A very tangled web indeed. Read on, dear reader. Darkness awaits the unprepared.

Music? Astronaut, from the new Tears for Fears album Songs for a Nervous Planet.

5.14

He enjoyed the sun, even now.

The warmth on his face. The cooling breeze fresh off the sea, drifting through his hair. He heard seagulls calling nearby and fought off the sleepiness, opened his eyes and looked at the birds wheeling around in the disturbed air behind the yacht. They were pretty, he thought, in their way. Pure white, the whitest white imaginable, accented by just enough black and gray to make them interesting. So common as to make them utterly contemptible.

How strange.

He turned his head fractionally, saw more of the low, scrub colored hills that defined this part of the coast and yes, everything here was lovely. More than lovely, really. The climate was so – benevolent – that it was easy to see and understand why life had taken root along these shores tens of thousands of years ago. And it was easy to relate to why so many wars had been fought to possess and maintain these shores. Every few miles you passed fortifications, some as recent as the Ottoman empire, others dating back to the time of Alexander. It was impossible to escape the vast sweep of ever-present history that defined this part of the eastern Mediterranean, and he’d recently found himself reading such things late into the night, lost in wonder. Never ending war. Endless death. And always over one god or another.

Seeing that he was awake, a cheerful young girl, perhaps in her early 20s, blond haired and blue eyed, quickly appeared by the side of his lounger. “May I get you something to drink, Dr. Weyland?”

Peter Weyland shook his head, looked at his watch. “No, I think I’ll have breakfast after my shower.”

“The usual this morning for you, sir?”

He nodded as he stood, ignoring her as he walked inside his stateroom and across to the head, suddenly remembering that he’d not put sunscreen on his genitals this morning, now hoping he’d not burned anything too sensitive down there. He showered, dressed, then made his way down to the dining area just in time to watch his yacht, the American Eagle II, as it began slowing for its approach to Sığacık’s protected yacht anchorage.

“And here we are, ladies and gentlemen, at yet another sleepy Mediterranean village,” he sighed as he turned his gaze from the crystal clear water to the sea of red-tiled roofs that defined this ancient port. He saw the low ramparts of another Ottoman fort, a long, low waterfront lined with fishing boats and little seafood restaurants, perfect symbiotes all, perfect free-market capitalists and, as these relationships always did when he saw them, he felt a surge of pride and smiled. This was the way the world was supposed to work, how it should have from the beginning – until things changed.

He sat and the same girl brought his tomato juice, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce and a scrubbed celery stalk – and the most important element of all, a bright green Persian lime – and he set about making his perfect breakfast drink. As he worked through his daily routine he felt the yacht turn into the wind, then could just feel the imperceptible rattle of chain slipping through the paws of the massive anchor windlass on the bow, followed a moment later by a subtle increase in power as the captain backed down the yacht, setting the anchor in the mud thirty feet beneath the ship’s keel.

He took a sip of his drink and now satisfied, he smiled.

“How is it this morning?” Britney, his personal attendant, said. 

“Perfect,” Weyland sighed, “just perfect. Are these the limes we picked up in Izmir?”

“Yessir. Shall I have the steward pick-up more?”

“That’s probably not a bad idea,” he said as she set his breakfast down on the table. Always the same, no variation. Lobster claw and asparagus tips in an egg-white omelet, topped with a fresh-roasted Hatch Valley green chili reduction and chopped tomatoes. No potatoes, no starch, indeed, almost no carbs or fat, and all of it freshly made.

Britney disappeared for a moment, then returned with his morning briefing documents. Prepared by his surrogates around the globe, they detailed current operating issues at all of the businesses he owned, everywhere. The summaries were presented in the same order every morning, the information collated by his executive staff in Bariloche, prepared by his Number Two inside the Castle. Manufacturing facilities in China and Thailand, automobile production in India and Argentina, aircraft in Brazil. Cattle in Montana and Texas, and yes, in Argentina. Grains in Ukraine and the American midwest. Water for export in Michigan. Lithium mining in California and China. Laser weapons in Virginia, rocket components in Utah, satellite operations in Florida and Surinam. Future lunar operations, Argentina. And finally, military and political intelligence gathered by operatives globally, all operatives currently active within their own countrys’ internal intelligence agencies. Spies, in other words, all working for their national intel agencies, and for him. All of them very well paid.

