Colin nodded and put his roll down.
“How’s your mother?” he asked.
“She’s recuperating well thanks; but under protest; as you can probably imagine.”
Colin smiled.
“Did you enjoy your break?” Athena asked.
“Plenty of sea air and exercise” Colin replied “glad to get back though. I was missing the old place.”
“Were you missing me too?”
“Maybe a little” said Colin smiling “has anything exciting happened since I left?”
“We had a break through in the ice house.”
“Oh dear; nothing serious I hope.”
“No silly; I mean Head Case and his team have got a couple of the boys we brought back from London to start talking. He’s reporting to us on their progress tomorrow morning at our meeting.”
“Don’t call them boys” said Colin “they were old enough to be prepared to blow themselves and many others up, so when the time comes they will pay the price.”
“You seem a little touchy tonight Phoenix; I expect you’re tired. Would you like me to go?” Athena asked.
Colin was tired and he could imagine that if she stayed it might lead to something. He knew he couldn’t do her justice, not tonight, not after the last few days. On the other hand, he didn’t want her to get the hump; so he gritted his teeth and said:-
“Not at all; stay as long as you like.”
Athena stood up from the bed, walked to the door and locked it.
She turned around to face Colin and started to undress.
“Give me strength” thought Colin to himself.
Athena started taking off her top ever so slowly. With every passing second he could see more of her body. He couldn’t wait. When she moved her top further off, her lower breasts covered by a red lacy bra came into view. Slowly her cleavage and bust were out and he could feel himself getting harder. And then her top was off completely and she was standing in her bra. It was a magnificent sight. She moved her hands back and unhooked her bra. Slowly she took off her bra straps from her shoulder and let her bra drop to the floor. Colin was simply amazed by her body.
“Athena” he said “you are truly stunning.”
“Be gentle with me” she whispered as she went to step out of her skirt.
Colin stood up and walked towards her. He cupped her breasts in his hands and kissed her lightly on her lips.
There was a sharp urgent rap on the door.
“Phoenix! There’s an emergency meeting in the big house mate. Your presence is required. Head Case has got some news that won’t wait until morning. You’d better get up there sharpish!”
It was Rusty.
Colin and Athena were face to face; their breathing was ragged. She sighed as her hips moved against Colin’s erection.
“No close and yet so far” she groaned.
“There’s no rush” said Colin “I’m not going anywhere. You made sure Erebus would keep me at Larcombe. There’ll be other nights.”
Athena pulled away from him reluctantly and started to dress herself. Colin waited until both of them were composed and ready to face Erebus and the others. The old man suspected something was going on between them already; no point advertising the fact by pitching up to a meeting with flushed faces and disheveled clothing!
CHAPTER 24
Although, of necessity, they had to leave his quarters together, Colin and Athena separated soon after. When Colin entered the drawing room for the emergency meeting Erebus was deep in conversation with Henry Case. The old man just nodded to acknowledge his arrival.
The others filed into the room very quickly afterwards. Minos and Thanatos walked in together; then followed Athena and just behind her was Alastor. A half dozen of the more senior ex SAS operatives had been invited along too. This must be something big!
Erebus looked around the room to check that everyone was present. Satisfied that they were, he asked Henry Case to go through the events of the past week. Henry stood up to begin outlining the techniques he and his team had utilized.
Colin hadn’t seen Henry Case before; after learning his nickname he was keen to find out what it was about this guy that made people think he was unstable. On the face of it, he appeared quite normal. In his late thirties, he was about five foot eight inches tall and of slim yet athletic build. His accent was that of a highly educated upper class man.
Colin could imagine him having all the right connections that Erebus and the other ex-military people at Larcombe would have been looking for. His interview must have been a breeze! Colin and the others listened to him intently.
“As you know, we do not dabble in the dark arts here at Olympus; namely those techniques that are unacceptable under the conventions that apply to the interrogation of terrorists or terrorist suspects. This slows us down somewhat, but we have to have standards.
Interrogation is a battle of wits with the prisoner, enticing him into talking by building up a relationship, pretending you know things you don’t to dupe him into giving away information.
Over the past eight days we have been battling with four such prisoners. Initially, we deprived them of sleep. This we find is most effective in breaking the will of our detainees. We subjected them to twenty hours of constant interrogation.
Almost immediately we saw Irfan Baqri, Arshad Usman and Karim Rivzi start to show signs of distress; by the end of their second session we felt there was nothing to be gained from having them undergo any of the further stages in the process.”
“Why” asked Athena “what did they tell you?”
“Everything they knew” replied Henry “unequivocally. I am sure you have been apprised of the core leadership group that exists in this type of terrorist cell; it is a ring network and Habeeb Rehman was the leader of this particular link in the chain. The late Zunairah Jaffri was his second in command.
All the ring networks overlap and as we know and quite frequently an operational cell can become autonomous; in the case of the Milton Keynes cell Rehman was the link to the other parts of the network. He alone knew the identities of members in sub cells which themselves only had tenuous knowledge of whom or what made up the central core.”
“So the three men knew their leader, but were aware of nothing material to us of any of the remainder of the whole set up” said Erebus.
“Exactly sir” replied Henry Case.
“Decision time then” said Erebus “what do we do with these three little fish?”
“As they believe the people who picked them up in London were from a secret service branch and have no idea where they were brought to, we could drop them by the side of a road somewhere in the Midlands and allow them to resume their studies” Henry Case suggested “it would seem a little harsh to dispose of them.”
“A dangerous game Henry” said Erebus “what if they went to the press and complained about their treatment by the authorities? The secret services would be alerted to the fact that there’s another player in the game.”
“Can’t we turn them?” asked Athena.
“If they know so little, what value do they represent?” said Colin.
Henry Case shrugged his shoulders “So be it.”
Erebus held up his hand.
“Not so fast Henry; let’s keep these three for a little while longer. I need to confer with my colleagues; we must agree which is the best course for Olympus. All other considerations are secondary to that.”
Erebus asked Henry to continue.
“As for Habeeb Rehman he was clearly made of stronger stuff and following up on Phoenix’s point, his value is significant.
He required us to move on to another tool in our kitbag, namely sensory deprivation. He was left in one of our air-conditioned rooms on Level Three with earmuffs, gloves and goggles. By the end of the second day we would expect the detainee to be on the verge of breakdown; yet Rehman was still only moderately disturbed.