The Knights Victorious. William Speir

Knight nodded and the members of the Commandery took their positions with the two parties.

      Tom shook hands with Ruth and the members of the other party. “Good luck to all of you,” he said.

      “Good luck to you, too, your Excellency,” Ruth and the Lieutenant Grand Master replied.

      “Let’s go,” the Prior said.

      Tom and the others followed the Prior out of the room and up the stairs to the first floor of the Commandery. The Prior opened the mirror door at the top of the stairs and looked around the foyer carefully before motioning for Tom and the others to follow. No one said a word as the group exited the coat closet and joined the Prior in the foyer.

      Once everyone was together, the Prior walked over to the Knight who was leading the Lieutenant Grand Master’s party and whispered, “Take a route that’ll bring your party to the Embassy from the east. I’ll take a way that’ll bring my party from the west. If one way’s blocked, maybe the other’s still open.”

      The Knight nodded and motioned for his party to follow him. Tom waved as Sam and the others left the Commandery and quickly walked across the courtyard. When they reached the street, the Knight carefully looked around to make sure that the patrols had left. Satisfied, he motioned for everyone to follow him, and soon they disappeared from view.

      The Prior motioned for Tom and the others to follow him, and soon Tom was on the street heading in the opposite direction from Sam and the other party. A few minutes later, the Knight escorting Ruth to her Embassy split off, and Tom saw the two of them turn a corner and disappear down a side street.

      Tom and Emily walked behind the Prior. Liam and Sophie were in the middle behind Tom and Emily, and Ralph was directly behind Sophie, knowing that Tom wanted him to help keep Sophie feeling safe. Three members of the Commandery had taken positions behind and to the side of the party, and were watching intently for patrols or any other dangers as they made their way to the Embassy.

      Tom reached for Emily’s hand and felt her take his. He gave her hand a squeeze and felt her give one in response as they rounded the next corner. I hope we can get to the Embassy with no problems.

      2

      Saturday, November 9, Afternoon

      Paramaribo Presidential Palace

      The President of Suriname was frustrated. He and the bulk of his Cabinet Ministers had been bound and guarded in his office for hours. No one was allowed to speak. One Minister had tried and was still drifting in and out of consciousness; a guard had hit the Minister in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle. The guards had provided water once an hour, but nothing else. The President hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and he was hungry.

      Years in the military and in politics had made the President both a shrewd judge of character and an excellent observer of other people. He had spent most of the afternoon watching his captors closely, trying to assess their plans for him and his Cabinet Ministers. After a while, it became clear that their only orders were to detain the prisoners and nothing else. The President suspected that the guards didn’t know why they had been ordered to detain the prisoners – just that they were to hold the prisoners there until new orders came.

      This made the President relax somewhat. If the guards were ordered to detain only, there was a chance that he and the others might be allowed to live through the transition of power – perhaps imprisoned or in exile, but still alive.

      The President thought that this was strange. I would have killed the leaders of the existing government immediately. The last thing a rebel should want is for the previous government leaders to be left alive after a coup. Alive, they’re a threat – a symbol to rally the citizens and potentially overthrow the coup. Dead, they’re no longer a threat to anyone.

      So why are we still alive? Then it struck him. They want something from us. But what?

      After wrestling with this question for a while, the President thought back to when he had taken power several years earlier. As the incoming President of the country, he was briefed extensively on some of the secrets that only the highest members of the government were allowed to know – secrets that the leader of a coup would most certainly need to possess in order to give the appearance of a peaceful transition of power.

      There were treaties that were binding on the country, regardless of who was in power at the moment. The rebel leader would need to know where these treaties were and the requirements they placed on the government before he could move forward with his plans. A treaty violation during the transition of power could invite an invasion by the other treaty signers, which would end the coup as quickly as it started.

      There were communications codes that were used when leaders of one country contacted the leaders of other countries. These codes proved that the communicator was authorized to act on behalf of the country and that the communications were valid. The rebels would need these codes to announce the formation of the new government and to assure Suriname’s neighbors that the coup was a purely internal matter and not a prelude to any aggression against anyone else.

      There were also codes required to access bank accounts, international lines of credit, aid, and other financial resources that the rebels would need in order to consolidate their power and legitimize their new government in the eyes of the rest of the world. The President knew that, without these codes, the new government would be cut off from its treasury, which was kept off-shore because of the frequency of political unrest in the past. The rebel leaders would need to have these codes, or they’d risk going bankrupt in a matter of weeks.

      That must be why they’re keeping us here. They want to get the government secrets from us.

      He knew he had to make sure that these secrets were kept out of the hands of the rebels, but he couldn’t talk to his Cabinet Ministers and warn them. The minute we give up those secrets, we’re dead.

      At the rebels’ mobile command post just outside the capital, Francisco Emmanuel Baptista, self-appointed Field Marshall and leader of the rebel forces, received word that the capital was secured. “All senior members of the government have been located, arrested, and taken to the Presidential Palace as you ordered,” an aide reported.

      “Very good,” Francisco replied with a smile. Turning to his brother, he said, “Give the orders to proceed to the Presidential Palace immediately.”

      “Yes, sir,” his brother replied. Carlos Xavier Baptista, Francisco’s brother and a Major in the Suriname Liberation Army, gave orders for the mobile command post and the auxiliary forces to prepare to move out and enter the city.

      “Your Legionnaires did their job magnificently,” Francisco said to the Legate. The Legate, who was not only the supreme military commander of the rebel army, was also the leader of Il Nona, a band of European mercenaries and arms dealers risen from the ashes of the Ninth Roman Legion after the bulk of the Legion had been destroyed by the Caledonian Tribes two thousand years earlier in what is now Scotland. Francisco had made arrangements to relocate the Legion to Suriname to help him seize power, and in return he had promised Il Nona the protection of a friendly government to carry out their own agenda of providing arms, military training, and troops to clients around the world who were willing to pay for what Il Nona could provide.

      “Thank you,” the Legate replied. “Frankly, I’m amazed that it went off so well. Losses were minimal, and everything proceeded almost perfectly on schedule.”

      “The key was your idea of luring the army away from the cities before the campaign began,” Francisco stated. “If that hadn’t happened, it could’ve taken days or weeks before we captured the capital, if at all.”

      “We still have to take care of the army,” the Legate reminded Francisco.

      “I know. When will you be ready to move out?”

      “Not until morning. We know that the army redeployed, and the forces near Cottica aren’t sure where they went. We can’t afford to miss them in the