It had taken a good fifteen minutes for the SAS and Royal Marines to redeploy, forming a tight perimeter around the last redoubt of the terrorists. Captain Lewis had no worry that his targets had managed to flee the area; the eye in the sky had been watching their impromptu encampment the whole time and he eyed his troops surrounding the area, looking long and hard at the abandoned vehicles that had been urgently drawn up next to what appeared to be a crater in the middle of the forest.
Even at the distance he stood from the pit, he could see a couple of Claymore mines jabbed into the ground around the rim and the experience back at the farmhouse had engendered a deliberately cautious approach.
It was clear that the terrorists had descended a large rock shaft that appeared to have been carved out of the ground. It could easily have been a Neolithic flint mine, a simple excavation pit dug down over five thousand years ago to provide access to the raw material so suitable for knapping into blades and arrow heads. Equally, it may have been a much more recent attempt to mine gold deposits in the locale. Either way, nothing was moving apart from a few ropes swaying in the wind as they hung down into the gradually dissipating smoke composition that the terrorists had deployed.
It took a further ten minutes to move up to the edge of the crater, taking care of the anti-personnel mines dotted about the lip. The floor of the rock hole was out of sight, still covered by a thin layer of white and red smoke such that it appeared to be bottomless. If it had been situated near to Loch Ness it would have been all too easy to consider it as the grim lair of some macabre beast.
Whatever the case, it was obvious that there was some kind of recess at the bottom that could provide some cover, the entrance obscured by the a layer of smoke that sat like a rising mist, concealing the remaining terrorists and enabling them to shoot up at anything that peeped over the edge down into the hole in the ground. The terrorists had resorted to a last stand; they would either die by their own hands or at the behest of the forces now surrounding them.
Captain Lewis crawled up to the edge and looked down, mildly aware of something was nagging at the back of his mind as he gave his next order.
'Drop down as much CR gas as we have and anything that coughs, sneezes or vomits, kill it!'
He had considered that the terrorists may have been issued with gas masks and so after the CR gas had effectively dissipated, a few incendiary and fragmentation grenades had been dropped down for good measure, however, apart from a few flying shards of rock, nothing had moved or made a sound.
Calculating that the enemy they had been baiting down at the bottom of the stone burrow had been holed up for just over half an hour and that they had probably decided to commit group suicide by the blade since they had not heard a single shot, Captain Lewis suddenly grasped the flitting suspicion that had been buzzing about in the back of his mind.
'Is this a pit or cave entrance?'
The question had come too late. The half hour stand-off had been enough for Rey's team to traverse just over a kilometre on foot to exit on the west coast, although hidden underground for the entire journey, their escape route being a narrow natural tunnel formed aeons ago in the rock beneath the earth's surface.
It may well have been a prehistoric lava tube but was most likely a tectonic cave created over thousands of years. Seismic movement, glaciers and free running water had carved a valley like a jagged slash in the earth and over time the base had filled with rocks and debris but the stream of water had continued to flow, digging out a tunnel beneath the roof of boulders. After the ice age had passed, the stream had dried up and after the protective blanket of ice had receded the surface was once again exposed to the elements, the rocky valley floor being covered by soil carried on the wind and small boulders rattling down from the valley walls above, eventually creating a firmament that allowed a forest to grow over it to completely obscure the secret tunnel hidden well below.
Having reconnoitred the route with Loftus during their previous visits, Rey knew that it provided an excellent means of escape should the worst case scenario happen and as it dawned on the SAS Captain that he had lost his prey, Rey's team had already exited the cave tunnel near the Sound of Lorn.
Quickly launching an 8.5m Avon Rigid Inflatable Boat that they had prepared for such a circumstance, they cast off into the cold but clear waters that lapped against the sandy shore, easily pushing off into the shallows and engaging the supercharged engine mated to a jet drive with no fear of a prop fouling against the seabed. As they sped across the waves, bouncing and dipping through the peaks and troughs, Rey had seen a trawler chugging over from its previous mooring off Gylen Castle on the Island of Kerrera.
