Imperium: Coda: Book Three in the Imperium Trilogy

by Paul M Calvert

  Moved by Freya’s words, Karen took the proffered paw and shook it, a detached part of her mind noting the firm, dry grip, sensing the steely power carefully held in check.

  “Thank you, Freya. I can see why Christine held your friendship in such high regard.”

  At that, Freya released her hand and made a small laugh, “Spoken like a true diplomat. Yes, the hunt continues, then. Until the next time, Karen,” and with that, Freya turned and bounded away into the long grass, vanishing within moments as if she had never been there.

  The doorway opened in the scenic illusion, and First Mihos entered, waiting patiently for Karen to collect her thoughts and leave with him. In a daze, Karen walked over, wondering what the hell she was going to do next. There was one thing she needed to do, however.

  “Vimes, under no circumstances are you to tell anyone that I might be pregnant with Adam’s child. If you do, I swear to God I will switch you off in my head permanently. Do you understand me?”

  “Unless it puts the Empire in danger, you have my word,” Vimes replied, sounding a little hurt at her tone, “ I will also ensure there is no record of the test or its result. For the moment I agree with you, the fewer people know you may be carrying the future ruler, the safer the both of you will be.”

  Before following First Mihos out of the doorway and into the waiting ground car, she turned and took one last look at Freya’s strange room, wondering under what circumstances she might ever return. The moment passed, and she mentally shrugged her shoulders and stepped up into the vehicle, all thoughts now on the child potentially growing within her and what she should do next.

  SCENE 2, CABINET ROOMS, WHITEHALL, LONDON

  Sir John Soames walked the final hundred yards to Whitehall, barely noticing the imposing mounted statue of General Haig on his left, his mind focused on the possible seriousness of this morning's meeting with the Prime Minster and various luminaries, not least the Governor of the Bank of England and the National Crime Agency. The grey-white stone building on his right shone in the early morning summer sunshine, and the muted singing of the birds coming from the trees lining the street was not yet drowned out by the roar of traffic. Almost at his destination, ahead he could see the black granite statue commemorating the women of World War Two, a memorial that never failed to remind him of the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. A few early rising tourists gathered outside the security barriers of Downing Street, outnumbered by the Police on duty, who nodded in recognition as he approached.

  “Bit early for you this morning, Sir John?” queried the senior Policeman, a late middle-aged man whose stab proof vest and pockets full of various kit items made him look somewhat portly.

  “No rest for the wicked, Paul,” he replied, handing over his pass to be checked. He watched how the muscles bunched and flexed in the man’s arms as he turned the pass over, examining it and checking the name against the list on the ledge in front of him, handing it back with a smile.

  “Have a good day, Sir.”

  “Thank you, I will,” he replied, passing through the reinforced metal gates and into the famous street. Behind him, he could hear the faint clicks coming from the camera of a tourist, probably thinking him to be of some importance. He allowed himself a thin smile, his mouth lifting slightly in one corner for a moment, before being replaced with the normally impassive expression that had served him well in countless briefing rooms and meetings over many years serving his country. Despite having made this short walk hundreds of times in his distinguished career, Sir John always found himself secretly thrilled to be here and today was grateful for the absence of television camera crews or press photographers, for they tended to take the shine off his enjoyment of the moment. The short walk to the even more famous door took him past a neatly kept flower bed on his right, bursting with summer blooms, and an old lamppost on his left. The thickly painted black iron work on the post and railings showed no rust at all in the bright morning sun and spoke of careful maintenance.

  Hidden security cameras had already noted his entrance into the long yard, and facial recognition software checked and confirmed his identity, alerting those inside to his imminent arrival. As if on cue, the highly polished door to No.10 opened as he reached the step and Sir John walked inside, acknowledging the doorman’s greeting, almost tripping on a black and white cat that shot out before the door could close.

  “Bloody thing,” he mumbled under his breath, before smiling broadly at the humour of the situation. He knew the way to the Cabinet Rooms well and set off through the maze of corridors and interconnecting rooms that linked Downing Street with Whitehall. He nodded a greeting to the cleaners and occasional secretary that crossed his path, before being faced with his first decision of the day; take the stairs or lift to the first floor where the COBRA meeting was scheduled. Deciding he needed the exercise, he took them two at a time, before pausing halfway on the small landing to get his breath before continuing, this time taking them one at a time.

  The entrance to Briefing Room A was a nondescript door, with a discrete, cheap plastic sign the only indication of its purpose. However, the guard on duty was anything but nondescript. The two recognised each other, the guard having served for a time with him in 22 Regiment before being invalided out due to injuries obtained on active service. Seeing him here, Sir John realised the meeting was definitely going to be more interesting than normal. Before letting himself in, he exchanged pleasantries with the man for a few minutes, closing the door behind him and looking around the room to see who had beaten him here.