Britney quietly cleared his dishes as he read, then brought his Turkish coffee, medium sweet.

A half hour later she produced a plate of fresh strawberries and dates to go with his second coffee, and after he finished reading he stood and went up to the bridge to check in with the captain. Britney cleared the table, then filed the electronic documents in his cloud. When this was verified, she took the morning’s briefing papers to the shredder in the ship’s office and ran them through – twice.

Weyland stood on the bridge looking at the village now roughly a half mile away and nodded satisfactorily; the yacht’s captain, dressed in his starched white uniform, ran through the ship’s systems, while Randall Parker – late of the British SAS – stood nearby, waiting to answer any questions.

“Have you made contact yet?” Weyland asked the yacht’s captain, Clive Mendelssohn. 

“Yessir. He seems an appropriate choice.”

“Appropriate? Odd choice of words, don’t you think?”

“Not really, sir. He’s got the training, the skillset, and at this point he’s still certainly vulnerable.”

And, Weyland didn’t say, the Russians still wanted him dead. But then again, that had all been a part of the plan.

+++++

Baris Metin had always followed in his big brother’s footsteps; academically gifted and physically fit, he breezed through the Naval Academy three years behind his brother Nuri. Because of an interest in world affairs, Baris soon caught the eye of several academy instructors and a few mentored him, so after graduation, and after his mandatory year at sea, he was promptly moved to the Naval Intelligence Directorate, where his training intensified. Being from a small town, it was reasoned, made him particularly susceptible to the unique pleasures of Istanbul, and he soon developed the usual proclivities: sex and drugs, bad gambling debts. A Russian naval attaché quickly spotted the freshly minted intelligence analyst and began a months long effort to recruit the young officer, but when that failed more direct measures were employed. Baris was soon presented with compromising photos of his misadventures and quickly gave in, agreeing to provide timely documentation about upcoming NATO naval exercises and internal assessments of weapons procurement decisions to his Russian handler.

And with that part of the operation accomplished, Baris dutifully reported this successful contact – and the conclusion of a painfully constructed sting – to his handlers in The Organization, as the MİT, or Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization is called, and then he, for all intents and purposes, disappeared back into the ranks of Naval Intelligence, dutifully feeding a mix of useless procedural detail that would lend credibility to his reports, along with completely bogus material designed to throw the FSB and GRU off the scent of anything of true intelligence utility. Now Baris became the classic double-agent, truly living on the razor’s edge.

Yet his role in the operation was soon blown, and most troublingly by parties unknown; the first attempt on his life happened within weeks. After a second attempt, Baris completely dropped off the map and into the silent service, working first in the engineering spaces on a diesel submarine. A six month stint in a NATO exchange program was eventually offered, and he would have been assigned to a British nuclear submarine had it not been for serious amounts of cocaine detected during pre-assignment drug screening.

His career at an end and still fearing for his life, he appealed to one of his former mentors in the Organization, as well as several instructors at the Academy for help, but all his entreaties were rebuffed. Afraid to even let his brother know the real reason for his abrupt resignation, Baris returned home, to the warm sunny embrace of Sığacık. With his background he had no trouble finding work in one of the larger marine maintenance businesses there, and he did so hoping to eventually find work on one of the larger charter yachts operating out of Izmir. With proper licensing, he reasoned, he might even get one of those high paying captain jobs everyone talked about.

