Thor's Haven

by Richard S Young

  “That’s the white man I followed yesterday from outside the Rozabal Tomb to a house just off the Nalamar Road. He had two others with him. They were Indian. I took some photographs of them when they were leaving and I went over to the house to find out what they had been doing. I met with a young woman who told me that the three men had been in speaking to her grandfather and I reported that to Henrique. Check the texts. Henrique arrived and he then killed the woman by putting something in her mouth and then he set the old man on fire. I had nothing to do with it. I swear.” and Billy began to cry uncontrollably and buried his head in his arms.

  There was a sharp knock on the mirrored glass of the interview room and Javid Koul and Aftab Jalla left Billy Pirzada inside the room to answer the call. Outside, the commanding officer for the CID, a Pervaiz Kohli, introduced the two officers to the man standing beside him.

  “This is Rama Shresth, a former Captain in the Indian Kashmiri Security Force. He has been helping us with our enquiries because it was his business card that was found in the fingers of the dead girl. He has just positively identified the man in that room as the person who was following him and his two friends yesterday. Rama has explained to me his side of events and what he and his two friends were doing in Srinagar yesterday, and that seems to be backed up with what this guy you have in there has said and also shown you on his mobile telephone. But this current police investigation has now become an international concern and I want to know who it was that contacted Interpol in Lyon, France, about this Daniel Lauridsen? I’ve just endured a very difficult conversation with my opposite number in Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the foreign intelligence agency of India, who has had to have some interesting discussions with his counterpart over in Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency. You are aware that bodies have now been found in a Pakistani hotel room and their deaths are connected to what you two are investigating? You do know that this Daniel Lauridsen has disappeared even though we now have sufficient evidence to absolve him from the murder of Jnyandeep Medhansh and his grand-daughter? This investigation is no longer just an Indian murder investigation as it appears that some unknown agency or organisation has serious designs on this Daniel Lauridsen for some reason. I have also spoken to a Hélène Lecacheux at Interpol but she’s actually a French DGSE officer on temporary secondment with them. So I now have French Intelligence also asking me questions about Daniel Lauridsen, Rama Shresth and his childhood friend, Rifat Khan, who just so happens to be the main ISI officer for the Pakistan-controlled part of the Kashmir region. Three major international intelligence agencies and Interpol are now on my back and all looking for a former Danish special-forces operative who has now gone on the run and disappeared in Pakistan. Who contacted Interpol?”

  “We didn’t Sir. A Hélène Lecacheux from Interpol made direct contact by e-mail and sent on through some photographs to identify. The photographs that she sent have been matched to what we have been able to extract from Billy Pirzada’s telephone and we were just about to question him about them and if he could provide us with some more detail.” piped up Aftab Jalla. Before Pervaiz Kohli could respond, Javid Koul spoke.

  “We were just about to go and show him some of the photographs that we have received of Rama Shresth and Rifat Khan. Interpol had already identified both of them from some other investigation that they are running just now and they contacted us for information long before the murder of Jnyandeep Medhansh and his grand-daughter had taken place. I think you are right Sir. There is something going on that we are only a small part of.”

  Rama interrupted the conversation and asked if he could be briefly excused to go and make a telephone call. Kohli agreed and Rama began to dial Rifat’s number. After a short conversation with Rifat, Rama returned to join the ongoing discussion outside the interview room.

  “If you don’t mind me butting in here, but I just have spoken to my friend Rifat Khan in Pakistan. I asked him if he knew the current whereabouts of Daniel Lauridsen, and according to Rifat, he was making his way to cross over the Afghanistan border to try and find a Danish military unit that he could surrender to. Daniel felt that he would be better placed to explain his side of the story with NATO-controlled military police than he would be able to with Indian or Pakistani police authorities. And from what I have just heard discussed, with this double-murder incident currently of some escalating interest to quite a number of foreign intelligence services, maybe you should be really concentrating on interrogating this Billy Pirzada a bit harder. You need him to tell you every single detail that he knows about this Henrique character then you have to share it all with these other intelligence services. Just my opinion but it does look as if something sinister is afoot and people are after Daniel Lauridsen for some reason.”