It took a few minutes to cover the couple of nautical miles to the arranged rendezvous point and as the inflatable neared the side of the aged hulk that represented their final transport to safety a familiar figure appear on deck, dressed in the archetypal clothing of a sea fisherman, right down to his Wellington boots.
'
Meneer Faber
,' Frans called out from the bow rail of the trawler as he waved a hand in greeting, '
sorry dat ik laat ben
!'
Your taxi is waiting -
A German police officer had provided Jolene, Jackson and Dale with an impromptu guided tour of the floors of Burg Linn on the outskirts of Krefeld, detailing the escape path that Gertrude Verker had followed to freedom. As they walked through the large medieval complex, it was apparent that there was scant evidence of the Sun of the Sleepless and it was clear that the castle had simply been used as a convenient temporary holding place for the girl, an ideal location to keep her out of sight as they held her against her will.
The terrorists that had guarded her were long gone and the only indications of their activities were the hastily installed wireless video cameras placed in one of the delegate's suites and an impromptu security station set-up just outside of the door.
The tradesmen who had been working on the building renovations, electricians, plumbers, bricklayers and plasterers had given preliminary statements but they knew nothing of the guests staying in the top floor - their own working instructions had prohibited them from wandering up to the bedroom apartments and they could provide nothing of substance concerning the activities of what they assumed were guests of the museum authorities.
'I don't think that we're going to get anything useful from here,' Jackson pondered as they skirted a mobile scaffolding tower used to gain access to the ceiling high above them in one of the large rooms on the second floor, the area littered with building debris and the dormant tools of the workmen. 'I just hope that it wasn't too traumatic for the Verker girl.'
Jolene had a stern expression and appeared preoccupied.
'I'm sure she was safe enough,' she replied curtly, 'although I'd like to hear you opinions on why she was taken in the first place.'
Jackson's face screwed up quizzically and he shook his head.
'I have no idea Jolene, I guess we'll have to speak with Miss Verker to find that out.'
A sudden rasp of exasperation sighed from Dale.
'So what do we do now? There is nothing for us to do here!'
'We wait!' Jolene barked as she jerked her head around to look at him, pausing slightly as she realised how harsh her tone had been. 'We wait to hear from our operations team in London and how the raid on the farmhouse in Scotland has gone. We have some other business to take care of anyway.'
'Oh?' queried Jackson. 'Do you know something we don't?'
'You might say that,' nodded Jolene slowly.
Apart from a single officer posted at the foot of the entry ramp providing access to the castle across the moat, the German police had vacated the premises. The crime scene investigation units had been and gone, performing their collection of forensic material and the capture of evidence from primary locations about the castle; Gertrude's bedroom suite, the security station where the terrorists had sat outside of her room and the kitchens where meals and drinks had obviously been prepared. The areas had been left cordoned off and it was fully expected that all of the physical evidence would be checked against Gertrude's statement, the key objective being to identify the people that had held her there.
Jolene had directed Stanley and Oliver to keep watch over the inner courtyard and the main entrance doors to the castle buildings, advising them that she fully expected some visitors to arrive within the hour but without explaining their identity or purpose. Along with Jackson and Dale, she had decamped to a small anteroom on the first floor that was normally used as a rest room for museum staff, a large oak table and a set of old dining chairs complemented by a comfortable sofa where guides and other castle workers could take a break, employing the facilities of a small kitchenette to make hot drinks and prepare microwave meals.
'So what exactly are we waiting for?' asked Dale, his previous conversation with Jolene concerning the incriminating text messages recurring in his thoughts.
'News,' was all she offered in reply, 'and the arrival of some US personnel.'
'Personnel?' asked Jackson. 'Who have you called in?'
Before she could answer, her phone began to trill and she quickly reached into her jacket to retrieve it, moving off out of earshot even as she answered it.
'Looks like we're in the exclusion zone again!' grumbled Dale.
Jackson chuckled and smiled widely.
