Invaders

chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Synchronicity AgainThe safe house set aside for E-Branch use was in the New Marchant Park district, north of the city. An ugly two-storey affair, it had aluminium cladding designed and painted in a rather poor imitation of timber; Brisbane no longer favoured wooden structures of any kind.The house was set back from the road up a short palm-lined drive; its gate was remote-controlled from inside the lead limo and opened into a featureless garden. Two medium-sized, innocuous-looking saloon cars stood on a gravel drive in front of the house. In fact they were fitted with bullet-proof windows, heavily-plated bodywork, hidden roll-bars and other anti-crash/anti-terforist devices. Short of a bomb-blast or a head-on collision at speed, no one was going to come to harm driving one of these vehicles. They were for the use of Trask and his people.

Laid to lawn and enclosed within high stone walls, the garden was on a level and surrounded the house on all sides; every inch of grass (or straw as it was now) was clearly visible from the windows of both storeys. Of the house itself: it had bullet-proof, heavily curtained windows, and a security/intruder warning system second to none. In plan, the ground floor consisted of four long rooms, one on each side, each furnished and decorated in a slightly out-of-date style, with little or nothing to show that the place was anything other than a fairly expensive private dwelling house. The central room, however, which wasn't visible from the gardens, was an operational and communications nerve centre of screens and computerized equipment.The sleeping quarters (in fact a pair of cramped dormitories with beds for up to fourteen people, or maybe eighteen at a push, and a handful of curtained-off, cell-like units for VIPs) were upstairs. And overhead on the roof, a bank of 'solar-heating panels' (tinted windows) concealed an array of hi-tech communications aerials and dishes.The agent-chauffeurs showed Trask and his crew of six over the house, asked how they could help them settle in or if there was anything else they needed. Trask checked with Jimmy Harvey and Paul Arenson  -  in their element as they switched on and got acquainted with the gadgets in the ops room  -  and Arenson told him:'We're fully compatible throughout. Give us ten minutes to hook our stuff up to this lot, and we'll have the HQDuty Officer up there on that big screen so clear you'll think you're in London.''Scrambled?' Trask wasn't that easily satisfied.'As per SOPs, yes,' said the other.At which Trask thanked the ASI men (Australian Special Intelligence), who headed back to the airstrip to connect with incoming Chopper Two's military commanders and three more members of Branch ground staff. Once they were in, and until the slower back-up squads of Australian SAS types had arrived and taken up their tactical locations, the advance party was on its own...In fact, it took the technicians half an hour to complete their hook-up. Meanwhile an uncharacteristically subdued Liz had brewed a pot of Earl Grey for Trask and herself, coffee for Jake and the others. Goodly had taken his coffee through into ops. Trask was enjoying his tea in one of the living rooms while poring over a small-scale map of the Queensland/New South Wales border areas. It was somewhere there, in the vicinity of the border, that the locator Chung had detected mindsmog, probably due to the381mental activity of a master vampire, Wamphyri! Probably, but not definitely, not with one hundred per cent certainty; the Branch had long since discovered psychic 'hotspots' where a proliferation of lesser, human ESP talents could produce the same result. It had been David Chung's 'hunch', however, that this time it was the real thing, which the synchronous 'coincidence' of vampire lieutenant Bruce Trennier's death had seemed to confirm.Jake took his coffee over to where Trask worked, watched him use a red highlighter to plot a dotted line along the border from Stanthorpe to Coolangatta, then circle the whole area in a ring of pale red ink. As Trask looked up from what he was doing, Jake lifted an enquiring eyebrow.'If our target is here/ Trask explained, 'and if he has established himself, then he's somewhere inside this ring. Personally, I fancy he is. I've known David Chung for a long time and he doesn't make too many mistakes. It was Chung who discovered Trennier. Once we had an approximate location, we checked with the local police and picked up on a handful of disappearances  -  Trennier's recruits, those creatures we killed at the Old Mine gas station. That one was fairly easy; in a region as thinly populated as the Gibson Desert, people are wont to take notice when their kith and kin cease to exist! But here in the east, on the coastal strip ...' He paused, glanced again at the map, shook his head.'Densely populated,' Jake nodded. 'And that circle you've drawn covers, what  -  maybe five, six thousand square miles?''Closer to eight,' Trask corrected him glumly. 'And folks disappear around here every other half-hour, about the same as they do in similar areas of population all over the world.'Lardis Lidesci had been talking to Liz. Now he came over, put a gnarled finger on the map and growled, 'These?' 'Mountains,' Trask answered.