  As usual, the room’s lighting was subdued, the main illumination coming from the bank of screens completely covering the far wall, the ceiling downlighters having been turned down. Ordinary looking domestic speakers were hanging high up on the wall on either side of the large screens. A large, oblong, highly polished light wooden desk dominated the room, surrounded by comfortable, dark brown high-backed leather chairs; these and the décor giving off the atmosphere of a nineteen seventies corporate board room, not helped by the bland, nondescript wallpaper. The Prime Minister, a late middle-aged woman of non-descript appearance, was already in attendance at the head of the table, deep in conversation with the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. To Sir John’s surprise, also in attendance and looking like he needed a good scrub, was the Leader of the Opposition, tieless and dressed in a crumpled suit.

  Sir John typically dreaded these meetings, finding the self-serving nature of the usual participants somewhat depressing, but today looked to be shaping up nicely and promised to be different, although he cynically expected the usual postponing of any real decision for later to be the eventual outcome. He sighed, inwardly lamenting the rise of the professional political class at the expense of those with real conviction. That said, in recent weeks he had noticed an unusually intense atmosphere coming from several Government departments, and both internal and external security had been rather intense of late, the patterns all pointing to something momentous.

  The PM looked over in his direction and indicated he move closer, pointing towards one of the chairs nearest to her. Typically, he sat towards the opposite end; his special skill set not normally required (“or appreciated,” he thought to himself) until things became serious. He moved over and sat down, not caring about the look of open disdain on the face of the scruffy Opposition leader who looked as if he had been sucking on lemons all morning.

  “Good morning, Prime Minister, Governer,” Sir John said in greeting, before turning slightly and nodding slightly to the other man, who attempted a half-hearted smile when he saw the other two looking for his reaction.

  “Sir John, I am particularly pleased you are here today,” said the PM cryptically, “your insights will be very useful,” finishing just as a civil servant entered with a stack of numbered briefing papers and began placing them at every seat, checking the numbers against the name places. He glanced down at his, noting they had been sealed with a paper band, bearing the legend, “
Operation Meteor. Not to be opened until instructed.”

  The aide finished leaving the notes and left, at which point the PM began talking quietly again. Sir John sat back in his chair, not bothering to try and eavesdrop on the hushed conversation and checked his watch. As if on queue, the door began to regularly open and close, as a steady stream of the great and the good took their places. Knowing the routine only too well, Sir John reached into his inside pocket and took out his mobile phone, switching it off and placing it on the desk in front of him, noting several of the most experienced hands doing the same. With all of the seats now filled, the quiet of the room had by now been replaced by a rising tide of voices until the PM’s Private Secretary entered and took the empty seat next to her, at which point the noise level dropped off to almost nothing.

  “Please be so kind as to check and confirm all of your electrical equipment has been switched off, thank you,” requested the PM, making a point of doing the same, placing two phones in front of her. As if on cue, an aide entered the room and collected all the non-approved electronic devices, placing them in a metal case before leaving with them.

  Several of the attendees looked wistfully at the departing aide as their phones were removed, feeling lost without them, but turned back to face the PM as she began speaking.

  “Thank you for attending. Your phones will be handed back to you on leaving this room. We have a lot to cover today, and as most of you already know each other, I will dispense with the usual introductions. Also, the briefing papers in front of you are to remain here afterwards. Finally, there will be no minutes taken, and I would remind you that what is said in this room today is on a strict need to know basis. Members of the Press have not been informed we are holding a meeting, which is why you were all asked to take a different route here.” She looked around the room, making sure she had everyone's attention. “Lord Halifax will now provide a background. Please, no interruptions or questions until after he has finished.”

  She sat down, and the hatchet-faced Deputy Governer stood up to speak.

  “Approximately five weeks ago, a routine check of banknotes returned to the Bank for recording and destruction produced several anomalies. Please open your briefing pack and look at Exhibit A. You may touch and examine them should you wish.” He waited, giving everyone the opportunity to do so, then continued with his presentation, turning to the screen behind him now displaying a large picture of a £50 note.

  “The £50 note displayed here, along with the ones in front of you, are perfect forgeries, completely indistinguishable from real notes. So good, in fact, that the only way we detected them was through the serial numbers, which, as they haven't been issued yet, gave them away. Typically, the number of detectable forgeries out there in any one year amount to only four to five million pounds in value; a tiny sum when compared to the number of genuine banknotes in circulation. However, nothing of this quality has been seen before. As I said earlier, these are perfect copies, indistinguishable from the genuine article. In light of this, we immediately passed the matter to our colleagues in the National Crime Agency, who began an in-depth investigation into where they came from and who was behind this attack on our currency.”

  He paused and took a sip from the glass of water in front of him, looking around to make sure he had everyone's attention.

  Seeing he did, Lord Halifax continued, “Fortunately, through the NCA’s sterling efforts, we were able to track them back to three sources, all in the Highlands, namely, Inverness, Skye and Raigmore Hospital. In total, only some three thousand pounds in value have yet been identified, with the last known note found over a month ago. Since then, no further notes have been forthcoming. Initially, we had concerns the group behind these forgeries were testing the water, so to speak, in anticipation of a widespread campaign to get them into circulation. Make no mistake, these are no ordinary forgeries, and we initially believed they could only be produced with the backing of another Government, just like the “Super Dollars” issued by the North Koreans in the late nineties,…or so we first thought.”

