章 13: A stroke of good luck:

"Are you sure? The Paravelese agent was imprisoned by the watch?" Ascot couldn't believe his ears.

He'd had his injuries treated by the extraction team as they travelled through the night, and caught the morning train to Gastielle; having guessed that the enemy agent would head straight to their embassy. But, apparently by some freak stroke of luck, they'd been mistaken for bandits, because it so happened that Lumiere had been raided by some mercenaries turned brigands who were using vehicles taken from a Paravelese supply depot.

Now, the agent who'd been watching the investigation take place of where they'd kidnapped and interrogated the old man, was telling him one incredible thing after another.

"Mistaken for bandits. It looks like the target wanted to pick up her father.... Any idea why the girl from Paravel let her? It seems strange." Royman had been placed on watch duty- but he couldn't fathom how a supposed bronze rank craftswoman agent had made such a rudimentary slip up.

"She mustn't have known that we snagged the old man, otherwise she wouldn't have gone anywhere near the house." Ascot reasoned, "That means she must've only picked up on us when we reached Lumiere.... Wait... Royman, could you draw a sketch of her face?"

The previous night, despite having been severely beaten by the agent, he hadn't got a good look at her. But Royman had seen her in full daylight.

Royman was a professional and the safe-house was well equipped. All agents as part of their field training were made to practice sketching for upwards of two months, and encouraged to continue to practice while on standby in the field.

In a few minutes, he'd captured Harpers features in a charcoal sketch.

".... Oh. ***** it. This girl was on the train! There wasn't a bloody double agent, she didn't need one, she heard exactly who we were looking for!"

The assembled members of the group blanched. What kind of joke was this- an enemy spy happened to be on the same train? Coincidences like that just didn't happen.

"Boss." A man missing two fingers called out in a scratchy voice, "I was on duty looking for tails at the time. I'm certain that I never saw her between when we arrived in gastielle to when we got off the train in Lumiere. How'd she follow us?"

"Don't you get it, Carson? We just figured out that she must've pegged us on our arrival in Lumiere, when she saw us questioning people. Consider this, if you wanted to monitor covert movements within a country with a minimum number of agents, how would you do it?"

Ascot looked at the blank faces around him and sighed.

"You just have people ride the trains constantly! There aren't that many lines really, so they simply constantly travel up and down the country, exchange information with a partner and then go the other way. If a single agent watches a particular line, they'll know exactly who regularly travels down it, and which groups are unusual." he looked around his colleagues who had their mouths half open at how cunning this particular piece of spy-craft was.

As Ascot had pointed out, you needed a minimal number of agents, who could double as a secure means of sending messages if you needed it- or in the case of their own operation, take the initiative to interfere with other countries.

"That explains it!" Royman slammed his fist on the table.

"Explains what?"

"The girl took out the stone and handed it over to the watch! They bagged it for evidence. I doubted your story because if I was the agent, I would've taken the bloody thing off her- but, if she decided to interfere without knowing why you were after the girl, she might not have known what it's for!"

Ascot pondered this and nodded, "Plausible. At least it confirms that her throwing it into the lake last night was as we suspected, a bluff. Once the Watch have it as evidence, they won't let go of it so easily- even if Dawson comes to bail them out. Our MO has changed gentlemen, we'll need to get in touch with our ambassador, and have him put a lean on the Quirm government."

The eight fingered Carson spoke up again.

"Boss. The Watch won't listen to the government if they know something like this is going on- and they sure as hell won't hand over the rock without a fight. How does that help us?"

"It won't, we're stalling for time here. We arrived here and signalled for backup at a little after twelve o'clock. Between then, and when Dawson meets with their agent is our headstart. It'll take roughly the same amount of time to mobilise our heavies. So long as we keep levelling accusations at the target via proxy, the watch won't let Dawson negotiate their release, even if they're cleared of being bandits. We spend the next couple of days prepping for the raid, and spearhead it with gold and silver craftsmen."

"We're hitting the Watch?!" the outburst that came from one of his subordinates was justified. The Watch did not belong to a country. It was an independent law enforcement agency that policed the entire continent. It had survived since the days of the empire, and every country both relied upon it and secretly feared it.

The watch maintained order and their funds were provided by the government- but they while they were staunch adherents to the law, they were not saints. Caglisotrovel had been a small kingdom, where the monarch had gotten the idea that the Watch would continue to Watch even if he didn't pay them. He cut their funding one day- and by the end of the week, the Watch had packed up and left the country. Like a magnet dropped into a pot of iron shavings, the thieves and criminals from the rest of the continent that had been suppressed by the Watch flooded towards their new safe haven. The country suffered, the king attempted to keep order with his army, and discovered that while they could suppress discontent, they could not keep order.

In the end, he was overthrown and the citizens of the nation made a heartfelt plea to the chief superintendent and chief constable of the Watch. They agreed and returned in force- the miscreants who'd entered the country so easily disappearing like a bad memory.

It was the birth of the future headquarters of the Watch, and ever since the newly minted Police State of Axis had stood as a reminder to all countries that might snub the guardians of the Law.

The Watch was as close to incorruptible as you could get. Their equipment, training and influence rivalled most standing armies and they were in every major city. On the continent, there was nowhere that was outside their jurisdiction, and the only places that were safe from them were settlements too small to warrant a permanent office.

Hence, even for hardened agents, a frontal assault on a watch-house was nigh unthinkable. If the watch found out their affiliation, their home country would not escape unscathed.

"I'd like to, this city's Watch-house isn't that large. If we set a fire or incited a riot we could probably break in without too much difficulty. But I know as well as you that we can't risk that. I have a different plan. One their agent won't see coming till it's too late!"

At that moment a man burst into the room, out of breath-

"Dawson just left the Watch-house. No-one was with him!"

The assembled audience grinned. Tonight was one of the major event's of the Gastielle social season. Not only had Dawson missed out on the opening, he'd failed to negotiate the release of his agents from custody. That gave them at least until tomorrow to get the ball rolling.

"This is it gentlemen- we failed once, but this time, everything has gone our way!"