Thor's Haven

by Richard S Young

  After about ten minutes of walking through the packed streets and roads of Srinagar, they emerged at their destination. Daniel was taken aback at the fact that the shrine was surprisingly small and was nothing more than a low rectangular wooden building that sat on a raised platform. The building was surrounded by iron railings, upon which, placed at regular intervals, were signs in English and Urdu stating that photography was strictly prohibited and all quoting a passage from the Holy Quran that essentially stated that Jesus Christ died on the cross and therefore cannot be buried in the Kashmir region. Daniel, with his head covered and his face obscured by the hooded top he was wearing, was not given a second look by the locals that were milling about. He reckoned that was more to do with him being in the company of Rifat and Rama than anything his disguise was supposed to do for him. He noticed that the shrine was closed to the public but a small window was open and he casually walked up to it and peered inside, but before he could get a decent enough look, he was pushed in the back by Rifat and guided round a corner by Rama.

  “I think your cover has been blown as quite a few of the locals are beginning to take an interest in the three of us. Time to go.” said Rifat and Rama suggested that they should now go and see Jnyandeep Medhansh.

  “I parked the car right outside his house.”

  As Rifat and Daniel began to follow Rama back to the main road and the retracing of their steps through the streets to the car, two men emerged from the shadows of the alley. The taller of the two spoke to his companion.

  “You follow those three and tell me where they go or who they meet. Keep in touch by text. I’ll go and make some enquiries and see if we need to have some back-up brought in. An Indian, a Pakistani and a white man together and visiting the Rozabal Tomb? Go! Follow them.”

  6.43am – 10th April, present day.

  Montaillou, Rue du Village, Montségur, Occitanie, France.

  The mobile telephone for Markus Bruscante beeped once signifying that a message had been received. Markus turned away from the screen of the computer and looked at his telephone when he heard the beep. He picked the device up from the desk and opened the message he had just received.

  ‘Bless me, Lord; pray for me - Activity around the Rozabal Tomb by an unknown trio. Sending photographs of trio for identification. Having trio followed. Requesting advice on how to proceed. - COMBEL’.

  As Markus read the text on his telephone, an inbox e-mail notification appeared on his computer screen. He clicked open the e-mail and studied the attached photographs. The photographs all focused on three men – two of Asian appearance and of a third individual whose facial features were hidden by some sort of garment, a hooded top, but what features that were visible, were unmistakably Caucasian and that the undeniable whiteness stood out in the images. Markus Bruscante replied to the text he had just received.

  ‘God bless you Combel. In our prayers, we ask from God to make good Christians out of you and lead you to your rightful end. Will identify and advise shortly.’

  Combel was the name of the Sergite cell of The Path of Belibasta followers that had just reported to him that there was some unusual activity in the area that they operated in. He typed away at his computer and brought up a map with information about the location and operational areas of the various Sergite operatives and cells around the world. Each cell was usually led by a Sergite with the experience of an extensive military background but if not, the lead Sergite would be a highly trained and educated individual sworn to protect and serve The Path of Belibasta and enforce the will of the order by any means possible. Collectively, these Sergites were the modern-day representations of the original fighters who had defended the Montségur fortress 800 years previously, and were essentially extremely skilled, well equipped and prepared soldiers that specialised in carrying out surgical military operations in defence of their faith. Over the centuries, cells had been created and placed around the world to watch over and protect The Path of Belibasta but also tasked to monitor any sudden activity or interest taking place at important religious sites within the sphere of their operational jurisdiction. The older the religion, the greater the need for protection of them was required. The ancient faiths were all connected to each other in some way, and although they may worship different deities or have differing practices, they all shared a central belief system of some sort that The Path of Belibasta was adamant had to be protected and preserved.

  The computer screen gave Markus the size and operational areas of the Sergite cells. There were 63 of these cells placed around the world and each cell was code-named with the surname of a Cathar follower who had been burnt at the stake after the siege at Montségur on Wednesday 16th March, 1244. From the estimated total of 220 men, women and children that had been executed by being burned alive en masse for refusing to abjure their Cathar faith, only 63 were ever identified, and said identification had only been determined from the depositions of the survivors of the siege by means of brutal torture at the hands of the Inquisition on the orders of the Catholic Church. Although the majority of those executed were Perfecti, Credentes and fighters who had all willingly accepted their fate, walked into the flames and had died for their faith, a number of them were nothing more than civilian refugees who had simply fled in panic to the fortress for protection from encircling armed forces. But when the siege ended, these civilian refugees, mainly comprised of bakers, cow-herders, merchants, seamstresses, farmers and mothers with their children, had all been denounced as Cathar followers by the Inquisition and then been burnt alive as punishment for just being there.

  The severity of the extent that the Inquisition and the Catholic Church were both prepared to go to ensure the final extermination and eradication of followers of a particular belief was brutal, but the brutality had not been forgotten over the eons of time by The Path of Belibasta. The 63 cells were named in their honour and they were never to be forgotten.