'I shouldn't worry about it, what say we get ourselves some coffee and relax a little until we know what is happening?'
It was a full ten minutes before Jolene wandered back into the room, pocketing her cellular phone and looking slightly flushed.
'That was our operations liaison in London, they've just completed the raid on the farmhouse in Oban.'
Ambling back into the staff room from the kitchenette, Jackson clunked three coffee mugs onto the table, sliding them apart to offer drinks to Dale and Jolene.
'Well, what happened?'
Dale stood up from the sofa he had relaxed into and also stood by the table, resting his knuckles against the polished oak surface.
'Did it all work out?'
Jolene took a moment to think about what she would say and then snorted shortly through her nose.
'The British Special Forces team destroyed what appears to have been a large weapon, although it was so completely devastated we'll probably never be able to fully identify what it was.'
'The vortex cannon?' asked Jackson, earnestly searching Jolene's face for a clue.
'Yes, most probably,' she shrugged. 'Four terrorists were killed during the attack but nine of them apparently managed to escape, although they think that one of them was probably fatally wounded. They are hunting for them now.'
'Escaped?' queried Dale. 'How did they get away?'
'Well,' Jolene snorted again, 'it appears that they managed to get away through a cave system that lead from an inland entrance to the shore, from there they probably linked up with a boat that was able to dock further down the coast before a full scale search could be organised.'
'So the Sun of the Sleepless disappeared into the night, even if they did manage to destroy their weaponry before they went?'
'It is funny,' Jolene mused, raising one eyebrow in an accusatory arc, 'I had a suspicion that you already knew that. I mean, the fact that the terrorists destroyed the cannon before Special Forces had a chance to seize it.'
Jackson grunted humorously but a frown had appeared to crease his brow.
'It was just an assumption, a figure of speech. What do you mean by that though?'
'The raid, you knew it was happening but I guess that it didn't bother you because you knew what the deal with the cannon was. You knew it would never fall into our hands didn't you? The Sun of the Sleepless must have let you know what the plan was.'
She crossed her arms defensively and stared at him.
'Jolene,' Jackson said unsurely, 'I'm not sure what you're driving at. What do you mean by 'letting me know what the plan was'? Am I missing something here?'
He gave an easy but deprecating laugh.
'A pre-paid cellular phone in the US sent a message to a phone registered to Rey Faber on Friday. That initial message didn't get through to him because as we know, Faber was in The Hague at the time and he was in fact using a different phone, but, the mistake was immediately corrected and the same message was sent through to another number, presumably the one that Faber did have access to. The text said 'DL Collection @ GV' which I am pretty sure referred to Dale's visit to purchase
Dirigo Lux
from Gertrude Verker.'
Jackson exhaled heavily through his nose and looked at Dale quizzically.
'Early on Saturday morning,' Jolene continued, 'a pre-paid phone was purchased in Amsterdam from a retailer at the airport and it was operational by 03:34 in the morning. Later the same day, a message was sent from it to Faber's number saying 'GV Visitors'. The timing coincides with our visit to question Gertrude Verker about the book, the visit where Dale was attacked when Stanley and I went to follow up on her supplier if you remember?'
'Yes, of course I remember!' Jackson rasped with a rising hint of irritation in his voice.
'Another message was sent on Saturday evening stating 'Now Leaving', the timing coinciding exactly with the moment you left the embassy to drive to the airport. The journey you couldn't complete because your car was rammed, if you recall?'
Jackson started to shake his head.
'Jolene, I'm not sure where this is -'
'Stop!' Jolene shouted, cutting him off. 'Only a few people knew that Dale had been seconded to collect the book from Gertrude. Only the five of us knew exactly when we went to interview her. Only you and Oliver knew exactly when you were leaving the embassy.'
'Jolene?' Jackson implored questioningly, shaking his head.
'You are the only person who had the relevant information on all three occasions, not forgetting that the first message was sent from the US when the rest of us were already in The Netherlands.'
