'Are we still set for the beginning of February?'
'My information is that we are still set for action for the first week of February. Unless we get a red light in the mean time, this is a go operation.'
Another hand was raised.
'What about our hitch-hiker?'
Loftus grinned.
'Good question Cohen. How is he?'
Private Cohen snorted a laugh.
'Stiff Sergeant, very stiff!'
'Alright, we take him with us and bury him at the farmhouse - he'll keep until then. I want him wrapped up though, I don't want him leaking everywhere on the way up. We'd better scrub down the HGV trailer as well, bleach it out just in case. Cohen, you can take care of that with Ramsey and we'll draw lots for the burial party once we're up there, he can wait until first light since it's below freezing up there anyway. At the very least the exertion will do you good and keep you warm!'
A few chuckles were exclaimed at the macabre necessity to dispose of the body of Karl Whelton.
'Any other questions?'
'When do we expect Captain Faber and Lieutenant Akosua to arrive?'
'I don't have a precise time but I am guessing within the next couple of days. It doesn't affect our mission objective but we will need to jiggle the duty roster a little bit. Once we're dug in I want two-man sentry teams patrolling the boundary at all times, two hours on and eight hours off. The drivers will take the last shift for the first rota. Any more questions?'
Loftus looked around at each face.
'Alright, get into your combat gear, get the vehicles checked and your equipment stowed, we leave in just over an hour so I suggest that we make good use of the time we have available to us. Once we set off we'll be travelling slowly so we can expect to arrive at the farmhouse between 18:00 and 20:00 this evening, depending on the weather and the condition of the roads. Let's go to it!'
Loftus clapped his hands and the group jumped up.
'Private Moore,' he called out above the clatter of movement, 'make sure that the second Land Rover is fully equipped for Captain Faber, he'll want to roll out as quickly as possible without having to fuck around.'
'Yes Sergeant!'
'Oh, and everybody, one more thing -'
The group paused and looked at him.
'You're squaddies now so you can
eff
and
blind
as much as you like!'
The entire team cheered and whooped as they started their final preparations.
Crossroads
Bouncing about in the back of their van as it crossed the Haringvliet estuary of the Rhine-Meuse delta, Frans pressed the button to end his secure cell call with Senator Dru and coughed to clear his throat. They were rumbling across the sluices which provided a road connection between the island of Voorne in the north and the southern island of Goeree-Overflakkee. Soon enough, they would arrive at the Midden-Zeeland airfield near Arnemuiden.
The call had come through a few moments earlier to confirm that a Cessna 208 suitable for Rey and Akosua's parachute jump had been secured and had already been assigned a provisional take-off slot booked for 18:00 that evening, although the Senator had been slightly contrite in noting that an intermediate vehicle could not be secured for them within the time-frame and so they would have to use their own initiative in order to remain out of sight until their flight was ready.
'Good,' Akosua sighed, 'let's find a restaurant, I'm hungry and could do with something to eat if I'm going to jump out of a plane.'
Rey shook his head.
'No, the police will be looking for us let alone US Intelligence so we'll have to lay low until the last minute. I don't want to hang about in the south east of England either, we need to get up to Dumfries as soon as possible and catch up with the crew. Loftus knows what to do but I don't want to leave the team swinging in the wind for too long. We can get something from a petrol station once we're in England.'
Even as Akosua grimaced at the suggestion, Frans grinned benignly.
'Not to worry, we can get some fast food before we drop you off and you can eat here in the van. There is an intersection at one corner of the airfield and we can drop you off there. I know the place and there are some trees where you can sit down and relax and look at the estuary for a while, although it will be a little cold there is some nice scenery! From there it will be just a short walk round the corner and straight along the tarmac to Hangar #1, Bay #8. You will find your pilot and plane there - SP-JPS - you should be able to meet up with him by five o'clock so you will only have to lay low for a couple of hours or so.'
Frans then shrugged and looked apologetic.
'I would like to stay and keep you company, but I want to be on the way before our young friend here wakes up.'
Akosua looked down at Gertrude.
'I could give her another dose if you want?'
She reached into her pocket and withdrew an unused injection pen.
Frans shook his head but stretched over and took the pen from her anyway.
'No, it will be fine I am sure, she will still be groggy and I can strap her in but I'll take it just in case. We only have to get to Krefeld near Düsseldorf and it should take less than three hours.'
