Champions Game

Fri 14/6/91

10.33 - Just had a call from Major Northrup who we met in Gloucestershire while investigating John's murder. He said that he and Jacob Black had been working on a book on legends of the Severn Valley, but that Mr Black had disappeared on the 9th while investigating one of the legends.
Major Northrup has broken his leg in a riding accident, so he can't go and look for Mr Black himself, and he wonders if we'd be willing to help out.
I hope I'm wrong, but a disappearance and an accident is starting to look a little like the curse may be back...
I'm trying to track everybody down - they're all out on stories this morning, and Drongo isn't in yet.

12.05 - I managed to contact everyone. We're getting the 2pm train down, well, all of us except Drongo, who is going to ride his bike.
I insisted that we find a different hotel to last time. Too creepy to be staying in the place where John was just before he died. There was the usual argument about whether an en-suite bathroom was essential, or, as the others seem to think, an unimportant detail.
Drongo asked if there would be en-suite beer. Martin spat his coffee across his desk at that.
Neil's printed out a copy of his research on King Arthur and Shil-na-gigs for us to read on the train.

Sat 15/6/91

8.15 - Neil phoned to tell us he'd been approached by a man in the pub last night. Apparently the man told him "Your friends are going to run into a mutual foe who is out to do you in. It would be a shame for them to die when I worked so hard to stop them dying under the hill. Be aware that there's a trap."
I asked Neil if he'd had any odd dreams lately, but no, he hasn't.

17.49 - Just back from seeing Major Northrup.
He said Mr Black had gone to look at Goatswood, a village with Templar associations, on the 9th and has not been seen since. The police have been informed, but they have no leads.
According to the Major, Goatswood is one of the oldest villages in the area, and the Templars got there around the 12th Century. The woods around the hill outside the village have something of an evil reputation. People, sheep and cattle are alleged to have vanished in the area. There are records of pagan practices, including sacrifices, occurring up until the 19th Century.
It's famous for having an odd pylon on the village green too. There are photos of it from the 1920s, but no record of exactly when it was built.

Sun 16/6/91

8.45 - Off to Goatswood this morning.

20.45 - In a little while we, well Jane anyhow, will be breaking in to a police station...
Well, the village is slightly odd. Mostly it looks normal-ish: some buildings are limestone and some are red brick. There are the usual craft shops and old bookshops but no church. The hill doesn't look entirely natural. There are elms on the summit, but the rest of the hill is just grass.
The pylon is really peculiar. It is about fifty feet tall and has lots of mirrors and lenses on the top which seem to be free to move in the wind and it's roped to the ground. Charles looked at it, but there's not much by way of mechanism visible. One of the locals told us that "some mad bugger name of Dee" built it in Elizabethan times. (Possibly John Dee, astronomer to the Queen?)
Another local legend is that it's called The Moon Lens and dates back to Roman times. The moon is supposed to shine through the big lens on the equinox and the solstice.
Apparently they celebrate equinox and the solstice with Morris Dancing these days.

We asked in all the shops whether anyone had seen Mr Black, and we enquired in the police station as well. We thought several of them, including the policeman were lying about that... also he signed in to the hotel but didn't sign out.... so that's why we're going to be breaking a few laws tonight.

Martin called Neil to get him to look up aerial photos of the area, especially the woods.

Drongo reappeared about 20 minutes ago, apparently he and the barmaid got "quite friendly" after he'd gone for a lunchtime drink.

23.59 - We waited until Constable Burgess appeared in the pub last night then headed round to the police station. Jane broke in to the safe and there were some papers in there which say such deeply alarming things as that there is a Great Mother in the Severn Valley (I hope we don't run in to any more Skoptsis here...). The papers also say that the Romans built a temple which had steps going down below. There's stuff about "The Keeper of the Moonlens is imprisoned by starsigns", "Shadow goes forth if it is called through" and "Takes blood and gives life"... none of which is exactly cheery reading.

Mon 17/6/91

23.58 - I sometimes wonder if I'm destined to spend most of my life in police stations trying to explain what happened without actually explaining what happened...

Mr Black is apparently fine now. He's in hospital, but really only for observation.

Charles spent the day in the library looking for information on Roman remains while the rest of us walked up the hill and through the woods. The woods seem larger inside than they looked from the outside, rather like the witch's wood where John died. The Moonlens lines up with the hill. Martin checked the elevation to find which bit of the hill it pointed to when we got back.

