Sun of the Sleepless

by Patrick Horne

  In the story, Vril is presented as an all-permeating fluid which can be utilised to heal illness or inflict disease, create and destroy matter; in effect it can be used for good or evil.'

  'So you're linking this to the Quintessence and the Aether?' Jolene asked as she stared at the text.

  'Exactly! My conjecture is that Vril was considered to be a reality by this group and who knows, maybe the subterranean race described in Bulwer-Lytton's book is a complex metaphor for the people of the Sun of the Sleepless, I don't know, but one thing is clear, the Society for Truth that Maria effectively controlled was specifically looking for the real manifestation of Vril, as attested by Willy Ley, a notable German science writer on rocketry and space exploration who emigrated to the US in the late 1930's. Something like a decade later, he contributed to an article in the May 1947 edition of a science fiction magazine called 'Astounding Science Fiction', the piece was entitled 'Pseudoscience in Naziland' and in it he made the following statement -'

  Jackson tapped his keyboard and another scan of some typed text appeared:

  'The Ariosophers could at least quote a few Biblical passages in support of their ideas - they stated that their founder had been a Catholic priest before 'he saw the light'. The next group was literally founded upon a novel. That group which I think called itself Wahrheitsgesellschaft - Society for Truth - and which was more or less localized in Berlin, devoted its spare time looking for Vril. Yes, their convictions were founded upon Bulwer-Lytton's 'The Coming Race'. They knew that the book was fiction, Bulwer-Lytton had used that device in order to be able to tell the truth about this 'power'. The subterranean humanity was nonsense, Vril was not. Possibly it had enabled the British, who kept it as a State secret, to amass their colonial empire. Surely the Romans had had it, enclosed in small metal balls, which guarded their homes and were referred to as 'Lares'. For reasons which I failed to penetrate, the secret of Vril could be found by contemplating the structure of an apple, sliced in halves.'

  'No, I am not joking, that is what I was told with great solemnity and secrecy. Such a group actually existed, they even got out the first issue of a magazine which was to proclaim their credo. (I wish I had kept some of these things, but I had enough books to smuggle out as it was).'

  Jackson placed the palms of his hands flat down either side of his laptop and leaned forward.

  'Even if we take Willy Ley's statements as hearsay if not rather imaginative, we still have Hanna Paulus indicating that Maria regularly read from a book printed by permission of the Sun of the Sleepless to a select group of Vril Society Sisterhood initiates for I don't know what purpose, not to mention that she is also pulling the strings behind this mysterious Society for Truth group of scientists.

  'On top of that, let us not forget the other members of the Vrilerinnen, who were actively engaging the higher echelons of the Nazi Party and if Hanna is to be believed, also making introductions to their cabal of scientists. All of this directed through the influence of the Vril Society on behalf of the Sun of the Sleepless.'

  Jackson rubbed his chin and then removed his glasses, staring at Jolene intently.

  'Personally, I think that Maria represented the Sun of the Sleepless group and that they had hedged their bets on the Nazis gaining power. With the Nazis in control, they intended to use their contacts to procure government resources in order to pursue their search for Vril and expand their experiments to harness the power of the Aether.

  'I would even go as far as to suggest that at some point, they intended to usurp the Nazis, maybe even harbouring the intent to use any weapons that utilised the power of Vril against their erstwhile paymasters, intent on domination of the German government and perhaps, just perhaps, even the whole world.'

  Dale softly blew out a lungful of air between puffed cheeks as Jolene continued to meet Jackson's gaze.

  'You're serious?'

  'Deadly!' Jackson answered earnestly.

  She thought for a moment longer.

  'How much evidence do you have, I mean real evidence?'

  Jackson touched his laptop and smiled.

  'I know, I know, it all sounds crazy, but I have verified lists of Thule members, the charter documents for The Vril Society Sisterhood, Hanna even provided the names of the Vrilerinnen and some of the scientists who were involved with the Society for Truth. We have the physical evidence of Dirigo Lux and of course, Sebottendorff's and Hanna's intelligence reports. On top of that, I have a host of unconfirmed conjecture from other sources alleging that so-called Zero Point Energy had been harnessed by a group of scientists working in a Nazi special weapons programme and some of the names match the list provided by Hanna.'

  'Anything more concrete than conjecture?' asked Jolene.

  'Not necessarily,' Jackson replied somewhat cagily, 'but you see, most of the information I have managed to collate came from orphaned documents, filed away and forgotten about. However, I also have a couple of trawl vector references that are still compartmented beyond my security clearance but which seem to relate to events in 1946, not to mention even further back in time. I can't help but think that they are technology related which is why they are still so highly classified.'

  Jolene nibbled at the corner of her bottom lip, looking slightly pensive.

  'We need to write this up and we need to make it good. I have no idea what Kappel will make of it all, but we need to give him something based in reality.'

  'I'll need more time to conclude my preliminary research,' Jackson protested, 'I initially concentrated on establishing the link between the book and the Sun of the Sleepless, however, there is the historical aspect to consider, from examining the Nazi archives to the pedigree of this group right back to the eighteenth century, maybe beyond that.'

