Chapter 38

It was a couple of years later that the Council was forced to intervene directly in human affairs as it had done during the Cuban missile crisis. Though it wasn't obvious to people on the ground, the Soviet Union was nearing collapse due to the economic resurgence of the United States and could no longer afford to maintain its huge military economic complex. Reform or rather its collapse was still some years away and it had a massive military presence in Europe, though most of this was under direct Council observation via the European Bureau. Only in Russia itself was the Coalition strong and in control, yet they now no longer had the numbers they once had to keep an eye on the various politicians within and without the Politburo. Within the Russian state, paranoia of the West's motives and intentions ruled supreme, encouraged to an extent by the Coalition to keep Russia under their control and to reduce the possibility of a rapprochement which would allow ease of travel into their heartlands. This particularly in regards to Council spies as they had no answer as yet to our Nephilim given mindcloak and could not detect us if we were in their vicinity. Not that we really had the numbers to do such a thing, but our successes since the 1940s had very much put the Coalition on the back foot and they could no longer match us in new uses in magic. As ever this made them more dangerous and violent than ever and their mental state was not being calmed by the ease in which the various Bureaus were able to take down their teams when they detected them, as well as dealing with various Sidhe/Nephilim incursions.

In the mundane world with the accession of Ronald Reagan to the presidency of the United States and his policies of confronting the Soviet Union at every turn, as well as upping the ante via the Strategic Defence Initiative, had taken the Cold War distrust to new lows. The deteriorating relations between the two countries due to American provocation by flying their bombers right up to Soviet airspace before peeling off had led to the downing of a Korean airliner in September as it spied upon Sakhalin Island under the United States intelligence agencies directions.

It was at this point that the Council, in particular the Enforcement Office, began to take notice due in part to the tensions. But also because we were very worried about the current state of the Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov's condition, both mentally and physically. Essentially what we had was a dying man with his hands (so to speak) on a nuclear button. Couple this with a new and suspect Soviet missile launch detection scheme and you can see why those Mages in the various Bureaus and Departments whose job it was to monitor diplomatic channels were starting to get very worried indeed.

On September the 26th the world got lucky when the Soviet early warning system reported a single intercontinental ballistic missile launch from the territory of the United States. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, who was on duty during the incident, correctly dismissed the warning as a computer error when ground early warning radars did not detect any launches. Luck was with us as he fortunately knew the system and it was known to have malfunctioned previously; also, a full-scale nuclear attack from the United States would involve thousands of simultaneous launches, not a single missile.

However, the Council were also aware of a NATO military exercise called Able Archer scheduled to kick off on the 2nd of November which was to simulate a nuclear launch and, for the first time, would have several western politicians involved in the scenario adding input. Frankly with the current tensions it seemed the height of folly, but occasionally, as we'd discovered with humanity in general, common sense really wasn't that common ... this also includes Mages.

What really set the cat amongst the pigeons was that we had come into intelligence, via a mole high in the Coalition, that the cabal surrounding Gilles de Rais had decided to take advantage of the suspect Soviet early warning detection glitch and launch several Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in supposed retaliation at London, Manhattan, New Delhi, Peking, Rio de Janiero and Lusaka, strangely enough the headquarters of the various Bureaus of the Council.

"This is lunacy," muttered Morgana as she read the reports coming in from Julia's office as well as the various diplomatic sections of the Bureaus.

"I cannot see what he hopes to gain, my Mage," I replied. "The United States and their allies will probably be confused, but prepared to go into a massive retaliation possibly endangering all life on the planet."

"Russia is vast, perhaps the Coalition, or rather this cabal, hope to survive this Armageddon and come out to rule the survivors," Morgana finally commented.

"Don't they realise our Seers will spot this and the Council will act to disable any such missiles?" I asked.

"Assuming we act on time, or rather the Seers do, yes. All these satellite launches have made things a lot trickier than it used to be," Morgana replied shaking her head. "There's also the possibility that unlike Loegria, this cabal of Gilles will try to shield or protect these missiles."

"Has this mole given any information as to where they intend to launch from?" I asked.

"Dombarovskiy," Morgana replied.

"Never heard of it, but I presume we're going there?" I mused.