'Huh!' Lardis grunted. 'Thought so. And the border follows the mountains, right?'

'In part,' Trask nodded. 'A natural boundary, yes.''An wnnatural boundary, in Sunside/Starsidef Lardis said. 'But there again, the Barrier Mountains are different entirely, and they never knew sunlight such as these mountains have seen. But beggars, and even the Wamphyri, can't be choosers. Not in a world like this. So there you are. And now maybe you can narrow it down.'

Concentrating on the map, Trask was only half-listening to what Lardis was saying. But in another moment he looked up from where he sat at the table. 'Eh?''Mountains,' Lardis said. 1 understand 'em. And so do the Wamphyri. If this one's a Lord, where do you think he'll be?''Where do I think - ?' Trask frowned, looked again at the map, then came erect and snapped his fingers.'In the mountains, aye,' Lardis anticipated him, scowling in his fashion. 'In his aerie, of course. That's a logical con -  er, conclusion?  -  wouldn't you say? And here's another: if it is one of them, it isn't Szwart. What, in all this heat and light? No way  -  not a chance. It's too much for me, let alone for Lord Szwart. Huh! Darkness himself, that one!'And: 'Damn! You're probably right!' Trask husked.At which point lan Goodly returned from the ops room. 'Up and running,' he said. 'And Ben, David Chung's on-screen, wanting to speak to you ...''I have some hot-off-the-press news for you,' Chung told Trask as he seated himself within the screen's viewing arc.'Big deal,' Trask answered wearily, with a touch of sarcasm but no real malice. 'Just about any news fits that description! We've been busy, air-mobile, and only just got settled in here. So, what's going down in your neck of the woods that's such hot stuff?'Chung shrugged. 'In my neck of the woods? Not a lot. But in yours: an opportunity to speak to an old pal of ours, maybe, if that's of any interest?' And then, more seriously: 'It's Gustav Turchin. He's going to be there at the Earth Year Conference in Brisbane. The time in the City is now - ' he glanced off-screen ' - a little after eight a.m. But just an hour ago Turchin himself was on-screen, unscrambled, from Moscow. He was interested to know if you'd be attending the conference. He was very careful, oh-so-polite, and diplomatic as usual, but John Grieve was doing Duty Officer and read him like a book. Premier Turchin is eager to see you, Ben. It was a last-minute call, probably monitored, before he boarded an Aeroflot VTOL Atmozkim to Brisbane. And John says Turchin stressed the fact that he would be accompanied by "several members of his staff ...''That's very interesting,' Trask answered. 'His bodyguards will be special police, KGB lookalikes  -  watchdogs for the real leaders, all the military types like Mikhail Suvorov  -  who will be making sure he doesn't step out of line. So maybe Turchin is on his way out, his days of power at an end. But of course I'll see him. I have a few questions for him, and while he still has some pull there's a favour I need to ask of him ...' Trask glanced at Jake, perhaps musingly, then turned back to the screen.'So thanks for the information, David,' he continued, 'and you can be sure I'll act on it. But now I'd like you to tell me something about our main problem. How is the search going? Have you picked up anything new to corroborate your original lead?'Chung pulled a wry face. 'There's something there, I would swear to that. But it's too distant, too shielded, literally on the other side of the world! Your side of the world, Ben. Which is where I have to be if you want any kind of accuracy. I mean, how can I be expected to locate someone or something through eight thousand miles of solid rock and white-hot magma?' 'You want in on this?' Trask's face was a blank. 'Absolutely!''And you wouldn't be playing on your talent simply so you can come swarming around out here?'