Yet a certain amount of bitterness remained after his ‘discharge.’ About how the service had put him into a situation that required limited drug use in order to bait the hook, and when the operation was over…well, just what had they expected of him? Was he not human? Was addiction really just the result of a certain lack of moral character? Bitterness soon turned to anger, and anger eventually to reckless behavior. He was soon doing cocaine again, drinking far too much, and partying like there was no tomorrow. 

Which was when his big brother Nuri returned home with his fiancé, Aylin Aksoy.

And Baris had been pleasantly surprised to find that Aylin was not only gorgeous, but also a patient, and very sympathetic listener. And she reported everything she uncovered to her handlers within the network.

+++++

Baris had just finished a three hour ‘tour’ of American Eagle and was on the bridge with Captain Mendelssohn, listening to this former Royal Navy officer describe the ship’s various navigation systems, and he was duly impressed – but all these systems were nothing new. The frigates he’d trained on had systems vastly superior to what this yacht had, but the level of systems integration on display here was new, and very impressive. The primary navigation screen could just as easily display radar or sonar information, or the operator could check out a high temperature alarm in the engine room with the flip of a switch. There were dozens of cameras throughout the engineering spaces and endless information about every item down there could be monitored electronically and visually from right here. At night, one could sweep the anchorage with infrared cameras that revealed every detail – just as if it was the middle of the day. There were stabilized antennas for direct connection to satellite internet or to the Inmarsat telecommunications network, and of course the ship employed massive gyroscopic stabilizers to control rolling in a seaway.

“So,” Captain Mendelssohn said, “are you interested?”

“I would be the executive officer?” Baris asked again.

“Yes. We lost our XO last month and we’ve been on the lookout ever since. When Miss Aksoy told the owner he seemed most impressed by your qualifications.”

“May I ask, please, who is the owner?”

“Someone you’ve never heard of. Peter Weyland is his name.”

Baris shrugged, because he truly never had heard of the man, but his future sister-in-law had recommended him and that had to mean something, especially given his current circumstances.

“No one has mentioned the salary?” Baris added.

And Mendelssohn nodded. “The boss happens to be onboard today, so I need to know if you’re interested in taking the next step, which is to meet him and let him look you over. If he likes what he sees he’ll tell you what your salary options are.”

“Options? What do you mean by this, please?”

“Base pay and any possible bonuses, as well as the standard company benefits and retirement package.”

Baris nodded. “What company would I work for?”

“The Eagle Network. Well, the European branch of the network.”

Baris swallowed hard. He knew of the power and influence of this network – both in Turkey and around Europe, and while the little voice inside his head told him this was too good to be true, he could also hear warning sirens blaring in the background. In the end, it didn’t take long for him to come to a decision.

“If possible,” Baris Metin said uneasily, “I think I should be meeting Mr Weyland today.”

Mendelssohn nodded, then escorted Baris to Weyland’s office down two levels on the main deck, aft of the main galley.

Weyland’s office spanned the width of the vessel, and Metin thought that so far everything about the ship looked as any other VIP’s office might – though perhaps one located in a skyscraper, somewhere like New York or London. Everything was polished granite or mahogany varnished to a smooth, mirror-like sheen, everything designed to awe and impress. After knocking on the door, Mendelssohn waited for a green light to appear before entering, then after entering the captain had literally stood at attention in front of Weyland’s desk, waiting to be dismissed. Baris followed suit and stood to while the young executive finished a telephone call…

…Then Weyland turned to Mendelssohn. “Your impressions, Captain?”

“Well-trained and disciplined, sir, and knowledgeable on most of the ship’s systems.”

“Time enough to get him up to speed?”

“A month, sir, though probably less.”

“Your recommendation, Captain?”

“Hire, with the usual probationary period.”

“Alright, Captain Mendelssohn. Dismissed.”

“Aye, sir.”

Then Baris was left alone in this man’s office, and suddenly he was all too aware that this man held real power, immense power, the power to influence events here, or anywhere in the world he wanted.

“Mr Metin,” the man began, “your background check has uncovered a few questionable entries concerning narcotic substances and gambling. Tell about this, please.”

