“And I’m going to answer you right now, just take it easy. As you know, SPIDER is a tight operation and they can be anywhere with very little notice. They’re usually independent, but they’re also for hire. Following the successful extraction and rescue of Dr Starling, my organization has now cleared you to know that we believe the Spider crew were hired by a kind of cult.”
Everyone in the room stopped talking and all eyes fell on the man in the black suit.
Mason spoke for the whole team. “A cult?”
Another brief nod. “A secret order we know very little about. We think they hired the Spiders to snatch Eva Starling.”
Mason’s eyes widened. “That’s who Eva described as weirdos! At some point, they must have been at the safehouse where the Spiders were keeping her.”
Ezra nodded. “Looks that way. The plan must have been to meet there — Spiders bringing Starling and the cult bringing the item they wanted her to translate.”
“That thing we found on the basement floor?” Caleb said.
“We’ll get to that.”
“Are these guys a bigger threat than the Spiders?” Milo said, shifting uneasily his seat.
“Without a doubt.”
Caleb cleared his throat. “And what do we call this threat?”
Ezra sighed deeply and rubbed his tired eyes. “What I’m about to tell you might sound like the plot to a Mission Impossible movie, but it’s true — every damned word of it. Their name is Occulta Manu. It means Hidden Hand in Latin.”
“The Hidden Hand?” Zara said. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Me neither,” said Milo. “I was freaked out enough by the Spider guys, and now this.”
Virgil furrowed his brow. “You can’t be talking about the Hidden Hand?”
“I’m afraid so, Mr Lehman. You’re aware of them?”
“My PhD is in the classics. I speak Latin and Ancient Greek. If we’re talking about anything from the ancient world, or any sort of esoteria, then I’m aware of it… but I thought they faded away centuries ago.”
“They did, but now they’re coming back to life. Someone, or something, woke them up.”
“I’ve heard of them,” Ella said. “But I thought they were only a legend, not some kind of dormant monster.”
“I only wish they were a legend.”
“What do we know about them?” Mason said.
“As I say, very little. I know a great many NSA researchers, and those guys have access to the best military intelligence on the planet and a free pass to go pretty much anywhere they want with their research. However, all they have — and all we have — is that OM have been around longer than any of the other organizations you’ve ever heard of, and even though they usually stay in the shadows, when they strike they strike hard. They have a strong interest in controlling the flow and direction of history and they kill easily and without conscience.”
“Especially their own, yes?” Mason said.
“Yes,” Ezra said, raising an eyebrow. “How did you know?”
The Londoner shrugged his shoulders. “Same as any other fraternity, gang, brotherhood — loyalty is powerful but if you betray your brothers they see it as the greatest crime of all. You see it with all the street gangs, Russian Mafia, you name it.”
The American man gave a pensive nod. “It’s interesting you mention gangs, because gangs usually have a pecking order. One of the few things we know for sure about the Hidden Hand is that they have a strict hierarchy. A newly initiated member becomes a Corax, or Raven, then a Nymphus or Bride — male or female, then a Soldier, or Miles and then a Leo, or Lion. These are the rank and file members of OM. After these levels is what you might call the officer class when a member becomes a Perses, or a Persian, and then finally a Heliodromus, or Sun-runner. These ranks each have their own special symbols based on the old Cult of Mithras — raven, diadem, lance, lion, crescent moon, and the sun-god.”
“And the Sun-runner’s the boss?” Zara asked.
“No. The top man is called the Pater, or the Father. His symbol is the patera, what the experts call a shallow libation bowl but you or I would call a kind of cup without handles. We estimate there are thousands of Ravens, Brides and Soldiers and probably hundreds of Lions. We really have no solid idea but our best guess is that there are probably only a few dozen Persians and around twelve Sun-runners.” He looked at them and offered an apologetic shrug. “For certain, there is only one Occulta Manu Father.”
Zara gave a grim laugh. “So in other words we know there’s a weird bunch of men running around in robes calling each other Ravens and Brides and they have lots of money and power?”
Ezra frowned. “The idea of these guys going around in robes is ridiculous. The Hidden Hand might be some kind of secret cult following ancient pagan rites, but they exist in the modern world. And it’s men and women,” he said. “As I just mentioned, OM uses the rank system of an ancient Mystery Cult called the Cult of Mithras, but there’s a big difference — the Mithrians were strictly men only — we know for a fact that the Hidden Hand actively recruit women from all over the world.”
“An equal opportunities secret society,” Zara said. “They don’t sound so bad.”
“They are seriously bad, Miss Dietrich,” Ezra said, a note of fear in his voice. “Occulta Manu are something no one in the NSA, or any other branch of US government intel for that matter, know very much about. Most of our enemies are easy to understand and monitor — other states, foreign spy agencies, international terrorist cells, and so on. But OM is different. Very different. Frankly, there are many in the intelligence community who are just plain old-fashioned scared of them. Not even Titanfort has a handle on this organization yet.”
Mason gave him a sharp look. “Titanfort? I’ve heard of Titanpointe — that’s the NSA’s spy hub, but what’s Titanfort?”
Ezra paused a beat while he scanned their faces. Again, the man in the black suit was processing countless thoughts and calculations. “Titanfort is the spy hub owned by the private agency that employs me, and maybe you, too. Don’t confuse it with Titanpointe.”
“What’s the difference?” Mason asked flatly.
“Titanpointe is government. They’re south of us in Lower Manhattan. Titanfort is ours, and it’s private. It’s different.”
“You already said that, but what makes it so different?”
“The world knows about Titanpointe. No one knows about Titanfort.” He lowered his head and stared at them, unblinking. A look of menace crossed his face. “And that’s the way it’s staying.”
Jed Mason frowned. The last thing he wanted to hear was that one of the world’s best funded intelligence agencies was scared of something, and now he had to process the Titanfort revelation on top of everything else.
“Who controls Titanfort?”
“Classified.”
Mason sighed, but managed a grin. “All right, fine. Let me try this instead: you said this secret order vanished for a few centuries, but now they’ve woken up — what did you mean by that?”
“For a long time they went silent, and for centuries we thought they were gone, but a few years ago the NSA and other agencies started picking up chatter. Both they and Titanfort began to have concerns they were coming back, getting stronger, adapting to the new world — undermining civilization and reshaping it in their own image. They’re like a pathogen.”
Ezra let the words sink in before continuing the briefing. “Reges Chao — Latin for the Kings of Chaos. This is another name they go by, and it’s an accurate description because of their habit of infiltrating institutions and creating mayhem inside them.”