Torchwood Goes Forth
Chapter Twenty One
Cardiff
The parish church was empty except for a deacon re-aligning the chairs after the morning service. Gwen nodded to the young deacon but did not approach him, she was here for peace and quiet not conversation. The familiar scent of flowers and candles assailed her as she walked up the aisle to the side chapel kept for those who wished to pray. There were only half a dozen chairs in the little chapel and a small altar. Three candles lit in memory of loved ones still burned on the stand near the altar and Gwen lit one of her own.
"For you all," she murmured, thinking of Toshiko, Owen and Ianto.
Sitting, she stared at the stained glass window of St Peter and lost herself in thought. Prayer did not come easily to Gwen but she whispered a few conventional words and felt the peace of her surroundings sooth her troubled mind. After some minutes letting her mind empty, she methodically addressed all the issues vying for her attention and worked out what she was going to do with each before putting them in order of importance. First, she had to speak to Jack when they could locate him; he had gone AWOL and the Russian authorities were up in arms. She didn't blame them – who wanted Jack Harkness on the lose? – but had declined to be intimidated by their threats. Far more important was picking his brains about the 'event' he had so calmly diverted into her lap; she had preparations to make. Second, and potentially the most difficult, she had to persuade Rhys to take Daniel out of Cardiff; she did not want the two of them caught up in this thing. Third was following up the leads to the sect behind the 'event'. If the Network could locate the instigators they would not only have more information to play with they might also be able to stop the whole thing. She revised her mental list and put this before getting Rhys to leave.
A low fourth came the meeting with Burke-Tarkleton. He had been receptive to their informal approach about using the Ark Royal to nab the drug smugglers but would not commit himself without a lot more information. Perhaps she could leave that meeting to Lois and Alonso who knew more about it. Finally, she had to keep in touch with her team around the world. She was confident Selwyn would be able to handle matters in Australia but she had not heard anything from Kevin in the Falklands for a while. And there was Hiram Wendover in Texas and Vasili Karenchenko in Siberia who shouldn't be forgotten either. While all this was still fresh in her mind, she jotted down the points on her Blackberry.
Felling better for taking time out to organise her thoughts, Gwen left the church and drove back to base. Halfway back she remembered to turn to on her mobile, it rang almost immediately. Ignoring the law about not using the phone while driving, she checked the display and punched the button. "What is it, Lois?"
"Jack's been in contact, wants to talk to you. And MOD have sent us the results of their enquiry about who might have planted the cone in the Falklands." Lois sounded angry. "It's a whitewash."
Gwen realised her peace was not going to last long. "I'm on my way back, be about ten minutes. Tell Jack I'll call him then and we'll talk about the MOD after, okay?"
"Jack's still on the line, he's talking to Alonso. I'll see you soon." Lois ended the call.
At a junction, Gwen considered turning right, picking up Rhys and the baby – they were now at home – and taking off to some isolated backwater until the panic was over. It was very tempting but she knew she would never do it. Jack had taught her to well. She turned left.
-ooOoo-
Lourdes, France
The pension was a four story narrow house in a back street, off the beaten track for those seeking a cure at the Lourdes Grotto or pilgrims hoping for a sight of the Virgin Mary. This pension catered for middle ranking businessmen who did not have the money for hotels and liked the homely atmosphere. Its owner, Madame Leveque, was concerned by her new guest – Ilie Roman was not the sort she normally took in – but the reservation had come via one of her regulars and was only for three nights. She gave him one of the small rooms at the back over the kitchen and determined to keep an eye on him.
Ilie considered his room very comfortable. The brass bed, wardrobe and table were good quality, solid pieces of furniture of a kind he had rarely seen before, while the en-suite bathroom with constant hot water was nothing short of luxurious. At half past seven that Sunday morning, he was in the bath washing off the dust of days of travel before lying on the deep mattress for a couple of hours' sleep. Waking refreshed and dressed only in underwear and trousers, Ilie opened his laptop and checked the state of the signals. Finding they were all still transmitting, as expected, he looked no further. He brought up the website of the newspaper covering his home in Romania and scanned its pages for reports of a death at the station. And there it was, one paragraph with the bare details.
'The man's body found yesterday stabbed to death at the railway station has been identified as that of Dimitri Petrescu, 39. Anyone with information about the death is urged to contact the police.'
Ilie read this through a number of times. Dimitri had been identified quicker than he had anticipated but it made no difference. No one had seen the killing and he doubted anyone knew what Dimitri was doing at the station. Besides, even if by a fluke some connection was made to Ilie, it would take days for the authorities to find him. Dismissing the matter, Ilie went to his mail box. Two messages awaited his attention. The first was from Auben Dupont seeking confirmation that the Patriarch had arrived; Ilie replied immediately repeating his thanks for the man's help in Paris.