“Yessir. I was detailed to present the appearance of an out of control intelligence analyst, with the hope of attracting the attention of Russian or Chinese operatives operating in-country. I was told to use whatever products necessary to present a realistic target to these intelligence operatives.”

“And that’s how you developed this addiction?”

“Yessir.”

“And you have this under control now?”

“Yessir.”

“We frequently entertain guests onboard, and some of these guests may use substances of this nature. Think you can handle that?”

“I think so, sir.”

“You’re not a hundred percent sure?”

“No sir. Where those substances are involved, there is never, under any circumstance, certainty.”

Weyland nodded, and Metin thought he could see the faintest traces of a smile forming…

“I agree,” Weyland said. “And your self awareness of this – certainty – is of course refreshing. Can you tell me what you earned in your last year of service?”

“Yessir, 132,000 US dollars.”

Weyland then slid a piece of paper across his desktop. “Look this over, and if you find the terms agreeable, please sign this document with Captain Mendelssohn as your witness. The contract will be officiated in the ship’s office, if you so choose.”

“Yessir,” Metin said, leaning forward to pick up the paper. “Will that be all, sir?”

Weyland stood and held out his right hand. “Nice to meet you, Baris. Out the door, then turn right.”

“Yessir.”

Baris walked out the door not having even looking at the document in his hand, so once he’d gently closed the door to Weyland’s office he paused and quickly read through the contract.

First year, fifty thousand dollars – a month. All medical and dental insurance benefits globally available. Drug rehabilitation and treatment plans included. One hundred thousand per year contributed to something called an IRA. An aggregate total of one month’s paid leave per year, inclusive of all related travel expenses to and from the yacht.

It took a minute longer to finish reading the terms of his employment, but Baris Metin was stunned. This was beyond anything he’d imagined, beyond even his wildest dreams – ‘and to think…just a few days ago I had never felt lower…never in my life…’

‘What did father always say? When one door closes, another always opens?’

Peter Weyland studied the disgraced naval officer’s smiling face through several nearby CCTV cameras, and while he detested the man’s essential weakness, the knowledge he possessed might prove useful in the upcoming operation – that was even now taking final shape.

Still, it was a pity the boy would have to die so soon, but he had, when all was said and done, made some very powerful enemies.

Deborah Sorensen was still in shock, and she was still angry enough to kill Gene Sherman.

That goddamn priest was her last friend in the world  and yet he had just stood there and watched as that boy shot her. He had watched as she died right before his eyes, and yet all he’d done was mumble a few Hail Marys over her twitching, cooling body – but then the bastard had simply said a few more words before he unceremoniously dumped her body in the ocean! And right about where LA County dumped megatons of so-called treated sewage all the time! 

And yet…in the next instant she had arrived here. And alive…too.

And her father had been waiting for her. Her father…the man who had died ten years ago.

So it was only logical. She was dead, and this was heaven. It sure looked like heaven! She was sitting on the flagstone patio behind a massive hotel that looked vaguely like something right out of 19^th-century Bavaria, yet there was a helicopter flying by overhead and modern powerboats zipping around on the nearby lake…

And before she could utter one word a waiter had appeared and deposited a sumptuous looking Bloody Mary on the white linen tablecloth in front of her, and she had tentatively picked up the glass and taken a little sniff, then a sip.

“I hope that’s to your liking,” her father said casually. “Not too much horseradish, I hope?”

She nodded. “Nice of you to remember,” she sighed, “but I suppose ghosts can do anything they like…? When it suits them…?”

“Quite right,” he said, grinning at the irony of the moment.

She picked up her glass and took a long pull, then she noticed the ash and fine particulate cinders on her arms and remembered that just moments before she had been in the Marina – right after she and Darius ran through crumbling city streets after her Land Rover’s electronics were fried by yet another ionizing CME. But no, there was more to it this time. San Francisco had been shattered by some sort of tectonic event, and the Pacific Northwest the night before.

