68. The discovery

Morrison and Dexter burst into the room of the signalers' mobile office. The service corporal jumps to attention.

Morrison gestures to him to relax. "Sit down, Corporal, and show us what you have."

Excitedly Corporal Jansen reacts: "We are doing shifts to monitor the radio frequencies 24/7 as you have ordered, Colonel, and you were right. We have a spy in our midst that made contact with someone outside. I shall play the recording now for you, Colonel, then you can listen for yourself."

Jansen has the recorder ready and pushes a button. First, there are crackling noises as it runs through different frequencies. The other two wait anxiously.

Suddenly a voice can be heard: "Ant Heap, come in, over!"

Silences follow in-between as Ant Heap regularly is being called and Morrison becomes impatient: "Is that all?"

The signaler holds up his hand.

Morrison looks at Dexter: "Does this sound like a woman's voice to you as well, Captain?"

Dexter nods. "Yes, Colonel, but it is clear that she tries to disguise her voice."

Eventually, a man's voice answers. "Ant Heap here, you can talk Mail Pigeon, over."

Dexter and Morrison frown at each other while they curiously keep on listening. The woman's voice now sounds excited and surprised. "Ant Heap, I thought I have lost you altogether. Everything okay over there, over?"

"Everything is fine and we are ready. Is the plan still the same? We are going to leave shortly and only want to confirm it, over."

"The plan is still the same. You can go ahead. I've got nothing further and if you have nothing, I must warn you that the frequencies are monitored, over."

Baffled Morrison takes Dexter at the shoulder as if to ask: "Have you heard that?"

"Frequencies are monitored, why so, over?"

"The dogs sniffed out your camp after you have departed, over."

"I understand. I will not make contact until two weeks after the plan has been executed. Please also be quiet until then, over."

"Will do. Over and out."

"Over and out."

Morrison shakes his head up and down. "Captain Dexter, your theory has been correct all along. You said your tracker thinks there were six vehicles and more or less 24 people at the camp at the dam. And you suspected they are armed mercenaries. That is why they didn't show their faces. This guy on the outside asked the lady inside if everything is fine and if they can proceed with the plan. He also said she must be quiet and he would not make contact only two weeks after the plan has been executed. It's quite clever because she knows when it will be and we not. What do you think is the plan they were talking about?"

Captain Dexter shakes his head from side to side deep in thought and then his eyes become bright and excitedly he asks: "When will the Puma depart to collect those ten people, Colonel?"

"With first light on 1 April next week. The appointment is arranged for 10:30."

Morrison's eyes also brighten. "My goodness! You are right, Captain! At this stage, nothing is going on in the camp. And that is all the information they need. Those ten people in the occult's hide-out in Port Elizabeth have the mission to fulfill when they leave and next week we are going to pick them up with the Puma and bring them to this camp. Those mercenaries are probably hired by the occult to boycott our plans. Maybe the occult don't want them to join us because why is it that they had to hide there and not join us from the start?"

Dexter nods. "I suspect there is a huge probability that they will wait for our Puma to arrive there, Colonel, and I suspect further that neither Nico nor Francois know about this, because why did Nico make an appointment with you to pick them up with the Puma? Colonel, we will have to prepare for every possible scenario. The Puma can take twenty men. I suggest that we take the initiative and boycott their plans by planning ahead and let the Puma take me and nineteen of my best men even today and we land just in front of the hide-out and secure the smallholding. The Puma can stay there and will be ready and safe and when it has delivered Nico and his team safely at the farm, they can return to pick us up. In the meantime, we will piece together an ambush and wait for the mercenaries, take them into custody, and try to find out what their agenda is."

"Marvelous plan, Captain! We suspect they have 24 men and I suspect they won't take all of them along, so your firepower will be more or less equal to theirs, but you will be well dug in and established. Their spy won't warn them, because they have arranged to keep radio silence, but if she tries, we will know because we will monitor that radiofrequency 24/7 just for in case, not so, Jansen?"