Akosua bent down to Gertrude, momentarily holding the back of her hand to the sleeping girl's forehead before placing a couple of fingers against her neck and feeling for a pulse beating within one of the carotid arteries.
'She's alright.'
'What about the DZ?' asked Rey, predominantly concerned with their extraction.
Frans grinned again, clapped his hands together and shook them as he spoke.
'Ah! Yes, they've organised a drop zone for a field near a little place called Stones Green about twelve kilometres east of a town called Colchester. Do you know it?'
Both Rey and Akosua nodded, recognising the name of the United Kingdom's oldest recorded town which laid claim to once being the provincial Roman capital of Britain. Deposed from it's role after being attacked and destroyed during Boudicca's rebellion in 61CE, it had subsequently been usurped as the capital by London and was now considered simply as a popular commuter town, surrounded by green fields and isolated copses beyond the borders of the comparatively restrained urban sprawl.
'They'll lay flares down and after the drop the plane will continue for a landing at a commercial airfield further inland. They wanted to give plenty of space between your landing and the plane's! You'll be met on the ground by some friendly faces and they'll have a car waiting for you, after that, you're on your own.'
'Alright, sounds good, I don't want to hang about,' said Rey as he turned to Akosua.
'We'll take it in shifts to drive and head north straight away. If all goes well we should be able to make it to the warehouse by around one o'clock tomorrow morning, even if we stop off halfway to get a bite to eat.'
'When will you catch up with your crew?' quizzed Frans.
Rey thought for a moment, considering the last stage of the journey.
'I'd guess that we might make it by four or five, depending on the weather, mind you I think we'll need to kip for the rest of the day after the journey we have ahead of us.'
'Yeah,' agreed Akosua vigorously, 'and I'll want a nice hot bath before I settle down!'
Jolene looked at her wristwatch, it was almost a quarter past one in the afternoon and she was keen to get some material off to Kappel but Dale's negatively biased appraisal of events kept turning over in her mind, gnawing at her and creating some considerable level of doubt. Of course, she knew that Kappel was no fool and he would undoubtedly already have visibility of intelligence which could possibly include some of the information that Jackson had summarised for them earlier, however, the more that she thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Jackson would be able to provide anything of any real value which could lead to their research being dismissed as irrelevant.
Dale's denouement that their report would be a waste of time kept coming back to her. By implication, it also meant that their investigation into the book was pointless - so why waste resources on a wild goose chase? Although she hated to admit it, he could just be right and that raised some very serious questions for her - very serious questions.
As the minute hand of his watch clicked over to a quarter-past seven in the morning in Langley, Virginia, Stefan Kappel eased back in his comfortably upholstered high-backed leather desk chair and suddenly felt very tired and rather worryingly, very old, even though he was still eight months off his sixtieth birthday. For the last couple of months he had been burdened as never before - there was nothing to compare to it during the previous four years he had spent as Deputy Director.
Even during his previous involvement in clandestine operations, when he had been implicated and indicted in a foreign court for his involvement in the promulgation of - admittedly - controversial interrogation techniques, he had always been able to justify his actions as for the greater good of the security of The United States of America. Just lately, he felt that he no longer knew which side was right and which side was wrong.
Stefan Kappel had solemnly undertaken his duty for the defence of his country, he had never faulted, even when his own sense of morality and justice brought him to question the necessity of the actions he had authorised and even supervised. In spite of all the good work he had accomplished in his career, people would always focus on the negative aspects, taking them out of context, using them as a foil to amplify their own sense of moral superiority.
He had been on the front-line, he knew the reality of the modern world, he understood what it really took to ensure that the US could remain safe and secure. The US Intelligence Services only needed to fail once to be vilified as insidiously imperial or berated as blunderingly incompetent. People had no understanding of what it was like to wade through the murky waters of international terrorism let alone stare into the abyss of global geopolitics.
His body was telling him that he needed to get some rest, but he forced himself to stay awake, to remain focussed, he had to stay at the helm at least for a little longer yet. Jolene Lovell was smart and she would figure out one thing or another soon enough, it was just a question of time. Until then, he had to watch and wait; he had to ensure that his plan of action succeeded. If he was caught, the consequences would be catastrophic for him.
