“Who or what is he?”
Roger put his hand up. “He must be
the KSS chief in Australia,” he answered.
“Probably.
So what else can we deduce?”
“That there are KSS in other
countries as well; like Paraguay,” Peter offered.
“Yes. Good. Now, who was the
message to?”
Stephen held the sheet up.
“The...the Untersturmfuhrer commanding Detachment Rainforest,” he read out.
“Good. That is Mr Jablonski,
currently assisting police with their enquiries. Was he alone?”
Graham shook his head. “No sir.
He had at least three others with him,” he answered.
“What is he?”
“A Kosarian?”
Roger answered.
“Yes. But that’s not what I
meant,” Inspector Sharpe replied.
“I know,” Peter said. “He is the
leader of a Special Action Team.”
Inspector Sharpe nodded. “That is
what I think too.
How many men in a Special Action Team?”
“Nine,” Stephen replied.
“How many men have we accounted
for?”
“Only four,” Graham answered.
“No,” Roger countered.
“Only three.
One was a colonel; the old guy.”
Inspector Sharpe nodded. “That’s
right Roger. So there could be six more around. I doubt if there are but we
must plan on that assumption. Now, when was the message sent?”
“Eight O’clock this morning,”
Graham answered.
“It was a message within a
message. The message within was one they had intercepted somehow from their
enemies. What does that suggest? How did the KSS get it?”
“Radio intercept?” Peter
suggested.
“Possibly,” Inspector Sharpe
replied.
“Treachery,” Roger said.
“From a traitor in the royal organization.”
“Have a chocolate frog Roger!
That’s what I think too; and I even think I know who our treacherous
double-agent is. Listen to this. It is from the Diary of Boris Krapinski; which
you recovered for us this afternoon,” Inspector Sharpe said. He reached into a
plastic bag and took out the small diary. Flicking it open at a marked page he
read: “13th June. After all these years the White Falcon has called for me at
last. I must go. Dorkoffsky gave me the message but I don’t trust him. I will
lay a trail to check. I will put out the clues tomorrow.” Inspector Sharpe
closed the diary. “That is the last entry. He was murdered the next day.”
“Dorkoffsky,” Roger hissed. “This
is his house.”
“Yes.”
Graham looked puzzled. “Did
Captain Krapinski put out the clues?” he asked.
“We don’t know. That may be what
these numbers on the pieces of blue cardboard are,” Inspector Sharpe replied,
indicating them.
“Clues to
what?”
Peter
asked.
“Where to find
the treasure of course!”
Roger cried.
“Why not lead his people to it,
or give it to them?” Peter asked.
Stephen answered that. “Because
he obviously feared treachery and he wanted some sort of extra insurance it
wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands,” he suggested. “He said he would lay a
trail to check. I’ll bet he was going to watch from in hiding who followed that
trail.”
“Possibly,” Graham conceded. “He
was right to be careful.”
“But not careful enough,” DS
Crowe added grimly.
They were all silent for a
moment. Then Inspector Sharpe ended this speculation by asking, “Who is the intercepted
message from?”
“The General Staff of the
Kosarian...no
..
of
the Royal
Army,” Stephen read out.
“Who is it to?”
“Colonel Count Michael Von
Krapnoff, Kommandant of the Royal Guard,” Stephen read.
“Who do we know for sure was in
the Royal Guard?”
“Captain Krapinski,” Roger
answered. His fingers seemed to curl up as they involuntarily shrank back as he
had a vivid flash-back to when he first touched the floating corpse.
“He was. We know he was back in
1941. But would they have such an old man in such an organization?” the
Inspector quizzed.
“Yes!” Roger was emphatic.
“So you think the Royal Guard
still exists?”
“Definitely sir,” Graham said.
“Why would there be a signal to its kommandant, this Colonel Krapnoff, if it
didn’t exist?”
“Good deduction. And nor would
the KSS be interested in them otherwise. Now, what
do
the Royal Guard do?”
“Guard the Royal Family,” Peter
suggested.
“Guard Prince Peter,” Graham
said.
“Which Prince
Peter?”
“The one who was the baby, whose parents
were murdered in London,” Stephen said.
The Inspector nodded. “If the
prince was born in 1941 would he still be alive?”
There was a pause while they all
did the sums in their heads.
“Yes,” Peter answered. “He would
only be in his sixties.”
“Where is he?”
“Here,” Roger answered.
“In Australia you mean?”
Roger shook his head. “No. Yes.
Here, on the Tablelands.”
“Why do you think
that ?”
Roger thought hard and then said,
“Because this is where the commander of his body guard is.”
The Inspector sat in silent
thought for a moment,
then
went on. “What does the
intercepted message say?”
Stephen read it again: “Colonel
Krapnoff is to meet the White Falcon at Legend Hill at... between those two
times, and then guide him to Concentration Place ‘Cloud’.”
“What are the
timings.
Read them again.”
“Between 171800Zulu and
172400Zulu June,” Stephen read. The Inspector jotted them down.
Graham looked at the wall clock.
“Oh. We are too late. It’s nearly midnight now. We’ve only got twenty minutes
to try to catch them.”
Inspector Sharpe looked at the
clock and swore. He stood up and walked to the telephone.
“Wait sir,” Peter called. “Those
timings are in Zulu Time. That is Time Zone Zulu, which is Greenwich Mean
Time.”
“Good lad!” Inspector Sharpe beamed.
“That is ten hours behind us. So what are those timings in local time?”
“Between 0400hrs and 1000hrs
tomorrow,” Peter answered.
