Chapter 37

Arch and I were ushered straight in to speak to Morgana once we had returned from Italy; also in her office were Róisín and Mage Thea to keep them informed of what it was we'd achieved.

"Interesting outcome," Morgana mused after listening to our report. "You do seem to have an ability to confound existing knowledge on what higher powers will take an interest in."

"Just wish I had an idea as to why," I replied.

"Well, whatever it was, it had nothing to do with this Cagliostro who was a proverbial pain in the bum for the Vatican Theurgists as well as a good few Mages worldwide," Morgana mused. It was only down to his god that he hadn't been eliminated over a century ago."

"So Jerry intimated, my Mage."

"Well done the pair of you as to your liaising with Antonelli and his team, I'll also pass on my thanks to Hengist and Pierre. Shame about Father LeFarge; I knew him and he'll be a big loss for them, as replacing a Theurgist is never an easy task, as the higher powers have no real concept of time as we measure it," Morgana continued.

"Antonelli sent his regards, also his thanks over the spear too," Arch added.

"Damned thing is more trouble than it's worth, and I still doubt it was the one that killed Jesus, just some higher power whim," Morgana said quietly.

"Antonelli said it was enhanced by Michael," I returned.

"Might have known," Morgana sighed. "Bloody self-righteous blowhard."

"So Antonelli hinted at," I chuckled.

Things returned to what passed for normal in the office with our investigations into corruption and misuse of power within it. It went slowly; the Interrogation Office in particular refused to cooperate when we requested any details or they sent us obvious fakes or redacted reports into various issues. Unfortunately for them they hadn't realised that I, being totally unscrupulous and amoral in carrying out Morgana's wishes, broke into their quarters (along with Róisín keeping a lookout) because in their naivety they didn't believe in keeping their records section warded or observed. Unlike our own records which were as closely protected as any member of the Council. We soon had various copies of the relevant documents to be carrying on with and were building up a pattern of laziness, corruption, spite and petty vengeance on the parts of certain Mages in Council employ, though not at Council level. It was the sheer volume of files that was taking all our efforts to compile the report and whilst we cleaned our own house, we weren't ready to unleash our findings on the other main offices, although we did keep Mage Julia up to date to a certain extent.

It wasn't all bureaucracy of course, events in the real world carried on apace and occasionally we had to deal with them, or rather the Coalition's attempts to interfere in them. It was in April 1982 that Morgana called a meeting with Arch, Róisín, Thea and myself to discuss an issue that was causing problems for the Committee of Magical Control in South America to do with the Coalition assisting setting off the armed conflict off the coast of Argentina with the intent of drawing that country's leadership into their sphere of influence.

"I want all four of you to go and assist Mage Maria's people in Buenos Aires. Seems the Coalition are trying to subvert the military junta there into their puppets and gaining a foothold on the South American continent," Morgana briefed us. "They're already convincing them that the trouble they are in with their own people can be put off with Coalition aid in an invasion of the Falkland's."

"Doubt the UK government will take it lying down ... well apart from the Foreign Office perhaps," Arch chuckled.

"True, but your job will not be to interfere, but to make sure the Coalition cannot either," Morgana replied. "Or rather you're to back up Mage Maria's senior agents in case the Coalition has a far bigger and stronger contingent than we suspect."

"Seers picking up anything?" Arch asked.

"No, but the Coalition at least know how they work so know how to hide. Besides, most of the Seer groupings are keeping tabs on various Sidhe and Nephilim incursions, which is why Mage Maria is a little shorthanded as they are trying to breakthrough into the Amazon basin," Morgana added.

We teleported into the headquarters of the Committee of Magical Control in Rio de Janeiro to meet up with Mage Maria and meet the team she had prepared to tackle the Coalition insurgents.

"It's good of Mage Morgana to send you," Mage Maria greeted us. "Frankly we're getting the run around in Buenos Aires as my team here are struggling with the hysteria that has been whipped up by the Junta there, which is affecting their ability to detect other Mages due to the emotional content of the masses."

"We'll do our best," Mage Thea answered for all of us. "But mostly we'll let your people do the groundwork as they're far more likely to spot something before we do. But rest assured once they do we'll be ready to jump in if they find out they've bitten off more than they can chew."

I could see that Mage Maria's team relaxed at that announcement. I had the feeling that pride was at stake, having had to invite in the Council rather than handle things themselves.

We were introduced to the head of the Buenos Aires office, Mage Christina, who greeted us all warmly.

"So glad you are here. I'm hunting down an expert team, I believe, and am being forced to use journeymen and women to supplement my response teams, the best of whom I've had to send to the Amazon Basin to drop in on the bloody Sidhe and Nephilim pin pricks as they probe for an opening," she told us. "We used to use our journeymen, but with the Sidhe that can get dangerous as they are far more dangerous these days with the support they get from Oonagh's forces."

