Sun of the Sleepless (42 page)

'Come along now Miss Verker, I have brought you some books to read to pass the time. I thought that you might appreciate them if you are not so keen on watching films.'

He bent down and started to retrieve some hardback novels and smaller paperbacks, laying them onto the foot of the bed.

'See, we have numerous books here, a couple of Spanish authors translated into English but you speak the language very well I believe. Some more magazines, all in Dutch, even some history books. You should be able to find something to pass the time. There is music and lots of films on the media centre; you should be able to occupy yourself. If there is anything special that you want, just let me know.'

Gertrude just looked at him.

'I don't want your books, I want you to let me go!'

Frans moved toward the coffee table and started picking up the trays from the breakfast meal, clearing the space and cleaning up.

'It won't be long, I promise.'

The crockery and cutlery clinked and chinked as he loaded it onto the trolley and started to pull it backward out of the room.

'Be careful with that broken plastic on the bed, I suggest that you put the pieces in the waste bin, you wouldn't want to go to sleep laying on that, you might end up pricking your finger on a sliver of plastic and sleeping for a hundred years!'

Gertrude sneered sullenly and simply looked down at the remaining flask of coffee on the table as she heard the door being pulled shut and locked up.

Vanity Fair

Jolene brusquely marched along the austere corridor leading from the office of Lieutenant Colonel Peterson of the 24th Military Intelligence Battalion based at Wiesbaden Army Garrison. The CO had given her a hard time and not just with her request for a secure office reserved specifically for her use, even though Kappel had previously indicated that he had cleared the way to get all the resources that she needed.

She knew that the CO had been deliberately obtuse, fully intending to accommodate her petition although obstinately questioning every aspect of the request. He had been particularly vehement in demanding to know why a Staff Sergeant in the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group had requisitioned a whole range of firepower from the armoury inventory, but she had foreclosed every question with a referral to the classified nature of their mission. Kappel's authorisation was unimpeachable, but even so, the CO had made it perfectly clear that any fall-out from their operation would most definitely settle directly at her door.

Jolene reached the door to the office she had been assigned and punched in the secure code on the small metallic number pad for the electronic lock. A solenoid clicked and she pushed her way through, pausing to then enter the required number sequence to change the entry code; as far as she was concerned, the office was now out of bounds to all but her own team. Just as she had finished entering the new code and satisfying herself that it worked, Sergeant Stanley marched into the corridor with her requisitioned laptop tucked under his arm.

'Ahh, Sergeant,' she said looking up, 'good, I'm glad you're here. I want to go through the details of our two suspects and the spoof that you've obtained for me.'

'Yes Ma'am,' he replied flatly, following her into the office and closing the door behind him.

'So, what do we know?' she said, pulling out a chair from under the central desk and seating herself.

Stanley followed her lead and settled himself in, chugging the chair forward to get tighter into the table.

'A Rey Faber and Kate Akosua, identified by Langley through immigration details -'

He plugged in and booted up the laptop, speaking as it loaded and connected to the secure network.

'They're not on any watch lists and as far as we can tell and have never come to the attention of any friendly intelligence services.'

Stanley slid an identification card into the reader at the side of the laptop and entered his personal security code, quickly accessing the details that had been sent through earlier. He clicked on a file and a picture of a man appeared; the portrait looked more like a mugshot on the FBI's 'Most Wanted' web page than a flattering depiction of the sitter taken for a passport.

'Rey Faber, British national, born 1968, forty-one years of age - he was a Captain in the British commando battalion - he left in 1997 - he has been a freelance IT consultant ever since and primarily works through a company called Open-EZ which operates from offices in the US and UK.'

Jolene stared at the picture and noted the heavy brow that cast a shadow over dark brown eyes, the jaw slightly clenched and the shaven head, the whole expression exuding aggression and hinting at malice.

Stanley ran his middle finger over the touch-pad of the laptop and clicked the selection buttons a couple of times, bringing up a picture of an attractive black woman.

