[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

The narcoleptic tendency was mild, and passed with the rest of the symptoms of the apparent 'flu', but it was still disturbing and strange. The victims often slept for as much as thirty-six hours straight, long enough for dehydration and waste disposal to become issues. Still, when they awakened, they tended to recover quickly and with little sign of lasting problems.

The public health authorities managed to keep this strangeness mostly out of the news, with some effort. Still, the locals knew about it, and rumors did fly. If the strange symptoms had lasted any longer than they did, panic might well have begun to spread. As it was, there was a puzzlement on the part of doctors and anxiety among civilians.

As strange as these events were, something else had been discovered to be occurring only days before Conners reached Harrystown, this last development only came to light after the Seven Aces were first informed of the emerging strange situation. Conners was briefed on this by a contact from Army Intelligence shortly after he got off the train at the Harrystown station.

“On top of personnel we know to either be directly employed by or in the pay of the Russians,
the Italians, the Brits, the Germans, and the Dutch,” the contact man, still wearing the suit and
tie appropriate to his cover as an insurance man, “there are strange rumors flying about some
kind of grave robbing going on.”

“Grave robbing?” Nathan asked, feeling a sense of disbelief as he said it.

“Well, that’s what people assume it was,” ‘Smith’ said. “I’ve confirmed that the rumors are at
least partly true. Somebody has been digging into some old graves in two different cemeteries
in town. It’s recent, too, the soil is freshly turned and there are reliable witnesses who all say
that those graves were intact no more than a few days ago.

“But if it was grave robbery,” ‘Smith’ went on, ‘why did they dig up those particular graves?
They were the graves of ordinary people, nothing elaborate. At most you might find a nice
watch or something like that in one, probably not even that. And to make it worse…”

“Yes?” Nathan pressed.

Smith hesitated. “I can’t confirm this part of the rumor. I know for a fact that the graves were
violated. I’ve seen a couple of them myself. But with my cover I couldn’t get past the local
police and coroner to find out if the rest is true.

“But the rumors say,” ‘Smith’ went on, “that somebody took the corpses themselves out of the graves.”

Nathan blinked. “You’re serious? They took the bodies?!”

“That’s the rumor I keep hearing,” ‘Smith’ said. “Keep in mind that I said I can’t confirm
it. I’ve heard it from four different people, including a woman who is married to a Sheriff’s Deputy,
so I can’t dismiss it out of hand. I guarantee you half the town, or more, has also heard the rumor,
things are getting strange and people are on edge. The Sheriff is going to have make some kind
of announcement or other soon, or I think people will start taking matters into their own hands.”


Even as Conners was being brought up to speed by his Intelligence contact, something of significance was unfolding some distance away. Let us momentarily turn out attention thousands of kilometers to the northeast, to a small town in Scotland, where we find a young couple, in their early twenties, walking through the unseasonably warm air toward a small restaurant, where they plan to take their evening meal.

Even a casual observer would note that the two are wrapped up in each other, and the new wedding rings on their fingers might not surprise such an observer. In fact, our couple has only been husband and wife for about three months, and they are still very much in the romantic stage of a new marriage.

Little would be gained by dwelling on their meal, though we might observe that one of their waiters is new to the business, and looks rather muscular and ‘rough’ for his role. Still, no more than some others, there many men with scars from the Great War, after all, the memory of that conflagration is all too fresh even after a decade.

The first thing we might note that was odd was that both husband and wife began to seem distracted and unfocused as the meal continued. Perhaps an observer might attribute that to the wine both had imbibed. Such an observer would not be entirely wrong, but he would not be altogether right, either.

Our hypothetical observer might notice that it was odd, too, that once they both finally left the restaurant, they seemed unsteady on their feet, more so than could really be explained by a few glasses of mild wine. What would really seem odd to our observer would be the way both sat down to rest on the sidewalk in the dark of the early evening, trying to speak to each other in a disjointed, confused way, and seemingly not really aware of the lack of coherence in the words of the other.

Moments later our observer would have seen two very unusual things: both husband and wife lay unconscious on the sidewalk, and a car was pulling up. Several men emerged, took the unconscious woman into the car, and then the man as well, though the latter was handled considerably less gently. If our observer could have followed the car, he would have seen it drive quickly to an airfield, where the two were transferred to a waiting plane.

If our observer could follow the plane, he would have seen a body drop from it shortly after it cleared the rocky coast, as the drugged figure of the husband, now dead of two bullets through the brain, was dropped into the sea.

The airplane flew on, carrying the drugged and unaware, and newly widowed, young woman to an unknown destination.

Why was this abduction of relevance to our tale? We shall see.

MORE LATER.