Chastity flame, p.14
Chastity Flame, page 14
Chastity stared at her.
"Chastity, use your head." Monitor's expression seemed to hover between concern, annoyance and amusement. "You know all the conference rooms are under surveillance, yes?"
Chastity stiffened in her chair. Yes, of course she knew that. Everyone knew that. So how had she managed to forget that fact? She could feel her face flush crimson. "How many . . ."
"Not many," Monitor assured her. "In fact just one of Kevin's team and myself."
"Not Kevin?" Thank the gods for small favors. "I—I don't know what to say." She felt like a truant student called before the headmaster's desk, but she also felt a fierce sense of pride. Damien was worth it. "Did you enjoy the show?" she added with a smile. It was a bit forced, but Chastity felt as if she had recovered some of her balance.
Monitor coughed. It was her turn to experience a bit of embarrassment. "I didn’t watch all of it, but enough to ah, well, I know how he feels about you. And although you didn't seem to respond to well to that, it's clear that he's become quite important to you."
"I just feel responsible for letting him get snatched away like that. We should have stuck together."
"It's more than that, you know very well." Monitor sighed, shuffling the folders on her desk. "You of all people should know—"
"No fraternizing," Chastity completed her sentence. "I know, I know. But we didn't know at first. Until he showed up in Stockholm, I had no idea."
Monitor shook her head wonderingly. "Where did you meet?"
"National Gallery. In front of Cezanne's Les Grandes Baigneuses."
They looked at each other for a moment and then they both burst into laughter. "I guess that's how you can recognize great art, when the handsome young men follow you around the room."
Chastity couldn't help smiling. "He did, even though I had to meet a contact that day. When I came back, he hadn't left." The memory warmed her. But a chill quickly followed it. "I know it's not possible. I know what the rules are."
"The loss of your parents was such a blow. Nothing like the devastation for you, Chastity," she added, her eyes full of concern. "But it set us on our heels and made the risks—already much discussed—quite clear. Even a flicker of recognition can disrupt an extraction, as we have seen. So much worse when there's . . . more going on."
Chastity nearly chuckled at her modest language and not for the first time wondered about the life of her boss. What was Monitor like at home? Did she live alone or with a partner? Did she have children? Chastity suspected not, although the warmth with which she had treated her when a lost and awkward teen had seemed genuine and practiced. It was strange—working together with people for so many years, in life-threatening situations and on such important matters—yet knowing nothing personal about them but what could be gleaned from official interactions. Kevin's love of Godley and Creme, Valerie's yen for Sharpie pens, and Monitor's taste for Twining's Earl Grey. All were clues to the person who had to remain veiled.
"But we still have to get him back. Trust me: Wesenlund is ruthless. And irritated. He was very put out by our uncovering his plan," Chastity argued. "He's not going to keep Damien, er, 4CB for long. We need to find him and get him out. I'm not just speaking for me. If he's also 0NR, then he's important to the organization, right?"
Monitor looked at her, frowning. She had to know that Chastity was right about the need to get Damien back. He was not safe while he was in Wesenlund's hands. They had a superb staff, of course. But she had been there. She knew the man—and that had to be valuable. Monitor sighed. "Work with Kevin's team. But keep your perspective. You know this has to end, Chastity."
She nodded. "It will. But give me a chance to end it in person." Chastity hopped up a little too energetically and trotted off down the hall to the big conference room. Ruefully, she couldn’t help glancing up at the discreet cameras that kept the room under surveillance at all times. How could she have forgotten? Then she blushed: she knew exactly why she had forgotten. Damien's body could make her forget all manner of things. "Kevin, I'm here to lend a hand. What can I do? Did the plane ever land? Is there any sign?"
Kevin seemed a bit taken aback, but recovered quickly. "Here's the stats: according to the paperwork, that flight landed in Bergen and was accounted for, albeit with one less employee on board. According to raw data from the tower, no such plane ever landed there. We don't have a good idea where it might be. Judging from the trajectory of its last known path, we've made some guesses, but nothing's panned out."
"Is it likely to have stayed in Norway, or somewhere in Scandinavia?" Chastity asked, shuffling through the papers Kevin handed her with details of flights in and out of Bergen. "How much fuel does something like that have?"
"It's got a fairly good tank. It could have made it as far as Iceland or down here to Ireland. It's unlikely that it headed west, although it could well have made it into the centre of Russia. It seems most likely that it's in Norway, just because of Wesenlund's influence being the most effective there, but we're still trying to find patterns that might help us detect where it could be."
"Have we got any additional data on Wesenlund?" Chastity asked, handing the useless flight information back to Kevin. "I want to look through it, see if I can see any connections that I can make from having spoken with him at some length."
Kevin nodded. "Yes, yes, of course. Super. Here," he walked around the table where several techs were busily inputting data and retrieved a large file. "Have a seat. We've been able to gather a lot in the last few hours. There's a lot to examine."
Chastity sat down and opened up the huge folder. It was overwhelming. She glanced up at Kevin. "It's going to be a long night."
"Cuppa?" he said, smiling. One of the techs hopped up without being asked and quickly returned with a giant-sized mug, a couple of creamers and a sugar bowl.
