His witness testimony alone would certainly be enough to redirect whatever ongoing police investigations there were onto Henrique and the various associated activities undertaken on behalf of Markus’s organisation.
Markus’s explicit orders to Henrique had been for him to rescue the situation and silence this Billy Pirzada but Markus hadn’t imagined that his demand would involve a car bomb explosion outside a police station with its collateral damage accounting for the deaths of 7 people and the injuring and maiming of another 23 bystanders.
The implicit instruction had been to just rectify an unforeseen problem, and Billy Pirzada had been silenced as directed. But the immediate worrying concern to Markus was that the extreme actions employed to achieve that sole aim of silence had now triggered the response of numerous police and intelligence agencies focusing their considerable resources, and directing all of their attentions, on the apprehension of Henrique, his Sergite cell and perhaps The Path of Belibasta itself.
However, the real cause of the growing irritation that Markus Bruscante was experiencing was the discovery that a major asset to the organisation, his inside-man at the heart of Interpol’s headquarters at Lyon, Lionel DeChevalier, had probably compromised the secrecy of The Path of Belibasta by leaving an inadvertent clue to their very existence in plain sight upon his desk. Detailed photographs of tattoos on the forearms of two deceased Sergites found in a hotel room in Pakistan had been forwarded to Interpol for analysis, and the woman that had been tasked with coordinating an ever-growing worldwide investigation into the activities of The Path of Belibasta, a Hélène Lecacheux, had recognised these same tattoo symbols and lettering from a desk ornament sitting on a desk in her own office area.
Lionel DeChevalier had contacted Markus earlier that morning to warn him of this error on his part and to beg forgiveness from his Perfecti. A double-murder in India had caused the Indian police to reach out to Interpol for the capture of their main suspect, a Danish national, a Daniel Lauridsen. The Pakistani police authorities in Mirpur had also made contact asking for Interpol assistance after the discovery of two bodies in a hotel room under the name of a Daniel Lauridsen. This was the same Daniel Lauridsen that Hélène Lecacheux had earlier identified through a database search that Lionel DeChevalier had asked her to run for him. The original database search had been made well before these four murders had been committed, and had given her, Hélène Lecacheux, extremely plausible avenues of investigation to pursue that not only implicated Lionel DeChevalier with possible complicity with their committal, but also having a tenuous association with the perpetrators of the car bomb atrocity in Srinagar. The secrecy of The Path of Belibasta had been imperilled and all because of a simple mistake on his part - a lack of precautionary forethought when processing a request to run some identity checks on the three individuals who had been observed, then photographed, standing outside the Rozabal Tomb in Srinagar.
Markus stood up from his desk and walked around his office considering what possible actions he would have to take to salve himself and The Path of Belibasta from any further scrutinisation, but to add to his current troubles, he had a more immediate conundrum to solve first. With Henrique forwarding to Markus some scans of documentation that had been recovered in India, it was apparent that a smallish ovaloid white stone with some strange markings had recently surfaced. After seeking guidance from Markus, Henrique’s instructions to his Sergites in Pakistan to recover this white stone by any means possible had failed, and now, this Daniel Lauridsen, along with the white stone, had disappeared.
Markus shouted through to his secretary, Arabelle Auguste, to join him.
“Yes Perfecti. How can I help you? she asked.
“Arabelle, I need you to go and search the archives in the basement for a file concerning an Otto Rahn. He was a historical researcher working for the Nazis before the Second World War. Back in the 1930s, he spent a lot of time doing extensive research here at Montségur and up at the fortress.”
“Yes Perfecti. I will go and look for it just now.”
Markus sat back down at his desk and repeatedly looked at the scanned documents and images Henrique had forwarded to him. If his memory served him right, the last time a white stone like this had been seen was over 80 years ago and in the possession of Otto Rahn. All of the attempts made by the pre-war agents of The Path of Belibasta to recover that particular stone had failed when Otto Rahn had thrown it into a river somewhere in Austria. Was this the same stone or part of a set?
He dialed the number for Lionel DeChevalier and waited for it to be answered.
“Yes Perfecti.”
“The time has come for me to perform the rite of the Consolamentum upon you, my brother.” said Markus in a pleasant, but matter of fact voice.
A short silence followed while Lionel DeChavalier comprehended what was now about to happen to him as a Credente, a follower of The Path of Belibasta. The rite of the Consolamentum, originally the unique sacrament of the Cathar religion, but now available to the men and women who committed to the variance of that faith now offered by The Path of Belibasta, forms a solemn ritual that occurs only twice in the lifetime of an observant follower, a Credente, and is a rite always performed by a Perfecti. For the recipient Credentes, it is the sacred ritual performed upon their confirmation into the faith and again upon their impending death. Upon initiation into the faith, the Credente accepts that his or her life incurs ‘regret’ that requires ‘consolation’ to enable the approach to heaven and to move nearer to God. And when close to death, the ‘consolation’ is the purification and separation from all aspects of the material world that the Credente must undertake before making the final sacrifice that ensures their reunification with God. Lionel understood that his time had come.