Jansen nods apprehending and Morrison continues: "In any case, any warning would be too late because by that time you will be dug in on the smallholding."

Dexter just wants to make sure the colonel comprehend something. "Colonel, remember they now know we are monitoring the radio frequencies. Thus they might be prepared for the possibility that we are ready. They also know the Puma can take twenty men. I think they will be prepared for the fact that we could have secured the place beforehand. When we depart here with the Puma we don't know whether they can hear us, and put two and two together, especially if they realize the Puma hasn't returned."

Morrison nods. "Well, I can't see a better plan now, Captain. If you only dig yourself in very well, I can't see how they will manage to deter you from bringing those ten people safely to the camp, but there is a very serious matter that bothers me. Who is the lady, Captain? How does she know that the frequencies are monitored? Think a bit about who knows it. You, Chloe, Jane, our three young signallers, myself, Haasbroek, and Marco."

"That voice was disguised, but the pronunciation is neither Chloe's nor Jane's, Colonel"

"Maybe a friend of theirs?"

Dexter scratches his head. "Colonel, to tell you the truth, I work well together with Chloe and Jane from the time you appointed me as manager of the police service in Hunter's place and I can give you my word and assure you they have nothing to do with this. In any case, it was Jane who first suggested that we have a spy in our midst."

"Beware, Captain, those two women grow on you and the one is cuter than the other. Don't pull a softy on me!"

"No truly, Colonel. We make a nice team. I assure you again this must be another lady within our midst but I can't think of one now."

Dexter looks at Jansen. "You three youngsters don't have girlfriends here, have you?"

Jansen resolutely shakes his head. "No, Captain, that lucky we are not."

Morrison suddenly looks as if he has seen a ghost for a suggestion that Dexter's words evoke in his brain and he hits with his flat hand on Jansen's desk. "Play that fucking recording again, now!"

Jansen jumps where he sits and suddenly wide awake sits up. "All right, Colonel, it's digital and I shall play it immediately."

He pushes a button and she is again trying to reach the guy outside: "Ant Heap, come in, over."

Excitedly Morrison's head moves up and down and intensively he listens when she speaks again and he takes Dexter by the shoulder. He signals to Jansen to put the thing off.

"Paola! I can bet you that it is Marco's mistress. She is, in any case, the only female that is part of our inner circle. Marco, of course, shares everything with her and she milks him literally and figuratively."

Dexter is curious: "I know very little about her, Colonel. I thought they were married."

"No! Marco met her in Port Elizabeth only a while before we came to the farm and lost his head completely to his piece of sexy Portugal. I let him carry on. Damn it, how could I be so blind? Shit, I was so satisfied with my wonderful security team that had no attachments that had to carry like loose wires. I should have known when she suddenly appeared on the scene. The occult probably placed her here to sniff out the Elite via us."

Morrison again eyeballs Jansen. "Now that I talk about the Elite, you are still monitoring the short waves, aren't you? Have you found anything?"

"Yes, Colonel. We do both at the same time. I've only left the short waves for a moment to talk to you."

"Funny that we haven't picked up something thus far. Don't we need a higher mast? It just can't be that the Elite's camps all over the world have just vanished. My satellite phone isn't working. I suspect the same space ships that brought the spiders from the moon, demolished the satellites' communication in space. So the only way in which we can now make contact is via short wave masts."

Jansen utters his suspicion: "Maybe there is a logical explanation why it takes them longer to get these short wave towers ready, Colonel."

Morrison nods. "Let's hope we find our colleagues, the sooner the better, so that we can mobilize against the enemy. We must simply sniff out that fucking occult because I have the feeling they want to wipe us from the surface of the earth before they end the plague. Concentrate on the short wave at least for the next two weeks. We simply must make contact!"

Dexter wonders: "What is your plan with Paola, Colonel?"

"No one must know about her except our three and especially Marco must not be informed of anything, okay?" Morrison looks at Jansen who nods that he understands completely.

"I have a special plan for this lady that I only am going to share with Heinrich. You must not discuss her with anyone."