Frans hopped in behind them and slid the door shut as two of the support team jumped into the VW, driving off with no further hesitation, intent on getting the car out of the city and spiriting it away to another place, even an entirely different neighbouring country. The remaining team mate scooted into the van and started the diesel engine, quickly notching into gear and pulling away to leave the dunes and the sea air far behind them. The first half of the extraction was complete, now they just had to get to a safe zone.
Jolene had dialled ahead for a staff medical officer and shortly after passing through the security gate of the embassy Dale had found himself hustled up to the small medical room for treatment on his injuries.
He found himself surprisingly good humoured about his recent street fight and held his arm aloft as the medic applied a small butterfly suture to a cut across his temple.
'So will you want a plaster cast of the bite?' he asked Jolene as she leaned against a wall, arms folded somewhat defensively. 'You wouldn't want Inspector van Riel to find our kidnappers first.'
Jolene smiled, taking the wry comment in her stride.
'That will take forever and anyway, I think that there are better ways of identifying them and the sooner you're stitched up the sooner we can get started.'
The medic spoke up.
'We're basically done here and he just has a few cuts and bruises anyway, nothing broken.'
He turned to Dale and looked closely into his face.
'You were lucky, from the way you described it your attacker was just playing with you. If the punch to your nose was meant to hurt you it would have easily broken your nasal bone. Some people have had to have complete reconstructive surgery after a punch like that; she was just having a little fun!'
Dale grunted.
'It didn't feel that way at the time.'
Jolene stood up properly and adjusted her suit jacket.
'Alright, well, I'll go and make a couple of calls while you finish up here. When you're through, go and see Jackson, he could probably do with some coffee if he's had his head buried in that book for the morning.'
She turned and started out of the door before stopping and leaning back in.
'Oh, and if your throat is still sore from when they choked you, maybe I'll buy you an ice-cream later!'
She started laughing to herself as she disappeared back into the corridor.
The medic gave a guttural chuckle as the sound of Jolene's heels scuffing the carpet gradually receded.
'Everything will be plenty sore enough over the next couple of days, especially that knee. Be careful as you walk on it; try not to do anything too strenuous until it settles down. As for your head, I think that you're alright but you really ought to get it checked out properly, an elbow to the temple and a kick to the head can be quite serious.'
'Will I need a rabies shot for this?' Dale asked, holding up his arm again and displaying the swollen lump of indented flesh, 'I don't want to start barking at the moon and foaming at the mouth.'
'Awww,' the medic scoffed, 'she hardly nibbled you, I've seen army grunts with love-bites worse than that after a weekend pass, it isn't half as bad as it looks or undoubtedly felt; the skin isn't even broken, just severely bruised.'
He ran a finger around the edge of the lump, pressing gently as he assessed it.
'The swelling will go down in a week but you may have some teeth marks showing for a couple of weeks longer after that. They can take a while to fade.'
He chuckled again.
'People will just guess that you have an energetic love life!'
'Sergeant Stanley? Oliver?'
The two men stiffened as Jolene walked into the guard room where they were preparing some extra armaments and field gear, packing it into a couple of large aluminium suitcases and organising the equipment between layers of foam rubber.
'Yes Ma'am.'
'After you've stowed your gear, get a change of clothing, dress for cold but casual. We need to be ready to mix with the locals and your suits are a little conspicuous.'
'Yes Ma'am!'
'Oh, and make sure we have a full field communications pack for each of us, I'm going to call in a Special Forces strike team from Germany for backup but until they are ready we'll be team Alpha to Omega so we need to be A J Squared Away gentlemen and you can expect to be working your bolts!
Private Oliver nodded enthusiastically.
'Yut!'
There was a pause as Jolene looked at him.
'Carry on gentleman!'
She turned on her heel and walked out.
Knowing that the Private clearly found Jolene attractive, Sergeant Stanley shook his head at Oliver.
'Keep your mind on the right bolt action leatherneck,' he admonished dourly, 'she'd eat you for breakfast and use your ribs for toothpicks!'
Hunched in the back of the van as it trundled along, Rey had explained the situation to Frans; that they had gone back to the old man Johann Janssens' shop and how he had gauged that the white haired antiquarian book seller could now be considered as missing in action. They had followed up their visit to the bookshop with a sojourn to Gertrude's apartment where they had seen the arrival of the same man that Akosua had followed to and from the US Embassy in the company of three other obvious US Intelligence operatives.
Rey was somewhat aggressive in making his point.
'With the girl gone, they will have no other lead to follow! Our concern must be for Merkur, we've worked too hard for the last few months to compromise what we've achieved, let alone the preparation work which I know must have been undertaken to set it all up, regardless of whether I was directly involved. We have a tight schedule and I am not fucking up my primary objective for the sake of a book and some jewellery. I'm just not doing it!'
Understanding Rey's frustration, Frans nodded.
