The universe wants to play with you (part 31)

As promised, here's my report on the last few days:

About ten days ago, there was vague talk of a heightened security risk, a coming event. It wasn't transmitted in a memo or email but casually, almost imperceptibly, from person to person. It seems to have gone round everyone, from the top (operational rather than  figurehead) to me. No one could say what it was about but it hung in the air. I took it as a sign of something that was going to happen.

I was beginning to think I was wrong for once, when I was woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call from my mentor/trainer, Craig. I was getting picked up in 15 minutes, emergency situation, overnight bag, not by a cab but by the service's minibus.

There were 4 people on board already, plus Alan who was driving. He wasn't one of  the normal drivers, he's one of the tough guys from security-as tall as he's wide. So whatever the situation was, it was serious. No one talked on the journey.

After picking two more people up, we arrived at the training centre where I'd already spent a lot of hours. Kim, Assistant Director Intelligence was the briefing officer. The head of Intelligence Liaison, Dame Margaret Gunnarson had been murdered and head decapitated. No-one had been in the room since Julian, her assistant, and her security guard discovered the body; no-one knew why she was there at that time of night.

Assisted by two senior police detectives and two crime scene specialists, we were given specific tasks once we were in the room. Craig and I were to review the CCTV footage which automatically records whenever there's anyone in the room and sends footage to offsite secure storage.

The footage showed her coming into the room at 11.15pm, 25 minutes later, the visitor arrived.

We couldn't hear the beginning of their conversation but this is my condensed version from after he hands her a document.

He told her the document was about the interface between dimensions, that people, including the Belgian Prime Minister had been disappearing by falling through walls into, maybe, other dimensions. All of this was ultra top secret. The speculation was that for some reason, the layer between other dimensions, if they exist, and Earth, had broken down.

Gunnarson asked him what can we do and he just said, 'No idea. I'm off,' and left. From the video, you can tell she was really rattled. She had another drink, rang up her assistant and wandered around the room looking panicked.

Then you see the wall behind her begin to glow, then it slowly disappears and you see three people, obviously women, who come into the room. Gunnarson starts shouting at them and when they see her, they turn around and head back but she grabs hold of one of them. They struggle towards the wall which reappears severing her head which disappears behind the wall while her body twitches.

Craig and I just stared at each other. It was obvious to me what had happened but it wasn't wise for me to say anything, so I let him fluster while giving him little hints in my questions. In the end, he looked at me and said: "Have they just broken through time and space? Like in a movie?"
"Could be", I replied.

He rushed off to see Kim and an hour later, we were in the largest training room, surrounded by what seemed like dozens of people. Even at this point, no-one, apart from Craig, me and a guy called Gillespie Quigg, seemed to understand what had happened. Then we found out her head had been found in Dunedin. Well, some female's head.

Immediately, Gunnarson's deputy, Ray Bergquist, a smarmy Aussie who sounds like an American, declared that we all had to fly to Dunedin which seemed pointless to me until I realised it wasn't hid idea but Kim's. That means there's another agenda going on.

We had a quick briefing after dinner but nothing was said of any consequence. I'll keep you posted.

Two final points:

1. Quigg is very sharp in his analysis of the situation but I don't know anything else about him, especially his relationship to the intelligence world, so it's probably not a good idea for you to meet him yet.

2. While we were in Wellington and since we've been in Dunedin, Kim has had a black haired woman beside her the whole time. No-one knows who she is. She's late 30s, early 40s and has a very intense look about her.