In the evening we checked all the rooms in the hotel, finding no sign that Mr Black was ever here, then we went to the cellar, where we found the tunnel. There are a lot of tunnels, they seem to run under quite a lot of the village.Worried that everyone there is involved somehow. There were carvings on some of the walls, which Jane photographed. She also photographed a painting of a figure with a sword and a cauldron, a picture of people being fed to some mythological beast (it looked at bit like the Skoptsi legend of being devoured and returning as Children of The Great Mother... but maybe I'm imagining a connection...)

There were these things in the tunnel too. That's something I didn't tell the police... Horrible things. Twisted, not really human, but not non-human enough...
They attacked us and we killed them. I expect I'll have nightmares about them forever.They seemed to have acid in them. The front of Drongo's jacket got all disolved away. Jane is kicking up a fuss about buying him a new one on expenses.

We found Mr Black chained in a cellar under the police station. He'd been beaten up and branded. It was awful. We managed to get him out and leave the village safely, then make our way to the police in Gloucester.

Tues 18/6/91

British Museum was robbed today. Apparently a guard was cut in two and thrown out of the building. A few pre-Roman and Romano-British artefacts were stolen. The police are sitting on the rest of the details.

Constable Burgess from Goatswood is being sought in connection with Mr Black's kidnap.Nobody seems to know where he is. Have filed the story... well, at least those bits that would be believed...

Wed 19/6/91

Charles got a call from The Guardian today asking them to do an in-depth feature on the international arms trade. Apparently some international arms dealer by the name of Sarlo Soghanalian was assassinated in London yesterday.

According to Charles, Soghanalian is an Armenian who does a lot of business through the USA. He's sold arms to Iraq, the Contras, Ghadahfi and other dubious people.He hasn't sold arms to the IRA or Unionists, so there's no obvious connection to the UK, other than that he has a business address here.

Cause of death was a heart attack, but he had been crucified, arms nailed to a concrete beam in an office block. An awful thing to do. Presumably it was meant to send some message to somebody, but what message and to whom?

Thurs 20/6/91

16.39 - We got the morning train to London.

While we were on the station, Drongo saw the man who put him in hospital back in ******. He was with a group of five men of various ethnic origins, but definitely with a look of trained soldiers about them. Mercenaries again, we guess.

They got on a train for Gatwick. We got the very next train, seven minutes later, hoping to catch up with them in the departure lounge at the airport, but they weren't there. Our best guess is that they got a private flight out. I went and talked to the plane spotters and they gave me a list of the flights they'd seen leaving that afternoon. There are an awful lot of them, so we'll be very lucky to figure out which one they were on. I asked which ones were regular flights and which ones were individual charters, and that narrowed it down considerably, although still not enough.

The police's version of what happened is that Soghanalian was found by the cleaner on the morning of the 22nd, and had been dead about twelve hours at that stage. He was alive when he was nailed up, and had a heart attack as a result of the physical stress of the crucifiction. He had no UK address and they don't know when he was last seen alive.
Their guess is that a nailgun was the murder weapon, but they haven't found one yet.

Martin's off to dine with a contact at a gentleman's club tonight in the hopes of getting some more leads on Soghanalian.

Jane will be doing her spiderwoman act again and breaking in to the office to get pictures of the murder scene.

I'll be meeting Fiona for dinner, cocktails and gossip.Well, it's not hard news, it's trivial stuff really, compared to what we've been through lately, but at least I won't be hearing about any murders, and anyway, until I get a break, gossip is what pays Jane's and my wages at the agency.

We called Bob in Edinburgh and he's going to see what his contacts can come up with on this.

Things we still need to find out:
When Soghanalian arrived in the country
Where, if anywhere, did he stay?
Why was he at his office?
Was there CCTV on the building at all, and if so does it show him entering the building?
Where did those mercenaries go? and are they anything to do with this or is it just a coincidence that they were around just now?

Fri 21/6/91

15.04 - Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia today. I hope they survive. Milosovic is not going to like this.

18.24 - We did some background research yesterday evening and today.

There have been no other reports of bizarre murders in the area, and no other international arms dealers have gone missing, so there are no obvious patterns to follow.
The building that Soghanalian died in was one where his company (and lots of other companies) had a small office, which wasn't really used for anything except a mailing address.
We got official flight records for Gatwick for yesterday afternoon and they agree with what the plane spotters said.but there are so many of them and so many destinations that unless we find another lead we're never going to figure it out.

According to Jane there was no safe in the office and no files, just a desk. A phone line but no actual phone

I checked with the cleaning firm. They go in to that office once a week, since it's not really used often, so he could have been there for ages before being found.