'Kate Akosua - a Ghanaian national by birth, born in 1981 and now twenty-nine years of age - she was emigrated to England as a baby, apparently as an orphan just after the Jerry Rawlins coup in 1981 - adopted by English parents, both now deceased - eventually trained as a nurse - she also currently works in IT as a freelance project administrator and works for the same company as Faber, Open-EZ in the UK. What do you think?'

Stanley looked at Jolene as she squinted at the screen.

'This is perfect, the RFID that we traced? That was part of a shipment of radio tracking equipment purchased by Open-EZ for use in their supply chain and warehousing solutions. We have Faber and Akosua working for the company that bought the chips, the book had one of those chips in it, Faber and Akosua are identified as the people responsible for abducting Gertrude Verker who was in possession of the book. The book is connected to the Sun of the Sleepless and this pair is in it up to their necks.'

She thought for a moment.

'Kappel has alerted British Intelligence, I say we take out the Open-EZ offices as soon as possible, get them to round up all the employees. This connection could go a lot deeper, I want a full forensic sweep of everything Open-EZ has ever done; we need to seize all of their computer servers. In fact, get Dale in here right now, I want a final confirmation of identity and then we can request Kappel to organise a raid with the British.'

Stanley leaned back and withdrew a phone, punching in the number for Dale Mallory and then waiting for a response as the line purred in his ear. He looked across and saw that Jolene was smiling; he could feel the sense of satisfaction emanating from her.

She saw his look and quickly drew a wide grin.

'This is exactly the link I was hoping for Sergeant, it is all coming together.'

After wandering over to the 24th MI Battalion HQ and finally locating their new office, Dale sat staring at the laptop screen and concentrated on the photographs of the two suspects. Jolene loomed over him, frowning and wondering why it was taking so long to confirm their identity.

'Well?' she abruptly enquired.

Dale mused over the images a bit longer.

'Yeah, I am sure that is him and as for her, definitely. She had bleached blonde hair but I'd recognise her face anywhere.'

He moved closer to the screen, scrolling the contents as he read the details.

'That's interesting,' he suddenly said.

'What?' Jolene enquired suspiciously.

'The Akosua woman was adopted.'

'- and?'

'Well, Paula Krom said that all of the Vril Society Sisterhood girls were orphans.'

'So?'

'Well, I just thought that it was interesting.'

'Interesting?' Jolene paused and then crossed her arms. 'We already have enough information to link these suspects to the Sun of the Sleepless, so, could you be more specific? Have we missed something?'

Dale looked to Stanley and then back at Jolene.

'Well, it just seems like a connection, you know, this Akosua woman is an orphan and all of the Vril girls recruited by the Sun of the Sleepless during the war were orphans, it just seems relevant.'

'Perhaps you're thinking that there is some kind of adoption racket going on?' she asked, entirely derisively.

'I didn't say this was about human trafficking, I just -'

Jolene interrupted him.

'Alright, I get your point; let's just concentrate on the facts - you've been spending too much time with Jackson.'

Turning around from the screen, Dale crossed his arms in a defensive posture.

'So what now? Do we know where they are? Are we going to pick them up?'

His questions were clearly barbed and aimed to point out that just because they had identified their suspects, it did not bring them any closer to detaining them.

Ignoring the condescending tone, Jolene stared at him and continued.

'The Deputy Director will confirm with the British authorities that we want a raid on the Open-EZ premises and all of the employees rounded up. Clearly, we'll do the same thing in the US but it seems likely that they were using the UK as a base of operations.'

'What about Gertrude Verker?' Dale queried.

'What about her?'

'Well, we've done nothing to track her down, have we? We don't know where Faber and Akosua are, they could be anywhere and just because we know who they are it doesn't bring us any closer to capturing them. In the mean time, Gertrude could be chained to a cellar wall sitting on a piss soaked mattress for all we know. We should be doing more to look for her. Her only hope is the Dutch police and we're not even helping them.'

Jolene's lips puckered as if she had just swallowed a mouthful of particularly tart lemon juice.