  'We don't need a fanciful history lesson,' Jolene retorted, 'stick to their activities in World War II and track them forward as much as you can, right up to this minute if at all possible; forget the book for now, you can look into the historical provenance later!'

  'Yeah,' Dale smirked sullenly, 'especially since it is all pointless anyway!'

  A short silence ensued and it was clear that Dale was making an implication beyond the wit of the other two people in the room.

  'Is that supposed to mean something?' queried Jolene, raising her eyebrows to prompt Dale further.

  'Err, yeah,' Dale snorted, 'I mean, between Jackson burying his head in that book and you organising our field trips, you both seem to have ignored the obvious.'

  Jolene leaned forward.

  'Which is?'

  Dale closed his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

  'I'd have thought that you would have realised that Kappel knows more than he is telling.'

  'Stunning!' Jolene snapped.

  'Of course he knows more than he is telling, we're on a need to know basis! He has no need to tell us everything. How long have you worked in the agency?'

  'No,' Dale responded as he shook his head, 'you don't get me. Just think about the reason why we are here right now. Jackson is sitting there sipping his morning coffee when he gets a notification that a flagged book is for sale on the internet, so, he investigates. Alright, it seems a little strange and so I get seconded to go and pick it up. Now, no sooner has Jackson landed in Amsterdam than Kappel is organising a conference call between all of us. We all assumed that he wanted to know why we were interested in the book, but then Jackson confirmed the link with the Sun of the Sleepless which related to the name of this terrorist group that you'd been trying to investigate and which they're in such a panic over, so it seemed like we'd come full circle.'

  '- and?'

  Dale leaned in, mirroring Jolene's posture, illustrating the challenge he was making.

  'I've mentioned this to you before, you said that they knew the name of the terrorist group in December last year and the agency must have linked it to the book and the Nazis right off, they have access to even more intelligence than Jackson does, so, why is it that they weren't i
nvestigating this group in the first place, why did they have to wait for a librarian to dig it up to lead them to it? Jackson had even found references to the book on the internet so it can't have been that difficult!'

  Jolene reclined into her chair and lowered her head, fixing Dale with a frown.

  'There could be any number of reasons why they wanted to follow up with Jackson, they may have already investigated those leads and found them to be dead-ends. What do you think Kappel is hiding?'

  'Well, if you ask me, all this stuff you're now going to put into a report for Kappel, he's already aware of it, you'll just be confirming what he already knows.'

  Jackson was slowly nodding his head.

  'Dale has a point there, you know? I've already mentioned the compartmented links that I haven't been able to get access to, they are referenced to 1946, just after the end of the war, which is too much of a coincidence to be unrelated to events during the Nazi regime. Only a portion of Hanna Paulus' intelligence file was available as orphaned documents so they could have cross-referenced those with the documents that were correctly classified and linked in. Kappel would have access to all of that, especially under the circumstances.'

  'There you go,' Dale nodded, 'something isn't right.'

  Jolene looked pensive again, chewing the inside of her bottom lip and clearly considering the implications of Dale's accusation.

  'We'll do what we were ordered to do; prepare and submit a preliminary report and take it from there. If there is a reason why we're simply going over old ground then it must be a good one, let's just do our jobs and present our findings to Kappel.'

  'You not going to tell him anything new,' Dale shrugged, 'I just know it.'

  A smirk suddenly spread across his face as he stretched his arms behind his head.

  'Especially since Jackson still doesn't know what the printer of the book had for breakfast!'

  Chapter XI

  The white zone is for unloading and loading only -

  Just as a flurry of snow found renewed energy and started scattering large icy flakes over the frozen landscape of Dumfries in southern Scotland, a plume of black diesel soot was belched from the vertical exhausts of an articulated lorry towing a canvas sided trailer as it revved into the compound of one of the larger warehouses on the Heathhall industrial estate based two miles north of the town.

  The laborious journey north from Merseyside along the M6 and A75 had taken longer than expected for the lorry and the two transit vans that had started their journey from a truck stop just off the M62 in the dark of the early morning. Unbeknownst to the driver of the heavy goods vehicle, he was the last to arrive, the worsening weather conditions causing a number of traffic incidents to delay his journey let alone the necessity to drive much more slowly due to the treacherous road conditions.

  The HGV swung around and started reversing trailer first up to the building, a large loading bay shutter door starting to rumble up as two figures appeared and stood on the elevated platform of the dock. The warning bleep of the reversing alarm echoed throughout the cavernous interior of the loading area and the figures waited patiently until the white lights of the lorry flicked off and the driver had completed his manoeuvre to park the trailer abutted tightly to the half open shutter door.

  The lead man hopped down and walked around to the driver's cab door.

  'What kept you?' he chided in good humour as the door opened and the driver leaned out.

  'Bloody traffic! There was a massive tail-back just before Carlisle, some bloke had shunted into the car in front and another car swerved to avoid them but ended up sideways across the carriageway. Nightmare. The bloody roads aren't gritted properly and there is ice and compacted snow everywhere.'

  'It wasn't much better in the transit vans,' grinned his colleague, 'at least you didn't have to put up with a bunch of old women moaning about the cold for the whole trip.'