And then their waiter returned, carrying Chilean sea bass with mango salsa and a roasted endive salad – two of her favorites! She took a bite and closed her eyes as waves of sybaritic memory flooded the moment, then she looked up at her father and smiled. “You remembered everything,” she whispered, “didn’t you?.”

“I did. I always loved to watch you eat when you were still in school. Such appreciation. I felt such gratitude…”

“Gratitude?”

“That God gave me you.”

“You are Ted Sorensen, right?” she asked.

And he smiled. “I was simply trying to rein you in, you know. I failed miserably, but I tried. I had to.”

“You failed?”

He nodded. “From the time we moved into that glorious house in the Hollywood Hills, I felt that something had broken your spirit, yet it never dawned on me that it was I that had caused you so much pain.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she looked away.

“Do please finish your lunch, Deborah. We have so much to talk about. And there’s so much I need to show you…”

“It wasn’t that simple, Dad,” she said, wiping away a river of tears.

“It never is,” Ted Sorensen replied.

“You mind me asking…just where are we?”

“Bariloche, in the southern Andes.”

“Argentina?”

He nodded. “That’s right.”

“So, all this has something to do with the Adler Group, right?”

“Not quite,” he said, smiling broadly, “but close enough.”

“And this place…it looks like a hotel?”

“Because it is. Been here for ages. It’s called The Llao Llao.”

“The architecture…it looks kind of Germanic.”

“Because it is,” her father said, still smiling. “The area was settled by immigrants from Germany and Wales, though many came by way of Chile.”

“And this is where the Adler Group is now?”

He shrugged, though another brief flicker of a smile streaked across his face. “Actually, we’re everywhere.”

“So, you mean this is kind of like the Bond villain’s lair – the tentacles spread out from here?”

Sorensen laughed openly at that, then gently slapped the tops of his thighs. “Bond villains? Oh, I like that…but we’re hardly that, Deborah. Our ambition is quite a bit more modest than world domination.”

“Oh? Do tell?”

“Why Deborah…our ambition is, of course, to save humanity.”

“Indeed? From what, if you don’t mind my asking?”

He chuckled again, though now he held his hands up in mock surrender. “From itself, of course. What else could we do?”

+++++

He watched them from a table on the far side of the patio. The expressive hands, the father’s mocking self-deferential paternalism, the daughter’s ritual submission after a brief emotional struggle, and then he understood. Ted Sorensen was one of those dominant types; his daughter was more frightened of him than she knew. Or understood. Of course, her father was an alpha-predator, a true psychopath, while even watching from afar he could see that Deb had always struggled to stand on her own. Just as obvious, her father had never encouraged her to. He had been content to let her dangle on his puppeteer’s strings, unable or unwilling to break free of his domineering influence, scornfully watching her living her life as an emotionally dependent child all her life.

They were both, Frank Bullitt saw, perfect exemplars of wealth and privilege.

He watched them get up and walk off towards the hotel together, and after a discrete wait he got up and followed them into the massive hotel, first down a dark paneled hallway lit only by a handful of dim, amber colored wall sconces, then through the reception and out to the heavy-timbered porte cochère where, moments later, a black 7-series BMW arrived. Sorensen’s driver helped them to the seats in the rear and off they went.

Bullitt stood in the same carport and watched them drive off, just as a dirty VW Golf pulled up, with Spudz MacKenzie behind the wheel.

“You spot them?” Spudz asked.

“Yup,” Bullitt said, grinning as he buckled up. 

“We got the homer inside the engine compartment,” MacKenzie added, smiling.

The BMWs location was displayed on an iPad-sized central display; it turned east towards Bariloche but soon doubled back on a twisting alpine road that led into the mountains southwest of the city.

“See anything unusual?” MacKenzie asked as they followed along just out of sight.

“Nice place. I wouldn’t mind having a steak there someday.”

Spudz shook his head. “Anything, perhaps, of an operational nature?”

