The Knights Victorious. William Speir

figure it out, because the Secretary’s going to want answers when he sees this, and it’s your butt on the line right now. Get your team back in here and figure out how you missed this, or I guarantee that the only job you’ll be able to get around here is as an apprentice janitor.”

      “Yes, sir!” the analyst said, leaving the Undersecretary’s office. “How did I miss this?” he asked out loud as he ran back to his office to call his team members and tell them to get back to the office as soon as possible.

A DARING MOVE

      6

      “Did you recognize any of those people?” Tom asked as the image on the television screen went back to snow.

      “No, I didn’t,” the Prior answered.

      Tom looked around the room and all of the members of the local Commandery were shaking their heads.

      “What about the Suriname Liberation Army? Has anyone heard of that?”

      Again, the members shook their heads.

      “Do you think that any of the people we just saw were Il Nona?” Sam asked.

      “Could be, but the person speaking had a local accent and the person standing behind him on the left looked like he could be related to the speaker,” the Prior commented. “The one on the right didn’t look like someone who had been living here for a long time.”

      Tom nodded. The man standing on the right side of the screen definitely looked out of place.

      A few minutes later, they heard the front door opening. Someone shouted the Prior’s name, and soon the two Knights who had been reconnoitering around the Southern part of the city entered the Meeting Hall. They looked at the television screen with an inquiring expression, and the Prior filled them in on the new President’s broadcast.

      “What’s it like out there?” Tom asked.

      As the Knights sat down, they told about their journey to the southern part of the city where the troops were massing. When they described the area where the troops were located, Tom asked, “Were you able to learn anything about their plans?”

      “Yes sir, we caught a break. We noticed a part of the perimeter that was dark and wasn’t as well guarded. We slipped in near some trucks with odd-looking trailers attached. We were hiding under one of the trucks, trying to see what was going on, when we realized there was a meeting going on in the trailer above us. We heard almost everything, and when the meeting was over, we headed back as fast as we could. We knew that you’d want to hear what they said.”

      “What did they say?” Ruth asked.

      “They were talking to a group of rebels somewhere near Cottica. Evidently, they set a trap for the army down there, but something went wrong. I think that they were planning for the rebels down there to keep the army busy until the troops here in the city could be sent down to finish them, but the army redeployed suddenly, and now they don’t know where the army is. The leader in the trailer told the rebels near Cottica to search near the Afobaka Dam on the Suriname River, and that the troops here in the city would leave at first light to join in the search. The leader was furious that the army was missing. He said something about some banks in the Cayman Islands getting ready to move their assets here and that the army still being out there would mess up those plans.”

      “Did they say anything else?” the Prior asked.

      “No, the meeting ended right after that. The leader had to get to the Presidential Palace for a broadcast. I guess that’s the one that just ended. There was one thing, though, now that I’m remembering it. They called the leader by a strange name: Legate. I don’t know if it was an actual name or a title.”

      “It’s not a name,” Tom said. “It’s the title of the supreme commander of Il Nona, and it’s based on the word for the commanding general of a Roman Legion. Il Nona claims to be descended from the survivors of the Ninth Roman Legion, and they’re still organized like a Legion would be.”

      “That would explain why he told the other people in the meeting to make sure that their ‘Legionnaires’ got some rest tonight,” the Knight said.

      “So the army is still out there,” Ralph commented. “If only there were a way to let them know what’s going on up here. Any chance they saw the broadcast?”

      “I doubt it, unless it was broadcast on the military communications channels” the Prior replied. “And I don’t think that rebels would do that if their plans are to destroy the army. It’d be better to leave the army in the dark.”

      “I agree,” Tom said. “If you wanted the army to surrender and disband, you’d let them know about the new government. If you wanted to destroy the army, you’d keep them from knowing what was going on.”

      “Right now the army is the only thing standing in the way of the new government’s plans,” the Lieutenant Grand Master pointed out. “Is there anything we can do to help them?”

      “What did you have in mind?” Liam asked.

      “Well, I don’t think that we can go looking for them in the dark, but can we find a way to get a message to them?”

      “That all depends on how communications are being jammed,” Sam said. “If we could find or disable the jamming, we might be able to send some sort of message.”

      “Do we know whether the communications are being jammed at the point of broadcast or at the point of receiving?” the Lieutenant Grand Master asked.

      “What do you mean?” Sam asked.

      “If the signal is being jammed on the receiving end, then nothing we do here will get a message to the army out there. We’d have to find and stop the jamming wherever the army is. If the jamming is here at the source, then it would be easier to find and stop the jamming, so we could send them a message.”

      “We’d also be able to get a message to Washington,” Tom said. “If we could let Burkhart know that Il Nona’s operating down here, maybe there’s something the U.S. Military could do to help the army retake control of the country.”