Chastity thought it might have been wise to grab something to eat, but for the moment, the big cup of tea seemed like it would be enough. She began to sort through the file which had been in a more or less temporal order. There were a number of photographs of Wesenlund, always featuring his slightly distracted look and vague smile. Staring at it, she considered again his cruelty and determined that it would be quite enjoyable to throw a spanner into his works.
Peculiar details emerged from the information gleaned about Wesenlund's life. Chastity read with some discomfort the account of how he had been one of a set of twins, but during their gestation seemed to have absorbed his sibling—apparently a not uncommon phenomenon, although she had never read of it before. Strange to have been an only twin! As was not unusual for such a wealthy family, he had been raised by a series of nannies—rather a lot of nannies, in fact. One voluble family friend had revealed that the Wesenlund heir had been known for an early streak of cruelty, which drove many a nanny to a less stressful position.
There were also rumors about the death of his infant sister, but the medical examiner found nothing that could not be accounted for by natural, if unfortunate, means. Nonetheless, after her death, the Wesenlunds decided to send their precocious boy off to boarding school. The timing may have been coincidence, Chastity thought; it may also have been their recognition of just what a strange cuckoo's egg had landed in their nest.
Grabbing a chocolate biscuit from the tray making the rounds of the room, Chastity turned to more recent information on the financier. He had a number of houses in Norway and across Europe, including a flat in London. The Financial Times reported on his above board achievements and their own files reported his connection with more nefarious workings, although direct links had been impossible to establish. He may have been consulted on those behind the murder of Roberto Calvi, "God's banker" at the Vatican. Wesenlund may have had a hand in the fraudulent goings-on at BCCI, but again no one was able to place him in a specific place at any key time. Failures, swindles, dubious schemes—he seemed to always be nearby yet never in the thick of things. He was clearly a very clever man who knew well how to cover his tracks.
Chastity sighed. This wasn't helping her to find Damien at all. She itched to be doing something, anything. Her eyes were glazing over. Rubbing her eyes, she considered what to do next. She found herself blinking because there was something in her eyes, but it didn't seem to dislodge. The speck seemed determined to stay. Then it began blinking and she finally knew.
It was happening again.
The moment of panic that this thought engendered was almost immediately replaced by the hope that it would prove to be as useful as the last migraine did. As the aurora began to strobe across her vision, she grabbed for a pen and some blank paper. Should I try to focus or just let it wash over me, Chastity wondered. Certainly there was the possibility that nothing at all would happen except that she would feel a headache come on. But not for lack of trying.
"Are you alright?" Kevin called down the table at her. "Chas?"
She ignored him. The lights were strobing faster now, colors streaming into the black and white arcing pattern. A horrible pain began like a crack from the back of her head, spreading as if her skull were slowly breaking open, filling with a terrible light. This was far more painful than the previous episode and for a moment Chastity wondered if she was in some kind of danger. Then the images began to flow and she scribbled hastily in an attempt to capture what she was seeing. It was like a stuttering slide show, except that many of the images moved—a montage then.
It was Damien, of course. Naked and roped to a chair: in another context, an intriguing vision, but here, vulnerable and clearly hurt. She saw him from another angle, two men shouting at him as they beat him with some strangely shaped clubs, a third preparing some kind of electrical wires. Damien was sweating and bloody, his right eye nearly swollen shut, with a cut marring his smooth cheek. A third view: this time she saw Wesenlund, looking at his watch rather than at Damien, as if he were late for an appointment or even simply bored. In a flash, Chastity's loathing for him grew instantly to a fiery hate.
The flashing lights in her eyeball began slowly to recede and with them the string of visions. Chastity concentrated on capturing every detail about the room, scribbling every stray fact she could glean, aware that there was a rabbling noise surrounding her but paying it no mind as she tried to capture the elusive images and sounds. However, all at once it was simply gone, leaving only a crashing headache in its wake. She set the pen down and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
When she opened them once more, Chastity was startled to see herself surrounded by the crew. "What?"
"What happened?" Kevin looked concerned, most of the others looked nakedly curious.
Chastity shook her head. "Can someone get me some tea? And a biscuit? Aspirin. Kevin, I need someone to help integrate this information. Type as I talk."
"I can do that," a young man she vaguely recognized offered. Another two raised their hands. It seemed like a good idea to have as many hands as possible. Someone was bound to notice something she missed. Chastity took the hot mug gratefully and swallowed a mouthful that immediately burned the roof of her mouth. Somehow the sensation seemed to bring her fully back to consciousness. One of the crew brought her a bottle of aspirin and glass of water, which she gulped down gratefully.
"All right, this is a bit strange," Chastity said, feeling oddly vulnerable with all the attention focused on her. "But it's happened before to me. I had a vision. I don't know how it works. I don't think it’s anything mystical. Once before, I got information this way that I couldn't otherwise have known. I hope it's true this time, too."
Kevin shrugged. "We don't have much else to go on so far. What have we got to lose." He gestured to the group and they took their places while Chastity gathered her hastily written notes in front of her.
