The Bergamese Sect (9 page)

‘
Sebastian’s more capable than we thought,’ was all he said.

‘
Those responsible should be strung up,’ the gruff military man retorted. The others remained silent.

‘
Prospero,’ said Sewell, anxious to proceed, ‘this isn’t the time for recriminations. We must consider our options.’

Prospero folded his arms, accepting the judgement, but mumbled something under his breath.

Sewell went on, ‘we have two options. We leave them alone and let them lead us to Sebastian. Or we extract the target and his information, and then find Sebastian ourselves. I’m not sure which is the more dangerous route.’

The chairman looked from face to face. There was no sign of reaction from any of them, their faces downcast. Icarus, the younger man, fumbled with a pen in his outstretched hand.

Then Prospero sat up straight, uncomfortable with the silence and obviously keen to be heard again. ‘It’s vital we find him, and quickly. I suggest we lift the target and move on Sebastian immediately.’

‘
Eliminating the subversives?’

‘
Yes, it’s the only way of getting to him and ensuring things are kept tight.’

Icarus stopped playing with his pen and placed it carefully on his papers. He ran four fingers through his hair, flicking the spikes upright. He sighed softly. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, looking up at his colleagues. ‘How can we be certain of getting the information intact? We’ll only get one chance at retrieval and if we come away empty-handed or lacking a crucial element, we’ll have a catastrophe on our hands.’

‘
Yes,’ agreed Daintry, ‘and since we didn’t intercept, we’re not certain what we’re looking for. It would be a difficult stunt to pull off under the circumstances.’

Walsh was glad to hear someone was thinking of the men under his control. The decisions of Daedalus weren’t always practical; especially those that landed on
his
desk. He knew better than anyone in the room what could be achieved on the ground. Argent, Walsh’s network of agents, was a formidable force. It could easily achieve the improbable, but the impossible was just that – impossible. No matter how crucial it was to national security.

Walsh leant forward to speak but the chairman spoke first.

‘
I agree,’ said Sewell. ‘We can’t risk losing Sebastian’s communication.’

Prospero was not satisfied. ‘A more dangerous risk is that it reaches the public domain.’ He shook his head just noticeably, pursed his lips.

‘
That’s unlikely,’ said another voice. Everyone turned. It was Lupus who spoke, the Bostonian in tweed. He laid his long curling pipe on the table in front of him. A thin wisp of blue smoke twirled toward the huge chandelier above. It smelt revolting.

‘
The subversives won’t move without Sebastian,’ Lupus continued in a slow, drawn voice. ‘We should be safe until they find him.’

‘
And in the meantime, if we lose them, all hell breaks loose,’ retorted Prospero.

Walsh eyed the soldier again and wondered what role he held within the upper echelons of military intelligence. Of all these shadowy figures, he seemed the most volatile. Opinionated and rash, though not irrational. Perhaps it was just the way he got things done in the land of khaki.

Sewell interrupted his thoughts. ‘I think Dante’s men should be able to keep on top of them.’

The other men were looking at Walsh again. ‘No problem,’ he said.

Prospero stared unconvinced at him for a moment before turning back to Sewell. ‘I’m still not convinced,’ he continued. ‘While that information exists outside this room, beyond our control, it represents a threat of colossal proportions. This issue simply cannot be allowed into the open. Can any of you imagine the disaster we’d face? And I’m not talking about us personally; I’m talking about global iconoclasm.’

‘
Yes,’ said Sewell, ‘we all know the risks, Prospero. We’re under no illusions as to what this means for society, none of us. We’ve shared this burden for many years. And this is probably the most crucial test we’ve yet faced. But let’s not panic. We can contain the threat and move on.’

‘
If we don’t contain it, and soon, we can kiss goodbye to shindigs like this one.’

‘
What do you mean?’

‘
I mean it’ll be too late. We don’t exist unless we don’t exist, Oberon, you know that better than anyone. We’ll be sitting ducks.’

‘
Sure, we’ll find it difficult to operate in the open. But I think it unlikely we’ll be exposed in any way. After all, no one knows of our involvement. Besides, we can always blame the politicians.’ Sewell smiled softly as he thought of such treachery. ‘Ultimately, of course,’ he added, ‘we have nothing to hide.’

