provide on the company.

With her mind now numb from frustration, she found herself listlessly wondering what the Deputy Director of the CIA really knew. She had been called into the investigation during mid-December of the previous year, specifically requested by Kappel himself; his previous service and ties with the Marine Corps had suggested that he wanted people on this job that he knew he could trust and Jolene's CV fitted the bill perfectly, having seen tours of duty as a Marine Captain and as a special operative within the intelligence services.

Besides, it had been on Kappel's instigation that she had previously been seconded to the FBI to aid in the investigation into a group of Californian white-supremacists known as the 'Public Defenders' which had been preparing a terror campaign of letter-bombs to be directed at state officials who had objected to a tightening of immigration controls. The group had taken to mixing glass dust and silica into their home-made anthrax powder in an effort to increase its ability to permeate the lungs during inhalation and Jolene had been instrumental in procuring the evidence that had lead to the smashing of the whole organisation.

Her most recent brief had been straight-forward enough but notably devoid of detail. A major terrorist threat had been received but Kappel would offer no explicit detail on the exact nature of the menace although it was made clear that it was promised to be cataclysmic. There was no doubting the importance assigned to the threat; The President himself was actively involved in the command chain although the investigative units had been securely compartmented to prevent general release even to the most significant intelligence services such as the Defence Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency; a very odd state of affairs.

Kappel had taken her to one side, seemingly bestowing special attention to his liaison with her in contrast to the other investigators that had been called in. He had given her a 'heads up', implicitly indicating that the threat was connected to special weapons programmes that had been undertaken by both the US and Russia from the end of World War II right through the cold war. Some vague references to the Strategic Defence Initiative - much vaunted during Ronald Reagan's term of office - had implied that the weapons system involved was much more deadly than any amateur concoction of weed killer, fertilizer and household batteries.

The main problem appeared to be that the weapon was not in the hands of a foreign power or even a new addition to the arsenal of a state sponsored terrorist organisation. The group responsible for the threat had never been heard of and their affiliations were entirely unknown, whether by race, creed or colour.

She already knew that Kappel was holding back, that he had hinted at possibilities but had never expounded them. Dale's assessment had simply served to bring her own reservations and suspicions into sharp focus and she needed to task the Deputy Director if she was going to make any headway; she needed to convince him that she could not undertake an investigation properly if she was being kept in the dark. Jolene had arrived at a decision, she would broach the subject when she submitted their reports in the next couple of hours - she had to say something!

Jackson Revere stood before the slightly ajar door of the small office that Jolene had retired to for the early evening and knocked lightly. As he poked his head through the small gap, she craned around and smiled briefly.

'Jackson, how is it going?'

His head bobbed up and down in a nod and he entered the room fully, pushing the door to a close behind him.

'I have some interesting news actually Jolene; some very interesting news! You may have seen the mail from Langley about the RFID trace but they've also managed to identify a living relative of Hanna Paulus! She lives in a town just north-west of Frankfurt in Germany, I thought that you might want to speak with her to see if she knows anything about Hanna's activities during the war, maybe some hand-me-down accounts directly from the horse's mouth so to speak. It all adds authenticity to our reports.'

Jolene nodded and pursed her lips in a forced show of enthusiasm.

'Great. We'll have to organise a meet.'

Jackson jerked back and frowned.

'You alright Jolene? You seem a bit, well, a bit depressed.'

She grinned widely but did not show her teeth.

'I'm fine Jackson, just a little tired, early flight and all that. You must be flagging a little bit by now yourself?'

'Oh yes,' Jackson guffawed, 'but since I always look a bit worse for the wear, it doesn't show so much on me. Mind you, when you get to my age you begin to realise that you don't have an awful lot of time left so to spend sleeping it away, it always seems a little self-indulgent!'

Jolene stood and exhaled a sigh as she shrugged her shoulders tightly in an effort to squeeze and relax the muscles of her upper back and neck.

'Once we get this report in we can take a little down time, we need to be prepared for what might come next.'

Jackson pouted his lips and nodded, humming in short bursts of thoughtful agreement.

'Have you found anything else that may be significant?' asked Jolene, brightening slightly.

'Well yes, actually,' Jackson said enthusiastically.

'I looked into the Nazi special weapons programmes and found some spectacular stuff. Do you want me to go through it before we submit our report to Kappel?'

Jolene thought for a moment then shook her head.

'Not yet, we'll send any documentation you have straight over but we can quickly run through it before the conference call. Do you need more time?'