"Amazon isn't the only area, but we're coping, just didn't need this idiocy in Argentina as well," Maria sighed.

"Well, they may be able to keep them..." Róisín began.

"Not with a Tory Prime minister, Róisín," Arch replied. "Unpopular as she is, Margaret Thatcher will have no choice but to try; losing the next election will be the least of her worries if she fails."

"Besides, the UK is not as toothless as it appears and certainly can, if the will is there, take back the islands," I added. "Not our business though, our business is to assist Mage Christina to smoke out the Coalition team pulling the Junta's strings."

"However they are doing it, they appear to have a massive amount of funding and it isn't their usual Soviet sources," Christina added.

"Odd, that's their usual source," Arch mused.

"I suspect they are working via an international banking consortium and bribing various members of the Junta that way, but I have no proof as yet, just odd numbers turning up in bank accounts but no names or other details," Christina acknowledged.

"New trick for them, but they could easily dominate a bankers mind, I'd guess," added Thea.

"I can contact Mage Geoffrey back in the UK," Róisín said. "His people will turn over the City as I'd hazard a guess that the money will divert through London."

"Good idea, Róisín," Arch approved.

"Thank you, my Mage," she replied with a smile.

"Well, if that's all, let's go, Mage Christina," Arch finished.

Buenos Aires was a madhouse, if you wanted to unite the Argentinian nation, the Junta had gone the right way about it in 'liberating' the Malvinas as they called them. Problem was that those in power were now realising that holding them was not going to be as easy as taking them had been. Still the confidence of the Junta was sky high and their hold on power had never been stronger. They also were making some dubious allies in the magical world too, as various Mages who lived and operated there were having their lives disrupted by an increase in low level Coalition activity. It was this activity that was causing Christina's teams the most bother as they were forced to respond thus not being able to concentrate on the deeper game plan of the Coalition.

In this we were able to help as Arch and Róisín, Thea and myself teamed up to drop the hammer on the Coalition thugs by responding swiftly to any calls for help. We soon had several dead Coalition small fry and a smaller number of captives sent off to Kurukshetra and exile. Yet it did seem that the Coalition still had the advantage of numbers. That plus the massive demonstrations taking place in Buenos Aires created a difficult mental miasma for Mages to penetrate via a scan.

Mage Geoffrey reported back that someone was indeed financing the Junta and their need for modern weapons, but so far all he had was a whisper of a name, 'Andino', and as yet wasn't sure if it was a person or a thing, but would continue to investigate.

Buenos Aires itself was a madhouse, the sinking of the Cruiser ARA General Belgrano and the subsequent sinking two days later of HMS Sheffield showed that the war itself was escalating. We also had to be careful as there was a witch-hunt for foreign spies, though to be honest our magical abilities allowed us to pose and speak as natives, still observation at a distance needed careful attention to detail as we definitely did not want to come to the attention of the state.

Still, certain things were starting to come to fruition. Mage Christina's people were tracking a high level Coalition Mage and another who appeared to be his assistant, though whether he was a journeyman or another Mage they could not decide, nor had they even gained sight of them, simply observed certain magical effects as to their visitations to the leading lights of the Junta. Further escalations in the war meant that the tensions and mental fog in the streets kept things tense for us, though our expertise in taking down Coalition teams kept us busy. Eventually after a month the UK eventually put ground troops down on the islands themselves and we knew an end game was in sight.

Our break came when Thea and I were stalking, for want of a better word, a Coalition snatch team who were setting up to attack and capture/violate/kill a local female Mage who worked at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. It was then I noticed that they had been joined by a new figure, one whom I recognised immediately.

'That's Pyotr, Merlin's journeyman. I think we now know just who is operating in the City and pulling the strings, ' I sent to Thea via a very private mental channel.

'I don't understand. Surely Merlin is keeping better tabs on him. After all, he must know that his low level teams are taking a pasting?' she replied.

'I rather suspect this is Pyotr's own doing. He struck me as being a bit of a hothead, as well as arrogant beyond belief," I filled her in.

'I've called in Arch and Róisín, they're in a cab and will be here in ten minutes, ' she sent back.

'Good, this could be quite a blow for us, assuming we can capture him. As for the rest, well, we'll try, but they aren't so important, ' I added.

'True, but carefully does it and let's hope Pyotr at least doesn't scream for help, '" Thea replied.

'That's why we'll blanket the telepath channels before we strike, and I mean really blanket them, ' I said.

'Good idea," she said with a feral grin.

We prepared our groundwork carefully whilst being prepared to intervene at any moment if the Coalition squad decided to act. At this time though they were currently working on bypassing the wards around the Mage's residence, a time consuming, if necessary, task ... well time consuming if you could not use Null. Even then, they were waiting, I think, until the small hours of the morning to make sure that the Mage would hopefully be asleep and unprepared for their assault.