Frank looked up at Jane. She was stony-faced.
The scientist continued.
‘However, on the face of it there would appear to be another opportunity: buy bandwidth from a company, such as IntelSat, which has global satellite coverage. However - don’t get too carried away with that option. As well as our own research, we’ve also spoken to our pals across The Pond. Neither of us believes that’s a truly viable option. And that’s because the transmission frequencies used by commercial satellites operate in a different microwave band to that used by GPS - and transmission frequencies cannot be changed without physically getting the bird back down to earth.’
Frank was now ahead of the scientist.
‘What about launching your own?’ He said under his breath.
‘Of course, you could launch your own satellite. In which case you could pre-programme it to transmit on the GPS frequencies. That, obviously, is not without cost.’ The scientist added.
It took the man in the white coat another minute to sum up what the demonstration had shown. He finished off with a ‘Please let us know what you’d like dstl to do next.’
The video stopped. Frank closed the tab.
‘Come into the office, Frank. Let’s talk all this through.’ Jane said.
Frank followed Jane into her office. She sat at her desk, he pulled up a chair.
‘OK, GPS first. Do you need to write this down?’ Jane asked.
‘Nope.’
‘Right. I’ve no idea which UK agency would be able to pull together a list of recently-launched satellites. But find it - let’s say the last three years. Everything you can get. And then, if necessary with GCHQ support, work out if any of them could have been funded or operated by The Church of the White Cross.’
Frank scrunched up his face.
Why the sudden interest in this, of all things?
‘Why this Jane - why now? There’s so much more going on. The dstl report is interesting, but surely this whole GPS thing is a distraction? Where’s the link to The Church?’’
Jane leant back in her chair.
‘I’m not sure, look, I’ve just come off the phone with Linden Rickenbacker, the Deputy Director of the CIA. We spoke about re-energising Op Greyshoe - the CIA’s closed file on The Church of the White Cross. I gave him what I had. You know, Paul and Victoria Mitchell, Sam’s comment about Min AF, and her being chased across The Bahamas by parties unknown. I told him that Sam had indicated that she has much more intel on The Church than we’d had chance to talk about. And that we had lost her, in The Caribbean somewhere. I wanted to make sure that, should Sam find herself in a spot of bother in Florida, she’d have some friends States-side.’
‘And what did he say about Greyshoe?’
‘That it was complicated. That he had a couple of agents on it. There is still a residue of Church members in Abilene, Texas, who they’ve been tracking. His team thought the operation had grown in size since they’d dismantled it three years ago. But not by much. And they had found a couple of links to Europe. But his staff were stretched and work was slow.’
Jane looked to her side; she stared absently out of the window.
‘I’m going to fly over to the States, probably at the end of next week. But I really need to speak to Sam first - get her in here. Any luck?’
‘No, sorry. Although I have looked over all of her past contacts. Military, SIS and civilian - as you asked.’
‘And?’
‘Wolfgang Neuenburg, you know, the German count?’
‘Yes. Go on.’
‘He’s based in Munich. Not the castle on the German/Czech border where Sam went to all those years ago. One of their other family homes. I’ve been in touch with the BND. They have a file on him. It’s mostly low-level hacking, that sort of thing.’
‘We know he’s capable of so much more than low-level hacking.’ Jane interrupted.
‘Correct. Anyway, they gave me his address in Munich. They also have a comment on his file along the lines of “Never leaves his residence”. They got this from his medical e-files.’
‘And.’
‘Well, Sam was in Austria before she spoke to you; skiing, I guess. She’d booked into a hotel in Alpbach. The day before she phoned you she’d used her credit card to buy a ticket from Wörgl, which is down the valley from Alpbach, to Munich. The next day she phones you from a German mobile. That’s mysterious?’
Jane stood and walked to the window. It was a very bleak day. The Thames was grey. Even the brick-pink Houses of Parliament were grey.