  He banged the side of the cab and started to retrace his steps to the back of the trailer.

  'Come on, get yourself a brew and we'll start unloading.'

  The driver of the lorry wandered through the loading area and a couple of short corridors into the vast empty space of the main warehouse, noting his colleagues grouped and seated in one corner, engaged in various small equipment checks with one of them acting as chef and preparing a meal for the whole team of eleven men and women and cooking up a broth on a propane fired portable camping gas ring.

  'Oi, Oi,' shouted one of the seated men, 'did you get lost on the way?'

  'Yeah, some pillock in a transit van gave me the wrong directions!' he grinned back.

  The group laughed as some of them stood up and started walking out to help with the unloading process. One of the women had Corporal's stripes and she spoke as she passed the driver.

  'Get yourself some chow and a hot drink, the Sergeant wants to have a quick briefing as we eat.'

  The driver nodded and then slowly wandered to gaze at the military vehicles that had been parked in the middle of the warehouse, driven and stored there on a previous occasion in preparation for this mission. His own designated vehicle, a large Scammell S26 four axle military transport truck was preloaded with a number of supply cases, however the main flat bed was left clear for the cargo that had been transported in the lorry he had just driven up and which was currently being unloaded.

  Next to the Scammell stood two heavily modified ex-British Army Land Rover Defender 110 four wheel drives. They had been kitted out specifically for very rough terrain and had been upgraded with larger off-road wheels and tyres, electric winches and extra lighting arrays. Although the Defenders looked good, the vehicle that really grabbed his attention was the Jackal II armoured car.

  Used ostensibly for reconnaissance, rapid assault and convoy protection, it was a highly mobile weapons platform weighing seven tonnes but capable of conveying its crew of three over five hundred miles at speeds of up to eighty miles per hour over roads and even managing over fifty miles per hour on rough terrain. What really satisfied him was the fact that this particular vehicle was fitted with a general purpose machine gun and armed with a heavy machine gun as the main weapon system for a fire support role, offering a 360-degree sweep of fire to dominate an enemy attacking from any angle.

  The Jackal had been specially prepared for cold weather conditions, requiring a repaint from the original desert colours to a camouflage pattern more suited to a European theatre of operations but whatever the colour scheme, the Jackal provided a formidable boost to their weapons arsenal. They didn't really expect any trouble on this mission but, they were all aware that the firepower wasn't just there for show.

  The chef wandered up with a steaming mug in his hand and broke the driver's concentration.

  'Here you go, get some tea down your neck. The grub will be ready in a bit.'

  After loading the large crate from the HGV onto the back of the Scammell and securing it into position, the group had sat down and started to tuck into their meal. It was not exactly cordon bleu cooking, having been mostly prepared from a range of tinned goods slopped into a large pot and heated to a bubbling stew, but in the stagnant cold of the cavernous warehouse it represented a hearty meal just right for filling empty stomachs; they had journeyed all morning and looked forward to a whole afternoon spent travelling even further north in the dire weather conditions.

  After ten minutes of convivial conversation over their meal, Sergeant Andy Loftus stood up and placed his aluminium food canteen onto the table, chewing on the last of his buttered bread with which he had mopped up the remnants of his stew. He clapped his hands loudly a couple of times and swallowed.

  'Right, down to business,' he said, smacking his lips and manoeuvring a few slivers of bread crust from the inside of his cheeks to his tongue.

  'Finish your meals and keep the interruptions to a minimum, we don't have much time and we have a lot to get through.'

  'No chance of a second helping then?' one of the men grinned.

&n
bsp; 'Thank-you for that contribution Stiles, you've just volunteered yourself to help with the washing up!'

  A chuckle rose from the group as Loftus waved his hands to calm them down.

  'Listen up. First things first, I want to remind you that we are all in the British Army now, therefore, get your field kit on as soon as possible and remember your rank and who to salute. We're using this cover for a good reason so make it work.

  'With that in mind, let me give a quick update, Captain Faber and Lieutenant Akosua have been delayed as they expected. I've been informed that they will be catching up with us so we will be leaving one of the Land Rovers behind for them. That leaves it to me, your friendly Sergeant, to kick off this final leg of our mission, so, pay attention because this is important.'

  The group settled down, they were all professionals and knew when it was appropriate to lark around and when they needed to buckle down to business.

  'As it should be pretty apparent by now, we are heading to deepest darkest Scotland, a little place called Oban in the region of Argyll and Bute on the west coast. We'll be travelling in convoy so I don't expect anybody to get lost, but just in case, we will be travelling up on the M74 to Glasgow, the A82 and then the A85. We'll go through the route later but just remember to keep in convoy and we'll be fine.'

  The female Corporal who had spoken with the driver earlier raised her hand slightly.

  'Corporal Hunt?'

  'Sarge, wouldn't it be easier to take the coastal route?'

  'Good question. We want to remain low key and I'm guessing that the weather will keep most people away from the roads on the higher ground, so that is why we are going north and west rather than west and then north. Our vehicles shouldn't have too much trouble with any snow that we encounter.'