“Bless me, Lord. Pray for me and lead me to my rightful end.”
Markus answered his Credente’s wish.
“God bless you Lionel for in our prayers, we ask from God to make a good Christian out of you and lead you to your rightful end. Do you promise that you will never abandon your faith for fear of water, fire or any other manner of death?”
“I promise, Perfecti. For all the sins I have ever done in thought, word and deed. I ask pardon of God, of the Church, and of you.”
“By God and by the Church, may your sins be forgiven and we pray for God to forgive you them.” was the reply before Markus terminated the telephone call.
He leaned back in his seat as he mentally crossed off another task on his large ‘fix the problem’ list while considering what else had to be done. A simply written text was sent to Henrique with the message ‘Abandon all plans and return to the lea of the meadow.’, a sufficiently innocent but cryptic enough phrase that gave orders to Henrique and the COMBEL cell to desist from further activity in the Kashmir region and to make their way to Montségur. He needed to have a face-to-face discussion with Henrique to establish all the events and happenings of the last few days.
Arabelle Auguste had retrieved the Otto Rahn folder from the basement and was about to enter into Markus’s office to hand it over when she overheard him speaking to someone on the telephone. She had recognised some of the phrasing of the Consolamentum from her own initiation and when witnessing others being inducted into the faith, but this version was slightly different. This was the version that was applied when someone was terminally ill or on the cusp of death. It was extremely unusual for it to be performed by telephone as the solemnity of this type of liturgy required to be delivered by a Perfecti in person upon the recipient of the ritual. She looked at the folder she was holding and wondered what this man she had originally trusted, but now despised with a passion, was involved in.
While she had been down in the basement archive, her natural inquisitiveness had caused her to quickly skim through the pages of the folder about Otto Rahn. She had established that over 80 years ago, this man had searched extensively in and around the Montségur
area looking for clues as to the whereabouts of certain Cathar treasures, artefacts and documents, not only for his own indagation, but on behalf of the most wicked movement to have ever walked the face of the earth, the Nazis.
But the last few pages of this folder concentrated upon the final three days in the life of this Otto Rahn, his eventual suicide, committed somewhere in Austria, and on reading about it, Arabelle was appalled to discover that this suicide was not what it seemed. This man had been pursued for three days by The Path of Belibasta in its attempts to recover from his possession a white stone along with a wooden book made out of palm leaves and containing anomalous writing that he had discovered within a hidden cache in the walls of the Cathar castle of Montségur. Otto Rahn had taken flight to evade his pursuers, and when he had been eventually cornered on the battlements of the Kufstein Fortress, and in fear for his own life, he had thrown the white stone into a nearby river before he could be apprehended, but the wooden book had been retrieved from the briefcase that he carried.
The white stone that Otto Rahn had thrown into the river was believed to be part of a set that would be handed out at the end of time by Jesus Christ as described in the Book of Revelations in the Holy Bible. Each stone had a legend on one side denoting that the holder was worthy to be a recipient and their name was ingrained on the other side. Possession of a personalised white stone essentially guaranteed the holder a passport that would take them to heaven. There were hand-written annotations beside the text describing how archaeologists excavating the burial grounds on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne off the northeast coast of England, the scene of the raid that heralded the beginning of the Viking age in the year 793, had uncovered the remains of slaughtered monks and that the bodies had a clenched fist containing a small white stone. This discovery had been the only recorded time of the bodies of Christians being found with a white stone in their grasp.
The pursuant Path of Belibasta operatives, there were no names to identify them in the paperwork, had coshed Otto Rahn from behind to restrain him, but the severity of the blow to the back of his head had killed him. The operatives then removed his body away from the scene and left it to be discovered on the ground of a mountain path near to a small village. The final paragraphs of the folder’s notes detailed how great care had been taken to ensure that when the lifeless body of this Otto Rahn was eventually found, it would be concluded that the poor man had taken his own life and had not been murdered.
Arabelle thought long and hard about what she had just read and recalled once seeing a strange looking book within a glass case that Markus always took great care to ensure was kept under lock and key inside a bureau in his office. Her anger, resentment and hatred of Markus Bruscante increased as she realised that the man who had allegedly ‘saved’ her from the darkest depths of her own tragic despair, was nothing more than a silver-tongued charlatan who presided over an organisation prepared to manufacture outcomes for its advantage by any possible means.
Whoever Markus had just spoken to on the telephone, he had obviously been a Credente in receipt of his final blessing of the Consolamentum before he embarked on some assignment with fatal consequences.
She leaned against a wall and gathered her composure before walking back into the office.
“Here is the folder you wanted Perfecti” and left it on top of his desk.
“Thank you Arabelle. Can you prepare two bedrooms upstairs for some male guests who will be arriving over the next couple of days? Thank you.”
16.23pm – 12th April, present day.