Chung's face showed his confusion. For the truth was that he would dearly love to go 'swarming around' in Australia with his E-Branch colleagues  -  and if he denied it Trask would know he was lying! So after letting his face work its way through a number of mutually contradictory expressions, finally he said, 'But isn't that the wrong question? What you should have asked is, do I think I'll be better placed to find what we're searching for if I'm out there with you?... To which I would have to answer, yes.'At which Trask's stony expression broke and he grinned. 'I know,' he said. 'I'm good at asking awkward questions, right?''Too true!' Chung rubbed his chin and looked hurt  -  until a moment later, when Trask said:'Okay, so how soon can you be out here? The fact is you'll come in useful apprising Premier Turchin first-hand of all that you've discovered about the Russian navy's illegal pollution of the world's oceans ... and in Earth Year at that! Which in turn will afford me a little more leverage on what I would like from him. That's if leverage is required, which I doubt. For, in fact, Gustav Turchin isn't a bad sort of bloke.'Watching Chung's face come alive with anticipation on the wall screen, Jake thought: Synchronicity again! Like some kind of weird word~association. E-Branch: Gustav Turchin: the down-at-heel Russian military's systematic pollution of the oceans: the Earth Year eco~summit. And all of it coming together right here and now, in Brisbane  -  along with a whole hunch of other shit, possihly.And meanwhile, with a smile as broad as his face, the locator was saying, 'I, er, already mentioned the possibility that I mightbe needed to John Grieve. He's happy to take over here, and there'll be no shortage of staff in support. So ... when is the next flight out?'Trask nodded, knowingly. 'I'm sure you'll be able to check that out for yourself,' he said. 'Er, if you haven't already.'And Chung laughed and said, 'I have an hour and forty minutes to make Heathrow!''I thought so,' Trask said. 'Very well, lan Goodly can get his head down now and pick you up in the wee small hours at the airport. You'll travel under an assumed identity, of course.''Of course.' And Chung was still grinning his delight when Trask broke the connection...Chung wasn't the only one who was met at the airport in the wee small hours. Premier Gustav Turchin was there first,385along with his minder entourage. No one paid them much attention.Russia was no longer a world superpower  -  in fact, she was rapidly crumbling, held under siege not by the world community but from within her own borders by political and ideological intractability, corruption, organized crime, and desperate poverty -  but still Turchin was recognized as a world leader of sorts, if only a figurehead without any real power. In any case the Earth Year Conference wasn't diplomacy-conscious; it wasn't that kind of venue: the eco-summit's organizers were not so much standing on ceremony as requiring action.Australia, now a republic and a very powerful nation in its own right, was still viewed as a 'clean' country and was determined to stay that way. While the all too frequent El Ninos and other ecological disasters were not caused by Australians, Australians were suffering their consequences. Now they and other like-minded  -  indeed right-minded  -  countries were considering real action, political, legal, and economic, against nations with bad-to-criminal ecological records. Since Russia was reckoned more than merely 'suspect' in this regard, and since Premier Turchin's attendance had been an eleventh-hour decision, no red-carpet arrangements had been made for him and his party.A limo and driver had been arranged  -  which was literally the least that the organizers could do without being seen to be rude -  but Trask had seen to it that these had been called off. This hadn't been the easiest thing in the world to arrange, but Trask's connections were second to none.Diplomatic immunity saw the Russian Premier and his poker-faced party of four clone-like minders through the international airport's red-tape entry procedures without too much fuss, each man carrying his own spartan to modest luggage, until they were met in the arrivals lounge by a pair of'chauffeurs' who introduced themselves as 'Mr Smith' and 'Mr Brown'.