  COMBEL was a large cell operating in northern India, eastern Pakistan, China, Tibet, Nepal and stretched over into Afghanistan and neighbouring Tajikistan. It had four Sergites who maintained a sizeable workforce of operatives around the various regions. Amongst themselves, the Sergites had divided up the area into four regions of control and used a local workforce to monitor the territorial quarters that they lived in. Most of these local operatives were just simply watchers – observers who monitored activity around religious sites, places of worship and monuments and would report back to their lead Sergite with information as and when required. But these Sergites also had, off the books, mercenary types who could, and would, be employed on an ad-hoc basis to deal with situations that needed to be more persuasive, such as creating civil unrest and disturbances, thwarting the plans of others by using intimidation and violence to impede, obstruct, frustrate and prevent these plans coming to fruition, and occasionally, the use of deadly force as a means of intervention to protect the associated interests of The Path of Belibasta. The cell regularly stirred up local populations to deflect attention away from its activities or, as was the case in the Srinagar area, had created strife within the communities around the Rozabal Tomb to deter the visitations of tourists. The use of deadly force would be the unfortunate car accident that befell an investigative journalist, the sudden drowning of an inquisitive tourist or the assassination of a religious zealot that could be attributed to another faction. The intervention used came in many forms but the mercenaries that were employed to do so didn’t really care how it was done as long as they got paid for doing it cleverly and with discretion. These events were professional executions being carried out, and more often than not, these executions were made to look like an accident or as a result of an already ongoing conflict between other parties. The mercenaries got paid well for their services and they never left any evidence behind that could be traced back to them or The Path of Belibasta, and were skilled in diversionary tactics to impute others as being responsible. COMBEL had reported
back to headquarters that there was something peculiar happening in Srinagar and was looking for guidance on how to proceed.

  Markus Bruscante proceeded to download the various photographs contained in the e-mail onto his desktop screen and opened a software programme installed on his computer. Prosopon™, the ancient Greek name for face, was probably the most advanced facial recognition software that money could buy. Commercially, it had become a godsend for private businesses around the world as many companies’ internal security structures now utilised a system to identify its differing staff or authorised personnel from a digital image by comparing facial features stored on a digital image database. The software had evolved to include 3-dimensional recognition and even skin texture analysis.

  However, government, law enforcement and military agencies all over the globe utilised the non-commercially available and bespoke variations of Prosopon™ for their own facial recognition purposes. Border agencies at airports compare the face of an individual with the image in the passport microchip to confirm that the holder of the passport is the rightful owner. The image on a driving licence is stored as a means of identification and in some countries, the passport, driving licence, police department and security services mugshot photographs have been used to create a central database to search for potential criminals and terrorists in attendance at an event, using transport hubs or as pedestrians in the street. In Mexico, this type of facial recognition is implemented in the prevention of electoral fraud and the United States of America effectuate its use to prevent fake identities and false documentation being created by criminal elements.

  More covert usage has been employed with the surreptitious increase of the procurement of ATM image data captures when an individual uses a cash dispenser machine to withdraw money. An ATM electronically processes all its transactions and digitally captures the image of every single customer to then associate it to the account holder’s details that are stored in a central database to confirm the customer’s identity. But this retained information of data and image input files from the multiple sources that are held by the various banking institutions of various countries has now been accessed by their own governmental agencies under the guise of defence of the realm and national security precautions. The simple provision of an individual’s face for inclusion upon a library ticket, a bus-pass, a student card, a driving licence or a travel passport has become a necessary requirement, but, unknown to these same providers, the majority of which are law abiding citizens, their own facial digital image has become stored on secret databases that are used for extrapolation purposes to identify persons who may be a potential threat to the defence and internal security of an individual country.

  But Markus Bruscante was using a commercial version of the Prosopon™ software. He had no access to any of these databases but this software could be used to construct a digital composite image of an individual from many other images. He had in front of him, on his computer screen, photographic images of three men that were to be identified. The images relating to two of the men were reasonably sharp and of a clear enough definition that identification should be a fairly simple process, but the third individual’s identification was definitely going to be a more difficult task. He went through each of the various images and localised the face of this third individual. In every image, a full view of the face was obscured from view by the hooded top, but Prosopon™ could take segments that were in view and then use them to construct a digital interpretation of what the person looked like. It was going to be a very lengthy process to create such a construction as he selected the hidden face on each of these photographic images but he smiled to himself in the full knowledge that he would eventually be able to produce an artificial recreation of what was currently missing that would be sufficient for identification purposes of this individual. He pressed ‘activate’ on the screen and watched the Prosopon™ software begin its collation of capturing the unobscured facial segments from all of the highlighted images. These captured segments, pixel by pixel, began to populate the various regions within a blank silhouette of a face that had appeared on the screen. A timer message flashed on the screen with the legend ‘Estimated completion - 134 minutes’.

  10.13am – 10th April, present day.

