Department 18 [02] Night Souls

by Maynard Sims

  “The true parents were unknown. The birth certificate was nonexistent and the details of her birth are not recorded.”

  Dylan was the first to voice impatience. “But you know who her parents are?”

  Pike shook his head. “I have no real idea who the mother was. The father was Abe Holly.” Pike paused and took a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe away the sweat beading on his brow. “Abe Holly impregnated a woman. The baby was born and to all intents and purposes was human. It was a girl, and she looked like any normal baby. The fact that it carried Holly’s gene made it a vital breakthrough in the search for the breather-human hybrid. Somehow Abe Holly had stumbled on a perfect breeding fusion of the two species.”

  Crozier frowned. “So they have been able to create a mutation of themselves for years?”

  Pike shook his head and a cold smile creased his mouth. “That was what Abe thought would happen. The human spirit proved too strong. The mother took the baby, her baby, and disappeared. For all Holly’s extensive network and for all his powers, she managed to elude capture and the baby remained hidden away.”

  “Not hidden but adopted.”

  “Exactly. Adopted under strict secrecy. I have no idea what happened to the mother, but she ran away from Holly and ended up in Poland. The Czerwinskis were sworn to secrecy, never to reveal to the girl who her real parents were, and how could they? No one knew. So Julia grew up safe in Poland, never knowing she was adopted.”

  “But she knows now, right?” Michael Dylan said.

  Pike shook his head. “I doubt it.”

  “Well, this is all very well, but what is the relevance to us?” Crozier said.

  “I am certain Holly has Julia,” Pike said. “Because of who her father was, her biological father, she has the breather gene. I’m guessing Holly wants to breed from her to further his research. Czerwinski will have been taken as leverage.”

  “And for all the secrecy, the plotting and the plans, you still managed to deliver him into the hands of the breathers,” Crozier said. “Does John Holly know who Jacek Czerwinski is?”

  “Yes,” Pike said. “I don’t think he does anything without a purpose.”

  “We don’t seem to be getting very far, do we?” Dylan said. “Surely the question is, how do we get Czerwinski and Miranda Payne back?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Pike said.

  “Well, that’s a start,” Crozier said.

  “Hear me out,” Pike said, picking up on the sarcasm in Crozier’s voice. “We haven’t a hope in hell that we can pull this off unaided. Holly is too powerful, the network protecting him too widespread and too efficient. We’re going to need help.”

  “Anyone in mind?” Dylan said.

  Pike smiled humorlessly. “A deal with the devil, my friends.” He took a cell phone from his pocket and dialed the only number in its address book.

  There was a long pause before the phone at the other end picked up.

  “Hello, Rachel,” Pike said. “It’s Jason. I think we need to talk.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  The body is a device to calculate the astronomy of the spirit.

  —Mevlana Rumi

  Hertfordshire, England

  The Lear jet was ready for takeoff at the private airstrip.

  Holly was standing by the plane, talking to the pilot, a young fresh-faced man with a neat beard and a studious expression.

  Alice Spur sat in the rear seat of the Mercedes, staring through the tinted window at the red disc of the dying sun as it slowly sank beneath the horizon. She was thinking about Karolina, wondering where she was now and hoping the girl had followed her instructions and got clean away. But her thoughts were tinged with pessimism, as memories of her own attempts to escape John Holly insinuated their way into her mind.

  She had made three attempts to escape, two in Switzerland, one in England, and it was after the one in England failed so dismally that she conceded that any attempt to free herself from Holly was futile. He was tuned in to her. Her brain acted like a tracking beacon. All he had to do was to concentrate, and he could invade her mind and pinpoint exactly where she was.

  She’d managed to conceal from him her plans for Karolina. That had taken him completely by surprise, and it was so satisfying to see confusion battling the anger in his eyes. But she could still feel him probing her mind occasionally; an insidious intruder stealing her thoughts and feelings—mental rape.

  Her attention was taken by a white Ford van trundling toward them across the grass that flanked the runway. It pulled up next to Holly, and a man jumped out of the passenger seat. She recognized him immediately. She’d seen him a number of times at Faircroft Manor and knew his name was Malcolm, but no more than that. Not even if Malcolm was his first or second name. She could tell from the way they spoke to each other they were fairly close, but she wasn’t sure where Malcolm fitted into the hierarchy of John Holly’s life.

  The two men exchanged a few words, and then Malcolm slapped the side of the van. The back doors opened, and two more men jumped out. Both had cropped hair and tough-looking faces. Both were carrying guns. The bigger of the two leaned back into the van and said something, though his words were muffled. When he stepped away from the doors, two more people stepped out, a man and a woman.

  The man was probably no less than six feet, early forties with cropped black hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He didn’t look English. The woman looked terrified. She was quite plain, with baggy unflattering clothes. Her hair was pinned up, but several strands had worked loose and were being blown about her face by the wind that was gusting across the airfield. It was when the woman tried to brush the hair away from her face that Alice noticed her wrists were shackled by handcuffs.

  At a barked order from Malcolm, the two thugs moved in and hurried the man and the woman toward the Lear, virtually pushing them the three steps leading up to the fuselage.

