The Yeoman: Crying Albion Series - Book 1 (17 page)

Chapter
14

Mission

By the next morning
four of the arrested protestors had died in enforcer custody. Reasons such as “wounds
sustained” and “resisting interrogation” were given. On the television screen
the previous day’s events were shown with ticker-strip information displaying
the grim death-toll.

Riley checked her messages on the internet
terminal and gave Gearson an excited shout. He came in half-dressed.

“What news?”

“One of our Deep Eyes has an unedited tape
of the whole thing!”

“The Pegasus Massacre?”

“Yes, he sent me a snippet so I know he’s
not messing us about.”

“That's something we can use for leverage, something
to sway the public towards us. Who is he, can he be trusted?”

“I hope so, he’s the one who dropped off
communications!”

“Who is he?” Gearson asked.

“Henry Malthar, works for a media outlet,
half-Kaslar. Doesn’t mix with the other Deep Eye folk much. I don’t know if we
should trust this. But the partial footage is genuine,” she turned and shook
her head with a worried look about her.

“Is it because he is half-Kaslar? You think
he could be a double-agent?” Gearson asked.

“Maybe, he’s a gay little thing, not a bad one
but too keen and zealous for my liking. Maybe even has his own agenda. He wants
a rapid answer, yes or no to an exchange?”

“Yes, specify a dead-drop and get the
location.”

“Within five seconds a new message arrived.

“’Market Square three hours from now.’
Face-to-face though, no dead-drop.”

“Acknowledge it,” Gearson relented. “Get me
his data too.”

Promptly Aurora did both and Gearson took a
seat next to her, viewing the agents profile.

“Ahh, I know of this one, his grand-mother
was a spy during the European Wars I think,” Gearson said curtly. “You had better
not be gaming with us little Kaslar,” he spoke with a glimmer of ice to his
words.

“Lorrie, change of plan on the other agents.
Send out a hibernation notice and ready three resettlement packs.”

As they made to leave Gearson picked up one
of the Artifact cases, causing her to laugh.

“So you don’t trust the spy after all?”

“I don’t trust anyone in this city outside
of you and I.”

Within half an hour they were prepared and
almost ready. Lorraine donned her spectrum analyser. It was a covert thing,
built into the rim of a baseball cap. All she had to do was flip it down in
front of her eyes to get it working.

Together they departed the agent handler’s
apartment, while she looked young enough to be his daughter such things no
longer even registered as a taboo anymore. On their way down White Horse Lane
the mostly foreign populace viewed the pair warily but said nothing. North
Croydon was a majority ‘New-European’ part of London but it was also a place
the authorities last suspected to search for pale-skinned European folk. The
Foreign Rights Bureau had indirectly assisted the Deep Eye units. It was the
FRB that had successfully made areas such as Croydon and other non-European
districts off-limits to network-linked CCTV cameras, and house-occupancy
registration. The distant subway at Norwood Junction was only a ten minute walk
but a nearby Rabian Solidarity march was taking place which they had to dodge
around. Uniformed enforcers kept a wary eye as they approached but said nothing.

“If things get any worse we’ll have to leave
this city and regroup,” Gearson said to Lorraine quietly.

“Will that be wise? Aren’t we needed in the
city to try and limit the damage they are doing.”

“This city will go to hell once the New
Europeans flood in, it’s already at breaking point with all the colony-types
from past generations.”

It took them over two hours to drop off the
first pair of resettlement packs. After they tucked the last one under a
certain rock at the agent’s dead-drop location the weather became cloudy,
threatening rainfall.

They reached nearby Coventside without
incident, as it was still morning the underclass element was less active. Over two-thirds
of the area was made up of foreigners. The classic Cockney accent was no more
as darker faces seemed to dominate the crowds. Here and there were pockets of
pale Caucasians. They were like tiny islands looking lost and overwhelmed by
the surrounding sea. There were those that moved about aimlessly with apathy, others,
satisfied with housing, food and utilities busied themselves with their daily
commute to work. It reminded Gearson of Sisyphus, the man from legend condemned
to toil for work without end. A twist on the tale was that these Britons they
passed by toiled for masters not of his own volition. A few, a scant few had
the look of subdued defiance, often that was clouded with alcohol, addled with
drugs or just a cloud of degeneracy. The tiny remaining fraction without such
tainting could be counted as righteous folk and these were rare souls indeed
within London’s beating heart. The two agents of this calibre walked on and
closed in on their destiny. Never far away from them were either camera
surveillance, enforcer patrols or their earnest
auxiliary
units.

Market Square lay within a plaza of
pedestrianized walkways. Once it was full of market stalls selling home-grown food
and manufactured products. In recent times the markets had been over-regulated,
flooded with corporate-sponsored imports near-impossible. The market stalls had
moved on making it Market Square in name only. The result was the park area in
the middle was now an oasis of green trees, winding pathways and shrubs.

As both agents entered the inner-square’s
gateway it seemed like they were crossing into another world. Much of the
traffic noise was muted and the skewed demographic was like microcosm, differing
from beyond its walls and fences. For some reason the non-local foreigners did
not venture inside, unless it was for the briefest of moments.

It did not take long for the pair to locate
their target. Sitting on a bench at the side of the pathway was Malthar.

The Eye man was a furtive, glassy-eyed and
fair-skinned. He wore somewhat smart clothes in a shabby fashion, typical of
the journalist profession. Riley thought of Malthar having a boyishly
good-looking face with hazel eyes that were sharp and harrowingly wise. He
matched the description on file to the letter.

“Down the path?” Lorraine questioned, using
the first part of the password.