‘Forget about the satellite tasker. I’ll get someone else on that. Go and see Wolfgang.’ Jane said without taking her eyes off the view.
‘Hang on, Jane. I’m not a field agent.’
‘No, but he knows you, or knows of you - from Berlin. You were his and Sam’s anchor here. Go and see him. If it was him whom Sam visited in Munich, persuade him to share his intelligence. Go now.’
Frank wiggled in his chair.
Scared? Yes. Excited. Also yes.
‘’OK, OK. I’ll go.’ He was about to leave. But then realised that Jane hadn’t answered his original question.
‘Hang on, Jane. Before you dispatch me into the wilds of Bavaria, why the sudden interest in messing with the GPS? Crashing ships and everything?’
Jane turned to him now. Her face was expressionless.
‘I asked the DD if the US thought it possible to hack into the GPS system. I mentioned your theory concerning the recent shipping accident in Manila Bay.’
Frank didn’t say anything. He just waited.
‘The DD’s reply was curt. He said that there were some things that were so sensitive they couldn’t be shared, even with the US’s most trusted allies.’
Frank stared at Jane. She stared back.
‘The terrorist opportunities are endless.’ Frank said.
‘Indeed.’ Jane replied.
South District Wastewater Treatment Plant, Southern Miami, Florida
Sam got her bearings. She was in southern Miami, next to a sewage works. The powerboat had dropped her off on the side of a thin channel called Black Creek. It was dark. Her ‘captain’, or driver, or whatever else you wanted to call him, knew where to stop. The creek, which was shadowed by a street-lamp-lit-road, branched off a lagoon. Two hundred metres down from the lagoon a couple of the lamps were out. He’d landed the boat there, in the dark. She’d scrambled ashore with her rucksack, turned to say ‘thanks’ to the captain, but he was gone. Back down the channel into the inky dark of the lagoon which led out into the ocean.
It had been a very dull journey. They had made it to the northern tip of Andros, the most westerly and largest of The Bahamian islands, about an hour after they’d left Nassau. The sea was pool-table flat, there was no natural wind and the sun was high. The bite was taken out of the sun’s heat by the 40-miles-an-hour wind that buffeted both of them as the boat planed across the water.
Her captain had said nothing throughout the first leg of the journey. That was until they docked on the edge of a dwarf mangrove swamp, out of sight of everyone and everything. He’d berthed the boat next to a rickety wharf, that looked like it hadn’t seen a boat in years. The gangway, which at one point might have made it to dry land some centuries earlier, was beyond repair. But there was a hut on the wharf, about the size of a small garden shed. It was padlocked and the driver had the key.
Sam stayed on the boat whilst the captain rummaged inside the shack. He brought out a slab of soft drinks and a bag of peanuts.
‘Eat. Drink.’ It was the first thing he had said.
Sam had helped herself. She was famished. And parched. It was a long time since breakfast, and slightly less time since half a cup of decaffeinated coffee at The One and Only.
With a mouthful of peanuts she had asked, ‘Are we staying here long?’
‘Until it’s dark.’
That would be in about six hours' time.
The captain brought out a couple of jerrycans
and filled the barrels of fuel that were strapped to the inside of the boat. Sam found the smell of petrol nauseating.
‘Can I go onto the wharf?’
The captain nodded.
Sam had got out of the boat, found some shade and sat down. She was shattered. It was a combination of the exhilaration of the chase and then an hour’s blast of fresh air. She’d done nothing on the journey but stare at the ocean flashing past. Her mind empty - drained by adrenalin.
She was more ‘with it’ now. She looked at her rucksack and found a burn hole from where a bullet had broken the canvas - smack in the middle of the bag, heart-height. She put her finger in the hole and poked at something plastic.
Not sure what that is?
She turned the bag around until she found the exit hole. There it was. A four-inch rip in the side of her bag. The round had entered her bag on a collision course with the back of her chest, it had hit something in the bag and shot out the side.
Phew.
Sam took out the contents of her bag.
And she found her saviour.