  Holly walked across to the Mercedes and opened the door. “We’re ready to leave,” he said.

  “Who are they?” Alice said.

  “Guests,” Holly said, tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for her to get out of the car.

  “Guests or prisoners?” she said sliding from the backseat of the car. As she got out she was hit by a gust of wind, making her shiver.

  “Don’t even think about liberating these two,” he said, taking her arm and steering her toward the plane.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Hampstead, London, England

  Rachel Grey took the phone away from her ear and stared at it as if it were something alien. She gestured to Schwab to pick up the extension, waited until he had, then continued. “Jason, what a lovely surprise,” she said. “But what on earth do you think there is to talk about?”

  “Holly has Czerwinski.”

  “Czerwinski? Who’s Czerwinski?”

  “The owner of the phone I’m speaking on now. The phone you gave him. Or rather the phone Carl Schwab gave him. Hello, Carl.”

  Schwab shook his head and grinned. “Jason. Good to hear from you.”

  “So let’s not play games, Rachel,” Pike continued. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said lightly. “But I still don’t see what there is to talk about.”

  “A truce.”

  Rachel looked across at Schwab, who shrugged his shoulders.

  “We should meet,” she said.

  “I take it you’re in London.”

  “I took the flight after yours out of Poland. I’m in Hampstead.”

  “I can be there in twenty minutes,” Pike said.

  “You’d come here, Jason? Isn’t that a bit like walking into the lion’s den?”

  “I trust you, Rachel.”

  “Then you’re a fool.”

  Pike chuckled softly. “We have a common enemy, Rachel. We need to decide how best to join forces to defeat him. Give me the address.”

  Rachel Grey thought for a moment and then gave it to him.

  “Twen
ty minutes. And I’m bringing some friends.”

  “Do I know them?”

  “No, I don’t think you do. Michael Dylan and Harry Bailey. They work for the British government. I’ll see you soon.”

  The line went dead.

  Rachel turned to Schwab. “Well?”

  “Never heard of them,” he said, cradling the extension. “I don’t like it. He must have an angle.”

  Rachel snaked her fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her face. She agreed with Schwab. But if Holly had taken Czerwinski, then he must be thinking along the same lines as she was—that there was something very special about this Polish man, very special indeed. Or rather there was definitely something special about Julia.

  “Get your men ready, all fully armed, and position them in the grounds and around the house. Then prepare the dining room for a conference. We’ll talk with them there.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, Carl. I want you to be there.”

  “To watch your back?”

  “My insurance policy.”

  “You realize this gives us a chance to remove Pike from the equation permanently?”

  “Yes I do, and I’m sure Jason knows it too. That’s why he’s not coming alone.” She walked across to the window and stared out at the manicured lawn of her Hampstead house.

  A family of blackbirds had set up home in the branches of an ornamental cherry that occupied a spot in the center of the grass. She watched the comings and goings of the birds for a moment, her mind busy, working on the possible ramifications of this meeting.

  The British government were now involved, she mused. That in itself was not too much of a problem. They’d infiltrated the British political system decades ago, and now several top-ranking positions of all three major political parties were filled by her kind. But why should the others in the government be taking such an active interest in things now?

  Her feelings about Julia were ambiguous. She hadn’t finished with her, and if her assumptions were right, then a man she hated had taken the girl from her. That was an irritation. She certainly had no emotional reaction beyond losing something she wanted for a while longer.

  There were a number of questions to which she needed answers. The next few hours should prove interesting.

  Chapter Forty-five

  To one who has been long in city pent, ‘tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven,—to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament.

  —John Keats

  Zurich, Switzerland

  A sharp crosswind rattled the Lear as it swept in at the private airfield, but the pilot was equal to it and made a perfect landing. Two black limousines with tinted windows were already gliding across the tarmac toward the runway, and they arrived alongside the jet just as the doors opened.

  Jacek and Miranda were hustled down the steps of the Lear and into the backseat of the first limo; Holly and Alice Spur took the rear of the second. Without a pause, the two cars swept away into the night.

  “Where do you think they’re taking us?” Miranda said quietly, almost a whisper. There was a glass partition between themselves and the driver, but she was taking no chances. She was more frightened than she had ever been in her life and was looking to Jacek for some kind of comfort.

  “No idea,” Jacek said, flattening her hopes. He stared through the tinted glass at the passing scenery. He’d always thought of Switzerland as a land of mountains and snow, of picturesque landscapes and deep, mysterious lakes, but what he was seeing bore no resemblance to his mental image of the country. Factories, residential housing, automobile show-rooms and warehouses. For a while they ran parallel to the railway line. A train passed them going the opposite way. The double-decked carriages were blazing with light and packed with passengers.

  As they left the industrial area of the town behind, the landscape gradually changed, but by now it was too dark to make out many details. Jacek could discern a mountain but only from the twinkling lights of the chalets that dotted the side of it. When the car turned sharply left at the next junction and started to climb, he realized that the mountain was their destination.

