Christopher Golde
“And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea with 10 horns and seven heads with 10 diadems on his horns and a blasphemous name upon his head."
John: Revelation 13. 1
Date: 6th April 1977 Location: Switzerland
Kirstie entered her room and quickly closed and locked the door behind her. She stopped to catch her breath and leaned back on the locked door looking around the room for her next move. She looked down at the documents in her hands and then decided to pack enough things into an overnight bag that would hopefully get her back to Zurich. She had an embassy apartment in Zurich where she thought she would be safe.
As she hurriedly threw things like underwear and cosmetics into a small bag, she wondered just how she was going to get out of the research centre, as she knew it was well guarded. She was just about to zip the bag up when there was a knock on the door to the apartment. She stopped immediately and remained silent.
Again, there was a knock at the door, this time a little louder and more impatient. From the other side of the door, she heard a voice.
“Miss Martin, are you in there?”
She looked desperately around the room. There was one window, but she knew if she did not answer the door and left through the window there would be no going back; she would then have to be fully committed. She could answer, it might be nothing. She looked at the documents she had taken. She would have to explain those. If she did answer, she would probably miss the opportunity to get the documents out, but then did she care enough to run.
The knock came again and this time the handle of the door moved from side to side.
“Miss Martin, we really need to talk to you, can you please open the door?”
This scared her a bit, they knew she was in there or they wouldn’t persist and he sounded a little more threatening this time. ‘Fuck it,’ she thought, ‘I’m out of here.’
She quietly zipped up the bag and then moved as silently as she could over to the window. Putting the bag down on the floor, she unclipped the window and pushed it open. A chill gust of wind rushed in through the open window accompanied by a flutter of snow that fell lightly to the carpet of the apartment floor. The window had made a slight noise when opening and this had obviously been heard by whoever was outside the room, as the knocking started again, this time harder and more urgent. The handle now moved in unison with the knocking.
She put her head out the window and looked down, her heart sinking as she realized she must be on a second floor. The drop to the snow was two stories but at least it was on to what looked like soft snow. She took a deep breath and put one leg out the window and reached down to grab her bag.
The door was now shaking and the voice was sounding desperate and impatient.
“Miss Martin, open this door, we can hear you inside and we must talk to you now.”
As she picked up her bag, she looked around the room and realized she had left the research papers on the bed. The door was now bending slightly from the outside, as someone was trying to force it open. Her heart thumped in her chest, she could feel the adrenalin rushing through her head and face.
‘Fuck, I can’t leave without them, there would be no point, people won’t believe me unless I have something to show them’
She pulled her leg back inside the window and scrambled to the bedside. The door was now bulging as the outside intruder was most likely putting all of their body weight into forcing the door open. The snow was billowing in through the open window and the drapes were flying wildly about. She grabbed desperately at the file on the bed and let out a small scream as she almost fell, juggling and struggling to maintain her balance. The door was now being pounded aggressively. She could not decide which was louder her heart beating or the door banging. Figuring there was no time to delicately exit the window, she ran towards the billowing drapes and snow-laden air emanating from the open window, scooped up her bag and threw her body sideways out into the frozen night air, clasping the papers desperately to her chest.
Her clearance through the window was complete and the air left her lungs as she began to fall towards the icy ground below, when all of a sudden, she felt a stranglehold grab her by the neck and pull her abruptly to a halt. Her body swung inwards and slammed violently into the brick wall of the building. The impact winded her and she bounced twice against the solid brick, the second time bashing her head so hard she thought she would become unconscious.
When she had stopped swinging, she realized that the bag strap must have caught on something inside the window and the strap had also somehow lassoed her arm, her weight holding it fast. She dangled helplessly, ten feet above the snow-covered ground. She began to struggle desperately in an attempt to break the bag strap but it seemed hopeless. It was then that a smug voice came from above.
“There you are, Miss Martin.”
Kirstie looked up to see the grimacing face of the worst come-over glaring down at her.
“I think I should help you back in don’t you,” the come-over said, beginning to pull on her bag strap?
Kirstie struggled even more but she could feel herself rising towards the open window and then a hand grabbed her by the hair ruthlessly. She screamed at the pain, then decided it was time to pull out all stops. She dropped the precious notes and caught a glimpse of them fluttering to the ground below; then with her free hand, she reached up, grabbing the extended arm of the come-over and pulling downwards with all her weight. When the hand was within reach, she sunk her teeth into it and bit hard. She felt blood squirt into her mouth and the come-over screamed loudly, then let go. She dropped abruptly again and this time the weight of her fall forced something to give way, as there was a short brutal jerk and then she was free-falling towards the snow below.