  Pervaiz Kohli nodded his head and agreed with Rama about his surprisingly frank assessment of the situation.

  “We can sort out the failings of this investigation later, but we really need to get more information out of this guy. See what you can find out about this Henrique and get a better description we can use, but get him cleaned up, give him something to eat and then transfer him surreptitiously over to the CID station on Residency Road. We can hold him there for further questioning away from any prying eyes. It will give us a chance to spend some more time trying to understand what we are really dealing with here and what to do next. I’m going to call this Hélène Lecacheux back right now to find out some more information for you.”

  The two officers saluted Kohli and returned into the interview room to continue their discussion with Billy Pirzada. Kohli led Rama down the corridor to his office and asked him to take a seat while he made a speaker telephone call to Hélène Lecacheux in France. The call was answered after a few rings by a female voice that introduced itself as Hélène Lecacheux. Pervaiz Kohli explained who he was and that he was making this return call to give her an update on what two of his officers had learned and how his department could assist her further. Rama smiled to himself as he sat back in his chair and listened to the conversation taking place in English and not in either of the speakers’ native tongues.

  “Forgive me Madamoiselle for speaking in English, but my French is a bit rusty. I am conversing with you on a speaker phone and I have a Rama Shresth present with me, a retired Captain in the Indian Kashmiri Security Force. I believe he is one of the people contained in the photographs that you e-mailed to my staff earlier and asked for their assistance. I don’t know if you are aware, but we are currently investing a double murder that took place here in Srinagar yesterday and that Mr.

  Shresth was assisting us with investigating that matter. I have been reliably informed by my staff, however, that you made your initial enquiry about him, and his two associates, some time before the incident here had taken place. Can I ask you to detail what the purpose of your original enquiry to my department was for? Of course we will assist Interpol in any way that we can, but it would be helpful to have at least a basic understanding of the background to your original request.”

  “Thank you for calling me. I made contact with your department because I had been given a task to identify three men that had been pictured together in a series of photographs allegedly taken in the city of Aix-en-Provence here in France. I used some advanced facial recognition software to identify the three men and discovered that one was Indian, one was Pakistani and the third was Danish. It is an unusual grouping of nationalities to be photographed together at the best of times but what caused me to be concerned was that there was some information contained in the background of the photographs that hinted that these pictures had been taken outside of the Rozabal Tomb in Srinagar and not somewhere in France.

  The Interpol databases were able to explain who the three men were, but that information then made me start to question as to why the three of them would be placed together, and as I discovered, in India and not in France as I had been originally led to believe. As I explained to
you in our earlier conversation today, I am normally a serving DGSE officer, but I am currently working on a temporary secondment opportunity at Interpol. When I read the associated information concerning these three men in question, I contacted my headquarters in Paris to ascertain whether they knew if there was some kind of joint-intelligence operation taking place in India at this moment in time. The DGSE Foreign Liaison department made a number of enquiries for me and I was assured by them that RAW, ISI and the DDIS, the Danish Defence Intelligence Service, were not conducting any sort of covert missions on Indian soil. But this legitimate general query triggered a host of further investigations to be made. DDIS are tasked with looking after the security of any of their Danish military units and personnel that are deployed around the world on international missions, and this Daniel Lauridsen, formerly of the Danish Royal Navy, is listed as a known asset previously used as an expendable contractor for his country’s security service. My superiors at DGSE in Paris have now tasked me to be the lead investigator of this case as I am already on-site at Interpol, but there are some growing concerns that an Interpol employee, namely a Lionel DeChevalier, may have been secretly providing classified information to unknown parties involved in a number of illegal operations and activities and there does appear to be a connection that links him to these murders in India. I also have at least four sovereign nation security services with more than just a passing interest in this on-going situation and they all want answers.”

