C15 Chapter Fifteen

Immediately upon their return Cade sent out a request for a meeting with the North American Preceptor, Willem Johansson, and the Seneschal of the Order, Jacob MacIntyre.

Second only to the Grand Master, the Seneschal ran the Order’s day-to-day operations and was the true power behind the throne. Cade, and by extension Echo itself, worked directly for the Seneschal, circumventing the usual hierarchy where the local special ops team reported to their home Preceptor. While he didn’t need to include Johansson, the operation Cade was about to request was on his turf and Cade was trying to play nice by including the Preceptor in his notification of pending action. The Seneschal would listen to Johansson input, but Cade knew MacIntrye would ultimately choose to follow Cade’s advice, and so having the other man involved couldn’t hurt.

It took about an hour to make the necessary arrangements in Scotland and to set up the equipment Cade needed in his hotel room in Boston. He sent the rest of his team out to get a bite to eat, powered up his laptop, made sure the camera was working properly, and then dialed out.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in a secure room in the ancestral castle Rosslyn, a young acolyte accepted the connection. A moment later Cade’s screen split into two separate video streams. The first was his own, showing how he appeared to the people on the other end. The second was the answering stream from the Seneschal’s office and Jacob’s ruddy face soon filled half of the screen.

“Do you have any idea what time it is over here, Knight Commander?” MacIntyre asked gruffly, though not without kindness.

The question stumped Cade for a moment, for he hadn’t even considered the issue before this. He did some quick calculations in his head. If it was just after 7:00 p.m., and Scotland was roughly seven hours ahead of the east coast of the US, then it would be…about 2:00 a.m. there.

“My apologies, Seneschal, but I felt this couldn’t wait.”

“Well, at least you’ve got the grace to appear embarrassed,” MacIntyre said humorously, when Cade appeared anything but. “What is so important that you had to drag an old man from his sleep?”

Cade paused. “Is Preceptor Johansson with us?” he asked. He didn’t want to repeat the information.

His screen split again and the Preceptor’s face appeared in the new window. “I’m right here, Knight Commander. I, too, trust that this is important?”

Pompous prick , Cade thought, but kept his face calm and non-threatening. One day that man will get his… "I assure you both that it is.” Cade went on to detail the events of the past few days, bringing them two men up to speed with regard to the request for help from Father Martin, their arrival in Boston only to find that Father Martin had been murdered, and their subsequent discovery of the room and its secret portal deep beneath the church.

He left out just how they’d found the secret entrance to the room or what they’d done to activate the portal. While the Seneschal knew about his particular talents, Cade didn’t like giving fuel to the perception that he was a heretic.

“I am assuming you investigated the area on the other side of this portal?” asked the Seneschal.

“Yes, sir,” Cade replied and couldn’t help but grin inwardly at the surprised expression on Preceptor Johansson’s face at his revelation of Cade's prior action.

“And?” prompted the Seneschal.

“We discovered a large force of Chiang Shih assembled nearby and a good degree of traffic from their base to the portal. Evidence suggests that they are planning to launch an assault on the Greater Boston area, similar to the attempt that was made back in 2003.”

“What ’evidence’ are you talking about?” asked the Preceptor. Cade couldn’t tell if the man’s annoyance was directed at him or at the Shadows for daring to think they could come into territory he considered his personal fiefdom.

Cade let a hint of condescension creep into his tone, in case it was the former. “The Shadows are not, by nature, cooperative creatures. It takes an extremely powerful war leader to make them band together for even the best of reasons. Expanding their territory would be at the top of that list.”

“Why couldn’t they simply be expanding into the Beyond?”

Cade laughed; he couldn’t help it. “If you’d ever seen the Beyond, Preceptor, you wouldn’t need to ask that question. There isn’t a more barren place I can think of and there certainly isn’t anything to sustain them there.” He turned to face the Seneschal again. “No, the only reason they are there at all is to make use of that portal to strike where we least expect it.”

“What do you suggest we do?”

“Assemble a force big enough to take them on and do it quickly,” Cade replied without hesitation.

The Seneschal gave that some thought. “I agree with you that a Chiang Shih gathering of that size is a definite threat, but I don’t understand why we have to face them in open combat. Why not simply shut down the portal?”

Cade had been expecting that line of questioning and he didn’t hesitate to address it. “With all due respect, sir, leaving a force of that size combat ready is not a good idea. We don’t have any understanding of how the gate came to be or what will be necessary to close it permanently. Destroying the building might do the trick, but then again it might not. And what’s to keep them from simply relocating the portal and trying again? We wouldn’t have any idea where they were. How would we stop them then? Our best move is to eliminate the effectiveness of the fighting force entirely, assuring we won’t have to worry about them again in the future.”

And ending the problem of Bishop once and for all, he added silently. Cade had purposely not mentioned him. He considered Bishop’s involvement to be a personal matter, something he’d left unresolved and which he intended to handle at the first opportunity.

The Preceptor had a sour expression on his face, but Cade ignored it. The Seneschal controlled the Order’s fighting units and he was the one Cade had to convince.

MacIntyre conferred with someone off-screen for a few moments and then addressed Cade.

“Unfortunately, our teams are scattered to hell and back right now. Assembling a force powerful enough to take on the Chiang Shih will require some time. Delta is still dealing with that mess in Greenland and Charlie is on furlough. Alpha and Baker can’t be taken off their current assignments. Which means we need Echo to keep the enemy off balance long enough to buy us the time we need to bring men in from the field. Can you do that?”

Cade nodded. “With your permission, I’ll take a small raiding party back across the Veil and begin harassing their camp. Standard guerilla warfare hit-and-run tactics. The resulting confusion should be enough to disrupt their timetable and give us the time we need to assemble our own forces to face them head on.”

“And the portal?”

“I’ll leave a squad or two in reserve at the church. The portal is small and the room is also. The enemy will only be able to bring a few soldiers across at a time. We should be able to hold them off until help arrives.”

The Seneschal inclined his head in a way that Cade knew meant he was thinking things over. Cade waited patiently, trying not to look anxious. His gut told him that acting quickly and decisively was the best way of dealing with this. If they waited too long, things would certainly get out of worse.

When the Seneschal finally gave him permission to carry out his plan, Cade made sure to keep the smile of satisfaction from his face.