Swiftly escorted to the carport by Smith and Brown, Turchin was bundled into the back of the first limo... the doors of which immediately clicked shut and locked, all except the driver's door, which stood open. And before the jet-lagged, travel-disorientated quartet of grey-suits could even begin to object, Mr Smith slid into the driver's seat and drove away.

As the minders got into the second limo, one of them growled a concerned, heavily accented: 'Who was that man sitting in the front of the first car?''Er, that was Mr Smith,' said Mr Brown. 'I believe he's an important convention official. It seemed only right that a person of stature should welcome your Premier personally.''Oh, indeed, yes!' said the other, gruffly. And then, with a frown: 'But, er ... wasn't the driver also Mr Smith?''That's correct,' said Brown, quickly recovering from his gaffe. 'We have an awful lot of Smiths, you know  -  and Browns, too, for that matter. Why, we even had a Prime Minister called Smith once over! And anyway, what's wrong with that? I imagine it's much the same with Ivans and Ivanovs in your country.''Yes, certainly. I understand. Pardon me. Ahem!' To cover his embarrassment, the minder coughed into a handkerchief.Over the intercom Mr Brown chuckled and said, 'Let's face it, this is Australia! I mean, who did you think would be meeting you  -  Marx and Engels?''Oh, ha ha ha ha!' The minders laughed woodenly, almost in unison. 'No, not at all. Indeed, no!' But when they'd quietened down, their head man cautiously enquired, 'Er, how long will it be before we get to the hotel?''Eh?' said Mr Brown, grinning. 'Well, I don't really know, mate. All I know is I have orders to tail the car in front, and that's it. About an hour, at a guess  -  maybe more, maybe less. But now, if you'll excuse me, I have to concentrate on my driving.''Yes, of course. Just as long as you stay right behind the car in front.' But the car in front was already out of sight.'Oh, don't worry, I won't lose him. No fear of that. But I do understand your concern. It must be very daunting, having to keep an eye on someone like Gustav Turchin. What, dodgy is he?'

But now Mr Brown's familiarity was getting to be too much. 'What's that?' the leading grey-suit said stiffly. 'Did you say dodgy? Something about keeping an eye on him? Now you listen to me, Mr ...''... Well, that's what you are, aren't you?' Brown cut him off. 'I mean, just how long have you lot been special policemen anyway  -  or KGB as was  -  or whatever you call yourselves now?'But suddenly the four were very tight-lipped, scowling at each other. And with his mouth twitching in one corner, and his eyes like black marbles, their leader slowly answered, 'We have been -ah, shall we say, specialists? - a lot longer, I fancy, than you have been a chauffeur, Mr Brown!'At which Brown looked back, grinned, and then switched off the intercom...Out on the airport service road, Trask got out of the front of the limo and into the back with Turchin. Then they shook hands, and Turchin hugged him in a typically Russian greeting. 'Funny, but we've never met person to person/ Turchin said then. 'Yet it seems I know you.''A meeting of minds, perhaps?' said Trask. And, 'Listen, I apologize for the subterfuge back there, but your friends - ''No friends of mine!' Turchin cut him short. 'Indeed, they are only here to make sure I don't talk out of turn. But before you ask ... yes, I do know about the despicable and destructive activities of our armed forces. They are like dogs fouling someone else's garden. But Trask, understand this: I am not the one who let those dogs off the leash. In today's Russia, my friend, they roam wild. Indeed, I've been lucky to hold on to what small degree of power still remains to me. But if I were to tell this conference everything I know, then even that would be lost, and our currently uneasy east-west relationship would slip a little bit farther downhill.'

