The Sol 3 Agenda

by Brian Kitchen

  “Ah you think something a little subtler?” Padraig enquired, looking at himself again. Yes, perhaps they were right he thought. The purple trousers, pink sweater and multi-coloured jacket he’s put on were probably a little too eye-catching.

  “Padraig, I’ll select you a suitable outfit,” Morann told him and started searching through the male fashions for the 1980’s period. “Padraig,” Morann said musingly. “You’ve not said whether JT was dead, or not.”

  “Ah, there’s the rub, Morann. Oisin didn’t find the little worm’s body.”

  “Then he could still be alive.”

  “Yes, Morann and that’s another problem we’ll have to deal with.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Egypt, July 1985

  Joshua Freeman was the result of a liaison between Charles Freeman, Professor of Ancient History at Trinity College, Dublin and Siobhan Mac Eoghain, one of his undergraduate students. Siobhan had seduced Charles, his brother Henry Freeman had publicly said, when news of the affair reached him. Certainly, there was a thirty-year age difference between them, which in ordinary circumstances would have made their liaison questionable. The matter of the abuse of the tutor to student relationship, would also normally have precluded Charles from entering into it. He wasn’t an immoral person, nor a womaniser like some academics and normally he took his pastoral role regarding his students very seriously. Anyone therefore asking Charles at a later time why he’d been so foolhardy, would have elicited the response that Siobhan was very beautiful and that he hadn’t been able to resist her charms.

  Even though Charles and Siobhan hadn’t married, when Joshua had been born, he had been fully recognized by Charles as his son and heir. Indeed, Charles quite enjoyed being a father, but unfortunately, he didn’t even live long enough to see his son take his first steps. Three months after Joshua was born, Charles Freeman had died in mysterious circumstances, being found floating face down in the Liffey, the river that flows through the centre of Dublin.

  At the time, no one had made any connection between the fact that the Professor had just returned from doing some research on the Aos Si, a race from ancient Irish legend. An unorthodox line of study for a well-respected academician, one would have thought and one that would have led to him facing ridicule from his academic colleagues if they’d known. In fact, the consensus had been that Professor Freeman had been depressed and had decided to end his life. A totally wrong assumption which Siobhan had hotly disputed at the time.

  Joshua’s mother had then raised Joshua alone, having dropped out of her course, to be a full-time mother. A generous financial settlement from Charles’ estate had ensured that she didn’t have to work to maintain them both and the terms of Charles’ will, had also left Joshua a considerable inheritance on his 25th birthday. Siobhan and Joshua left Dublin soon after Charles’ death however and moved to Cork, where Siobhan came from.

  More tragedy was to affect Joshua, a very intelligent child who was considered to be a child genius. At the age of ten years, Siobhan disappeared without trace. Having no other relatives on his mother’s side, Joshua had eventually gone to live in Oxford with his uncle Henry, a bachelor, who was a Professor of Ancient History at the university there. Henry had recognized Joshua’s genius and had employed private tutors to school his nephew.

  At the age of 13 years, Joshua had gone to Harvard University, in the United States. By the time that he was 20 years old, Joshua had completed his PhD and was well on the way to becoming a professor himself. Always being fascinated by the archaeology of human evolution, he had specialized in this with a particular interest in Egypt. A very modest young man, who greatly underestimated his skills and talents, Joshua was a small, weedy-looking individual with longish black hair. Joshua was very short sighted and had to wear thick lensed spectacles. Girls didn’t even notice him and as he wasn’t a sporty type, he didn’t make many friends amongst the male students. This didn’t bother Joshua however as all he was interested in were his studies. All the trials and tribulations he had suffered through his life hadn’t unduly affected him and he had a cheerful personality with a ready wit and charm.

  When Professor Guthrie had asked him to be his assistant on a dig that he was carrying out in Egypt, in the desert near to the border with Libya, Joshua had snapped his hand off. They both had similar natures and got on well together and so Joshua had accepted without any hesitation. Joshua hated the heat and dust of Egypt, but what they had discovered out in the desert, had more than compensated for the misery of its environment.