  Sitting in his chair and listening to the presentation, Sir John wondered why this was so important and needed a full meeting of COBRA, especially when it included such people as himself, normally only required when national security was at stake. He glanced at several others sitting around the table and could tell from their body language that many of them were thinking the same thing.

  “As part of our investigations we sent a sample of the forgeries off for detailed examination. A full breakdown can be found, marked blue in your packs.”

  A few began searching through the papers, only to stop when Lord Halifax began speaking again.

  “In light of the subject's sensitivity, we sent the notes to the military laboratories at Porton Down, as we didn’t want any chance of this getting out to the general public…for obvious reasons. Disturbingly, extensive testing has revealed the notes to be made from an extremely advanced polymer, using compounds we thought only theoretically possible. By any measure, these notes should not exist and could not be duplicated using any technology currently available to us or any of our allies.” Halifax stopped speaking, allowing his audience time to digest the implications. “I will now pass you to Julia Westfield, who was appointed by the Heads of Mi5 and 6 to jointly investigate both the immediate threat to our national interest and the wider implications.”

  He sat down, allowing the younger woman to stand. She moved away from the desk and walked to the screen behind her, pressing the clicker hidden in her hand to replace the £50 note with an image of Scotland, the points of interest to the investigation marked in red and flashing slowly.

  “Thank you, Lord Halifax. It took us nearly two weeks of painstaking investigation, checking over CCTV footage from within stores where we know, or believe, the notes were used and speaking with staff to see if there was anything they might have remembered about the persons. Fortunately, £50 notes are rarely seen, especially when more than one is used at the same time, so we were able to identify several individuals as possible suspects. Interestingly, there is only one suspect that was traced to all three hot spots marked on the map, and she has apparently vanished without a trace.”

  Behind her, various images of a young woman appeared onscreen, one apparently taken from a security badge. “This is our suspect, Karen Mcleod, until recently a respected Doctor who ran the Raigmore Hospital A&E department. A clean criminal record and only two expired tickets for speeding. She resigned shortly after the notes first started to appear and extensive investigations can find no trace of her current whereabouts. To the best of our knowledge, she remains in the UK. Her long-term, but now ex-partner, currently lives and works in New York and has had no contact with her since breaking off their relationship, also around the same time. She had left the flat she shared with him, and her last known whereabouts were on Skye, staying at the home of relatives.”

  Not bothering to activate the microphone on the table in front of him, Sir John cut straight to the heart of the matter. “I know looks can be deceiving, Julia, but she hardly warrants bringing us to this special meeting of COBRA. With respect, cut to the chase or let us read these briefing notes and ask questions.”

  Julia flashed him a smile as if knowing he would have been the one to interrupt first. “To the point, as usual, Sir John. Bear with me and I’ll “cut to the chase” as requested.”

  Sir John relaxed further into his chair, returning the smile, pleased he’d speeded things up a little and intrigued where this investigation was leading. From the moment Julia had mentioned the timing and Skye, he had begun putting together other unrelated snippets of information regarding Scotland which had previously passed through his desk, trying to link them with these new facts. This is what he did best and why he had been invited to the meeting; his almost uncanny ability to bring together seemingly unrelated facts and reports from numerous departments, then draw patterns or conclusions from them. Suddenly, a pattern formed in hi
s mind and a possible answer came to him, something so unlikely that he found himself interrupting again.

  “By any chance, is this related to the large meteorite explosion that took place over the North Atlantic in March?” he asked, drawing a hastily stifled gasp from the PM and a startled look from Julia.

  “You really are well informed. Anything else you want to add before I continue?” Julia asked him, her previous smile now nowhere to be seen.

  “Only that there was a SOSUS report which tracked a surface pressure wave moving at high speed towards Skye shortly after the explosion in the upper atmosphere. It was initially believed to be a false reading due to ageing equipment, but I wondered at the time if the two events might have been related. Now we have this other mystery in Scotland at the same time. I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “You are correct; we believe the events are connected. Now, please let me continue.” She saw Sir John nod in agreement so began speaking again.

  “For those of you who are unaware, SOSUS is an acronym for a sound and pressure detection system first employed by the US and NATO at the height of the cold war for detecting submarines and surface ships in various parts of the world’s oceans, including the waters off western Scotland. Within hours of these two incidents occurring, Doctor McLeod attended a serious road traffic accident on the Isle of Skye and flew via air ambulance to Raigmore Hospital. Medical records from there confirm the patient suffered severe head and body trauma and was not expected to survive the night. However, not only did he survive, but could leave the Hospital just a few days later, along with Ms McLeod, apparently fully healed from his injuries. Just as with the mysteriously appearing banknotes, this was another instance of something that should have been beyond our current level of technology or medicine. They returned to Skye together and were regularly seen in each other’s company up until the point where they both vanished.”