Trask nodded. 'I understand, and it's much as I suspected. But Premier, you don't have to explain to me, not about that, at least. And I know that you won't be able  -  won't be allowed  -  to explain it to the conference. So, why are you here?' He fell silent, wanting to let the other do the talking. Maybe he would learn more that way.'How long do we have?' Turchin inquired.'The drivers are taking the scenic route,' Trask told him. I've asked for half an hour at least, an hour at most. In fact we could be at your hotel in twenty minutes, but I wasn't quite sure what degree of privacy you'd have later.''Half an hour?' Turchin nodded. 'Good. I'm sure it's going to be enough, but we'll need to get on. As for privacy later  -  huh!''My fault,' said Trask. 'I should have been more subtle. I didn't want to compromise you, but I simply didn't have time to make any other arrangements.''No,' Turchin shook his head. 'It's just how things are. I have made myself unpopular with certain people. If a country is rich and strong and its people are well fed, then maybe the man in charge can afford to be unpopular and do things his own way. Me, I can't afford to do anything my own way! The only reason I hold on is in the hope that things will change. But change is a long time coming.'Trask had been studying him. The Russian Premier wasn't by any means the same man he'd known previously. Even though Trask had only ever seen him in television broadcasts or on-screen at E-Branch HQ, still he had radiated a lot more power than he did now. And Trask's mind took him back to a time all of five years ago, when he had negotiated a course of action on the Perchorsk Gate with this selfsame man:Then, Gustav Turchin had seemed unshakeable. He had been a rock of a man. Blockily built, square of face and short in the neck- with a shock of black hair, bushy black eyebrows, dark, glinting eyes over a blunt nose, and an unemotional mouth  -  he had been a veritable bulldog. But even then the Premier had had problems. Coinciding with Trask's, they had served to bring the two together in a mutually beneficial understanding.Now ... there had been changes. Turchin was a lot thinner, grey-streaked where his hair was brushed back from his temples, less bright and sharp of eye; even his voice had lost something of its former authority. The intellect was still there  -  still lethal, Trask supposed  -  but the drive was failing. Seven years of political power, and nothing to show for it, had taken their toll of him.But the way the Russian Premier was studying Trask ... the head of E-Branch couldn't suppress a snort of self-derision. If he found Turchin changed, what must Turchin think of him? As if reading his mind, the other said:'The years haven't been kind to us.'And Trask smiled wrily and answered, 'It's not so much the years as the mileage.' Then he stopped smiling and said, 'We've not long had definite evidence about what your navy is doing. I certainly won't be saying anything about it here in Brisbane. I wouldn't embarrass you like that. In fact, I'm not here on Earth Year business at all, and I doubt if I'll attend a single session. But you should know that sooner or later  -  probably sooner - I'll have to bring it to the attention of our Minister Responsible, and that he has obligations, too.''I appreciate that, er, Benjamin?' 'Ben.''Then by all means call me Gustav. But you are not the only one whose purpose here is other than it seems. Indeed, I am here simply because you are here! Oh, they have been badgering me to attend these things all over the world, but so far I've managed to hold them off. The admirals, generals, despoilers, et cetera, requiring me to lie for them  -  huh! Well, and now that I'm here I shall lie for them, telling Brisbane and all the world of the marvellous efforts Russia is making to clean up her act. But you and I, we know the truth. And, as you have pointed out, so will everyone else in the not too distant future. Unfortunately, that is the least of my worries  -  or if not the least, it is not my major concern. No, for that is something else entirely.'

Trask nodded. He remained silent and thoughtful for a few moments, then said, 'Perhaps I can anticipate you? I think it's only fair to tell you that I'm also aware that Mikhail