  Rama caught the attention of Pervaiz Kohli and began to gesticulate at him and asking for permission to speak. Kohli nodded his approval and waved his hand towards the speaker phone.

  “Madamoiselle. Rama Shresth speaking here. I can provide you with the genuine reasons as to why Rifat, Daniel and myself were together yesterday. It was all very innocent and I can forward you documents and information that will confirm what I’m telling you. I have already provided these details to the CID Branch here in India and I have just spoken to my friend Rifat in Pakistan. From what I was told, Daniel was heading towards the Afghanistan border this morning, crossing over it and then attempting to find a Danish military unit that he could surrender himself to and be subsequently passed over to their police authorities. Whatever this is all really about I do not know, but matters seem to be related to some white stone that Daniel found the other day in Pakistan.

  This stone has some very strange markings on it and he innocently came to India looking for answers about it at the Rozabal Tomb. I took him there first and afterwards I took him and Rifat to meet with a local man, Jnyandeep Medhansh, a man that I thought might help Daniel and tell him all that what he wanted to know.

  Having thought about what’s happened here and elsewhere, I don’t think it is coincidental that Jnyandeep Medhansh and his grand-daughter sadly ended up being murdered only a few short hours after meeting with us yesterday, and I definitely don’t think it is coincidental that people also tried to murder Daniel in his hotel room last night back in Mirpur. These assailants were clearly looking for this white stone. Only Daniel can provide you with the answers that you seek, at the very least, he will be able to provide you with details and information that will assist in any investigations.”

  “Thank you Mr. Shresth. Any documentation that you have and you can provide me with would be helpful. It is clear that this Daniel Lauridsen was not involved with these murders in India but there are two deaths that the Pakistani authorities may wish to speak to him about. But I am rescinding the Interpol Red Notice alert that was issued for his arrest in connection with the Indian murders and am liaising with the CID Branch to amend it for the apprehension of this Henrique who appears to be the number one suspect. I will contact the military police authorities in Afghanistan concerning my decision but I will be insisting on Daniel Lauridsen making his way to Lyon to assist me with my investigation. If you are in contact with him somehow, please advise him that his liberty is assured but he has to make his way to France.”

  The conversation continued for a few more minutes and then terminated with Pervaiz Kohli promising to send a better description of Henrique through to Hélène at Interpol. The two men left the office and headed back to the interview room to check up on how matters were progressing with Billy Pirzada. As they peered through the mirrored glass into the room, they could see Billy sifting through photographs that had been printed off from the memory card of his mobile telephone. He had been searching for a particular image and seemed relieved when he found the one that he was looking for and passed it across to Officers Jalla and Koul to study. Officer Jalla took possession of the photograph and left the room and was startled to find Pervaiz and Rama waiting outside the door.

  “He’s identified this Henrique character from a photograph Sir. It’s not the best quality but we now have a description to go on now” said Officer Jalla as he handed it across to Pervaiz and Rama to study. Pervaiz handed it back.

  “Send that immediately to Interpol. They can tidy the image up and search through their various databases to identify this man. Get a cropped head and shoulders shot of this guy sent out to all the police agencies here as well. It’s not the best of photographs but it’s all we have until Interpol can provide us with something better.”

  “Yes Sir.” and Officer Jalla headed off back down the corridor to complete his tasks.