Martin's contact Matthew at the DTI gave him a lot of information last night on things called End User Certificates. Apparently before a weapon can be transported anywhere for sale there needs to be a certificate saying who the buyer is to show that they're legitimate. He'll be meeting Martin again tonight to tell him what he's found.

Bob's contact tells him that there is no record of Soghanalian entering the UK at all. Five days ago he was seen in Croatia, and a month ago he was in the USA.
We are now wondering if he was kidnapped from Croatia and brought here against his will.

No luck on the CCTV yet.

I'll be meeting Rosamund and Isabella tonight.

23.47 - Soghanalian had recent End User Certificates for Croatia, the Congo and Lebannon, and there's evidence that he was supplying arms to Death Squads. He did a lot of his business through the USA.

6.45 - It's far too early for a weekend morning. We're travelling overland to Croatia to try and find out where Soghanalian was. Don't want to risk the airports after last time with the guard dogs.
Still, I suppose the long train and ferry journeys will give me time to read up on Croatia and to write up the gossip stories. I can phone them in from wherever we're changing trains.

16.34 - I can't understand why the others think First Class tickets are unneccessary... The seats are cramped in standard class and as for the lavatories... ugh...

Well, the background on the current crisis is that Yugoslavia was always a lot of separate states with ancient insoluable differences. Tito held it together as a single nation by sheer force of personality, and since his death everyone's pretty much been waiting for the whole country to explode in some way.
Tudgeman was elected in 1990 and has been trying to disentangle Croatia from Serbia (the biggest of the Yugoslav states) but there's an ethnic Serbian minority in Croatia, who are obviously not keen on that.

Sun 23/6/91

7.28 - Oh, how I hate couchettes. My neck aches and my legs are stiff and cramped. The beds are too narrow and too short and anyway I couldn't sleep properly with all the noise of the train and the snoring (Drongo and Martin, I think... though it could have been Jane too...)

19.38 - Phoned in the Ascot story and picked up the latest from Reuters at the same time.
Slovenian forces took over army bases in the country today. There's going to be a war, and we're heading right in to it.

Mon 24/6/91

I've been interviewing fellow travellers. There's nothing much else to do when you're stuck on a trans-European train for 13 hours and I might manage to sell a story somewhere when we get back.
There were a lot of young people from all over Europe on InterRail tickets, of course, a couple of American divorcees with their children, some elderly Germans with some very scary stories to tell... It's actually fascinating stuff.
And, really, anything is better than sitting in the carriage thinking about where we're going and what we're going to find when we arrive. I'm scared. We barely got out of Russia alive, and now we're heading straight in to a country on the brink of an all out war.

Tues 25/6/91

11.35 - Finally arrived in Split and checked in to a hotel, which has actual beds, and a proper bathroom... it's fairly tatty to be honest, but after three days on trains and ferries it feels like luxury.
I've had a quick bath. I'd like to sleep, but we should really be getting moving and trying to find out what's going on here.
There's a tense atmosphere in the town. Everyone is waiting for the bomb to drop, but it hasn't as yet.

20.13 - Lucky that Jane speaks Serbo Croat. Quite a few people speak English, though proportionally not as many as in the rest of Europe, and lots speak Italian or German.
We spoke to three local journalists who our contact in Zagreb introduced us to. They don't know about any arms shipments specifically but they think it fits in with the general pattern of what is going on here. The Croatian government obviously want to deal with the ethnic Serbian militias (apparently concentrated in the Crajneya area) as well as preparing for a war within Yugoslavia as a whole.
Local police, not surprisingly, had no specific information, but the chap did point us in the direction of the various ministries who might have details on arms shipments and the like.

John and Drongo were whispering about something in the corner of the bar after dinner.
I rather suspect John might have told Drongo that Yugoslavia is famous for topless beaches. Jane's already had to remind Drongo once that he's being paid to stay with us and protect us, and that he is not supposed to wander off in search of beer or random barmaids.

Wed 26/6/91

08.44 - We went out looking for foreign mercenaries in the bars in town last night (Martin laughed at me for suggesting it but he didn't have any better ideas). Found a South African cricket team who were on holiday here. They seemed nice enough. I interviewed them about being tourists in a country on the brink of war. I can think of a few places that might buy that story.

17.31 - I interviewed a few more tourists this morning too. That story is almost ready to go.