Suvorov has led an alleged "expeditionary" party of soldiers and scientists through the Perchorsk Gate into Sunside/Starside, Nathan Keogh's world.'Now it was Gustav Turchin's turn to smile wrily. 'Ah!' he said. 'The Opposition! And sharp as ever. Yes, and you are correct: that is my problem. But, alas, it's also yours.''Probably more than you suspect,' said Trask. 'But perhaps I should hear your side of the story first.''My side is simple,' said the other. 'Five years ago, when Turkur Tzonov escaped justice in Perchorsk by fleeing into Starside, some of his dupes were taken prisoner. That was a mistake on my part; I should have had them shot for mutiny, conspiracy, desertion of duty, sabotage ... oh, half a dozen charges. But I didn't, and one of them talked to Mikhail Suvorov. Not the best possible move, for fehad them shot! Or rather, he saw to their disposal. There were several very unfortunate accidents.'Trask understood, and said, 'Which left General Suvorov as the sole heir to whatever he could steal from Sunside/Starside. He knew that the Gate would lead him into an alien world, knew about the gold, and wanted it for himself'The gold and whatever else he could find there,' Turchin answered. 'A whole new world, which he would annex and rape for its riches. And he would have control of the Gate. Why, in retrospect it seems perfectly obvious: if Suvorov had wanted these things for the good of his country, for Russia  -  which was what he told me  -  then surely he would have explained his purpose to everyone; to his military colleagues and the whole country, and not just... not just to me.' He turned his face away.'He told you he was going through the Gate? And you didn't try to stop him?' Trask believed he understood something of the predicament Turchin must have faced, but wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth.'How could I stop him?' Turchin threw up his hands. 'After the Perchorsk Complex was flooded, a task force of military engineers was sent in to strip and salvage lead from the shielding in the ravine. That was what I was led to believe, though later it turned out that wasn't all they were there for. Anyway, many of these men were long-term criminals from the punishment garrisons at Beresov and Ukhta. Hand-picked by Mikhail Suvorov, they had been given the choice of serving out their sentences or serving him: his first step towards securing Perchorsk. In return, and after the job was done and everyone else had moved out, Suvorov let them stay on and turn the dry upper levels into living quarters serviced by hydroelectric power from the dam. They had vehicles, and documentation that allowed them to resupply themselves from Beresov. From then on they were the "official" team of engineers, responsible for servicing and running the dam. As for the dam's continued existence: that was easily justified in that the bulk of its electrical power had been re-routed to the service of local logging camps and other communities...''And you were in the dark about all this?' Despite Trask's respect for the other  -  and the fact that so far the Premier's every word had been the truth  -  still he was relentless in his pusuit of all the answers.'I was kept in the dark about it!' Turchin told him. 'Ben, I don't control the armed forces and I never have. If they want me to know something, then they tell me. And if I require their services, I tell them. And that's it.''Bringing a democracy to life isn't easy,' Trask said. 'Neither is killing Communism!' said the other, then went on to explain: 'Oh, they are still there, the hard-liners. And so we're  -  how do you say it  -  between a rock and a hard place? The old guard on the one hand, and all the greedy opportunists, like Suvorov, on the other. Do you know what happens to a Russian bank if it runs out of money?'Trask shrugged. 'It goes bankrupt?'

'No, they turn it into a pizza house! Huh! Among the Muscovites, that is currently a "joke." Here's another that's not so funny: what does a General do when there's no money to fund his parades or pay his troops, and his pension's only good for cheap vodka and cabbage soup?'

And Trask nodded. 'He goes gold-prospecting. But you know, no one lives forever. Not me and not you. Somewhere there must be documentation on the Perchorsk Project, the Gate, the complex, and everything that happened there. While we're alive, of course we'll do our best to protect such records, such secrets. But when we're dead or no longer in office  -  what then? If not Suvorov, sooner or later someone else would have tried it.'

'I thought of that a long time ago,' said Turchin. 'Also, I liked Nathan and I'm sure I would like his people. There was something about him that was very Russian, you know? And in my way, well, I'm a humanitarian, too ... you'll just have to take my word for that. So, I took what precautions I could.''Precautions?''Long before Mikhail Suvorov found out about Perchorsk, I was destroying everything I could find on that place. Every bit of documentation, records, reports, you name it. Not the experiment, you understand, not the Projekt itself  -  for it's better that men should learn from their mistakes  -  but the horror that came after it, the very knowledge of a vampire world. And I was quite successful, perhaps even too successful. For now ... why, even the so-called Opposition knows a lot more about it than I do, and certainly more than anyone else!''We always did,' said Trask.'Of course you did, yes  -  and of course you do  -  for you have even been there, to Nathan Keogh's world in an alien parallel dimension. But isn't that a peculiar circumstance in itself, since Perchorsk and the Gate lie deep inside my homeland? And if you were me, wouldn't you feel... left out?''Not really,' Trask shook his head. 'No one who saw what I saw, experienced what I experienced, would ever want to go back there. Believe me, you must consider yourself fortunate. And as for General Mikhail Suvorov: well, you can consider him unfortunate. He's dead, Gustav.'

