Sun of the Sleepless

by Patrick Horne

  He automatically crouched lower although it was unlikely that the driver would look back to the wall near the gatehouse and he was relieved as the van motored forwards and simply headed out of the the gatehouse portal, thrumming over the wooden bridge as the tyres drummed against the planks. The door started to crank and chudder again and he heard it clump shut. He suddenly had a horrible feeling that Gertrude Verker had just been driven away, but no matter, there was nothing he could do about the van for now, it was better to get into the castle and have a look around although he did not quite know what he expected to find.

  Gertrude gasped as she looked through a window that she had discovered had been left unlocked. Swinging the double shutters wide open, she could stick her head out and get a good view of what she perceived as her only available route to freedom. The drop to the ground was at least ten metres and the curtain wall was around twenty metres away, connected by a single thick rope that was evidently a temporary fixture to allow workmen to pull up some building materials. She had imagined that her luck had turned when she had walked into the room; it was clearly under some form of decoration or renovation and filled with scaffold platforms and dust sheets and strewn with workmens' tools and paint equipment. The rope clearly offered a chance to get to the outside wall and from there - well - she would have to determine her options once she was out of the main building.

  There was no way she could jump from the castle to the safety of the wall as it was just too far, but the rope was securely fixed to a hook on the exterior wall and just above the window lintel and all she had to do was swing hand-over-hand to the wall, just a few metres away.

  Staring over the window sill into what might just have well been an abyss, she shivered slightly as the cold air gusting through the open window started to hit her, the adrenalin generated by her agitation wearing off and leaving her vulnerable to the elements. She had to try and get across, she could not keep running in circles or she might bump into one of her jailers, she had to try monkey-swinging over to reach the outer wall, then she could use the walkway to access the main gatehouse and freedom.

  She reached up and tried to grip the rope but after only a few moments she jerked her hand back, it was stiff with ice and freezing cold and she knew that there was no way she could grip it for even a minute, especially if she was hanging from it. She suddenly remembered the room she was standing in and looked back at the jumbled collection of equipment stowed there, eyeing the dust-sheets as an idea came to her.

  Running down the stones steps inside of the gatehouse, Pieter passed the electric motors that operated the main gates and crashed out though a wooden door leading to the main courtyard. He took a moment to orientate himself and then darted for the main entrance of the castle building, drawing his old service issue Walther P5 automatic pistol from a discretely hidden holster as he went. He did not want to engage in a gun fight, but his options were limited if he came up against any armed opponents.

  Pieter reached the castle entrance and saw that the heavy wooden main doors were open, he barged through a set of glass interior doors into the reception hall and gazed about, immediately hit by the musky stone aroma of a building that was many centuries old. He heard a distant crash from one of the wings of the castle, the sound having echoed along corridors, bouncing off the vaulted ceilings. Running forwards, he decided that for now, he needed to avoid meeting anybody and simply concentrate on finding signs of Gertrude. The only way was up and he bounded up the staircase, leaping two steps at a time.

  He knew that he was being irresponsible, but before he had left the German traffic police headquarters in Oberhausen, Pieter had requested that Detlef - or Steve as he had preferred to be known - should contact Chief Inspector Visser of Den Haag Politie to convey what they had found. He fully expected his chief to ignore the unofficial nature of Pieter's investigation and to pull the stops out to organise a police raid using the German police, but he was not prepared to have to wait until they turned up.

  Bursting out onto the first floor, Pieter looked about as another crash boomed out, probably from somewhere on the ground floor but he could not be sure. He flipped off the safety catch of his firearm and moved forwards.

  Gertrude jerked her weight up and down a couple of times to ensure that she had a good grip on the rope before launching herself from the safety of the window sill. She had ripped off some strips from a dust-sheet she found in the room and had tied them around her wrists, wrapping her hands in the material to create insulation from the numbing cold of the wind and the frozen fibres of the rope, but also tying a simple safety line through the belt hoops of her jeans to a hook which she could track along the pulley, simply needing to hang by one hand to shunt the hook along to ensure that it did not catch. It was not much and she was not even sure how long it would hold her weight if she really needed it, but it was better than nothing.

  She started to edge out, keeping her motions steady and only slightly relying on her make-shift safety harness to relieve some of the weight from her arms. Swinging sideways, she was soon clear of the castle wall and for a moment she froze, berating herself for thinking that she could undertake such a dangerous task. She muttered to herself, urging herself on, telling herself that she had no choice and with a final grunt of encouragement from her inner voice she started to slide one hand at a time along the rope, creeping metre by metre to the safety of the curtain wall.

  The first floor was empty, he had checked all of the rooms and seen nothing untoward, but Pieter was sure that Gertrude was in the castle somewhere, he just had to check each floor. It was most probable that she had been locked up in an upstairs room; he could not quite believe that her abductors would have dumped her in the inevitable dungeons below ground level, but, he would have to check there if he could find nothing on the upper floors.