The second message shocked Ilie to the core and he cried out in alarm. Jumping up from his chair, he paced back and forth wailing at the turn of events. The cones had been found! After all his care at placing them in remote areas they had been found! He berated the priests on whom he had had to rely and the criminals they had chosen for the task. This was the priests' doing, they were attempting to undermine his position with The Lady, to replace him. It was not to be, he would not let it happen!
Hammering on the door cut across his distressed and angry cries. "What's going on in there?" demanded Madame Leveque. "What are you doing? Open this door at once."
Pulling himself together, Ilie did as she demanded and stepped aside when she stormed in to check the room. He endured her angry questions and apologised when she caught her breath. He had received some bad news, had forgotten where he was, was very sorry for disturbing her.
"This is a decent house, monsieur. I do not expect my guests to make such a noise, especially on the Sabbath. Any more and you will be out. Understand?" She planted her feet and glared at him.
"I understand, Madame. And I apologise again."
When she had gone, Ilie returned to his laptop. The interruption had helped focus his mind on the problem and he was calm as he typed in instructions to his informant.
-ooOoo-
Moscow, Russia
Internet cafés were everywhere and Jack had no problem finding one near the airport. He had made friends with a gaggle of holidaying Norwegians who had brought him to this place. Still toting his bag and laptop, he had paid for a booth designed for private web chats and settled himself, adding an additional layer of security in case any FSB agents had found him. The image on his screen at this moment was a head and shoulders shot of Alonso Frame. The young man had been distant at first but this had not lasted as Jack had explained what he had been doing and why. They got to talking about the intergalactic drug smugglers.
"I'm impressed, Al, and I'm sorry I'm not there to help."
Alonso shrugged. "You were needed elsewhere. I've missed you."
"Missed you too." Jack smiled, happy to say what Alonso needed to hear. "You know if you want company I won't mind."
"I know but I don't." A pause. "Have you?" Their relationship was not exclusive, both had had other partners without damaging the connection they had made to one another. Nevertheless, Alonso wanted Jack to answer in the negative.
"Nope, haven't been in one place long enough!" chuckled Jack.
"Hasn't stopped you before. You only went out for ousers on Reqina Prime and managed to bag those twins!" They laughed together at the memory of other races and other planets.
"Not this trip and not on this planet. You've seen for yourself how repressed they are. Mind you, there's a good-looking guy in charge of this place so who knows, I might get lucky." Jack waggled his eyebrows and was pleased Alonso continued to laugh.
"I'll have to make the most of today then. With you back tomorrow there's not much time to –" Alonso broke off, looking to one side. "Gwen's back. You'll be wanting to talk to her."
"I have to talk to her, Al, I want to talk to you."
"Bet you say that to all the guys." The young man felt his cheeks and ears grow warm and he ducked his head to avoid Jack's gaze. Even over 1,500 miles Jack's sexual attraction was undimmed.
They continued to chat for a few more minutes until Alonso said goodbye. The image on Jack's screen changed to the Torchwood boardroom where Gwen sat, with Lois beside her, surrounded by piles of papers. "Hi, Gwen, Lois."
Gwen did not reply. She was trying hard to hold onto the peace she had found in church but the pressures of work were already encroaching and she had only been back in the office five minutes. "Jack," she said finally, "I suppose I should be flattered it's not just me you're avoiding."
"I needed some time, Gwen. Time to go over all the information you and Lois have sent me and to do a bit of digging myself." He did not apologise and she noted the omission.
"Do you know how much effort it took to get you into Russia? How persuasive I had to be? What guarantees I had to give?" She sighed wearily. "Giving them the slip was not helpful. Nor was redirecting this little … bundle of joy my way."
"I don't trust anyone else to deal with it."
"You could have at least discussed it!"
"No time, Gwen. Look, I know you're mad at me so if you want to kill me when I get back, I don't mind. But right now we need to get all our ducks in a row."
"You heard him, Lois, I have permission to kill him. Break out the AK47."
"Make it an Uzi, the AK tickles."
Gwen found her irritation draining away in the face of Jack's charm. And he was right yet again, they had more important matters to discuss than trading recriminations about his unilateral decision. Though using him for target practice had a certain appeal … They got down to business.
"The portal is going to open at 3pm tomorrow your time," said Jack, referring to his notes. "We'll need a pyloxit field set up and ready to be activated as soon as we see what's coming through. I've told Al and he can help you set it up but you'll probably need UNIT in on this too. The field will scramble the signals from the cones and keep the portal from expanding."