Jackson paused as he took in the full ramifications of the evidence, he looked at Jolene but could see that her conviction was absolute and so turned to Dale instead.
'You don't believe this do you? There must be a mistake. Alright, I may have been in the US when the first message was sent and of course I was here in The Netherlands when the other messages were sent, but I didn't send them. I know nothing about this. Come on, it's me you're accusing. Think about it for a moment.'
Dale's forehead creased as he considered what was being said.
'You could be wrong Jolene, I admit, the timing fits but it is circumstantial, somebody could have been tailing Jackson from the start.'
'Are you kidding?' Jolene gasped loudly. 'Only Jackson, his department head Dean Manson and Richard Clayton of the OSC were aware of his trip.'
Her gaze bore into Jackson.
'I checked!' she spat out.
She looked at Dale menacingly.
'Only Jackson and Manson knew the full details of your secondment, so it has to be one of those two. That first message was sent before Jackson even left Langley!'
Jackson looked bewildered.
'This can't be right; there is a mistake I am telling you.'
'Yes,' nodded Jolene, 'and you made it when you dialled the wrong number to contact Faber.'
Dale raised his hands and waved his palms to try to halt the accusations.
'Hang on, hang on, Jackson's movements could have been tracked by somebody within the Agency.'
'Damn right!' exclaimed Jackson to Jolene. 'You remember what Kappel said about forces within the military? They could have been tracking me all along. They would have known that I would be alerted if anything came up on
Dirigo Lux
, it was my department after all. Who else would the trawl vector alerts go to?'
A flash of indecision crossed Jolene's face, but she quickly recovered her composure.
'No, everything is wrong, think about why an academic like Jackson would cut up a three hundred year old book? You saw how reverently he was handling it when he first saw it. Maybe he didn't mind cutting it up because he had to get to the RFID inside it before we found it!'
Jackson's reaction seemed slightly triumphant.
'I may have found the RFID, but I gave it to you. Remember? Besides, I did what was necessary to get to the chip, a chip that implicated Open-EZ and confirmed the involvement of Faber and Akosua. Why would I do that if I was working for them?'
'Because you wanted us to waste our time looking for them,' Jolene scowled, 'you assumed that they would never be found. They were ideal targets, they were exactly who we would be interested in. We were baited with ideal suspects, knowing that it wouldn't do us any good. We were wasting our time looking for them!'
'What do you mean?' Dale suddenly questioned. 'We did find them and it eventually led us to the farm in Oban, the cannon was destroyed wasn't it? That seems like a good result to me.'
'No!' Jolene shouted, suddenly aware that she was fumbling her words. 'If Jackson's plan had of worked out, we'd never have found them. I took the RFID before he had a chance to destroy it. He couldn't exactly lie about using the X-Ray machine in the embassy could he? After that he couldn't do much else, he must have known that the book somehow led us directly to the Sun of the Sleepless and so needed to destroy it without implicating himself, so he organised the theft for when he was leaving for the airport.'
'Awww, come on!' Jackson chortled with an incredulous tone. 'Really? You believe that? The book told us nothing of importance, it just corroborated the historical evidence. Also, don't forget that I took a punch to my head after we were rammed.'
'Yes!' Jolene blazed. 'A punch rather than the same knuckle duster that put Oliver in hospital for the night. Rather strange don't you think? It is also a bit of a coincidence that the message saying that you were leaving was sent at exactly the same time that you left the embassy.'
Dale started to look a little perplexed as he tried to comprehend the chain of evidence and suggestion.
'If we're talking about coincidences,' Jackson started to say to Dale, 'how about the fact that it was also a coincidence that as soon as Jolene left you at Gertrude's apartment, you were attacked? I couldn't have known that she had gone with Stanley and Oliver to the bookshop. Perhaps we should consider that she may have tipped-off Faber that you were alone with Gertrude? She would hardly like to explain why she couldn't fend off two attackers even though she had backup from two embassy guards. Besides, we only have her word for when she arrived on Saturday morning.'