Her phone charger. Which no longer looked like a phone charger.
Snakeskin-belt man’s weapon was most likely a 9mm. Bullets fired from nearly all pistols travel slower than the speed of sound. The barrel was short - as a result the explosion only acts on the slug for a couple of microseconds. At any distance a 9mm round would do you damage, but it doesn’t take much to stop it. Even less to deflect it.
Nonetheless she had been very lucky.
Sam had put her stuff back in her bag, noting that she’d need to get a new charger as soon as she could. She then moved out of sight for a pee, came back to her spot and promptly fell asleep.
The second half of the journey was much more straightforward than Sam expected. The boat was fitted with a decent-looking radar, a couple of very sexy GPS mapping systems, and the captain knew what he was doing.
And they travelled without lights.
At one point the captain had turned the boat on a pin - Sam, who couldn’t sleep, looked up at the radar and saw a green ‘ping’ on the top-right of the screen. After the turn it had disappeared. It was the only scare they’d had.
And now she was on dry land; at 3.30 in the morning. She’d turned on her phone, opened Google Maps and quickly got her bearings. With the phone on, she’d SMS’d Wolfgang: Made it to Disneyland. The reply was almost immediate: So pleased. Get in touch when you can. I have something.
Sam walked northeast along a decent tarmacked road. She was a couple of klicks north of anywhere sensible. She needed to find a motel with decent Wi-Fi, FedEx the phones to Germany - and get herself a new charger.
That was as far as her plan went.
Chapter 11
Samostan Monastery, Punat Bay, Krk, Croatia
Fuck them. Fuck them all.
Jakov’s overwhelming feeling of rage surprised him. It burned at him - and through him. The injustice. The degradation. The pain. He was not a man to anger easily. In fact, he didn’t rise to anger at all. He turned the other cheek. Walked away.
But something had changed. Something inside him had snapped. It had happened before. Once. He recalled an incident a good number of years ago. He was so young he couldn’t remember exactly when. He was playing with another boy in a sandpit, building tracks in the sand for their small metal cars. By mistake he’d knocked a bit of his friend’s track over. The little lad had gone mad. Shouting and screaming. Jakov remembered being frightened by the boy.
And then his friend was on top of him. Jakov was big for his age, even then. He was bigger than his friend. But he didn’t fight back. He kept saying ‘sorry’ over and over again; his back on the floor of the sandpit, holding the lad at arm’s length. But the boy’s madness was too strong for Jakov and his arms gave way. The boy hadn’t finished. In fact, he hadn’t even started. Jakov remembered it as if it were ten minutes ago: the look in his friend’s eyes as he started to fill his mouth with sand. A finger forcing open his lips. Sand in his teeth - between his teeth. It was disgusting. He turned his head away from the onslaught.
So, the boy pushed sand in his eyes and ears.
That was too much for him. He had deserved to be told off by his friend. Shouted at. Even punished for his mistake. But what he was being asked to endure was beyond his young mind’s understanding.
He flipped - an explosion in his brain. He didn’t go mad like his friend. Instead, with calculation beyond his years, he channelled his fury. He slapped the boy across the face and, finding power from somewhere, pushed him off onto the sand next to him. His friend was surprised, but his madness wasn’t gone. He came back at Jakov. The detail of the next minute or so had always been a blur to Jakov. But the outcome was clear. His friend running home, blood streaming from his nose, one sandy hand held high - two of its fingers throbbing with immature broken bones.
Jakov emptied the contents of the pit from his mouth, went home and told his parents everything. He was grounded for a week without candy.
Croatian men are tough and resilient. They’ve suffered at the hands of many adversaries throughout the centuries. Getting knocked down and picking yourself back up again was in their genes. Scars came with the territory. His friend’s parents never mentioned their son’s injuries. The boy didn’t play with Jakov again.
As he lay on his bed, in his cell with its barred window and metal door without a handle, he felt as if he had sand in his mouth again. He couldn’t get rid of the gritty taste.
