Milieu Dawn

by Malcolm Franks

The breakfast, as always, was nothing short of a magical feast. Whatever Martha put into her cooking it worked a treat. He supposed it could have been the environment, or the altitude, that ever gave him an appetite. Then again, the food was just absolutely delicious.

  Gerhardt strolled onto the balcony, a mug of coffee in one hand and yesterday’s paper in the other. He took the seat next to Matt, who acknowledged the Austrian with his familiar grin as he chomped through Martha’s breakfast delight. It didn’t take long to finish.

  “Gratia is late to rise,” said Matt.

  The older man looked him over, his eyes mean and angry. Matt had never seen Gerhardt in such a dark mood before.

  “Gratia tells me you had her running with the bulls.”

  “For a short while,” Matt smiled.

  Gerhardt was unimpressed.

  “That was dangerous,” he said sharply.

  Matt was taken aback by the abruptness of the pointed response.

  “It was something we both felt we had to do.”

  “A reckless act on your part,” snapped Gerhardt. “Do not put Gratia at risk again.”

  Matt nodded, confused by the Austrian’s poor mood.

  “Where is she anyway?”

  “She has returned to work.”

  The older man proceeded to bury his head into yesterday’s newspaper to avoid any further conversation. It was so unlike him. Matt felt a set of lips peck at the top of his head and Martha appeared.

  “A clean plate, you were hungry.”

  “I’m always hungry when you cook, Martha.”

  She refilled his mug with coffee.

  “What are your plans today?”

  “I thought I might hike a little, clear the muddled thinking from my head.”

  “What, no European day trip in your diary?”

  He laughed.

  “No, nothing planned. I had hoped to persuade Gratia to come with me. She might have appreciated the exercise.”

  He glanced towards Gerhardt. The Austrian shook his paper with both hands, as if straightening a crease, but said nothing. Matt turned to Martha with an enquiring expression, hoping for an explanation to the older man’s poor disposition. She shook her head to tell him to ignore the issue.

  Gerhardt didn’t stay long. And when he left, he departed with a grunt rather than any informal acknowledgement. Matt was about to ask directly when Martha intervened.

  “What was it like, the running of the bulls?”

  “Scary,” he replied. “I doubt either of us would do it again. The bloody things are absolutely huge.”

  “You, scared? I do not believe it.”

  “Trust me, I was bloody terrified. Promise you won’t tell Gerhardt.”

  Matt emerged from the darkness of the forest. He was a few hundred metres short of the village of Strobl, situated at the far end of the Wolfgangsee. The time read nearly four and he considered catching the ferry, saving more than half an hour on the walk back to St Wolfgang.

  The mobile started to ping constantly. Matt cursed himself for not switching it off before he started the hike, thereby saving the battery. It was not as if he hadn’t been told mobile signals couldn’t penetrate the tall trees of the wooded mass.

  A steady stream of missed calls listed on the screen, coupled with several text messages. He chose to answer the calls and moved to the first in line. The screen went blank, low battery read the message. It would have to be the ferry.

  “Hello, Martin.”

  “Matt, where have you been?” said the flustered train driver. “Gerhardt has been trying to reach you all day.”

  “Gerhardt has, why?”

  “He would not tell me, but he sounded anxious.”

  Matt shrugged his shoulders and took his favoured seat in the carriage nearest to the steam engine. After this morning’s encounter he was in no real rush.

  The thirty minute journey was as serene and peaceful as ever, despite the light rain falling. He wondered why Gerhardt wanted to speak to him. If it was cigarettes he was after then he could go and fly a kite. Matt lightly reprimanded himself for being churlish. The older man had been right to chastise him for putting Gratia at risk. Maybe he should revert to his original plan and go it alone as first intended.

  He was still undecided on what to do as the train chugged to a halt at the final stop. He jumped down and strode up the steadily inclining footpath towards the hotel. A voice called down to him.

  “Matthew, go to the residence, quickly.”

  He waved to acknowledge Martha and altered direction. As Matt neared, he could see Gratia on the balcony. A pleasant surprise he considered. Quickening his pace, he waved at her too as he hurried along.

  “Hello. I wasn’t expecting to see you today, business a little flat at the moment?”

  She didn’t speak, just grabbed his arm and tugged him urgently into the sunlight. He followed obediently, curiosity aroused as she closed the patio doors behind them.

  “Look at these,” she said, motioning him to sit down.

  Placed in a neat pile were a set of papers, photocopies by the look, the contents not immediately obvious to him. Matt picked one up and tried to make sense of the lines of writing and columns of quantities. He’d seen similar documents, from the time Rosa and he fled North America, aboard a container ship. After docking at Valencia they had helped the crew with the inventories whilst unloading, to appear to any onlookers as part of the ship’s complement.

