THE ORANGE MOON AFFAIR

by AFN CLARKE

  That left the river.

  To swim across in this weather would mean that you would probably freeze before you got half way across. I felt sure that although the natural barriers were formidable enough, that they would have other methods of preventing people from getting in or out. I moved slowly along the bank trying to look deep in thought. Perhaps pondering on the enormity of my role in ISEC. But I was really putting myself in their place. I would have some form of booby trap, both in and out of the water, as a back-up to the CCTV cameras that covered almost every inch of the grounds and the inside of the mansion.

  I picked up a piece of reed and walked along casually swinging it across my body through the gaps in the grass and reed beds that grew to waist height along the edge of the bank. After a few swings, I felt the slight resistance that told me there was a wire running at about calf height along the edge of the bank. The wire was almost invisible, very thin and a dark matt green colour. Unless you knew what to look for you wouldn't see it. I carried on walking and wondered what was at the end of it. I doubted that it would be an explosive device because of the noise, so it was probably linked to a 'silent' trigger that sounded an alarm in the security room. So now I had a fair idea what was on the bank, but the question was, what was in the river? Perhaps I was over-thinking. The river itself was a barrier. Ice cold and fast flowing. Whilst I was mulling everything over in my mind, I figured I might as well tell the back-up team, wherever they were what I had found.

  Walking along ostensibly blowing on my hands as if they were freezing cold, which they were without gloves, I described everything that I could see, and the things that I thought lay in store. When I'd finished, I went back to the mansion.

  The black Mercedes passed me returning from having presumably collected the remaining guests.

  "We have brought you here under a slight misconception, for which I apologise.” There was no sense of apology in Lambert thin smile. “We are very sensitive of security. ISEC is a multi-national organisation but we are not non-political. We are a global political party that brings together like-minded people from business, the military and foreign governments. This particular cell is known as 'ISEC Europe' and operates solely within the European Community. The object is to safeguard the role of the business in the free world. At the moment, we have two controlling companies of which you will all have heard. The Griffin Trust and the Von Kurt Foundation. You may well be asking yourselves why the entire charade? Well, over the next few days you will be shown exactly why this is necessary. I must assure you that in no way is the ISEC an illegal organisation. But we feel that the business communities of all nations have the right to be able to invest their hard won profits in areas of their choice that offer the most protection and the most rewards without government intervention. I ask you not to formulate a fixed opinion at this moment in time, but to let us show you over the next few days just how membership of our organisation, can help both you personally and your companies."

  His introductory speech sounded so bland; so reasonable; so logical. But it wasn't the full story. No doubt Lambert and his cohorts would cull the doubters fairly quickly and they would more likely find themselves washed up on a lonely beach somewhere, just like Adrian Newell.

  Once the introductory speech was over, we were split into two separate discussion groups and spent the rest of the day going over the details of ISEC's mission and goals. Needless to say it all differed very much from the information that I had. However, I managed to sound as interested as I knew how, and asked what I hoped were pertinent questions.

  At last the day was over and I could escape to my room for a little think. There were parts of the mansion that had been made off limits to us, with the excuse that they were reconstructing those wings. I wanted to have a look there and see just what it did contain. Whilst I had been out walking earlier, I thought I saw what could only be described as the tip of a microwave antenna. Unfortunately, the light was bad now so any poking around outside wouldn't do any good. That left an internal search.

  At night, the grounds and walls of the mansion were lit by powerful spotlights, ostensibly to highlight its rugged beauty, but serving as an effective deterrent against breaking in or out. The lights were positioned in such a way that they shone only on certain parts of the upper part of the building. It would be the unlit parts that housed the closed circuit TV cameras.

  The wing that housed the Administrative Offices was to the right of my room. It was impossible to get there from the ground floor, so I had scouted a route across the ledges and small roof area, to a point where I could enter through one of the top floor windows. I reckoned that the rooms on the top floor were the quarters of the 'staff’, but there seemed to be a couple of rooms from which there was never a light showing at night and no movement during the day.

  Patience has never been one of my strong points and it was with growing restlessness that I waited until everything was quiet.

  Finally at two o'clock in the morning, I considered it safe enough to venture out, but not before sending a message to my back-up team.

  “I need the CCTV cameras to go on the blink for about half an hour. Like a persistent short or something.” And hoped they heard me. If they hadn't I'd be dead in five minutes.

  It had become a lot colder, with a hint of snow in the air, as I slid the window open and gingerly climbed out onto the ledge that led to the sloping roof off to my right. There had been rain during the day that had turned to ice making the ledge very slippery. Once or twice I slipped and nearly fell, but somehow managed to make it to the roof.

  By the time I reached the apex of the roof, my hands were raw from the rough stone and sharp spikes of ice. I lay for a minute just to catch my breath. It was only when I started to feel the cold biting into me that I moved on. Now it was a question of sliding down the roof and crawling along another ledge until I came to the window I had earmarked.

  Perhaps the cold and the snow that had started to fall had numbed my brain because I let go of the apex of the roof and started to slide on the ice-covered tiles. Not just slide. I shot down the sharp slope and in panic dug my finger nails frantically into the ice and stone. I was about to shoot out into the void and thirty-foot drop when my hand caught one of the protrusions on the gable end and my legs swung out over the edge of the roof.