The fall seemed long and she thought she screamed, but the landing was a lot softer than she expected. Scrambling to release her legs from the soft snow, she regained her feet and then looked up but there was no come-over to be seen. Looking about her she located the notes in two lots, but reasonably close together and she scrambled over to them, dragging her bag and broken strap behind her in the snow.
Once she had the notes in her hand, she looked left then right and decided away from the lights of the chateau was her best option. She could now hear yelling in the distance. Obviously, the come-over had sounded the alarm, there was now no going back and no time for indecision. She scrambled towards some tall pines, not sure if it would lead anywhere but at least she knew it was away from the voices.
The going was hard and the fact that she was a smoker was not helping her breathing, as she gasped in the freezing air, only the huge adrenalin rush kept her going.
Once she got to the shelter of the pines, she stopped to take a breath. White steam billowed from her mouth as she gasped in the freezing air in an attempt to recover. She opened her bag, fumbling with the zip in the cold and pushed the sheath of precious papers into it re-zipping it as best she could with her numb fingers. Now she heard dogs barking.
‘That can’t be good,’ she thought.
At least there seemed to be no fence around the perimeter, but she knew she could not make it on foot all the way to civilization; she needed to find a roadway or at least shelter. It was then that she heard a car engine starting up somewhere near the chalet.
‘A car,’ she thought, ‘a long shot, but it’s a chance, but where the fuck is the roadway?’
She looked in the direction of the engine and saw a set of headlights come on in the distance to the left of the chalet. The headlights started to move and she got excited when she saw that they were heading in her general direction. She got to her feet and scrambled in the direction of the path it seemed to be taking. In the complete darkness, she stumbled and fell but as she rolled she began to fall and realized she was falling down an embankment. When she collided with a very hard surface and came to a rest, she realized she had hit gold or rather a roadway.
The headlights were now coming around a bend in the road ahead and she knew any minute they were going to be on top of her.
‘How should I handle this?’
She decided to just flag it down and hope for the best, or rather hope that the driver was not aware of the hunt that was on for her at the moment back at the Chalet. As the car came round the bend, she stood back as far as she could and started waiving. The car was slowing.
‘They have obviously seen me.’
As the car pulled up, she saw that it was one of the black Land Rovers that had been parked at the front of the chalet earlier and she started to fear that it was, in fact, the security that was chasing her. She just stood and waited as the car finally pulled alongside her and the door opened.
“Get in Miss Martin,” said a voice from inside the vehicle. Her heart dropped.
‘They know it’s me.’
Reluctantly, she got into the rear seat of the four-wheel-drive pulling in her bag with the broken strap behind her. Inside sat a well-dressed Chinese man who offered her a friendly and welcoming smile.
“It must be very cold out there Miss Martin, please close the door, we should really be going.”
Kirstie looked at him confused, but reached out grabbing the door handle and pulling it closed. The car immediately took off quickly.
“It might be a good idea if you just duck down for a while Miss Martin, while we exit the gates,” said the well-dressed man.
Kirstie was confused, but her spirits were lifting and she quickly ducked down on the seat as the Chinese stranger threw a coat over the top of her. The car began to slow and she heard an electric window winding down. The car stopped and she heard another voice she assumed was the driver, speak.
“The Chinese Ambassador, Mr Lu.”
“No one else,” came back a voice from outside of the vehicle?
“No!”
There was a brief pause before she heard the outside voice give instructions to go and the window whirred itself back into the closed position. After only a few seconds, the coat was lifted from her and the kind voice of the Chinese Ambassador said.
“You can get up now Miss Martin, you are safe.”
Kirstie sat up blinking and looking confused.
“It’s okay Miss Martin, we are your friends,” said Ambassador Lu, smiling at Kirstie in what seemed like a genuine gesture.
“You seem to know that I…”
“Yes we know Kirstie that they are trying to stop you,” said the Ambassador, completing her unfinished sentence.
“But why are you helping me?”
“Simple Miss Martin, we as a country participate in these meetings, but we are treated as an outsider and given very little opportunity to be involved and yet we are one of the world’s largest populations. We feel that we need more allies Miss Martin, and you are now our ally.”
“But I am only one person taking a stand; I can’t surely be of much use to your country.”
“You would be surprised Miss Martin, a giant oak tree begins with one acorn.”
Kirstie thought about this and then considered again why she felt it was important to do what she was doing. She essentially was now a traitor to her own country, but she knew it was a decision she had based on personal opinion and surely that counted for something. Obviously, the people of China agreed, even if it was probably for political reasons.
“Thank you, Ambassador Lu, I think I need as many allies as I can get at the moment.”
“You have a very powerful ally in the country of China Miss Martin, now where would you like us to take you.”
Kirstie considered her options.
‘That is a very good question, where the fuck do I go know?’
Chapter thirty six
The Ambassador