'Alright, sure, but you are directly implicated; they probably have your descriptions and will almost certainly be looking for the car. You now have to keep a very low profile. How are you going to return to England? Or Akosua for that matter? Since the US is involved they will probably have notified the UK and you'll be picked up as soon as you try to enter. I appreciate what you tried to do by grabbing the girl and understand that you had to make a quick decision but, this throws everything up in the air!'
'That was the point!' Rey exclaimed, rubbing his hand over his closely cropped hair.
'Look, Frans, with the US looking directly for me and Akosua, it gives us an insight into what direction their investigation will take, we can predict what they'll be interested in and where they'll be looking for us; we can contain them. We can now be one step ahead, we can lay a false trail that we didn't have before, especially since they must have had something going on anyway to become interested in Dirigo Lux in the first place! Who predicted that?'
Frans rolled his eyes and shrugged, blowing a weak raspberry as he exhaled in exasperation.
'Yes, I admit, that is strange. I cannot think how they connected it to us so quickly or why they even thought it was relevant.'
'Right, exactly, that is what I said yesterday!'
Akosua shifted her position and leaned back against the side of the van.
'Frans, don't forget that our team in England will be moving into their start position right now. It isn't critical yet as we still have a month before we go into action but, the equipment should be on its way to Scotland as we speak.'
Both men looked to her, Rey pausing to consider the next stage of the orders he had issued prior to his departure. His team would head to the border of England and Scotland and then swap transport, moving their equipment to ex-army vehicles before continuing their drive up to the West Coast of Scotland for deployment. The official looking vehicles and uniforms they had procured would provide suitable cover against public suspicion, presenting the illusion of an army exercise.
Rey nodded as he reached his own conclusion, 'Right, I want to be back in the UK and I'll parachute in if I have to! The U
S won't find us in Scotland, especially where we'll be camping out and MI5 will hardly be looking for a bunch of squaddies since they'll think we're still in Europe.'
Frans leaned back and sighed, staring up at the roof of the van as he thought.
'Alright, I'll speak with Senator Dru and suggest that we drop you off in the South of England, I am sure that we can organise a plane ride even if you do have to parachute out.'
He glanced down at Gertrude who was still dozing fitfully on the floor of the van, a bundle of clothing providing a makeshift pillow for her.
'As for our young friend, we'll take her to Germany; I am sure that we can find her somewhere comfortable but secure.'
A grin creased Rey's face.
'Good, thanks Frans.'
He nudged Akosua who sat next to him.
'You remember your night drop training?'
Akosua blew out her cheeks dourly.
'Yeah - and I hated every minute of it!'
Jolene sat in the Ambassador's conference suite and waited for the screen to light up with Deputy Director Kappel's call, the now familiar humming of the pressurised air conditioning system droning in the background. She had requested an urgent audience with Kappel to report the latest events since in her estimation they seemed significant enough to require a reprioritisation of her investigation.
Presently, the screen flickered to life and from what she could see, Kappel sat at a normal looking desk and was probably located in his own office, her boss appeared just as fresh and focussed as he had done earlier that morning.
'Jolene! I assume that something of significance has happened since this morning, do you have an update for me?'
She coughed and prepared herself to give the details of the morning's events.
'Sir, our investigation into the supply trail of the book lead us to a Johann Janssens who runs an antiquarian bookshop in The Hague, I'll be sending details in my full report. When we arrived at his premises it was clear that Mr. Janssens was not present and it appears that there may have been a struggle. He is currently unaccounted for.'
'Alright, so that kind of dead-heads that trail unless we can find him or get something interesting from his paperwork. What is your suggestion?'
'No go sir, my guess is that he would have completed his purchase and sale as job lots or at least as a cash transaction, certainly I do not believe that whoever Janssens bought the book from would be recorded. As for Janssens himself, well, we have a much better lead downstream.'
Kappel sat back and raised his eyebrows.
'Oh?'
'During my visit to Janssens' shop, Dale Mallory was left taking a full statement from Gertrude Verker, the girl that Janssens sold the book to, however, during that interview her apartment was entered by persons unknown and the girl was abducted. Officer Mallory was beaten and incapacitated but he'll be alright.'
'- and that is good news, why?' Kappel asked, leaning in.
'We have an excellent description from Officer Mallory and my guess is that it is too much of a coincidence for Janssens to disappear and for the Verker girl to be taken by different people. My hunch is that since the assailants could no longer get to the book, they grabbed Verker to stop her talking about something. Clearly, they would know of the connection between the book and this group, The Brothers and Sisters of the Sun of the Sleepless, they may think that she knows something too, maybe something that is related to the book. It is just possible that Janssens had some extra information that could be useful to us and they feared that he had also told Verker.'
Kappel nodded in agreement.
'Sounds reasonable, what do you need?'
'I think that we have everything here. Langley can perform the background check on Janssens but it seems reasonable to assume that this snatch team may have been hanging around Verker when she was still in possession of the book. I suggest building a time-line of her movements over the last few days and trying to match the descriptions of the assailants in any CCTV footage we can find.'