  Desperately I launched for another handhold as I felt my grip loosening on the brick. Made it. Used all my strength to haul myself back onto the roof. Lay shaking on the cold surface trying to control the rising panic and terror, the cold creeping into my bones forcing me to move along the edge of the roof.

  Fifteen minutes after starting this insane venture I was perched on the ledge outside the window. Naturally it was locked, but I had come prepared for that. At dinner I had slipped one of the steak knives into my pocket. The catches on the mansion windows were of the old-fashioned type, with enough room to slide the flexible blade between the two halves of the sash window and slide the catch. My fingers were numb with cold, and the falling snow that was settling all round me made the tricky process even more difficult. At last the catch slid across and very gently I eased up the bottom window.

  Once inside with the window closed, I set about trying to warm myself up. The room was empty and had the musty smell of all places that have been unoccupied for some time. There were no curtains at the window, so I daren't use my small pocket torch.

  Instead, I felt my way to the door in the darkness. No light showed under the door, so it seemed this part of the wing was unused, as I had hoped. The door opened without a sound and I slowly stepped out into the corridor. If it hadn‘t been for the light at the end of the landing where the other corridors joined this one, then I wouldn't have been able to see a thing. As it was I tripped over a chair and just caught it before it toppled over.

  There was no sign that anyone had heard. Breathing a sigh of relief I carried on. This time more carefully. It was only on reaching the ground floor that there was there was the
sound of muffled voices from behind one of the doors leading off the small passageway, a chair being pushed back and footsteps. The door behind me opened when I turned the handle and I slipped into the dark interior just as the opposite door opened. Footsteps retreated down the passageway and I risked a look. There was nobody in sight.

  I shut the door again and turned to explore the room. The small torch made a thin beam that sliced through the black interior illuminating an office with large mahogany desk with a wireless keyboard and mouse and several filing cabinets. On the wall opposite the desk was a large computer monitor. I settled myself behind the desk and moved the mouse. The screen lit up.

  “Okay guys. I'm in an office and just turned on the computer. There is a Google earth map of a place called the Dominion of Pakhia, a volcanic island in the South Pacific.” It felt absurd talking to myself and I hoped they could hear me and locate the room and the computer through the nanotechnology transmitter. “The office is on the ground floor of the west wing.” In a scene straight from an old spy film, I had been given a one hundred gigabyte flash drive, concealed in the heel of my shoe. The logic was that it was so ridiculous, nobody would even think of looking there. Once it was plugged in and the file downloaded, I keyed in a code Radley's tech guru had given me and uploaded the contents of the computer's storage into the cloud address. Then I sat back and looked at the map on the screen. There were several markings including the position of a factory complex labelled The Pakhia Research Foundation. Other marks on the map identified the main telecommunications centre, the Central Government buildings and the airport. The capital of the island, Pikua, and the port were ringed in red.

  I turned to the filing cabinets. They were locked, resisting my efforts to open them. Defeated I went over to the desk. Perhaps I would have better luck there. The third drawer came open, and inside were several folders. Most of them were really of no consequence at all, but the last couple I came to spread a different light on the matter. They seemed to be draft computer printouts of what could be best described as a business proposal. The meat of the proposal was to encourage member companies of the Party to invest their resources in the Pakhia Research Foundation, who would in turn buy property and establish a tax-free operating base for these companies. It then went on to detail the areas that had been earmarked for development, they related to some of the markings on the wall map. I put the papers back and went over to the map again. The areas actually covered two of the islands. The capital Pikua, and one of the smaller islands to the north, called Sahito. The puzzle was most certainly getting more complex the further I dug into it.

  Just what were they up to? There was only one real answer.

  They were trying to stage manage a take-over of the whole Dominion. That would explain the marking of strategic points such as the telecommunications centre and the government buildings.

  But how?

  No government was going to stand by and let somebody buy the entire land from right under their feet.

  There was only one way.

  Finance a coup by interested local parties and then rule by proxy.

  My knowledge of the Dominion of Pakhia was sadly lacking, so I had no idea just what the politics of the country were, but I guessed Radley would know. Now all I had to do was get the information to him.

  I didn't fancy another trip across the rooftops. Still, it had to be done. Before that though, I wanted to have a look at a couple of the other rooms down here. The one opposite that the man had come out of, intrigued me.

  I replaced the papers and made sure that there was nothing else that looked out of place, and then went back to the door. As I was about to open it, the sound of footsteps came down the passageway. The door opposite opened and I risked a quick look. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a control room with large wall monitors, computer terminals and a microwave satellite setup.

  They obviously thought that nobody could get into this part of the house, except lunatics who risked life and limb climbing around rooftops and they weren’t expecting any of those.

  There was a layer of snow all over everything, and it was falling faster than ever. I climbed out onto the ledge and within a few seconds was covered from head to foot. If I didn't keep moving, my fingers would go numb and I wouldn't be able to grip anything.