  Searching for a way into the small pyramid that they had found, which was quite unlike anything anyone had ever discovered before, he had found what appeared to be a metal door. It was composed of an alloy he’d never seen, or even knew existed and it had been covered by a stone cladding. Joshua wouldn’t have found it at all, had not some of the stones been dislodged and Joshua tripped over one of them. Falling flat on his face, his glasses had come off. Whilst searching for them, his hand had touched the metal of the door and he had experienced what he could only describe later, as something very similar to an electric shock.

  With the help of the Egyptian workers, Joshua had then carefully started to remove the stones. It had taken them two days, but eventually they had uncovered a metal door around 8 feet high and 6 feet wide. It was highly polished reflecting the sun and had no apparent door handle or hinges. It was set in a stone surround with intricate carvings on it, definitely not of ancient Egyptian origin, but Joshua was sure that he had seen similar carvings somewhere else before. Now standing in front of the door in bafflement as to how it opened, Joshua suddenly noticed that one of the carvings on the surround appeared to be glowing with an intense blue light. He felt irresistibly drawn to touch it. Joshua was only 5ft 3ins in height and he had to stretch up to do so. Instantaneously, the door disappeared, retracting into the top of the surround and Joshua still shocked at what had happened found himself staring into a long dark tunnel.

  “Ahmed, can you get me the torches, please,” Joshua asked the foreman of the Egyptian diggers, once he’d recovered from the shock. Joshua still retained his softly spoken Southern Irish accent and had to repeat the request before it was understood.

  Ahmed arrived back with several torches and handed one of them to Joshua. He took one for himself and Ahmed then tried to hand the others out, to the rest of the diggers. Of the eleven diggers, who had eventually been recruited at highly inflated wages, only seven now remained on the site. The other four had returned to their homes, when Professor Guthrie had left to go to London. Of the remainder, besides Ahmed, only Mohammad took a torch, the others violently shaking their heads.

  “It is not wise to disturb the dead,” Mustafa, one of the more vocal workers muttered.

  “We don’t know that it is a tomb and even if it is, I promise you that I’ll treat it with the greatest respect,” Joshua told him, but still shaking his head, Mustafa and the others walked off back towards their small encampment.

  “Looks like it’s just us three then, guys,” Joshua said and switching on his torch, began to lead the way into the tunnel. They had not walked very far however, when they heard a loud clank. Spinning around, Joshua saw that the door had dropped back into place and was now completely closed. Worse still, on this side of the door, there were no carvings around the door surround, or seemingly, any means to open it up again.

  Chapter 13

  Cornwall, July 1985

  Walter Trenoweth woke up with a start and saw that blood had seeped through the cloth that King had tied around his left thigh. It was very painful, as was his nose which throbbed and felt blocked with caked, dried blood. His head too ached worse than it ever had in his life, but even so, Walter knew that he had to urgently contact Cath Penrose and warn her about King.

  Struggling to his feet, as he still felt a bit woozy, Walter managed to limp as fast as he could over to an old writing bureau on the other side of the room. Opening its drawer, he took out the satellit
e phone that Cath had given him and dialled the pre-set number. It rang out and kept ringing and Walter thought that it would never be answered and then he heard Cath’s voice.

  “What’s got you out of bed so early, Walter?”

  “There’s a Special Branch man, Cath, he’s looking for a young woman who he thinks is staying with you. I had to tell him where you lived. I’m so sorry Cath.”

  “Are you ok Walter, you don’t sound too good?”

  “He’s a nasty bastard, Cath. He beat me up and my leg’s badly cut.”

  “I’ll get someone over to you right away, Walter, and don’t you worry about the Special Branch man, we’ll handle him, and I can assure that he’ll not be bothering you again.”

  “Thanks, Cath.” Walter said and ended the call and put the phone down, sighing with relief. Cath would know what to do. Then he smiled as he heard his cat, Tinky, scratching at the door. Walter hobbled over to the door and opened it.