'That could take a long time.'
Jolene grinned.
'Yes sir, but we have a great starting point. Our Langley support team has already determined that she had a stall at an antiques market on Thursday where she witnessed a tram accident; we tracked her through the Dutch police report that was submitted by the investigating officer. The significant factor is that the market takes place right outside of our embassy!'
'Excellent,' Kappel grinned as he sat back in his chair, 'it looks like you're progressing well. I agree that this is all too much to be coincidence so I'm raising your resource priority, if you need anything let me know.'
'Actually sir, I would like a Special Forces team put on standby, I suggest Wiesbaden Army Airfield near Frankfurt in Germany where I know there is a small detachment from our Special Activities Staff operating. Once we have a better handle on where we need them they can move pretty quickly from there. I'll just need an Operations Group coordinated and apprised of the situation so that they are ready to move.'
'No problem there, I'll make the arrangements. I have already given Jackson a higher security clearance, temporarily at least, so he should be able to continue his investigations into the background of this cult. Is there anything else?'
Jolene paused a moment, knowing that what she was about to say would not go down well.
'Err, yes sir, unfortunately we could not contain the incident at Verker's apartment and the Dutch police became involved.'
Kappel blinked a couple of times in silence.
'Jolene, we must contain any involvement of local law enforcement and that applies to wherever your investigation leads you, but especially so in The Hague. We want these people in our jurisdiction and I have already put our Special Transport Group onto alert. We do not want these people being arrested in the home of the International Court of Justice, do I make myself clear?'
'Yes sir.'
'As soon as you have a target acquisition, you call in for a snatch team and then we deal with this internally. We cannot afford any diplomatic fall-out from this. Is that understood?'
'Yes sir!' Jolene eagerly agreed again.
'Alright, good work Jolene, now, go to it!'
The screen blacked out as the secure communications signal was switched off and Jolene rapped the table as she considered her next move, absent-mindedly thrumming her fingers in a successive rhythm.
'Dale,' she thought, 'the CCTV footage. '
Jolene walked into the small office where Jackson was hunched over his desk and Dale was reclining back in his chair, his eyes closed. She walked up to stand at the desks that were shunted together facing each other.
'Gentlemen, any news?'
Dale opened his eyes and rocked his chair forward.
'I need a holiday -'
'Time enough for that when we save the world,' she retorted drily.
Looking down at the desk she suddenly became aghast to see what appeared to be cut-out pages from Dirigo Lux, the neatly razored sheets now lying in a pile to one side.
'Jackson? What are you doing? You were supposed to analyse the book not shred it into pieces!'
He stood and waved his palms to placate her.
'Its not as bad as it looks, I simply removed the inside cover board papers and all for a good reason. These books sometimes have documents or slips of paper pasted inside the cover boards, hidden away from prying eyes. In fact, I discovered something really interesting which made me think that there may have been other things secreted within the binding.'
Jolene looked at him suspiciously.
'What did you find?'
'This!' Jackson beamed as he held up a small square of what looked like a miniature printed circuit board onto which was pasted a microchip. The whole thing was tiny and fitted easily onto the finger tip of Jackson's pinkie as he held it out for her to view.
'What is it?'
'It is an advanced radio frequency identification tracking chip, commonly known as an RFID. Althou
gh this is top of the range, devices like it are freely available and used in supply chain processes everywhere, companies like Wal-Mart use them to track consignments of goods. I was going to send a scan of it over to Langley for analysis.'
Jolene peered closely at it.
'How did you know this was inside the book binding?'
'I didn't, but I wanted to check out the binding anyway and so I took it down to the security station where they have a small X-Ray machine for checking out suspect baggage that comes into the embassy. They passed the book through for me and gave me a picture which clearly showed something hidden in the spine of the book.'
Jolene looked down at the book lying open on the desk and gently lifted one cover to reveal the spine covering that had been neatly sliced along one edge and which was now hanging loosely.
'It devalues the book of course,' Jackson observed, 'but I guess that we can track the chip using serial numbers or something.'
Jolene nodded, impressed that they now had a definite lead to follow up regarding the recent origin of Dirigo Lux.
'Good work Jackson, wrap up the chip and I'll take care of that. Have you found anything of interest in terms of the text? Does it give us any further clues?'
'Not as such,' Jackson muttered, pursing his lips and shaking his head, 'but I have some interesting connections with other documents that came up in the agency library and the university searches that I set off the other day have turned up some useful material too. I just need to continue collating it all to understand the significance. Kappel gave me extra access and also prioritised my searches so that has helped, although I still cannot get to some of the documents that came up in my original trawl vector results. The stuff we really need is still out of reach.'
He looked pointedly at Jolene who noted his gaze.
'I'm afraid there is nothing I can do about that, Kappel would have to agree to that access. Go with what you have right now. Dale and I have to check out some CCTV imagery and I want a summary of what you've found when we get back, in the mean time, we'll leave you in peace. Dale?'
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