  “Inventories aren’t they?” he said.

  “Yes. Now take a closer look and see exactly what is being shipped.”

  He concentrated a little harder.

  “Those are commodities reported as being in short supply, including huge amounts of diesel and refined oil,” she said. “These are technology, while these are foodstuffs and liquids which include vast quantities of grain and water.”

  “Everyday cargos of a multinational shipping company I would have thought.”

  “Do you remember the last row of letters written in the diary?”

  “Yes, VVRSSX as I recall.”

  “Now look at the destinations of these shipments.”

  Matt inspected each. The first two were for South Africa, at Saldanha and Richards Bays. North America ports noted were Vancouver and Seattle, Valencia was in Europe and Xiamen in China. He mentally shuffled the initial letters into order, VVRSSX.

  “Okay,” he said. “So where does this take us?”

  “At each of these ports our container ships unload cargos and are subsequently transported to unknown destinations on each continent. They are collected from the docks by a variety of different organisations filled with names of people who do not exist. With each enquiry a further door opens to yet more organisational structures owned or managed by all of the same people. They operate under an umbrella trading title of The Umwelt Foundation.”

  “I’ve never heard of them. Maybe they’re one of these do good charitable trusts or something similar.”

  “Umwelt is a German word. Roughly translated, it means environment, surrounding world or …”

  “Or what?” he asked.

  “Milieu,” she said.

  He realised what she was trying to infer. His mind refused to accept the obvious implication. It was impossible. Matt shook his head in disagreement. Gratia pointed to a name, the same name on every document. Herbert Kestlemann.

  “This is your guy isn’t it, diary man?” he asked.

  “Kestlemann is not the only Schafen employee denoted in these records.”

  Gratia uncovered the last document. The paper detailed the countersigning signatory to be Jan Mohlenbeek. He looked up and saw her eyes misted with betrayal and anger. Matt searched his mind, clutching for a straw of reason.

  “We don’t know everything,” he soothed. “There may be something else to all this. And if it was a reincarnation of the old conspiracy then Catherine Vogel would be on to it by now.”

  “There is more,” she said.

  “Mo
re?”

  She recovered enough poise to take Matt by the hand and lead him from the balcony, inside to the television. The screen burst into coloured life and text appeared. She manipulated the controls to bring the main news into view. And there was the headline.

  Prominent EU politician missing in China province, feared dead.

  Matt’s eyes were practically glued to the screen as he read. A light plane carrying Catherine Vogel had not returned. She was on a fact-finding mission to the province of Fujian when contact was lost. No wreckage had been reported or located, despite intensive aerial searches of the area.

  Alarm bells clanged loudly in his head. He vaguely recalled this province being the domain of a man called Chen, one of the original Milieu conspirators. Matt found it hard to believe, didn’t want to believe. But the pieces were all fitting together. The thugs of Pamplona hadn’t come for Matt as he assumed, they had come for Gratia too, so they could wrest control of Schafen. He, no doubt, was to be the one to take the fall for her murder.

  “And you knew nothing about this?” he snapped.

  She shook her head, the only way she was able to reply.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”

  “I have been betrayed,” she said. “Jan was supposed to be loyal, my one true ally. I gave him position and responsibility, trusted him implicitly.”

  Matt moved to comfort her as she fought back her distress.

  “All this time I have foolishly believed I was the one in charge, the one in control, when really it was them. They have played me for a stupid, naïve and incompetent fool!”

  Matt cradled Gratia’s head to his shoulder, understanding her inner pain. He knew about betrayal. This single emotion could rip at the soul, shred the heart. Tear your very essence apart. There was nothing like betrayal to destroy the will of even the strongest human being. He wished he could conjure up some words to ease her torment. He knew there was none. All Matt could do was to hold her tight and pray this would in some way help.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  Matt wasn’t sure what to say at first.

  “Does anyone at work know you’ve been examining these shipments?”

  “No,” she replied.

  “Good, keep it like this. In the meantime you need to ask Martha to call Rosa Cain.”

  “Rosa Cain, why?” she asked.

  “For protection,” he said. “She knows how to keep people safe. Take Rosa wherever you go, even the toilet if she thinks it necessary.”

  “Why can’t you protect me?”

  He eased her away and looked into her eyes.

  “There’s somewhere else I have to go first. You must trust me on this.”

  “What if she refuses to help?”

  “She won’t. Tell Rosa I need her to look after you while I’m away.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “China,” he said. “The key to all this lies there. I have to find Catherine Vogel.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Stopover