  Briskly scooting up the next level of the main staircase, Pieter darted out onto the second floor landing and checked the corridor leading off in both directions. He would have to make another complete circuit of the floor plan and the castle was not exactly a small building. Feeling his hands starting to sweat around the butt of the pistol, he waggled his fingers to gain a better grip and started to walk quietly in an anti-clockwise sweep of the rooms.

  Gertrude had reached the halfway point and could not believe how much her forearms were burning. They screamed at her to rest, to let go of the rope to ease the searing pain that made her want to weep. Only a glance down to the ground below made her hang on, tears starting to swell in her eyes as she realised that it was now just as far to go back as to keep going to the safety of the other side. She tried to ease her suffering by transferring her weight to the safety line and felt the gratitude in her arms, but, as she relaxed too much her jeans starting to dig into her flesh. Suddenly, her whole body jerked down as the front two belt hoops tore free from the denim of her waistband and she involuntarily let go of the rope and could only grab at the twisted fabric of the safety harness made from the strips she had torn from the dust-sheet. In an instant she was swinging wildly as the whole pulley rope oscillated in a gradually decreasing rhythm, her body acting as a pendulum as she rocked back and forth.

  She took a moment of wide-eyed terror, breathing heavily and feeling slightly sea-sick as she caught sight of the walls and ground swaying around her, not daring to move a muscle in case she precipitated a further tear in her jeans, the prelude to a fall that would only end in her demise in a crumpled and broken heap at the bottom of the wall.

  Pieter alighted the landing of the attic rooms on the third floor, and was starting to become a little anxious. He had not encountered anybody on the first two floors and he was beginning to think that he had made a mistake in assuming that the castle held the girl. Perhaps the van had taken her away? Perhaps they had seen him snooping around and decided to take her to another location? No, it did not matter. It had been the same van that she had been bundled into and there must be something in the castle to find, even if it consisted of em
pty pizza boxes and coffee cups. At least they could get some forensic evidence.

  He turned left passed a small lift entrance and started down a narrow crooked corridor, testing the doors that led off from it as he went. As he reached the mid section where the corridor veered, he peeped round and saw a desk at the end next to a door. He could just about make out a monitor that showed an image split into four - a security monitor no doubt. A hunch urged him forward and he scurried to the desk, noting that the door next to it was unlocked and slightly ajar.

  Pieter resettled his grip on his pistol and shoved the door inward with his foot, quickly dashing through and scanning the whole room as he arced his field of fire through all three corners that were immediately visible. He instantly checked around the back of the door and was satisfied that nobody was in the spacious room. He darted across to what was obviously an en-suite bathroom and checked there, nobody.

  It was a faint smell of perfume that made him pause. The smell flooded back to him, the same scent that he remembered in Gertrude Verker's apartment. It was either a strange coincidence or she had been in the room. He looked around, the crumpled bed linen, the fashion magazines. Walking around to the seating area he glanced down - a pair of fluffy white towelling slippers was placed next to the sofa. He was sure he recognised them, it was not just coincidence and he was now certain that Gertrude had been there.

  Racing back into the corridor, Pieter started scrabbling at the desk, looking for a control panel for the security monitor. He grinned to himself as he located a small keyboard and pressed some buttons to bring up a menu system on the screen. Within a few minutes, he was viewing footage of the room in which Gertrude had been held. He saw the girl sitting on her bed, then ripping up a magazine and crossing to the door. She was kneeling, the top of her head bobbing about as she did something to the door. He looked over at the entrance and wondered, seeing the key in the lock.

  Staring intently at the screen, he watched as Gertrude disappeared from view for just a moment and then she jerked back up again. The door was opening and it was clear that she had just escaped. Pieter glanced at his watched and did some quick calculations. She had managed to get out of the room at roughly the same time as he was trying to work out how to get in! He fast forwarded the recording and suddenly saw the door to the bedroom swing open again as a man entered. The figure glanced around, turned about and then left. It must have been the guy in the Renault van, he had not even bothered to look for Gertrude, once he had seen that she was missing he had made his getaway as soon as possible.

  Pieter stood up and thought, she was still in the compound somewhere, she must be, he had not seen her leave and he was certain that their paths would have crossed since the gatehouse was the only way in or out. Gertrude was still in the castle - somewhere. He snatched up his gun and ran down the corridor to the staircase; he needed to get to ground level again.

  Gertrude was wheezing, each laboured breath billowing out like the smoke from a pistol shot in the biting cold air. Each swing from one hand to the other made her weep and she choked back a plangent wail every time the incendiary pain shot up her forearms. She was almost at the other side, she just had to monkey-swing over a couple more times and she would be there. It was so close, the pain was reaching a crescendo and she knew she had to blast through it; her life literally depended upon it.

  She reached out a foot and flailed at the ledge of the walkway at the top of the curtain wall but lost her footing. The shift in her weight tore at her arms and her fingers screamed as they tried to contain her movement and maintain their faltering grip, the whole rope bouncing with her effort. Once more, her foot limply kicked out but this time her training shoe caught the edge and she could garner some leverage. The muscles of her thigh heaved and she tried to pull herself closer using her hamstrings whilst simultaneously trying to lift herself up using her quadriceps. Her arms were useless, her hands were still gripping but she could not pull herself up no matter how much she tried.