‘
You really think so?’ Prospero responded, surprised.

‘
We can absolve responsibility; that has always been the plan.’

Prospero almost laughed aloud. ‘I think you’re underestimating just how far this man will go, how far his knowledge extends.’

‘
Perhaps,’ the chairman said, ‘but we won’t know for sure until we locate him, and then he’ll be going nowhere.’

Walsh looked again at each of the men at the table. Only six of them had spoken; the other four had hardly flinched during the discussion. Their detachment was almost complete, their motives never revealed. But Walsh had the strangest conviction that they were the overseers of Daedalus; that they manipulated these discussions and brokered the group’s decisions. All without even speaking. Perhaps it was just his paranoia. You couldn’t live this kind of life, knowing what he knew, without an almost constant feeling of threat, of conspiracy.

Sewell was scribbling something on his notepad. He looked up at the faces of Daedalus. ‘I think we have agreement,’ he said. ‘We allow Dante’s men to track the target. We allow the subversives to protect him and eventually lead us to Sebastian. Agreed?’

Prospero bit his lip and whispered, ‘let’s pray we get to him first’, but there were no words of refusal from the other men around the table.

‘
Very well,’ Sewell said. ‘Let’s keep ourselves available at short notice. It’s crucial we keep a lid on this thing.’ He snapped shut the notepad on which he’d been scribbling. ‘Gentlemen,’ he went on, ‘take none of our discussion beyond this room.’

Nodding a farewell, he rose and disappeared hurriedly through a small door in the corner of the room.

―
§ ―

Walsh was directed to a waiting limousine out front. Climbing between two heavily armed agents, he made himself comfortable. He hoped the journey would be by plane from Bradley, rather than the long drive down to New York and then on to Washington. But he had no say in the matter; it was all pre-arranged.

They’d been driving for about half-an-hour, south toward I91, when the driver suddenly slowed. Walsh, just about to drop off to sleep, felt the change of speed, and propped himself up. Some way ahead on the road, two lights were oscillating back and forward in the darkness – one blue, the other yellow. They circled around in a specific pattern; one recognised by the driver of the car.

They pulled into a scrubby area by the side of the road. In front, another limousine was parked and beyond that a Savanna with blackened windows. There were four men standing in the road, all dressed in dark suits. Ahead, just beyond a curve in the road, Walsh could see flashing lights. It was a roadblock. He turned and saw more flashing lights some distance behind them. They’d been isolated for a transfer.

One of the agents in the road took some orders in his earpiece and then nodded at the men next to Walsh. The doors opened and he followed them out, crossed over to the other limousine, and got in.

A man was already sitting in the back seat. It was Sewell. ‘Hello,’ he said.

‘
Bob,’ Walsh nodded. ‘Should we be together?’

Sewell brushed the hairs of his moustache out of the corners of his mouth. ‘No, we shouldn’t, but there’s something you should know; something I couldn’t divulge to Daedalus.’

‘
What’s that?’

Sewell’s face was sombre. The lines at the corners of his eyes were taught, his face full of tension.

Walsh had known Sewell a long time. Ten years his senior, he’d been his commander during his early days in the CIA. They’d worked together many times, embroiled in political manipulations all over the globe – Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Colombia. Walsh couldn’t count the times they’d saved each other’s skin.

But for all of this, there was no camaraderie between them. This kind of job didn’t give you time for sentimentality. Call it professionalism, but Walsh had never thought of Sewell as a friend.

Their paths had diverged rapidly after those years in the CIA; Walsh joining the boys with eyes and ears at the NSA, Sewell retaining his links with the CIA but sinking ever deeper into the murky pool of clandestine existence. For five years, their paths hadn’t crossed. Until Walsh had stared across a table, the new boy in Daedalus.

‘
We may have a problem,’ Sewell said. ‘I need your help in securing this mission.’

Walsh stared blankly. ‘Help? How?’

The chairman screwed up his face. ‘Suspicions have been growing. We may have a saboteur within Daedalus.’