  The trip back to the apex of the roof went fine, mainly because I was so petrified of falling my grip couldn’t have been broken with a crowbar. Instead of sliding down the tiles to the next ledge, I used the ornamental brickwork on the gable end and let myself down slowly and carefully. Once on the ledge, it was easy to crawl gingerly along to the window of my room.

  "Well, well, Mr Camden, been practising for the next Everest expedition have you?” Lambert sat in the chair at the far end of the room, an automatic held loosely in his hand. There wasn't time to think, I just threw the jacket at him and leapt forward. He wasn't expecting it and I was onto him before he had time to react. There was a small table next to where he was standing and on it an ornamental vase. I picked it up and crashed it down on his head. He grunted and slid to the floor unconscious.

  Then I broke his neck.

  It was over in seconds.

  Rifling quickly through his pockets I found a letter of invitation to a dinner at the Tower of London, and a Samsung smartphone. It was on but I couldn't access any information.

  “Okay guys I need help unlocking a smartphone.”

  After an interminable ten seconds the phone came to life. I checked the calendar app. and found a cryptic notation two days from now.

  Keskküla. Suldiski. 236. Load.

  Whatever ISEC was planning would be in Suldiski and I bet my life that Marika Keskküla was getting ready to move her supply of DU ammunition. I put the phone and the invitation in my pocket and cleaned up the room. After stuffing his body under the bed I straightened the covers and looked over the room. I wanted it to look as if nobody had slept there.

  “Slight problem. Had to take out Lambert.” The back-up team would have heard the noise and needed a quick explanation. “So I've just outstayed my welcome."

  Yesterday I'd had time to look around to the east end of the estate along the river. There was a waterfall of about sixty feet in height at the bottom of which were some natural stepping-stones across the river. The only problem was a sheer drop of sixty feet and only a fly could have stuck on the face of that rock. But the nearest place that any of Radley's men could get was the bottom of the waterfall.

  So here I was, back out on that damned roof again with the snow blowing all the harder and I was colder than I’ve ever been in my life.

  There was no way I could take out both the guards on the bridge without creating too much noise. So the waterfall it was the only solution.

  I came to the fire escape ladder that served this wing of the house and was soon on the ground and wading through the already drifting snow. At the moment, I was in shadow and so, hopefully, out of sight of the all-seeing CCTV, but as soon as I ventured out into the lit area I was going to be picked up.

  From then on, it would be a matter of luck. What I hoped was that the glare of the lights on the snow would effectively 'white-out' the TV screen. I would soon know anyway. Just in case, I headed in a northerly direction and as soon as I was out of the pool of light shed by the spotlights, I turned back towards the river. It wouldn't keep them off my tail for long because of the tracks in the snow, but it may just give me that little extra time I needed to find away down the rock face if there was one. I could have sworn the snow was driving down harder now that I was out in the open with no shelter. As if someone had been watching and decided to make life even harder. Every now and then I had to keep rubbing my face to keep the circulation going and wiggling my toes in my already sodden shoes. A couple of hours out in this and I was going to be frozen meat, preserved until the thaw. Not a pleasant thought. I must keep moving above all else. To stop even for a few minutes would begin the process of hypothermia, or should I say, speed up
the process.

  Keep moving. Keep the brain active. Think, man, think.

  I tripped and fell over a mound and fell few feet from the riverbank. A couple more and I would have stumbled right into the trip wire.

  “Come on Gunn, use your brain. You're no use dead.”

  The cold scored deep into me and my teeth were chattering uncontrollably. I had to move faster and harder. But if I did, when I stopped, I would cool down too rapidly with the sweat caused by the exertion. Take off the coat. Maintain a rhythm, do just enough to keep warm and keep that brain working, but above all keep moving. Survival was what it was all about.

  I worked my way along the edge of the river towards the waterfall. It was a good six hundred metres from the bridge so there was no danger of being seen by the sentries and it was too late to worry about surveillance devices.

  It took the best part of ten minutes to reach the waterfall.

  A searchlight snapped on from the mansion and swept the grounds.

  Either they had discovered I was missing, or found Lambert's body. Either way I was dead meat unless I got out of here.

  The ground was cold and wet and as I waited for the beam to pass, I could feel my body cooling rapidly without the coat on. It reminded me of a film I'd seen as a boy. The Great Escape. The only problem was most of the escapees got caught.

  There were shouts from the sentries on the bridge and the sound of an engine. The beam passed and I rolled over, struggled back into the coat and looked back toward the mansion. A strange looking vehicle had just pulled up by the front door. It jogged a memory. I couldn’t quite make out the details from this distance. It was the way it moved and the shape of it.

  Then I remembered. It was one of those 'go anywhere' machines with a two-stroke engine and eight wheels. It was as long as a Mini and mostly used by farmers. This one had a searchlight mounted in the back and no doubt the men that were climbing into it were armed. I didn't wait to see what they going to do next, but scrambled to the edge of the rock face. The water gurgled and crashed the sixty feet to the pool below and a fine icy cold mist sprayed over me. Within minutes I was soaked. I thought I saw some movement at the bottom, but it was difficult to tell because of the darkness.