  “You damn nearly got me killed last night,” he told the unrepentant cat as he opened the door and let it in. The cat rubbed around his legs, purring loudly. “I suppose you want your breakfast now. Come on, I’ll see what we’ve got.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Walter Trenoweth had told King that the high stone wall that he was now facing, surrounded Lost Valley Manor. King realised that he needed to find a way in, but he had noticed CCTV cameras mounted on the gate columns and guessed that there would be others, nearer to the house. He didn’t expect there to be any cameras on the section of the wall to the left side of the house however and so King decided that was the way he’d go in. It was a high wall but being of a rougher hewn stone than that facing the road, King who had done some climbing in his younger days, thought that he’d manage to get over it.

  King left the road and skirted the wall for about 100 yards or more, so that he was well away from it and wouldn’t be seen by passing traffic. Looking at his wristwatch and seeing that it was nearly one o’clock in the morning, he doubted whether anybody would be about now. He picked a spot where he thought he’d easily climb over the wall and began his ascent. King soon realised that he wasn’t as fit as he’d thought he was, but he made it to the top of the wall, where he sat momentarily, his legs dangling down the other side. He estimated it was too far down for him to jump and so he descended, his boots scrambling for footholds as he climbed down it. Then King dropped down the last few feet, landing a little awkwardly.

  Fortunately, he didn’t harm himself and after dusting his trousers down he set off across the few yards of open ground which separated the wall from the woods. When King got into the woods, he found that the undergrowth was quite high, but he had a rough idea which direction he needed to go in. Eventually the undergrowth started to thin out as he approached the lawns at the rear of the house. King crouched down by a tree from where he could view the lawn and the back of the house and decided to wait there and spy out the land. He hadn’t slept much the past few days and felt his eyes getting heavier.

  When he awoke with a start, King realised that he must have dropped off to sleep. Still, no harm done, he thought looking at his watch, it was not quite seven o’clock and all seemed quiet over at the house. Only a wretched bird with a red bill seemed to be up and about and was perching on a nearby branch looking at him. Then suddenly it flew off. Something must have disturbed it King realised and turning to see what it was, he saw a very attractive young woman, with short, dark auburn hair, clad in Judo Judogi. King immediately saw that it was Kate Penrose and getting to his feet, he drew his Glock 17 pistol from the shoulder holster. Stealthily he then advanced from out of the trees, pointing the gun in Kate Penrose’s direction.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  As soon as her phone call with Walter had ended, Cath Penrose got out of bed and put a dressing gown on over her nightgown. Then she went downstairs to try and find Kate. Her great niece was coping very well with all the revelations that Cath had made to her, amazing Cath with her resilience. Cath knew that Kate got up early and worried that she wasn’t sleeping much.

  “Have you seen Kate?” Cath asked Niamh who she met in the hallway.

  “She’s out on the lawn doing her exercises, Catherine. Kate is a Judo Black Belt Third Dan, Catherine, did you know that?” Niamh replied. Cath shook her head, but then nothing would surprise Cath about the remarkable young woman her great niece was.

  “Niamh, I need you to ring Dr Trelawny and ask him to go out to Walter Trenoweth, who’s had a fall and injured himself. I also need to see Aengus. Can you get him to come to my study?”

  “Will do Catherine,” Niamh replied, instantaneously communicating Cath’s instructions to Aengus. “Aengus will be there straight away. I’ll now phone Dr Trelawny.”

  Cath walked down the corridor to her study, to find Aengus already waiting for her outside its door.

  “We have a problem Aengus,” Cath told him, opening the door and walking in. Just then the outside intruder warning alarm went off, indicating there was an intruder in the house’s grounds. Cath quickly glanced out of the window which overlooked the lawn and saw that Kate was doing her exercises. Then Cath froze. She’d spotted a man advancing out of the trees which surrounded the lawn. He was armed with a hand gun and was pointing it at Kate.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  John, Morann and Padraig had just then teleported down onto the lawn at the back of Lost Valley Manor and were surveying their surroundings. John was the first to see a man advancing out of the trees holding a gun and quickly drew his Immobiliser. He was surprised to see that the man wasn’t pointing the gun at them and quickly turning his head John saw that the target was an attractive young woman, wearing a Judogi. John turned back and fired the weapon at King without a moment’s hesitation, before Padraig and Morann, who’d also drawn their weapons could fire theirs. King was hit in the head, instantly paralysing him and as he slowly crumpled up and dropped down to the ground the pistol fell from his hand.