NATO Allied Land Command (LANDCOM), Vecihi Akin Garrison, Şirinyer, İzmir, Turkey
Allied Land Command (LANDCOM), the standing headquarters for NATO land forces in Europe, has been based at Izmir for decades providing the core of the headquarters responsible for the conduct of land operations as necessary but also enabling a centralised hub for all the different inter-country agencies and bodies affiliated to NATO to work from. For Daniel, it had been an interesting 24 hours or so since his ‘surrender’ to Danish forces in Afghanistan, and albeit glad to be a free man again and enjoying his new found liberty, he was completely focused on resolving the current situation that he had found himself in. His immediate personal mission was to ingather as much information as possible before he had to travel to France in two days time and face a meeting with Interpol agents to discuss the events of the last seven days or so.
On capture in Afghanistan, he had been transported to the Torkham Forward Operating Base and handed over to the military police forces to deal with, and although Daniel was grateful that he had fallen under the remit of Danish military policing, he had had to endure the ignominy of also being their prisoner. An Interpol Red Notice, an international alert that requests the immediate apprehension of a person wanted for questioning in the commission of certain offences, had been issued, and following its execution upon him by the lawful authority of the military police, Daniel was currently being detained under the terms of its warrant.
Daniel’s attempts to offer an explanation of the various happenings and circumstances had merely fallen on deaf ears and the Danish Military Police had transferred him over to the jurisdiction of the NATO headquarters in Turkey for processing, interrogation and investigation.
He had shared a transport flight to Turkey with Jørgen Petersen and his fellow Frømandskorpset troops as they had now finished their tour of duty and were in the process of returning home to Denmark, but while Jørgen and his comrades enjoyed the available seating of the aeroplane, Daniel was chained upright inside a cage for the duration of the journey. Daniel had caught Jørgen’s eye at a point during the flight, winked at him, smiled and silently mouthed ‘Thank you’. Jørgen acknowledged the gesture, nodded back at Daniel and gave him a thumbs-up signal.
His arrival at the NATO Headquarters saw him treated like any other prisoner and he had faced an exhaustive interrogation from two Royal Danish Navy military police CID investigators in their attempts to try and elicit useful information to assist Interpol enquiries.
But his further detention in custody pending a more thorough investigation being initiated suddenly changed unexpectedly for him after Interpol rescinded its Red Notice alert. These Red Notices severely restrict an affected person’s ability to travel or conduct any form of legal business, and with Interpol being the largest police organisation in the world, comprising of 190 member states, the sheer scale of its reach ensures that anyone affected by a Red Notice alert will find it very difficult to travel safely and is likely to be stopped, searched, be arrested and also face extradition back to whatever state has asked for assistance. Daniel had had the presence of mind to circumvent the enforcing of the Red Notice by being clever with his escape out of Pakistan’s jurisdiction and into Afghanistan and subsequently manipulating his transfer to Turkey, but he had had to follow that course of action to be able to argue his case with authorities he could trust. Completely unaware of the events in India that had taken place over the previous 48 hours, Daniel had fully expected to be remanded into custody of a military prison while various sovereign nations determined their respective cases. Being given an Interpol Letter of Safe Passage guaranteeing his liberty on the proviso that he made his way to Lyon in France to assist a Hélène Lecacheux was not something that he had anticipated being provided to him, and he used this unforeseen opportunity to his advantage.
The Danish military police services, the militærpoliti, are carried out by independent units from each branch of their armed services. All of the army-related military police tasks are carried out by the Trænregimentet or Train Regiment, the military logistics regiment of the Royal Danish Army, while the air force-related tasks are carried out by the force protection squadron, Squadron 660. But Daniel knew that the Royal Danish Navy military police operated as a completely independent unit under the control of the commanding officer for the Frogman Corps, the Frømandskorpset, who also fell under the sole gove
rnance remit of the DDIS, the Danish Defence Intelligence Service. His exemplary service record for the Frømandskorpset would stand him in good stead, and with him also enjoying the occasional employment of his unique skills as a ‘contractor’, he could offer his services once more, free of charge, to the Frømandskorpset to assist them in delivering the mini-drones to Pergamon.
Having described in detail what had happened to him in the course of the past week, Daniel had asked the two military police CID officers to request permission from their superiors if they would allow him to deliver the requisitioned mini-drones to Pergamon on behalf of the Danish military. He had explained that his going to Pergamon would provide him with an opportunity to make his own investigations, while assisting Interpol’s, because based at Pergamon, was a professor of classical history who might provide him with a lot of the answers to the many questions that needed to be answered.
The two CID Officers, Marinespecialist Meitelberg and Marinekonstabel Nielsen had listened to Daniel’s request and sought guidance from their superiors. They returned and handed him the Interpol Letter of Safe Passage along with two other documents – one being a ‘In Transit’ transportation order for the mini-drones allowing him to take them to Pergamon and return into the care of a Dr. Debbie Gilbert, while the other document provided him with a travel pass authorising him passage aboard a scheduled NATO flight from the Buca air-base on the 14th April to the NATO air-base at Perpignan, France. On his eventual arrival at the base at Perpignan, he was to report to this Hélène Lecacheux and assist her with the on-going investigations she was conducting on behalf of Interpol and the DGSE.
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