  Gertrude started to swear, she started to get angry, she yelled at herself and made one final concerted effort to pull and raise herself with her left leg on the curtain wall. She was doing it, she was getting closer, one more heave and she let go with her left arm, grabbing at the small wooden safety fence that acted as a barrier to stop walkers around the parapet from falling over the edge. She locked her elbow down over the fence until the top handrail was wedged into her armpit. A wild grasp with her right hand gave her two arms to grip the fence with and with a wheeze and a grunted cough she heaved herself forwards, somehow tumbling over the fence to lay on the stone of the walkway, her safety harness ripping a couple more belt loops as she rolled to a stop.

  Pieter skidded off the last step of the grand staircase and just caught his balance as he stood in the main reception hall where he had originally entered. He was suddenly taken by surprise by a voice that boomed out from his left.

  'Was machen Sie?'

  He looked to where the voice that had enquired as to what he was doing had come from and saw three heavy set men in workmens' overalls staring at him. Straightening his arms, he showed his gun provocatively but did not aim at them, instead, pointing the pistol to the ground. At the sight of the weapon, all of the workmen took a step backwards, one of them immediately holding his hands up in a placatory defence to ward off any further action and without further delay Pieter turned from them to run to the main doors, shouldering the interior glass doors open and scuttling out into the courtyard.

  Spinning around he began searching for Gertrude, squinting as he tried to gaze into the many dark recesses of the alcoves dotted about the walls, staring up at the towers and buildings of the castle, hoping for a glimpse of the girl.

  Gertrude jogged down the stairwell of the main gatehouse having gained access via the curtain wall walkway. Her arms were practically crippled from her previous exertions but some feeling was starting to return, although she had to fumble with the latch of the door that she guessed led to the courtyard. Without pause, she burst through and turned to face the main gate, but let out and exasperated cry of dismay as she saw that the heavy wooden doors were shut tight, her exit was barred.

  'Stop!'

  The cry had come from behind her and she simply froze. All of her efforts had been for nothing, she had been caught.

  'Gertrude, stop, it is me, Inspector van Riel!'

  She was still frozen to the spot, but even more confused. Gertrude slowly started to turn and as she faced back toward the castle entrance she could hardly believe her eyes. The officer from her apartment, the man who had come to collect the book; it was the same policeman.

  'Inspector van Riel? What are you - ?'

  She could not finish her sentence and did not need to. Pieter fumbled to return his gun to his belt holster as he ran to her, finally grasping her and wrapping his arms about her to hold her tightly, listening to the sobs that started to break as he felt her whole body convulse with relief.

  Chapter XXVI

  The Order

  Wandering back from the main HQ buildings to their accommodation in the married quarters, it was clear that both Jolene and Jackson were thinking about their conversation with Stefan Kappel, their faces creased with somewhat pensive expressions.

  'Do you think that he has lost it?' Jackson suddenly asked, his candid and slightly rhetorical question illustrating his opinion.

  'I guess his nerves are frayed,' Jolene defended, 'he's trying to keep this whole thing under wraps until we're in a position to destroy the vortex weapon. I mean, it is a hell of a risk that he is taking but I think that we can both agree that we don't want anybody else getting their hands on this technology.'

  'You're damn right about that,' Jackson chuckled, 'I can't think of anything worse, it is just that he seems to be losing the plot a little.'

  Tilting her head back as she considered the situation, Jolene became even more contemplative.

  'As long as he keeps everyone off our backs then it is
fine by me, besides, he's given us a whole load of material to check out.'

  She held up the secure memory stick on which she had stored a series of background documents that Kappel had sent to them after their conference call.

  'Yeah,' Jackson retorted drily, 'at last we can find out exactly what the intelligence services know about the history of the Sun of the Sleepless, I've been after this material since we arrived but look how long it has taken to get hold of it! At least it explains why some of the text is available on the internet. It was us all along, posting material as bait. I really think he could have told us sooner though, all this cloak and dagger stuff is beyond me.

  'Really?' Jolene smirked. 'I'd have thought it was right up your street? Besides, we've only been here a couple of days.'

  Jackson shrugged.

  'A weekend is a weekend, but I suppose that you're right, this should be right up my street. I guess that I'm running out of patience now that retirement is looming. I just want to get it over and done with.'

  'Just as well then,' Jolene smiled, 'it'll all be over soon enough!'

  Jackson hummed cynically and nodded.

  'Ma'am!'

  Sergeant Stanley rose quickly from his seat at the kitchen table as Jolene entered through the front door, pocketing her mobile telephone as Jackson trailed in behind her.

  'We've received some intelligence from Langley,' Stanley announced as she crossed the threshold, 'a significant breakthrough.'

  'Langley?' Jolene frowned. 'We've just been talking to the Deputy Director but he never mentioned any breakthrough.'