“There is time!” Roger squeaked
with excitement.
Inspector Sharpe sat down. “Let’s
keep teasing this out. Where is the meeting place?”
“Legend Hill.
It’s a nickname or code name,
and is believed to be a road junction between here and Malanda,” Stephen read.
Inspector Sharpe snapped his
fingers.
“Quick, a map.”
Graham pulled out his 1:100 000
scale map and unfolded it on the table. They all crowded around to look.
“There are a lot of road
junctions,” Stephen noted.
Peter ran his finger tip across
the map.
“On a hill.
A road junction on a hill,” he
suggested.
“That’s better. Let’s see now.
Count them,” Inspector Sharpe said.
Roger looked at the web of roads
between Yungaburra and Malanda and was instantly depressed. He didn’t bother to
count. There were at least three routes, all interconnected by several
laterals.
Graham did and he said, “There are
at least twenty five road junctions, not counting dead-ends going to farms.”
When he heard
that Roger felt a stab of dismay.
“But only fourteen are on, or
close to hill tops,” Peter said. “That’s not too bad.”
Inspector Sharpe turned to DS
Crowe. “Start planning Crowe. How can we get the manpower to watch them all;
and to get them in position within three hours?” He turned to the boys. “What
else do we get out of this message?”
Roger put his hand up. “Sir, Can
we help? We could watch a couple of road junctions,” he suggested.
“No Roger. Sorry. This could be
dangerous, and it’s police business. You just go on with your hike.”
Roger didn’t try to hide his
disappointment. It had seemed such a good idea; and he really wanted to help
solve the mystery.
Inspector Sharpe went on. “OK,
who is the White Falcon?”
“Didn’t I read that the Royal
Guard was the White Falcon Regiment?” Graham asked.
“White Eagle wasn’t it?” Peter
corrected.
Inspector Sharpe picked up the
History Book. Roger looked at the cover. Suddenly he jabbed his finger at it.
“The White
Falcon!
There
it is, with a crown on it. The White Falcon is the King.”
They all looked at the cover.
Inspector Sharpe bit his lip. “I have a sinking feeling you are right.
The Crown Prince anyway.
He isn’t a King until he is
crowned, and I suppose that can only be done with the proper ceremony in their
national cathedral.”
Roger felt a pulse of excitement.
“Prince Peter! Here, on the Tablelands!” he cried. It seemed unbelievable. He’d
once seen Prince Charles in the distance at a Scout Jamboree in Sydney. That
was the closest he had ever come to royalty.
Graham added: “He must be
important anyway, if a general orders a colonel to go and meet him.”
Inspector Sharpe looked at them.
“What else do we know about him?”
Stephen read from the sheet. “He
will be in a grey Mercedes with three other men; one of whom is Adjutant
Stiltz.”
“We should be able to spot that
sir,” DS Crowe growled. “There can’t be that many grey Mercedes on the
Tablelands.”
Inspector Sharpe nodded. “Yes. It
gives us a chance. Bloody hell! Here’s me worrying about the Kosarian Deputy
Premier’s visit and now we’ve got a Crown Prince swanning around as well.
Blast! Why couldn’t this just be a simple murder?”
“We will need more men sir,” DS
Crowe said.
“Lots more.
And Federal as
well as State.
Let’s see what we can work out before we hit the panic
button. Where is this White Falcon going?”
Graham answered.
“Concentration Place Cloud.
That’s ‘Sammelplatz’ in German,”
he explained. “It’s a literal translation but in the dictionary it had ‘mil’ in
brackets after it so I think it means what we would call an Assembly Area.”
“Mil?”
“Military sir.
It’s a military technical term.”
“What’s an Assembly Area?”
“Where troops from different
units group together and get organized for an attack sir.” Graham replied.
For a moment there was complete
silence. Inspector Sharpe swore
softly,
then asked,
“Where?”
Graham shrugged. “A place called
‘Cloud’. It is a codeword. So we don’t know where.”
“What troops?” asked the Inspector.
He now looked very worried.
Stephen read from the message:
“Company Knight
sir
, for a thing called ‘Operation
Return’.”
“A company is about a hundred men
isn’t it?” DS Crowe asked.
Graham nodded. “A hundred and
thirty in our army,” he replied.
DS Crowe swore then said: “
Christ !
Could they have that many men in this Royal Guard?”
No-one answered. It was a
sobering thought.
Peter frowned. “I wonder what
‘Operation Return’ is?” he asked.
Graham flung out an arm in a
theatrical gesture and said: “I shall return! You know, General Macarthur in
World War Two. In this case I’ll bet it is the return to the old country.”
Inspector Sharpe looked at him
with a grim frown. “I think you’ve got it lad. These Kosarians have formed a
secret army here and probably plan to go back to Kosaria to start a revolution,
to try to put the king back on his throne.”
“That makes sense,” Stephen said.
“It might. But it’s bloody
illegal. These bloody foreigners have no right to break our laws while having their
own political squabbles,” Inspector Sharpe snapped, pounding the table.
Roger was puzzled so he said,
“But sir, if the Kosarian government are Communists I can understand why they
and the Royal Guard are enemies. But where do the KSS come into it?”
“Oh Roger!”
Stephen sneered. “We just had
pages of it. First Peter, then Paul, then Peter, then Paul! Obviously the
Archduke Paul wants to be the king; so he’s sent his men to bump off Prince
Peter.”
“Yes. I see that,” Roger replied.
“But then why are the KSS digging holes and searching the jungle? What are they
looking for?”
“Something Krapinski hid,” Peter
suggested.