'Actually, the Dutch police have been pulled off the search for Gertrude and contrary to your opinion, by identifying Rey Faber and Kate Akosua we are a step closer to being able to locate and capture them. The rest should be obvious.'

'Jesus wept!' Dale exclaimed exasperatedly. 'Why did we call the police off? Now that we know who we are looking for we could put it out as a simple kidnapping and get some input from the public, somebody might recognise them. We're wasting time and Gertrude shouldn't be caught up in this, waiting for us to quietly find her kidnappers. The Dutch already had a lead on the vehicles that she was taken away in, we could have let them track it to where she was taken and they could have found our terrorists for us! Even we could have done that, once the Agency knew there was a connection we could have had a satellite covering the whole region.'

A snort chugged from Jolene's nose.

'You think that we have satellites floating around doing nothing? We needed further evidence, proof that there was a connection. You sat through Jackson's presentations, everything we found was conjecture and guesswork, besides, if we'd let the police follow up they would have eventually barged in as if it were a simple abduction. There is more at stake here. We couldn't afford for the Dutch police to locate her and in the process, scare off the group not only responsible for taking her but also for the threat against our nation, or have you forgotten about that again? For all I knew, any bungled police action could have precipitated retaliation and I just couldn't take that risk!'

Dale was incredulous and muttered to himself as he considered the games that were played in the name of national security.

'Anyway,' continued Jolene, 'if they had wanted her dead then they would have killed her back at her apartment. They even let you live didn't they?'

Dale rubbed his jaw in remembrance of the kick delivered by Akosua that had knocked him unconscious.

'They're not going to kill her so let's just concentrate on finding Faber and Akosua.'

'This is completely crazy,' Dale muttered dourly, 'we shouldn't have to wait to find Faber and Akosua before we follow up the lead on Gertrude. Crazy.'

Jolene's reply was spoken in an icy tone.

'Get it through your head Officer Mallory, Gertrude is secondary to our mission. We need to find and secure our targets. Using the Dutch police to locate her would compromise our primary objective. We will find her when it is appropriate to do so. In the mean time, I am positive that she will be kept alive even if she is uncomfortable for a while.'

An awkward silence followed and was only broken when the phone in the room suddenly started ringing. Jolene and Dale stood staring at each other as the loudly warbling couplet cycled a few times more, eventually prompting Sergeant Stanley to reach over and briskly lift the receiver to his ear and listen.

'Officer Revere and Private Oliver have arrived Ma'am. They are at the main gate, should they come over or go to the house?'

Jolene took a deep breath through her nose.

'You and Dale go back to the house and have Oliver meet you there, bring him up to speed. Send Jackson over here right away and in the mean time, I'll arrange a call with the Deputy Director.'

Dale took the hint that he was being excluded.

Iterating the instructions into the handset, Stanley signed off and then replaced the receiver. He wandered over to the laptop and slid it around to face him.

'I'll just get the details of your spoof up Ma'am, Langley have managed to provide an identity by the name of Eloise Jacobs, a journalist who regularly writes for Vanity Fair magazine.'

He paused as he brought up a few documents on the screen.

'We've also traced the author Igor Farley in the US, there is a full background including details on his books and some contact numbers, you should have everything you need.'

'Good work Sergeant!' Jolene smiled.

Dale noted the praise heaped upon the Marine in contrast to his own tense working relationship with Jolene. He recalled the remark that she had made to him a couple of days ago,
front and centre
she had said, implying that she recognised the role he could play in this investigation but the gradual thaw after their initial meeting had recently been replaced by a notably steep drop in temperature.

'Is there anything you need me to do?' he asked.

Jolene looked at him coolly.

'Not just yet Dale, you can speak with Jackson when I've finished with him and organise your second opinion from a respectable scientist. In the mean time, you may want Stanley and Oliver to give you a quick refresher course on small-arms tactics and handling, I have a feeling that we may see some action very soon.'

Grunting non-committedly, Dale made to leave as Stanley stood up from his chair.

'Just remind me again Sergeant,' he muttered in a sarcastic tone that was still loud enough for Jolene to hear, 'which end of a gun do you point at the enemy?'