“We go softly,” completed the spy Malthar,
showing no threats were with him.

“Safe,” Lorraine said back to him and
Gearson, confirming there was no hidden danger from them either. Malthar nodded
and seemed relieved to see friendly faces.

“Ok, get on all-round watch Lorrie,”Gearson
ordered. “I want to talk to him alone.”

“I should—”

“Not on this one, I need you on over-watch,
just in case.” The agent handler nodded and moved away from them.

 
“I’m
so glad to see you Father!” Malthar said, his effeminate countenance brightening.

“I’m not your father lad, your ways are in
both places, both worlds.”

“I mean you are like a distant father. We’ve
heard about you and that you might come, the other Deep Eyes agents were skeptical
but not me. To actually see you—”

“Malthar! The data, from the Yeomanry murders
at Belgravia? Do you have it?”

“Of course,” he dipped into his pocket to
remove a memory stick. “I managed to grab a quick spectrum scan of the
leadership area during the chaos. Normally I wouldn’t have risked it, but when
I saw the Enforcers’ butchery…”

Gearson nodded, taking the small stick from
him. Lorraine had moved twenty yards distant to check out the area innocuously.
She made no sign of caution or warning to him, but did not relax either.

“What’s the portal file, cypher and
password?” Gearson asked. He was proficient on Deep Eye computer protocols.

“Largest file size for the portal, the
password is ‘default settings’ with a space, all in lower case, and the key cypher
file is the first office file in the root directory,”

Gearson’s attuned memory took in the
essentials.

“Good. Now you could have coded this for a
dead-drop, why did you insist on a face-to-face? That’s risky as you know,” Gearson
spoke sternly.

“I’m sorry Father but I had to risk it there
are things going on that are too dangerous to send out on cyberspace.”

“Like what?”

“The radical policies by the new Prime
Speaker and his party are just the tip of the iceberg!” Malthar said excitedly.
“The puppet masters calling the shots to them are an organisation I’ve never
heard of before. It’s like they came out of nowhere! That’s why I had to go
off-comms. I couldn’t risk alerting anyone using a proxy-server.”

“Who are they?”

“There’s one called the Inner Way embedded
within Britain.”

“I know of the Inner Way son. That is not
news to me.”

“There’s more though! The real danger is
outside our borders, on mainland Europe. They call themselves the UNAS and have
operatives all over Europe.”

“What does—“

“It stands for United Nations And Sectors.
Totally supranationalist, utterly committed to destroying Europe.”

“Part of the United Nations?” Gearson
quizzed.

“Not directly, although they probably have
ties given all that goes on. They have a base far to the east, beyond the Black
Sea.”

“I need all you know about them.”

“It’s all on the stick along with the media
footage. Listen carefully, I’ve put the minutes from an Inner Way meeting onto
it too, they held it only days ago.”

“How did you get it Malthar?”

“My contact is an insider, possibly a Knowlen
rebel, perhaps even of the Inner Way. He’s working from the inside and managed
to record a whole meeting of the Inner Way with an audio recording. We’re
talking the fate of this island here! Even Albion would be destroyed if it
comes to pass with what they have planned. Some of my folk are keen to see
Albion changed with these foreigners but not I Father. I am not blind to the
harm being wreaked on this fair land and people.” Malthar was a rare kind of
spy, one who was a patriot to his adopted nation, just like his grandmother had
been in her fashion.

“If what you say is true and they suspect a
leak, you could be in more danger than we are lad.” Gearson nodded, he was not
keen to linger for too long. He was now gravely aware the spy was either lying
or passing on a firestorm of information.

“Father I think I may have been, shadowed,” Malthar
whispered the words. “My contact says the Inner Way now have ways capable of slow-tracing
people using thought-paths or intentions.” Malthar had a worried look on his
face. Gearson felt a touch of dread also, spectrum analysis was rare indeed. To
even know of its existence meant something. If Malthar was correct and that
meant trouble.

“Lorraine, full surveillance check,” Gearson
called out softly.

She nodded at the coded language and
adjusted her device, and read the feed-back details, then shook her head
slowly. Nothing showed, but the analyser was not infallible. If something was
out of range, like an enemy lurking beyond the coverage amid the background
blur, a false sense of security could set in.

“Nothing, but the range is bad with all this
interference.”

“We have to go now! Malthar, go to ground
you’ve done enough,” Gearson ordered plainly.

He got up to leave.

“But I have new access from my work,”
Malthar said looking hurt. “I’m just been promoted as well. I could get to the
bottom of the UNAS, maybe figure out their base here in Albion?”

“Damn your zeal lad! All Deep Eyes are being
hibernated by my order. Anything you do from here on in is totally cut-off from
us. I strongly advise relocating to Albion. In future times maybe we’ll contact
you again. For now, I want agents that survive, not killed or captured.”

“Surely I can help in some way by continuing
the fight here? The Morning Star gets unedited raw stories.”

“Forget your old life,” Gearson hissed
intently and passed over the last package. “This is a resettlement package for
you to start a new life. Make the most of it, you only get one of them.”

As the young man inspected the passport, currency
and precious metals package Lorraine caught a growing flash indicator on her
analyser.

“I’m getting signs Kallan! Focused mass is approaching,”
she said nervously.

“Get out of here now!” he told Malthar who backed
up and hastened to the exit.

“I did not betray you Father!”

“Go!”

As the short man moved to the gateway all
seemed normal.

“That direction is clear,” she directed
towards the other gateway. They both went at a fast walking pace towards the
opposite gateway but Riley could not hold back from watching behind them.