'No, no, I think that I'm about ready,' he looked down at his wristwatch, 'by my estimation we've done pretty well. We were given twenty-four hours but I think that we've managed to get some really good leads in half that time. I think that deserves an early night, don't you?'

Jolene smiled and blinked.

'That might be nice, but we're not making up the timetable! Alright, let's meet in the conference suite in fifteen minutes - and bring coffee!'

'That burger is sitting on my stomach,' groaned Akosua to Rey as she shifted against the tree trunk that she was using as a backrest, adjusting the fur hat on her head before wrapping her arms tightly about her body.

After their fast-food excursion, Frans had dropped them off at the crossroads near the Midden-Zeeland airfield and they had taken his suggestion to hide out in the small copse along the banks of the estuary that ran along the grass air strip. It was freezing and the clear skies did nothing to retain any atmospheric temperature, although at least the weather conditions meant it would be easier to jump if the skies were as clear over England.

'Well, you insisted on having two!' Rey snorted as he laughed. 'I don't know where you put it all; you must have a bottomless stomach!'

He stamped his feet in the age old tradition to stimulate the blood supply and blew into his cupped hands to warm them.

'Yeah, well I'd rather be over-fed than hungry, even if we do have to jump out of a plane. Besides, the way things have gone so far we'll probably end up having to walk to Scotland so I need something to keep me going.'

Rey rolled his eyes and glanced at his watch.

'We should wander across to the airfield soon, the pilot should be there by now and we'll need to check the parachutes before we get settled for the flight.'

His phone started to ring and he glanced at Akosua with an overtly suspicious expression.

'Maybe Frans wants us to get him some duty free,' she sniggered, 'you know he likes a drop of brandy.'

Rey reached into a pocket and took out the secure cell phone that Frans had given them for use in an emergency.

'Faber!' he announced curtly as he answered the call.

Akosua watched as his eyebrows arched in surprise.

'Senator Dru,' Rey nodded to her, 'is there a problem?'

'Fake?' Rey spluttered as Senator Dru explained the real nature of the objects of purported veneration that they had spent the last few days looking for. 'How can they be fake?'

Senator Dru sighed.

'I know that this must be something of a shock, especially considering the turn of events with the Verker girl and not to mention the fact that you're now fugitives, but let me explain.'

Rey's jaw tightened as he clamped his teeth together.

'We've known for long time that the US Intelligence Services were obliquely aware of our Order and certainly, they have some detailed knowledge of the equipment we are deploying right now for your primary mission - even if they have never managed to develop the concept into a militarily strategic and tactical advantage for themselves. The point is, it was just a matter of time for them to connect the dots and so we wanted to ensure that the picture they ended up with was one of our own designs.

'We delivered our ultimatum to The President of the United States of America in the name of the Brothers and Sisters of the Sun of the Sleepless, knowing that they would be able to cross reference it with our activities during World War II, however, we wanted to give them something to really focus their attention and that was the point of releasing
Dirigo Lux
and the
Sigil Ring
.'

Rey was confused.

'Releasing? You mean they weren't stolen?'

'No. That was the cover story but in actuality they were simply delivered to Johann Janssens in order that he could supply them to a suitable vendor. We would hardly be so careless with the real book and the real ring; they're considered to be sacred treasures after all. The fake ring was easy to manufacture using a cast of the original, but the book required some considerable care and craftsmanship to make it appear realistic to all but a true expert. Janssens himself did the work and is one of our most trusted Seraphim Brothers with the rank of Master, his role was pivotal in making the Americans aware of the book on the market.'

'Yeah, then he went missing - where is he now?'

'Ahh, yes,' Senator Dru exhorted humorously.

'I judged that you might take an executive decision at some point and we could hardly have you bumping off one of our own, so we recalled him and asked him to stage the scene for abduction. Of course, I hoped that you would assume that US Intelligence had paid him a visit and it was inevitable that the Americans would guess the opposite, that it was in fact you that took him. In reality, he is safely tucked away in a comfortable room here at Burg Schwartzstein.'

Rey remembered the puzzlement he had felt when he had entered Janssens' store and discovered the sprawled heap of books at the bottom of the stairs, the tipped furniture, half-eaten discarded sandwich and spilt coffee. He now realised that the US operatives would have jumped to the obverse conclusion regarding Johann Janssens' fate.

'Why? What was the point of putting this material out there?'

Senator Dru coughed.

'This operation was codenamed '
Oude Dame
' which is Dutch for 'Old Lady'. You remember the nursery rhyme of the old lady who swallowed a fly? She swallowed a spider to catch the fly? The book and the ring were flies and you were the spiders.'