"I saw the room where they're holding him," she started, hesitating before going on. "I think I was seeing snippets of different times because different things were happening, different people were there." She described the scenes, the people she had seen and the time when Wesenlund had been there. When they had most of the descriptions recorded, Chastity sighed. It really didn't seem like enough. It wasn't really much more than she had written herself, although a few more memorable bits came through while she was repeating the situations.
"Close your eyes," Kevin suggested. "Try to remember other sensory details."
Chastity did as he asked. "I hear water dripping in the background. Maybe a sink or a—"
"Don’t try to interpret," he cautioned. "Let us put them together."
Chastity nodded and continued. "There's the dripping, there's a faint clanging sound. I can hear voices far in the background, another room perhaps. I can smell sweat and blood. Something else, too." She wrinkled her nose. It was familiar but unusual.
"Concentrate on the smell. What pops into your mind?"
"A match."
"Sulphur?"
"Yes," Chastity said, the surprise evident in her voice.
"Anything else?"
Before Chastity could answer, one of the team shouted out, "Iceland!"
"What?" Chastity and Kevin spoke at the same time.
It was the mousy looking young woman, who looked like a sort of Monitor in training to Chastity's eye. "One of the possible trajectories of Wesenlund's jet, he has holdings there, the omnipresent sulphur in the water from the geothermal source. If there's water dripping, it would be particular strong."
"Give that woman a bonus," Chastity said, grinning widely.
"We should double check the stats, the trajectory and the location of the holdings," Kevin said. "It's a lead but—"
"You do that," Chastity said, closing the folder and grabbing her notes. "I'm going to get a team together."
"But—" Kevin sighed. "Alright. Luck. We'll get you the likeliest locations."
"Ta." Chastity said over her shoulder as she headed down the corridor toward Monitor's office.
Chapter Sixteen
"Got everything you need?" Chastity asked her three companions as the helicopter scudded across the barren landscape. Abel, Baker and Delta they were for today, as she was Charlie. No extra thought required when you stuck to the manual. They nodded an assent to her question, silent and focused. Like herself, they were dressed in the special op's battle gear, although Chastity had gone for a lighter load of guns, the better to remain mobile. She hated to be weighed down.
Out the window, the basalt rubble looked like a lunar landscape to Chastity. There was a fierce wind blowing and a spattering of rain that pinged against the windscreen of the 'copter. Somehow the last few minutes of the journey were the hardest part. She just wanted to be doing something.
Monitor had not been too pleased with Chastity's breakthrough vision. In fact, she had been down right dubious. Her refusal to consider allowing her favorite op to put together an extraction team seemed adamant, until Kevin called down with a few likely locations for the target. When the three of them reviewed the choices together, Chastity had quickly lighted on this warehouse as the optimum one, which only seemed to make Monitor more obstinate. It took Kevin's certainty to bring her around, although he wasn't as willing as Chastity to focus on this single site.
Grudgingly, she had agreed to visit all three if necessary, but privately she was wholly convinced that this was the right place. Everything about it according to the aerial surveillance photos they were able to retrieve fit the images she had in her head from the vision. Her only fear was that they were too late. What if Wesenlund's patience had run out already?
The pilot signaled that they had reached the set down point. Chastity had not wanted them to come too close to the warehouse in the 'copter. They were far enough to be out of visual notice, but not necessarily technological surveillance. They could only hope that there wasn't much need to monitor the surrounding environs too closely. Chastity put some hope in Wesenlund's arrogance; he was probably congratulating himself on her failure to be able to follow him.
At the door, Chastity reminded them, "Less than a mile, north northwest. Avoid making any sight or sound until we've had a chance locate our missing op. Silence any opposition and put them out of sight. Avoid contact unless absolutely necessary," she added, tapping her own headpiece. "We need not engage apart from the extraction. Speed is of the essence. Questions?"
There were none, so they set off out the side door, ducking low to clear the spinning blades as they scurried out toward the direction indicated by Chastity's GPS unit. The rain, although not heavy, seemed to slice through any bits of exposed flesh and she regretted not wearing a balaclava for additional protection. At a steady trot, they closed the distance to the cluster of buildings that lay ahead. It was hard running so exposed, but there didn't seem to be any signs of life, which made Chastity feel a twinge of worry, but she quashed it and concentrated on watchful attention.
As they got closer, she nodded to the others and they began to spread out away from each other. As they reached the largest building, the four had dispersed far enough to seek different entrances. Chastity pressed on a door latch and found it open. Ducking inside it, she saw no signs of any activity. Several possible corridors lay ahead of her. She closed her eyes and listened intently. There was a drip of water somewhere nearby and she could hear a murmur of conversation. The pungent aroma of sulphur suffused the building. This had to be right, Chastity thought.
On the balls of her feet, she eased forward slowly toward the sounds. With luck at least one of the others ought to have entered the building by now and be making their way toward the same room if they had paid attention to the cues. They were a good team; she assumed they did as they were trained to do. The voices grew more audible as she crept closer. She could distinguish two voices, which didn't necessarily mean there were only two present, but it gave her some hope. Listening intently, she discerned that they were speaking Norwegian. While she didn't have any training in that language, she knew Swedish and it was enough to begin to make sense of what they were saying.
