Sun of the Sleepless (61 page)

'Don't be ridiculous!' Jolene retorted.

'No more ridiculous than accusing me based on the circumstantial evidence of a couple of text messages!' barked Jackson.

'You were also in The Netherlands early on Saturday morning and the first time we saw you was at the embassy. Your timings are just as coincidental and it seems to me that this could be about deflecting suspicion from yourself.'

Jolene realised that she had to get hold of the surreal debate that was developing, she was expressing suspicions in a disjointed way and she had to admit that it did not make sense without the gut feeling to back it up and join the dots.

'Dale, listen to me, think about this right from the start, before you even became involved. We have a terrorist organisation threatening the US - the Sun of the Sleepless - Kappel inferred that the book was a kind of signal, maybe from a faction within the Order that didn't want to take action against us, I don't know, but he indicated that the book was released deliberately to grab our attention.'

Dale shook his head.

'So what does that mean?'

'A signal,' she emphasised, 'a signal that needed to be quashed before it could be used against them. Jackson was in the perfect position to intercept the book, to get to it before it came out into the open. He couldn't get hold of Faber immediately and so had you seconded to pick it up and flew over as quickly as he could to retrieve it and destroy it. He didn't know that I was already here, brought in independently by Kappel to follow up on it. He had to improvise, he couldn't just lose the book as soon as he laid his hands on it but he needed to destroy any evidence that could have led us to the Sun of the Sleepless directly, such as the RFID.'

'I gave that to you.' Jackson intoned with a surly air.

'Yes, because I walked in when you were cutting up the damn book. I checked with the embassy, the X-Ray images you took were not stored on the system, we have no documentary evidence and even if we did, it went missing with the book itself. If I hadn't have walked in when I did, you could have destroyed the RFID and we'd be none the wiser.'

The room was silent for a moment before Dale spoke somewhat unsurely.

'So if he couldn't destroy the evidence, what then?'

'He had to clean up as best he could,' Jolene growled, 'there was something about the book that he didn't want us to know and he believed that Gertrude may have found out the truth, which is why she was abducted, the same as the bookshop owner Janssens. He always planned to lose the book and the journey to the airport provided the best opportunity. In the mean time, he makes up some fantastical but plausible story about the origins of the Sun of the Sleepless to put us off.'

Dale glanced to Jackson and shook his head with confusion.

'What didn't he want us to know?'

'It was a fake!'

Jackson responded with a vehemently malicious look.

'Now this is just crazy. It is nonsense. My area of expertise is primarily concerned with the history of fraternal societies and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an antiquarian document expert, but it looked right enough to me. Why would the book be fake?'

'A signal, remember?' smirked Jolene. 'I believe that as well as the RFID, it contained a coded message that we would have soon deciphered if we'd put the NSA onto it. They may have been trying to tell us where the weapon was located. Jackson was working with the Sun of the Sleepless to prevent a faction within their own Order from ruining their plans.'

Jackson was shaking his head again and appeared exasperated.

'This is nonsense, I've given over thirty years to the Agency, I'm retiring in a few months. This is just crazy.'

He thought for a moment and turned to Dale.

'I will just point out that Jolene has been controlling this investigation the whole time. She decided where we would look, not me. I only came into this because of the book. I should be back home having lunch in the Langley canteen not being accused as a traitor by a Machiavellian CIA operative who specialises in black ops. Come on Dale, think about it!'

'Dale!' Jolene exclaimed plaintively. 'This is a set-up! Jackson is one of them; he's working for the Sun of the Sleepless! I may have been in charge of our investigation but Jackson was the one guiding us through all the detail. This whole thing has been an illusion right from the very start. It was all misdirection. The book was released deliberately by a renegade faction to trigger our investigation; to help us track them down. Jackson has been doing everything he could to guide us into looking one way while he helped the Sun of the Sleepless cover their tracks and stamp on this. Thankfully, he has failed. You must believe me?'

'Have you lost the plot entirely?' Jackson exhaled. 'What kind of a nut job comes up with a plan like that? It wouldn't work, it would never work!'

He turned to Dale.

'She's bluffing you, trying to make you think one thing while doing another. It is more likely that she has been working for the terrorists all along. She will probably shoot me and then shoot you, blaming it on the cross fire.'

Dale jerked his head back at the accusation and the suggestion created a doubt in his mind that was not easy to reconcile. He was faced with the prospect that either of Jolene or Jackson could be a traitor and he had no way of knowing who he could trust.

Jackson saw the disconcerted look of anxiety on Dale's face and sighed heavily. He turned to Jolene and placed his palms flat on the oak table separating the trio, leaning heavily onto it and wearily shaking his head.

Glancing back over his shoulder at Dale before looking imploringly across the polished wooden surface to Jolene, his expression became earnest and he almost started to plead.

'Look, Jolene - Dale - I uncovered a link to the Sun of the Sleepless. I provided an historical outline of the development of their WMD during the Second World War, an outline that both Kappel and Igor Farley fleshed out without ever contradicting my assumptions. I've told the truth all along. Now, I'm not saying that we don't have a double-agent at work here, but it could just as easily be you, Jolene, or even Stanley or Oliver for that matter, but more likely somebody we don't know about working for the agency just like Kappel indicated. We cannot start to take out our paranoia on each other.'

Dale relaxed slightly and smirked as he turned to Jolene.

'Jackson may be right you know, let's just take a step back and think about this properly, without making accusations based on circumstantial evidence.'

Jolene was seething and Dale's tone had caused a grimace of incredulity to flash across her face.