  Junction of Nalamar Road and Ganderbal Road, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India

  Rama had led the way up the alleyway from the shrine back onto the Rozbal Khanyar Road, but instead of turning right, he turned left, crossed over the road and turned right down Maaar-e-Shauda Khanyar Lane. His steps were picking up speed as he walked and he surreptitiously used his left hand to quickly beckon Daniel and Rifat to hurry up and join him.

  “We’ve got a tail following us. He’s very good but not good enough. We’ll walk down this lane to the end to the Ganderbal Road junction, turn right at the corner and once we do, we’re going to run across the road and turn left into Nalamar Road. The car is parked just around the corner. Rifat. You take Daniel past the car and go up the passageway immediately on the right. There’s a door at the end with a symbol of a lotus flower above it. Just go inside and wait for me. I’ll deal with our pursuer when he turns the corner.”

  Nothing was said but the three men walked quickly down the lane, turned right into Ganderbal Road and sprinted through the traffic as they crossed over diagonally towards Nalamar Road. Rama turned left into Nalamar Road and abruptly stopped. He knelt down and peered round the corner as Daniel and Rifat passed.

  “Go! Go! Go! I’ll deal with this man.” barked Rama.

  Daniel and Rifat arrived at the car and turned right down the narrow passageway where they both started looking for a lotus flower above a door. Once they found it, Rifat pushed the door open and found a courtyard beyond. Daniel pushed the door closed behind them and joined Rifat in surveying the enclosed surroundings. A small fountain was to the left of the courtyard and Daniel sat on its edge.

  “We’ll just wait here for Rama then? How did he know we were being followed? I never spotted anyone. Did you?”

  Rifat shook his head. “I didn’t see anyone following us but I spotted two men watching us and one of them was taking photographs of the three of us. They were on the other side of the road from the tomb and used the locals as cover. It was the paramilitary footwear that gave them away. You don’t see many people in the Kashmir wearing Scorpion or Viper tactical boots. No-one can afford them to buy then, and if someone is wearing them, then they’re police, military or something else. These guys are something else.”

  “You’re not telling me something Rifat! I’m special-forces trained and you are ISI. He’s got some form of training to pick up a tail that we both missed.”

  Rifat put his hands up in the air. “Rama was an officer in the Indian Kashmiri Security Forces but he retired over 15 years ago. I suppose old habits die hard though.”

  Daniel just snorted.

  Rama waited patiently for the follower to turn around the corner. But he didn’t. Rama knelt at the corner waiting to pounce but no-one came his way. He looked across the road and standing outside an electrical shop, a man stood with his back to the wall, raised a mobile telephone to his face, took a photograph of Rama staring over at him, and smiled. Rama burst from his kneeling position like a sprinter from his blocks, but age, traffic and pedestrians impeded his route. The watcher simply drifted away into the crowded pavements and was lost from sight very quickly. Rama stopped after a few yards of pursuit and turned back towards Nalamar Road and the passageway. He joined Rifat and Daniel at the fountain.

  “The bastard got away. He even took a photograph of me and then smiled before disappearing into the crowd. By the time I managed to get across the road, he was gone!” He got no sympathy from either Daniel of Rifat. They just laughed at him.

  “Welcome to middle-age mate.” said Daniel. “What are we going to do now?”

  Rama just stood up from the fountain and muttered “Follow me! T
his way.” and walked across the paved courtyard to a doorway and knocked upon the wooden framework. A young woman opened the door, and after holding a brief conversation with Rama, held it open to allow him, Daniel and Rifat to enter. She took them down a hallway and then into a room where an elderly man sat in a chair, his eyes were closed as if asleep but his lips moved as if mumbling something. The young woman asked them to sit down in some chairs that were placed in front of the elderly man. Daniel was taken aback at what he saw. The man’s head hair was well over shoulder height in length but his facial hair covered most of his face. The beard itself was coiling in the man’s lap like a hairy snake and the moustache just seemed to merge with the head hair and beard in an infusion of black and greyness. His eyes opened in an instant, but these weren’t the eyes of an elderly man. They were bright, alert and had a hint of both green and yellow fleck marks that added to the intensity of brown that coloured them. Rama spoke quietly to man, who looked at the others in the room. He beckoned them to bring their chairs closer and sit with him.

  “Daniel. This is Jnyandeep Medhansh. Ask him what you want to know.”

  Daniel pulled his chair closer to Jnyandeep and held out his hand. The old man took his hand and shook it, held onto it and asked Daniel what it was he sought. Daniel reached into his side pocket with his left hand, retrieved the stone, which he then placed in Jnyandeep’s palm. Jnyandeep clasped the stone with both hands and began to rock backwards and forwards, and as he did so, he began to mutter and mumble quietly to himself. Although spoken softly, Daniel could clearly make out certain words and phrases being uttered by the old man such as ‘Yuz Asaf’, ’Perth’, ’Pergamon’, ’under the tree’, ’naadi jothidam’, ’Poorva Janma’, ‘Montségur’, ’Otto Rahn’ and ‘Yggdrasil’.