"Why not just prevent it opening in the first place?"
"Because we need to know who's doing this and why. Don't want them trying again." He shrugged. "Better to send a message now that we're not a soft target." That's what should have happened back in 1965 when the 456 first came calling.
"What kind of effect is this going to have? I mean, a portal opening in the Millennium Stadium is pretty obvious. Couldn't you have chosen somewhere less public?"
"Needs to be containable and the stadium is just the right size. That was why I got it designed that way."
Gwen stared at him, surely he wasn't saying he had had a hand in the design of such an icon of the regenerated city. "I don't believe you."
"The retractable roof was my idea. Always wanted one on the Hub but couldn't manage it." He grinned and suddenly she believed him. "Anyway, you can pack the seats with UNIT guys and the pyloxit field will cover the whole structure."
"What about the city? Should we evacuate?"
"No point. Either whatever comes through will be contained or it won't. If it isn't, leaving the city won't help." Jack leant forward. "Besides, negotiating an evacuation with your politicians and controlling panicking people is not the best use of your time."
"I suppose." Gwen was still resolved to get her own family out of the immediate danger zone. "We've been working on that religious sect. The FSB found out it was based in Eastern Europe – which you'd know if you'd stayed in touch with them! - and the Network have narrowed it down to a backwater in Romania."
"Excellent. So Lois was right, this is linked to the sightings." He smiled at her. "Well done. So you're rounding them up."
Gwen rolled her eyes. "There's no one to round up! It's tiny, Jack, a one-man band. FSB found emails between Boris Modin in Irkutsk and an Ilie Roman in a village with an unpronounceable name." She was reading from Lois's notes. "The Romanians got there an hour ago and found this Roman had left on Friday for God knows where and –"
"Lourdes. He'll have gone to Lourdes to meet what's coming through the portal." This latest information confirmed what the event was going to be, in his own mind anyway. If the Torchwood archives had still been accessible he'd have been a hundred percent sure.
"Of course. Should have spotted that."
"You only saw the information five minutes ago, Gwen," put in Lois loyally. The information had come in while Gwen had accompanied Rhys and Daniel home.
"Even so …" Gwen ran a hand through her hair, feeling suddenly very tired. She had barely slept the night before and it was catching up with her. "We'll contact the authorities, track him down."
"Don't tip him off too soon. He uses email, hack into it. Might give us more on what's coming." Jack decided not to share his own suppositions, not until he was positive.
"There is something else," said Lois. "Ilie Roman had a few followers in the village. They're being questioned but one of them, Dimitri Petrescu, was murdered at the nearest railway station on the same day Roman took off. He could be dangerous."
"Another reason for caution. Tell the French to keep an eye on him but not to detain him."
"Easy for you to say," complained Gwen. "You ever tried to tell the French anything?"
"I introduced them to the gastronomic delights of frogs and snails, they really weren't keen at first."
"You what? Jack!"
He grinned at her, pleased to have diverted her. "I know you, Gwen, you'll get them to tow the line. Search through this guy's email history, might give us leads on others acting with him. How did one man in Romania arrange the placing of the cones?"
"We'll get on it, among all the other things we have to do. Alonso tell you about the drugs?"
"Yeah, and I think you're right to involve UNIT. But keep an eye on it, please. It was the reason I came back after all."
"When can we expect you back here?" It was now 15.20 and Burke-Tarkleton was due to arrive in ten minutes.
"I'm booked out on the 21.20 to London, arrives 22.20 your time." He gave them the flight number. "I'll be with you early tomorrow."
"Good." Gwen didn't mind admitting she would be happier as soon as Jack was back in Cardiff. "We'll organise a car."
"Thanks. We'll get together tomorrow morning then. Anything else?"
Gwen thought of the hundred and one things on her desk all of which were urgent and wished she had recalled Selwyn from Australia to help her. With her team all over the world she was holding the fort alone, except for Lois who had been run off her feet too. Perhaps she should bring in another administrator as well as a technician. That's if the world survived the next twenty four hours.
"Not to bother you with. I'll bring you up to date when I see you."
"Okay. Send me anything new on this Romanian guy." He signed off.
He spent another hour in the café tracking down all the information he could about a legends of goddess mothers. There was a lot.
-ooOoo-
Around the world
The Naraids were on the move, sliding sinuously through the water. Used as hunting animals on their native world, they had been bred for their cunning over hundreds of years and not a ripple appeared on the surface of the water to give them away. The attacks were co-ordinated by the clan leader who directed the four packs into position. A member of pack three had been killed, they were ripe for revenge.