"Yes, other Council teams will be attempting to infiltrate sixteen other Soviet sites just in case, but this is the one where Gilles cabal have control," Morgana added.

"I take it that this may be a major confrontation then?" I asked.

"I hope not, John, but this is so unlike the Coalition that I have to wonder about that Mage's sanity."

"Can we not warn Merlin or Elymas?"

"We have, so far nothing but silence, not even an acknowledgement," Morgana sighed.

"Wonder if they're still in charge?"

"God, I hope so, I may think little of them, but they are at least predictable and cautious when it comes down to the destruction of the planet," Morgana replied.

"So when are we off?" I asked.

"As soon as we can figure out a way of getting in there without causing World War 3 ourselves. The Soviets are not going to be happy about anyone sniffing around a launch site and any high Mage of the Coalition will detect us if we port in and I doubt they'll be using their drones to do all the monitoring," Morgana replied.

"We could try going in as Craebh Ruadh. They don't appear to have problems jumping close to the Coalition higher ups," I mused. "Yes, we'd have to go immediately into hiding but once we're in, that's fairly easy."

"It's a thought," Morgana replied. "I'll have a word with Julia and see if we can duplicate a Craebh Ruadh port. Hopefully it will panic them into keeping their heads down for a while. Well, the higher ups that is."

Morgana and I strolled through the Council headquarters until we came to the Intelligence office run by Mage Julia. It was the first time I'd ever been there despite spending a lot of time exploring the various offices and getting to know some of the Mages working there. Morgana had explained that Julia had set several aversion wards around the office after her Seer group watched my burglary efforts in the Interrogation office.

"They keep out anyone not a Council member from her inner sanctum, especially you, John," she chuckled.

"My reputation clearly precedes me my Mage," I chuckled in return. "Should I decide that there's something here I want, I'll invite you along to get it."

"That's my journeyman," Morgana replied with a broad grin as Julia came out of her office to greet us.

"Everyone check your desks and your fingers come to that when journeyman John here leaves, he's simply not to be trusted," she announced before greeting Morgana and myself formally with a broad smile on her face.

I could see her staff all trying to hide a grin and several chuckles were carefully muffled in the background as well.

"The only way you could do it is for the Craebh Ruadh to get you in," Julia finally replied, after we presented our possible solution to her. "It's to do with the way their magic interacts with their temple of the gods."

"Will they?" Morgana asked.

"Yes, if you give me a day or so to get in contact with their doorkeepers," Julia replied. "They have no love of the Coalition and might request that a small party of their warriors accompanies you as a way of mixing it up with the Coalition Mages."

"So long as we can get there and they don't impede our mission, that's fine," Morgana acknowledged. "Nor that they can assume we'll come to their aid if, as they usually do, they lose."

"I'll make sure they're aware that you have your own agenda, but like as not they won't care, so long as they can take down a few Coalition Mages. It's an honour thing with them," Julia said with a smile.

Craebh Ruadh essentially means the 'red branch' and despite similarities in names and historic legend has nothing to do with the British province of Ulster, same with the Tuatha Dé Danann and ancient Irish history, although the Tuatha Dé Danann do claim to have beaten the Sidhe on our Earth in ancient times and is the core of their claim to our planet; to which the Council's response is somewhat on the lines of 'Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.'

The Craebh Ruadh have no such claims and generally we remain on speaking terms with them barring the parts of our Earth under Coalition control. This came about when the Coalition split after their abortive coup in 1204 AD and they sought allies on the Craebh Ruadh home-world, thinking that their Mage run society would support them. All they managed to do was alienate the Craebh Ruadh when Djadjamankh, the Coalition's enforcer at the time, thought that by killing the king of the Craebh Ruadh and replacing him with a seemingly more malleable son they'd gain an ally in their fight.

However Prince Conchubhair had merely been biding his time until he could find someone to do his dirty work for him and took it upon himself to denounce the Coalition in order to leave no one telling tales. The Craebh Ruadh royalty and nobles, all being Mages and some having control over their aging, took an oath of vengeance which, because a lot of them were still alive today, they were keeping going despite the fact that the Mages of Earth, including the upper echelons of the Coalition, are far better at magic than they are these days.