'There is one way to settle this once and for all!' she rasped in a husky rebuttal, but instead of explaining what she meant, she simply slid her hand into one of her jacket pockets and held it there, her fingers fumbling with something hidden within.

A cellular phone started to sing.

'Do you want to take that call Jackson?' she asked with a heavily implied suggestion of guilt, as if she had just discovered the illicit communication between a lover and another woman rather than clearly identifying the owner of the pre-paid mobile phone number that had been used to call Rey Faber.

Jackson's eye's blazed for a moment and he cocked his arm up in a futile attempt to separate himself from the evidence that was obviously ringing in one of his own pockets. He gave a taut grin and then broke into a chuckle.

'I won't bother to leave a message,' snarled Jolene as the implication suddenly took root, 'besides, you'll be much too busy to get back to me when the Special Forces team I've called in arrive to take you into custody. They've arranged some special transport back to the US just for you. A one-way ticket.'

Jackson shook his head with the amused air of a jolly uncle at a birthday party who had just failed to deceive his young niece with a simple disappearing coin trick, finally realising that the precocious child no longer gave credence to parlour chicanery.

'Now what in the world is this?' he asked pointlessly, looking down to where the thrumming chirrups were emanating from within his jacket.

He looked up again and slowly delved his hand into a pocket, staring directly into Jolene's eyes the whole time, witnessing the satisfaction spreading across her face as he gently pulled out the now abruptly silent phone, holding it up pincered between his forefinger and thumb. As he held it aloft, he seemed to be expressing his distaste as though clearing up a dead bird that had been presented to him as a gift by a pet cat, its final burst of song cut short as it had expired.

'I'd say that is all the proof we need,' smiled Jolene, 'unless you want to stop this bullshit and finally come clean?'

Jackson sighed heavily and delved both hands into his trouser pockets, starting to wander in a small circle, padding behind Dale as he seemed lost in thought.

Suddenly, displaying reflexes that belied his age and with an agility that contrasted starkly with his usual ambling gait, he pulled a razor sharp craft knife from one trouser pocket and in an instant had brought it to bear against Dale's throat, pressing the tip into the skin next to the jugular vein that throbbed on the right side and just above the larynx.

He moved closer behind his hostage and grinned widely.

'I found this in the gallery that the workmen are renovating. It may be a small blade but I assure you, it can cut right to the bone if necessary.'

It had taken a moment for Dale to understand what was happening and his initial reaction of simply jerking away from the older man was quickly tempered by the sensation of the steel tip digging into his flesh and even a small warm trickle that seemed to be running down to his collar bone.'

'I'll give a little
exposé
,' Jackson said slyly, his breath brushing past Dale's ear, 'but first I'd like you to hand over your gun, Jolene. If you shoot at me I'm sure the bullet would pass straight through Dale before it hit me and we wouldn't want that would we?'

Jolene hesitated, seemingly about to speak, but she silently reached inside her jacket and pulled out a Desert Eagle pistol from her shoulder holster. She held it in her hand, apparently weighing up the odds of being able to shoot Jackson without harming Dale.

'Slide it across the table to me,' Jackson commanded, 'nice and easy now, I don't want to play games at this stage.'

Jolene grimaced angrily at the statement, but gently placed the handgun onto the heavy oak table, accelerating it with a shove so that it slid across the surface to Jackson, stopping abruptly when it was next to him.

'Well done!' he grinned. 'I hope I'm that good when I start playing shuffle-board in my retirement.'

He paused for a moment before tightening the elbow of his knife arm around Dale's shoulder.

'Remember, nobody needs to get hurt here so let us all remain calm. We don't need any ideas of heroics.'

He slowly reached out with his free arm and grasped for the pistol, picking it up and quickly aiming it at Dale's right temple, the release click of the safety catch clearly demonstrating that the gun was not being aimed just for show.

'You know as well as I do what a shot from this will do to Dale's head, so let's all be gentle and just talk for a moment,' Jackson gently admonished, 'lock the door and then we can begin. I wouldn't want Stanley or Oliver barging in and making me nervous.'

Jolene turned and rotated the heavy iron key in the lock of the door, the aged mechanism grinding slightly as the bolt slid to secure the only entrance. She slowly turned back again and rolled her eyes in exasperation.

'So what now? We're all ears.'

With a theatrical flail of both of his arms, Jackson swiftly released Dale and took a few steps backward to the window, ensuring that he was out of reach of any sudden movement by his former captive.

'Now we talk,' he said. 'I have a couple of minutes before my escort comes to get me.'

He grinned slightly and nodded his head back to the window.

'There is a team here to convey me to retirement, a team from the Sun of the Sleepless in fact. I had received word that the messages to Rey Faber had given me away, silly really. I just didn't think that it would all come to this, however, now is the perfect opportunity for me to leave our intrepid trio since we're in an ideal location to say our farewells.'

Dale's face was flushed with anger and he irritatedly wiped at his throat, noting the smear of blood from where the tip of the blade had pierced his skin.

'You've been screwing us over the whole time!' he snarled.

'Not all of the time,' Jackson chuckled, 'most of what I told you is completely true and I wouldn't have had it any other way.'

'You put them onto me at Gertrude's apartment!'

'Well, maybe I did,' Jackson posited, 'but I had no part in deciding to abduct the Verker girl, that was all Faber's doing. I just needed to get the book back one way or another and it was just as easy to get you to pick it up.'

Dale grimaced malevolently.

'You bastard!' he spat between his gritted teeth.

'Don't feel so bad,' Jackson soothed in a conciliatory tone, 'it was just bad luck that you ended up in a street brawl with Akosua. I'm sure she never intended to hurt you too badly.'