He got out of his bed and walked to the mirror. What he saw surprised him. His nose was two sizes too big and he had a pearler of a black eye. It was as though he’d been in the ring with Floyd Mayweather. He tried to piece together how he’d ended up like this.
How the anger had risen in him.
Listening to … Freddie? That’s his name. I walked across to him. Mania in his eyes. Like his boyhood friend.
Then nothing.
But he knew what the nothing was. He knew he’d taken a beating from Freddie. The erstwhile Hannibal. Hannibal Lecter morphs into Freddie Krueger.
How appropriate.
And this was the outcome. His face was a complete mess. And he must have concussion.
And he had tasted the sand again.
The bastards.
The door of his cell opened. In walked Karlo. He was carrying a mug of tea and his medical satchel. He handed Jakov the tea and pointed to the chair. Jakov sat.
Over the next ten minutes the monk gently cleaned his face and administered antiseptic cream. The juxtaposition of Karlo’s sensitive actions against the inhumane frenzy that was Freddie, jarred. He couldn’t rationalise it. Were they all evil? The monks hadn’t lifted a finger at any point to save him from the beatings at Freddie’s hands. They were all obsequious smiles, tender touches and mouthed pleasantries.
What was the quote?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
He’d learnt it at school. Was it Burke? He wasn’t sure.
They were all complicit. Freddie. The black man with the silver can. The monks. All of them.
As Karlo finished off, Jakov ran his tongue around the front of his teeth.
Sand.
He knew it wasn’t there. There was just pain from yesterday’s injuries. But it might as well have been.
Sand. In his mouth.
‘What time is it?’ Jakov asked.
The monk showed Jakov his cheap digital watch. It read 10.35 am. He’d lost an evening and some of the morning.
He wouldn’t waste any more of his time.
Leamington Hotel, Miami, Florida
Sam opened the door of her hotel room and threw her bag on the nearest of the twin beds. She’d spent four of the last five hours half-asleep at an all-night American diner. The waitress was more than happy to refill her coffee cup as she dozed with her head on her arms, resting on a laminate table. She had, after all, eaten her own bodyweight in ‘eggs-over-easy’ on muff
ins. And some. There was one other hobo in the diner with her; the place was hardly busy.
Just after dawn the waitress had directed her to a FedEx office where she had packaged up the two mobiles: the one she’d got from Müller and the second from snakeskin-belt man. The very efficient guy behind the counter had assured her the package would be at the address in Germany no later than 10.00 am their time tomorrow.
The FedEx man had then directed her to a ‘cheap’ hotel via a phone shop to get a new charger. Both were a couple of blocks away.
At $98 a room, in her book it was hardly cheap. But it was functional and had Wi-Fi. After lying about having lost her passport and speaking with a German accent, the concierge had accepted Wolfgang’s Deutsche Bank credit card as proof that Sam was a reliable human being. She was pleased about that. Because tiredness was a big bear on her shoulders - ready to growl and possibly lash out with pointed claws. The man behind the counter was nice and being helpful, if a little hesitant. She really didn’t want the red mist and the big brown growly thing to spoil his day.
She signed in as Walda Neuenburg matching the W. Neuenburg on the card. Wolfgang’s long-lost cousin.
It took a further five minutes to get hold of Wolfgang and establish a secure connection on her phone. This time they managed a video link. It was good to see his face.
‘You don’t look so good, Sam.’
She snorted.
‘You should smell me.’ Sam realised as soon as she said it, that it had the tiniest touch of unintended sexual overtone. In Berlin, a few years back, the unspent chemistry between them had been close to exploding. They couldn’t go back there.
Wolfgang raised his eyebrows almost imperceptibly.
‘Still, they have showers in your hotel?’ Wolfgang, who may have said the first thing that came into his head to cover his slight embarrassment, immediately realised he wasn’t helping. ‘Sorry - I didn’t mean … it was supposed to be humorous.’
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