Charles has spent the day investigating the black market in Split and he asked the concierge which areas of town tourists should avoid. Then we went straight to those areas so Martin could have a look around. He's figured out which restaurant is most likely to have the Mafia in, so tonight we're going there.
The others made a fuss about my first choice of outfit, so I've changed into something more frumpy (a top of Jane's and some unremarkable jeans).

We're actually going out tonight to talk to The Mafia...
I know I wanted to get in to hard news stories, but I am very, very uncomfortable about this, not to mention terrified.

23.02 - Well, we're alive and back at the hotel.

The restaurant itself seemed perfectly normal. Martin spotted some people he thought looked about right and he, Jane and Charles went to talk to them. No idea exactly what was said, but apparently for a bribe of £5000 they will find out what happened to Soghanalian for us.

John tried to cheer me up while we were waiting by suggesting that I do some fashion reviews of combat gear. I suppose Marie Claire might buy that.

Thurs 27/6/91

Kind of an unreal day. The shooting started in Slovenia today. The whole town is holding it's breath to see what happens next. There are rumours of attrocities by Serbian militias in the hills.

Jane and I spent the day taking photographs around the town and I finished off my tourists in a war zone article. Martin checked with the police, but they have no new information on Soghanalian. John and Drongo went to the topless beach.

Fri 28/7/91

The Mafia got in contact with us today. Apparently Soghanalian was in Split setting up a deal and seeing if this was a good place to get arms in to the country. Serbian paramilitaries kidnapped him. They were paid by an organisation called "Viper". He was taken to the hills by the Serbians and was not seen again until his body turned up in London.

Sat 29/6/91

We're in Italy today and will be heading home tomorrow. Called Bob and he's going to see if he can find out anything about Viper and their connection to the Serbs.

Monday 30/6/91

Bob's contact got back to him today. There's no information on any connection between Viper and the Serbian militias. The only mention of Viper at all is that they stole a large amount of spares from the US military in the Gulf - parts for Apache helicopters, M1A1 Abrams tanks, etc. They seem to be an organisation from Zaire which controls part of the North of the country including mining towns and have about 2000 members.

John says that I'm not even allowed to pack any high heeled shoes if we're going to Zaire.

Wed 3/7/91

Back at the office and things seem almost normal again.

Lots of strange things coming through from Reuters:
- Another museum has been broken in to and a cauldron (just an ordinary iron one) was taken from a display of Celtic and Roman artefacts.
- Drug related murders in California and New Mexico are up by 300%, although there's nothing on whether that's because a new drug has appeared or because the exisiting drugs market has changed somehow.
- There's an escalation of successionist tensions in the Southern USA coupled with a religious revival with a strongly intolerant edge to it

Oh, and the Weekly World News reports that the National Guard have been mobilised to deal with an outbreak of giant ants in Alaska...

Sat 6/7/91

The war in Slovenia is over, but the war in Croatia is still raging.

Mon 8/7/91

I can't stop crying.
But there's no Jane to call tonight.
Can't go round to hers and help her drink a bottle of whisky like we have all the previous times when things have been crazy. She's not there.

And I'll never see Bob again. No more wisecracks and smutty innuendos about bathtubs during coffee breaks. No more outraged girlfriends phoning the switchboard. No more three day old mugs with cigarette ash floating in them all over the desk.

The hospital gave me some sleeping pills, so I guess I'll take those and hope they work.

Tues 9/7/91

I'm in the office, or at least I'm using Neil's desk at reception, the main office is still sealed off with police tape.
Drongo is sitting in the corner of the reception area with a pile of bike magazines, on guard in case they - whoever they are - come back.

Neil and Jane should be out of hospital later today or early tomorrow with a bit of luck. I'm waiting for the hospital to call and let me know when they need to be collected.

Am trying to piece together what happened yesterday.

They (we still don't know who or why) went to Drongo's place first, probably the previous night. He thinks he was drugged and that they asked him questions about us. At any rate he woke up tied to a chair with a drip in his arm in his flat around the time that that crazy man with the gun was breaking in here.

The man with the gun hit Neil and knocked him out. I heard the noise in reception and saw something thrown in to the room. I think I meant to grab it and put it out of the window, but it was some sort of grenade and it went off before I could reach it. That was lucky I suppose. It would have been worse if I'd been holding it when it exploded.

John says it sounds like a stun grenade. Luckily both he and Charles were late for work yesterday and missed what happened: John had a hangover and Charles' car broke down. Lucky for both of them.

Martin had more sense than the rest of us and had ducked under his desk as soon as he heard the first noise, so the man with the gun never knew he was here.