'Oh?' And Turchin lifted a great bush of an eyebrow. 'Does that explain it, then? The accident or vandalism or whatever it was at the Romanian Refuge? Was that Suvorov?''You know about the Refuge?''I have my sources.' Turchin shrugged.For the moment at least Trask let that one slide and said, 'No, it wasn't Mikhail Suvorov - but it was as a direct result of his "invasion" of Sunside/Starside. That was what brought it about' And he quickly told the Russian Premier everything that had happened, including the fact that three Great Vampires were now at large in the world, and that he and E-Branch were trying to hunt them down.'And that is why you're here?''We believe that one of them is here in Australia, yes.'And Turchin said, 'Ah! Then that would explain why initially you were on the other side of the continent, and not here in Brisbane. And so it's a pure coincidence that the trail has led you here: you think that he - your "man," shall we say? - is close by.''He's not far away, that's for sure,' said Trask. 'And now I have a question for you.''Go ahead.''If you knew we were in the west, in the Gibson Desert on the other side of Australia, why did you ask my headquarters if I'd be attending the conference? Also, how did you know we were in Western Australia in the first place?''That's two questions,' Turchin smiled.Trask nodded. 'Yes, but please don't spoil things by lying to me on either one of them.''To you?' Turchin raised that eyebrow again. 'Do you think that's likely, Ben?''No, because I know it isn't possible,' said the other. 'I was reminding you of that fact, that's all.'

'I don't need reminding,' the Premier told him. 'And I say again, I'm not here to lie to you but to ask for your help. And now you ask how I know so much. Very well, then listen:

'When our Russian equivalent of your E-Branch failed  - and failed so very spectacularly at the hands of Harry Keogh  -  then ESP as a weapon was largely discredited and the Russian organization disbanded. Or at least it was "officially" disbanded. For our military commanders, down-to-earth fellows who would rather put their faith in conventional spying techniques, wanted nothing more to do with it. Which made it an ideal tool for a Premier who - '

' - Who was pretty much powerless but desperate to keep an eye on things,' Trask finished it for him. 'You yourself, Gustav. You are now in charge of the Opposition!''Covertly, yes. What's left of it,' Turchin nodded.'And you've been using your mind-spies to watch us?''Don't look so hurt, Ben! Haven't you been watching me and mine?'Trask thought about it and grinned ... and was serious again in a moment. 'But you still haven't told me why you asked my HQ if I was attending the conference?'The other smiled. 'It was my way of telling you that I was attending, without spelling out a request to meet with you.''Still sharp as a tack,' Trask said. And: 'Okay. So, as you now know, I too have a problem ... shit, I mean the whole world has a problem! Three of them, and big ones. But yours has to be urgent, too, and probably personal, else you wouldn't be taking chances talking to me. Obviously we need to make a deal, and we will, a mutually beneficial arrangement. But I can't do or promise anything until I know what your problem is.''Urgent, yes, definitely,' said Turchin. 'But personal? Not any longer, not after what you have told me. For it seems to me our problems mesh, becoming one and the same. Very well, I know one of yours  -  or ours, as it now appears  -  and the worst of them at that: that there are vampires in our world. But somehow I think there's a lot more than that to it. Am I right?''A tangled skein, yes,' Trask nodded. 'But synchronous, all coming together at the same time. And meanwhile our time is flying. So okay, you first Just what is your problem, comrade?'