  “It’s ironic really,” Miranda said. “When my husband, Jeremy, left me, I was desperate to have a more thrilling life. Ten years spent in the university faculty, lecturing to terminally bored students and then going home to a man whose idea of excitement was buying a new piece of rolling stock for his model railway. That and banging his secretary every chance he got. I was determined to break out, to stretch my wings. When Daddy told me about the opportunity at Department 18, I couldn’t wait to get involved. Now it looks like my first case is going to be my last.” A tear trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away impatiently with the back of her hand. “They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?”

  “If they were, they would have done so by now. They have had plenty of opportunity,” Jacek said. He reached out awkwardly and covered her manacled hands with his own.

  “So what do they want with us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Yes,” he said. “So am I.”

  She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. Then her eyes sprang open, and she sat forward again. “Passport control,” she said.

  “Sorry?”

  “How did we get into the country without showing our passports?”

  Jacek smiled to himself. She was really quite naive. “There are different rules for people like John Holly. He has enough money to make such inconveniences go away.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head impatiently. “You’re missing the point. There’s no record of us entering Switzerland. Nobody will be able to find us. No one knows we’re here.” There was an edge of panic to her voice.

  “No,” Jacek said. “No, they don’t.”

  Her mouth worked, opening and closing as if trying to catch words that refused to be caught. Finally she said, “Then we’re screwed.”

  “Yes,” Jacek said. “We are.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  Department 18 Headquarters, Whitehall, London, England

  “A Lear jet departed Hunsdon airfield at 1900 hours heading for Zurich,” Martin Impey said.

  Crozier leaned back in his desk chair, crossing his legs. “Do we know if Holly was on it?”

  “We know the jet belongs to Holly industries, and it tends to be for his private use, so it’s a fair assumption. He’s certainly not at Faircroft Manor. I’ve had people checking it out. They saw him leave with a young woman just after six, and Hunsdon’s only a thirty-minute drive away from the manor.”

  “Did anyone think to follow him?” Crozier said tiredly, knowing what the answer would be.

  Martin shook his head. “Limited resources,” he said. “We didn’t have the manpower to watch the manor and follow Holly.”

  “And no one thought that maybe following Holly would be the better call?”

  “They were under instructions to watch Faircroft Manor.”

  “Christ! Doesn’t anyone act on their initiative anymore?” Crozier said, his patience finally evaporating. He took a breath. “Miranda Payne? Czerwinski? Are they with Holly?”

  Martin shrugged. “They weren’t in the car that left the manor, but they may have been taken to the airfield to rendezvous with Holly there.”

  Crozier thought for a moment. “Okay, why would Holly want to take Czerwinski and Dr. Payne to Zurich?”

  “Holly is on the list of directors of a private clinic over there. The Spree Clinic. Situated halfway up a mountain overlooking the town.”

  “What kind of clinic?”

  “The very exclusive kind. The people who check in are the types with enough money to keep their reasons for being there strictly confidential.”

  “Could it be a fertility clinic? That would tie in with what Pike told us about Holly.”

  “Could be,” Martin said. “But then again, it could be a cosmetic surgery clinic for all I
know. I’ve dug as deep as I can, but I can’t find anything else out about it.”

  They were interrupted by the phone on Crozier’s desk.

  Crozier sat forward and picked it up. “What is it, Trudy?”

  “Sir Nigel Foxton on the line, sir.”

  Crozier groaned inwardly. “Okay, put him through.”

  There was a pause, a click, and then Sir Nigel Foxton’s voice boomed down the line at him.

  Crozier glanced across at Martin, raised his eyebrows, and swiveled his chair around 180 degrees, lowering his voice so Martin Impey had to strain to hear what he was saying.

  “We’re doing all we can, sir…Yes, sir…We think Switzerland…Of course, as soon as there’s any news at all…Yes, sir. I understand.”

  He swiveled back and slammed the phone down on its cradle.

  Martin Impey looked at him expectantly.

  “Miranda Payne’s father.”

  “Sir Nigel.”

  “Quite. We need to get her back, Martin. It’s imperative if the department is to survive. He just threatened me with a complete withdrawal of funding.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “Oh yes, he can do that. I need more, Martin. Call in all the favors owed to you. I need to know for certain that Dr. Payne’s with Holly in Switzerland.”

  Martin got to his feet. “It will cost,” he said.

  Crozier nodded his head slowly. “Yes,” he said. “Of course it will. Grease as many palms as you have to, but get me that information. Don’t let me down, Martin.”

  As Impey left the office, Crozier picked up the phone again.

  “Harry, how’s it going?”

  “We’re nearly there. Traffic through Hampstead was deadly but we’re on schedule.”

  “Good. Listen, there’s a possibility Holly may have taken them to Switzerland. Run it by Pike. See if he knows anything about the Spree Clinic in Zurich.”

  “The Spree Clinic. Okay.”

  As Harry Bailey rang off, the door to Crozier’s office opened, and Trudy entered carrying a large mug of very black coffee. From her pocket she took a cardboard coaster and placed it on the glass desk, then set the mug down on it. “I thought you may need this,” she said.