“She looks and acts like a spoiled daddy’s girl, if that’s of any use.”

“So, a weak personality?”

“Classic. Yeah. And it seems pretty obvious now, too. He’s recruiting her.”

“20-20 hindsight, I guess,” MacKenzie sighed. “Well, looks like he’s turning off at the house.”

“Head on up to the overlook,” Bullitt grumbled as he fumbled for the binoculars under his seat.

A few minutes later they were looking across a valley to Sorensen’s house – though castle was a better descriptor. Perched on a granite crag, Sorensen’s house was a small Bavarian themed compound, complete with granite walls and with the red-white-black Eagle Network flag fluttering on the breeze.

“You know,” MacKenzie muttered under his breath, “it really chaps my ass that these characters would design a flag that looks almost exactly like the NAZI flag. I mean…replace the fucking swastika with that blocky SS-style eagle and there it is.”

Bullitt shrugged. “Sorensen’s a jew. Explain that to me when you figure that one out.”

“Power. It’s like an aphrodisiac, I guess.”

“Is that the voice of experience talking, Admiral?”

MacKenzie grinned. “You know it, Paco.”

“I don’t buy it,” Bullitt shot back. “That’s too simplistic, and she ain’t all that simplistic, if you know what I mean. Paco.” 

MacKenzie nodded. “I know.”

“Let’s look at the facts. She loves this Taggart dude but he sails off into the sunset before dying of cancer. Then she latches onto a fucking priest and he gets her killed, only she wasn’t killed, was she? That pink fucker snatches her away, then she shows up here, right after all that shit goes down in Seattle and San Francisco. We say she’s got low self esteem so her dear old dad can just pick up where they left off, but then we don’t really have the slightest fucking clue what that pink fucker is really up to, do we?”

MacKenzie nodded. “Okay. I’m following you.”

“Yeah? Well, so then the pink fucker shows up on Hyperion and tells us where she is, but wait a minute, Paco, because the pink fucker saved her ass, didn’t it? Now it tells us she’s down here with dear old dad? But wait! We already know she’s on the Scimitar, right? And she’s got a fucking cruise missile launcher onboard now, too. And she’s heading towards Iceland? And she’s got charts for the Denmark Straits, and books on the battle to sink the Bismarck?”

“Okay, so we know all this, and yeah, we reached the inescapable conclusion that the Eagle Network, or, really, this Fourth Reich has pulled Hitler back to lead the movement, and their opening salvo is going to involve major rewrite of History…”

“It sure looks that way,” Bullitt nodded, “but still, I’m not convinced that’s the Pink’s main objective.”

“Why?”

“Well, for starters – why Hitler, and why Roosevelt? What makes them so important?”

“And?”

“And why Harry? What’s he got to do with all this? I mean, it sure looks like he’s in the eye of this hurricane, if you know what I mean…?”

“So, why are you here?”

“Because I’m Harry’s friend. I was his partner.”

“And you know about this piano-thing, his time-tripping. Right?”

“Yeah.”

MacKenzie suddenly looked at Bullitt. “Can you do it, too?”

Bullitt nodded. “I’ve done it once, by myself.”

“Okay, so that’s two of you that we now know can jump on their own. What about Deborah Sorensen? Think she can?”

Bullitt shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“What about this Henry Taggart? What do we know about him?”

“Not much,” Bullitt sighed.

“You never met him?”

Bullitt shook his head. “Man, what if Sorensen can?”

“You mean her old man?”

“Yeah. We’d be in deep shit, wouldn’t we?”

“Well, someone in their network obviously can. How else did they get Hitler involved?”

Bullitt crossed his arms over his chest. “Why would Sorensen do it? I just can’t imagine a jew betraying his own people like that?”

“What if he didn’t?” MacKenzie asked as – but in the next instant the sun had set…and Frank Bullitt was gone.

© 2024 adrian leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | this is fiction plain and simple, and nothing but.

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