Walsh was surprised at this. The very foundation of Daedalus was their unity of purpose, their belief that what they did was right and just. ‘Who? Prospero? Not Daintry, surely?’

Sewell shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve been asked to divert control away from possible interference. We can’t afford for this situation to get out of hand. This can no longer be left to Daedalus. I’m asking for access to your intelligence.’

Walsh was shocked. What the Chairman proposed was strictly against protocol. The separate elements of Daedalus were never permitted to communicate outside the committee room, especially concerning activities it had already sanctioned. Officially or otherwise. Even if that contact was of a clandestine nature, it was strictly forbidden. ‘Trails of responsibility’, as Sewell himself often called them, could call into question agencies that had no business being involved, could implicate people too important, even jeopardise whole networks of agents.

‘
You’re willing to risk men’s lives?’ Walsh said. ‘Lewis is the best I have.’

Sewell paused and narrowed his eyes. ‘Argent is always at risk,’ he said. ‘If Sebastian goes public, the consequences will be far worse.’

Argent, Daedalus’ codename for Walsh’s entourage, was indeed always at risk. They had good men, like Lewis, out in the field. But they knew nothing of Daedalus or its aims. If there were men in Daedalus who had a different agenda, their efforts could be jeopardised, their mission corrupted. On the other hand, contact between members of Daedalus could jeopardise Argent’s capabilities.

Walsh unbuttoned his coat; it was warming up in the back of the car. ‘Who has these suspicions?’

Sewell raised an eyebrow. ‘Those higher up.’

‘
Higher up?’ said Walsh, surprised. ‘The Office of the President, or the House?’ He was smiling at the joke but Sewell was watching the driver suspiciously through the soundproof partition.

‘
Neither. You know the politicians can’t be trusted with this issue. They must remain unaware.’

‘
So, who’s ordered this? I thought Daedalus didn’t exist outside the committee room. I also thought Daedalus was autonomous.’

Sewell turned his gaze back from the driver and smiled at Walsh. ‘There’s always somebody with more authority than you, Larry. Remember that.’

‘
Who then?’

‘
I’m not at liberty to say.’

‘
Sorry, Bob, but I can’t share intelligence with you or anyone else without the sanction of Daedalus. As far as I’m concerned, there
is
no one with greater authority.’

‘
If Daedalus is compromised, we can’t ask for its sanction.’

‘
True,’ Walsh conceded. ‘But I deserve an explanation at least.’

Sewell grimaced. ‘My hands are tied,’ he said.

The two men remained silent as the car sped through woods east of Hartford. Ten miles from the Interstate the driver suddenly slowed again and turned into a narrow, tree-lined farm track. A mile or so up the track the trees disappeared. Without warning, the driver veered into a muddy field and ploughed headlong into a bank of tall crops. They came to a bumpy halt and the engine was switched off, the car hidden.

Sewell exited and peered at the dark horizon, looking for something. Walsh joined him, buttoning his coat up against the cool night breeze.

‘
Well, Larry,’ Sewell said. ‘Can you help out?’

Walsh paused, weighing up Sewell’s desperation. ‘Okay, Bob. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep you in the loop. Wait for me to contact you.’

If Sewell was pleased with the answer, he didn’t show it. ‘Very well, keep me updated, regularly, and leave nothing out. We’ll avert this disaster together. Leave Daedalus to me.’

Behind Sewell, a deep drone grew up from the black night. It resolved into a thumping noise as a helicopter swung low over a distant house and swooped to meet them. It came down rapidly, chopping the air to pieces, hurling dust into the red glow of the car’s taillights, bending the delicate crops around them. It touched down on the muddy border of the field and a man jumped from the cockpit and ran toward them.

‘
I’ll be waiting,’ Sewell bellowed over the noise of the aircraft. He turned and hopped through the crops toward the helicopter, slapping the approaching man’s hand as they passed. After he’d climbed inside, Sewell’s helicopter lifted immediately, dropped its nose and sped low across the landscape.

The agent dropped to accompany Walsh didn’t say a word, just invited him back into the car and climbed in after him. They reversed out of the field and followed the track back to the main road.