  Kate had seen King coming out of the trees almost as soon as she had spotted John, Morann and Terry. She hadn’t screamed with fright as some young women would have done, for Kate wasn’t the kind of young woman who did that. Neither did she freeze with fear, adrenalin took over instead and with an angry shout Kate had started to run forward towards King. Before she reached him however, he’d dropped down to the ground. Kate skidded to a halt, wondering what had caused it and then glancing to where she had seen the three figures appear, saw that one of them, a man in his early twenties, was lowering a short, fat barrelled hand gun.

  “We mean you no harm,” the woman in the middle of him and another man probably in his early thirties with unruly dark auburn hair called out. Kate saw that they were also both armed.

  Kate looked at the three of them more closely. The man with the gun was probably about the same age as herself, Kate thought. He was tall, though not quite as tall as the woman, of medium build, broad shouldered and had ginger hair. He was wearing straight leg blue jeans, a black polo-necked shirt, dark green hoodie and black Doc Marten boots. The woman was probably in her late twenties, a couple of inches taller than the younger man and had short, spiky, ginger hair. She was dressed in a very short denim mini-skirt, fishnet tights and a tight white sweater. At least she was wearing Doc Martens, Kate thought. Lastly Kate looked at the older man, who was of medium build and was also holding some type of hand gun, as was the woman. When he’d called out, Kate thought that she’d detected a soft Irish accent. He was dressed in a black motor cycle jacket, blue Wrangler jeans and a grey checked shirt and what looked like black Oxford shoes. Quite a strange combination Kate thought.

  “Who are you?” Kate demanded to know.

  “They’re friends, Kate,” her great aunt’s voice answered from behind her and turning, Kate saw Cath hurrying towards them, accompanied by Aengus. “Who’s that?” Cath asked halting breathlessly alongside her, pointing at the man who was laying prone, face down on the lawn.

  “It’s King, the copper from S
pecial Branch,” Kate told her and then turned back to the man with the gun. “You’ve not killed him, have you?” Kate asked anxiously.

  “No, he’s just unconscious and will be for the next few hours,” John told her, before he knelt to examine King. John turned King over and put him into the recovery position, so that his airway would remain clear and open. He didn’t want to be responsible for the death of a member of Special Branch and was intrigued to know why he’d been pointing a gun at the young woman. John picked up the man’s gun and emptied the chamber and then removed the magazine.

  “Hello Morann,” Aengus addressed her and then turned to look at John. “Hello John and you too Padraig,” he said turning his head in Padraig’s direction.

  “I saw you shoot him,” Kate told John, as he stood up again.

  “Yes, but it was a ‘knock-out’ slug which hit him. Nothing lethal. He’ll be right as rain again in a few hours’ time, though he’ll have no memory whatsoever of the past 24 hours,” Padraig said to John’s relief, before he had chance to try and explain.

  “So, what do we do with him, Padraig?” Cath asked.

  “Well for a start, I think that Aengus and I had better load him into your Range Rover if you still have one and then try and find out where he’s parked his car. That’s of course if he came here in a car, which I’m assuming he did.” Padraig said, looking quizzically at Cath and Kate.

  “He had one the last time I saw him,” Kate, who had quickly recovered from the shock of what had happened, replied.

  “Don’t happen to know what make it was, do you?” Padraig enquired.

  “A black Ford, I think,” Kate answered him.

  “Padraig,” Morann said. “This King person will probably have the car keys on him. If so, we can probably identify the make of the car.”

  “I can do that, Padraig,” Aengus stated. “I have an extensive database of car types and their keys.”