Of course, he knew that he would inevitably lose his job and his pension, he'd almost certainly be indicted and there was even the slim chance of a prison sentence. In the worst case scenario, he could even pay with his life, but a senior executive of the CIA always had the insurance policy of 'knowledge'. An old figure of speech came to mind: 'Sometimes, it was useful to know where the bodies were buried!'
He had so far managed to hide his access to classified material that even as Deputy Director he was not supposed to see. He had even managed to convince The President to contain the investigation into the threat that occupied his every waking hour notwithstanding the sleepless nights that it had recently given him. All of his actions for the last month or so had been engineered specifically so that he could progress his plan without arousing suspicion within the other intelligence services, however, time was running out.
He needed Jolene to discover for herself what he already knew but could not tell her, not just yet anyway, although the decision time was rapidly approaching for him.
Pieter van Riel replaced the receiver of his desk phone and scowled, muttering under his breath at the turn of events that had transpired. He had been minaciously warned off any further action concerning Gertrude Verker, rather, Chief Inspector Visser had dismissively explained that her abduction was no longer a concern of the Dutch police and had conveyed the official order in no uncertain terms and with a heavy reference to unspecified consequences.
Admittedly, he had acquiesced to understand Pieter's concern, even sympathising with him, but his instructions had clearly indicated that the matter was to be left in the hands of the Americans, an order that had originated at the very highest levels of Dutch government - no reasons, no explanations.
Pieter could not help but think that the situation was crazy. He had received a statement from an avid ornithologist who had been at the coast that very morning watching birds and who had witnessed a very odd event. Through his binoculars he had seen a van drive up next to a Volkswagen Golf parked near to the beach; some people had jumped out and proceeded to change the number plates on the car. It was most irregular and so the man had decided to report it. He had even provided the new registration numbers and although he would not swear to it, it seemed to him that a young red haired woman, possibly unconscious, was dragged from the car to the van and driven away. It was very suspicious.
Using the newly identified licence plate number, Pieter had managed to track the VW to the outskirts of the city although from that point, he had lost it; however, the most significant result was that he had also managed to track the van. Although the registration number had not been entirely decipherable even via the bird watcher's binoculars and the rather ambiguous description of the livery of the vehicle could have applied to any number of vans, Pieter had enough numbers and letters to be able to reduce the range of suspect vehicles.
A few enquiries with his own traffic department had quickly resulted in the identification of a Renault van matching the description and travelling out of the city, allowing the full license plate number to be revealed. It had not taken very long to identify the owner but a few calls to the local police had determined that the van was using a fake number; the real owner of the license plate was a horse stables in the province of Friesland in the north of The Netherlands. Some perfunctory background checks and a non-committal conversation with the owner of the stables had assured Pieter that the number had been copied and reused, applied to a van of the same make and model so that a cursory inspection by the police would reveal no issues.
In any event, he had a positive lead, he could engage the help of the forces all over The Netherlands, he could supply the details to his international colleagues in neighbouring Germany, Belgium, even France and Denmark. After all, a young woman had been abducted and the circumstances were very serious indeed.
'
Nee
!' Visser had replied. 'Leave it!' was the order.
Pieter's frustration was overwhelming; Getrude Verker was a Dutch citizen and even Visser had very recently indicated that if anything had seemed wrong he should remember who he worked for. What was going on? Pieter sat back and sighed; he looked out of the window next to his desk and focussed on the horizon. He had a big decision to make and one of the options was definitely hazardous to his career progression. Certainly, it would not make him popular with his Chief Inspector let alone the Chief of Police.
He looked at the framed picture of his own daughter, placed on his desk next to his computer monitor. What would he do if it was her that was missing? What if she had been abducted? Would he leave her to be found by the Americans? Would he ignore her fate just because of politics? He knew that he had already made his decision.
Shafts of yellow hued light beamed through the tall windows of the top tower of Burg Schwarzstein castle, the dying embers of the setting winter sun giving at least the illusion of a warming glow in the small circular turret room of the lofty stone bartizan set at the corner of the main donjon. The whole medieval fortress was perched high atop a rocky outcrop of black stone on the western bank of the Rhine river as it curved toward the east in the direction of Frankfurt but the central bailey and compound had already been cloaked in the creeping cold shadow cast by the sheer sided rock cliff into which the castle nestled.