  Pervaiz Kohli entered into the room and spoke softly to Officer Koul. All the documentation was gathered up and two uniformed officers briskly escorted Billy Pirzada out of the room and then down the corridor. Pervaiz explained to Rama that now was probably the best time to get their crucial witness, Billy Pirzada, over to the security of the Residency Road CID station while they waited on an identification profile coming back to them from Interpol. Pervaiz took Rama around the inside of the station complex and eventually led him outside into the parking area at the rear of the building. They were discussing the finer points of the current situation while they walked along the outside of the building towards the main road. An un-marked car passed them by and stopped at the entrance to the road junction as it waited for the traffic to ease. Indicating to turn left as it waited, Rama glanced at the occupants inside the car to see that Officers Jalla and Koul were in the front seats with Billy Pirzada sitting behind them in the back of the vehicle. Pedestrians were ambling across the road junction and passed the car, but one of these pedestrians looked out of place as he brushed along the side of the vehicle while making his way to the other side of the road. Rama suddenly stopped his conversation with Pervaiz and sprinted towards the car as he became aware of what had puzzled him just a few short moments earlier. Viper boots. One of the pedestrians was wearing a pair of black Viper tactical boots. His frantic shouts of “Get out! Get out!” were muffled as a blast wave knocked him flat onto his back on the roadside.

  In what were really only a few milliseconds in time, highly compressed air particles, travelling faster than the speed of sound, had signified the initial shockwave of a blast from an explosion. A flash and bang then followed an invisible tsunami of stress waves travelling at supersonic speeds through buildings, surfaces and bodies and causing untold damage to all of them in close proximity. Rama watched in slow motion as the un-marked police car rose up into the air, somersault and then land on its roof while everything around him felt the full force of shrapnel fragments from the exploding vehicle striking buildings, masonry, concrete, tarmac and people. Debris, dust, smoke and fumes filled the air as confusion reigned with screams, cries and shouts ringing out all around him while flames shot skywards from the upturned wreckage of the car. Rama tried to push himself off the ground to assess what was happening but was met with a searing pain that seemed like red-hot meat skewers being plunged into his ears. To add to the confused disorientation he was experiencing, the sudden inhalation of fumes and vapours caused by the explosion gave him an instant headache while a retching coughing fit added to his discomfort. Something heavy and wet was weighing him down. A
s he cleared his eyes, he saw the bloody shank of a leg part from the knee to the ankle was upon his waist. Hastily discarding the body part,

  Rama struggled upright and staggered over to Pervaiz Kohli. He was lying face down on the ground with his body covered in light rubble, but he was groaning much to Rama’s relief. Rama lifted him up and leaned him against a wall, and apart from some visible cuts and scratches, he appeared to be relatively unscathed from the blast. Kohli saw that Rama was covered in blood but Rama spoke before he could.

  “It’s not mine. I’m fine. I saw someone wearing Viper tactical boots walk past the car. He must have placed a device on its side. I started to run to the car to warn them but I got caught in the blast.”

  Walking towards the burning vehicle, Kohli helped others caught in the blast up to their feet. The car was completely ablaze with no chance of anyone inside surviving such. He watched as police officers hurriedly arrived to help those that they could provide assistance to while the flashes of red and blue lights of several emergency vehicles approached. People milled around in a confused daze while others tried to cover up the fatalities lying on the ground as best as possible. Pervaiz Kohli could only cry at what he was witnessing, and as the tears rolled down his cheeks, he turned to Rama.

  “Let’s find this bastard!”

  12.13pm – 11th April, present day.

  Montaillou, Rue du Village, Montségur, Occitanie, France.

  Markus Bruscante was incandescent with rage after reading the latest update text he had just received from Henrique, the team-leader of the Sergite cell, COMBEL, operating in the Kashmir region. Although he disagreed with some of the methods that the various Sergite cells often employed to suppress the intentions of others, this unanticipated use of excessive violence and extreme destruction by the COMBEL cell was well beyond the pale, even if the intent was to merely preserve the many interests of The Path of Belibasta and the ancient religions it professed to protect. The totally unnecessary murder of an old man and his grand-daughter was uncalled for irrespective of the fact that the crime scene itself had been tainted by fabricating evidence to implicate an innocent man being wrongly accused of the crime. But that ploy to throw suspicion upon Daniel Lauridsen while diverting any or all of the subsequent investigations away from The Path of Belibasta had gone totally and utterly awry. With this Billy Pirzada handing himself into the Indian police authorities, an innocent onlooker to the needless slayings themselves, he had become a regrettable loose end that needed to be tied up.