I was standing up, but I couldn't see or hear for a few seconds after the grenade went off. Maybe Jane had had the same idea as me because the next thing I can remember is that she and I were standing up together and the man was pointing his gun at us and shouting something. The phone was ringing too. It took me a while to be able to hear again.

Bob put his jacket on and stood up. I guess maybe he startled the man, because the man turned and just fired at him. I'm sure the bullets slowed down as they got towards Bob, but not enough to save him.
He's dead.
I saw... but I don't want to think about it... can't write it...

The man shouted at me to stop screaming and then he hit me and knocked me down. I remember asking him who he was and what he was doing. He kept shouting at me to shut up and he kicked me.

He said something like "I have a message. My employer wishes the jewel that you prevented his agents from acquiring. If you do not do this then I will be sent back."
I asked him what jewel and he said we should be clever enough to work that out for ourselves. He said "We're meant to be on the same side" and when I said whose side he said something like "MacLanteckel".
I said we had no idea who that was and that if he was on the same side as us he shouldn't be shooting at us, and he said "Don't tell me what to do!" and shot Jane in the leg.

Drongo had broken free of the ropes back at his flat, phoned us to tell us what had happened to him, and when there was no answer he rushed over on his bike, breaking about a dozen speed limits on the way, but thank God he did...

He managed to sneak in while all the shouting was going on and jumped the man from behind and hit him with a baseball bat. The man dropped his guns when Drongo hit him but then he grabbed a medalion thing, like the ones that those thieves at the castle were wearing, there was a glowing light and he vanished. We told the police that he ran off, of course, not that he vanished into thin air.

Jane seems to have some kind of accelerated healing like Drongo's because when I looked at her leg there wasn't nearly as much blood as I would have expected and the gunshot would was starting to close up. She was still in a pretty bad way though and was drifting in and out of consciousness until the ambulance arrived.

Martin found Neil in the reception area. He'd been knocked unconscious and he's badly concussed but he'll live.

Martin took some photographs of the room and the guns before the police and ambulance arrived.

The police interviewed me and Martin and Drongo at the hospital while we were being treated for shock. The Detective Sergeant said he'd come round later today to see how we were doing and whether we'd remembered anything else.
There are still some police people in those white forensics suits picking up bits and pieces in the news office.

17.18 - Detective Sergeant Warren brought some nice biscuits for us this afternoon. He stayed and talked for ages after I'd answered his questions, which was good of him.
And he says there's no question of charging Drongo with speeding under the circumstances, even though he was, apparently, doing nearly 80mph in a residential area.

The police are putting out a story that it's a robbery gone wrong, but really they suspect (because of the mention of jewels and because of the medalion) that it's terrorists again.

If that's right then the man said the wanted "the jewel" definitely a singular, not "the jewels"... so that whole robbery was in order to steal one jewel, one part of the Honours...?

Thurs 11/7/91

We finally figured out what was on those medallions. An Aztec God called Mictanteclhlti. The god of death, apparently.
So that was who the man said he was working for, probably.

I also looked up Gamaliel. There's a St Gamaliel who was St Paul's teacher.

Lots of ancient mythology around here. And right now I'm not certain that it isn't for real rather than just somebody using the names.

My a rms are still hurting from all the innoculations I had yesterday.

Sun 14/7/91

A Methodist Church in Liverpool was bombed today.

Susan Phillips - former fashion and beauty journalist, currently trying to move in to hard news stories (and not just as a way of annoying her ex-boyfriend).
Blonde, 6'2" tall in her stiletto heels and with a tendency to find herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Bob Fudge (deceased) - cynical serious news reporter, unpopular with some important political figures. Interested in the occult.

Drongo, or, as he is known on more formal occasions, "The Accused", spends his time drinking; modifying, repairing and occasionally riding motorbikes; listening to loud rock music and getting in to fights. He's employed as a technician and bouncer by the news agency and various Fringe shows.
His mother calls him James Bell.

Jane Stuart - paparrazzi photographer, unpopular with many celebrities, has an alcohol problem.

John Huang (deceased) - reporter, known for his integrity, but also, unfortunately, for his belief in UFOs

Charles Reynauld - former reporter of international criminal affairs. Taking a break from chasing Columbian arms dealers in favour of a more peaceful life dealing with Glasgow gang wars.

Martin Farmer - industry and industrial relations journalist.

John Cassidy - anthropoligist, reporter and Renaissance man... Has travelled extensively in the Third World (mainly to avoid university funding authorities and his ex-wife).