Keagan remembered hearing that Denmark had vowed to beef up 
its border controls with Germany despite being in the Schengen 
Zone—this however presented no impediment to their progress, as 
rather than go through customs Bones abruptly stopped the car and 
roused his passengers with the words "Get out." He then proceeded 
to stride away over a starlit field with Keagan and the other cell 
member lagging behind Keagan managed to bruise his elbow after 
tripping in a narrow stream which on reflection was probably the 
border. On the other side, Bones began wandering, apparently 
aimlessly, holding his arm outstretched. Keagan was about to ask 
his compatriot if Bones was feeling alright when suddenly a brief 
flicker of light from his hand was matched by a flash and unlocking 
tone from what he had assumed to be a boulder but was in fact a 
Ford C-Max with Danish plates parked underneath a tree. They 
drove north as day broke, and as Keagan watched through the 
windows of the car it seemed as though time had been accelerated, 
each hour colder and greyer than the last, Summer giving way to 
Autumn as they passed through Aalborg and over the bridge to 
Jutland. 


The water beneath the ferry departing Hirtshals was clear and 
silvery, the light from a sun that seemed unnaturally low in the sky 
gleaming off it. Keagan had asked off-hand how long the journey 
would take and was astonished to learn he would be on the ferry for 
two days. The food was palatable if blandly prepared and Keagan 
slept well and dreamlessly, luxuriating in the fact that for the first 
time since being convicted he had a cabin to himself, even if Bones 
contrived to manifest every time Keagan entered or left. They 
arrived in Seydisfjord, Iceland after a brief stopover in the Faroes— 
the locals were friendly and photogenic, and spoke excellent 
English, even if they seemed slightly dubious of Bones’ explanations 
that the three rough-looking men with overnight bags and one case 
of clothes between them were researchers going to study global 


warming in the glaciers of north-east Greenland. They should have 
sent Renton, Keagan reflected, he could probably have sold them 
on the environmental angle. But they didn't need to convince the 
Icelanders of their intentions—one taxi drive later they made 
Egilsstadir Airport where a Cessna stood ready. The pilot, a man 
Bones hailed as Blaer, was swaddled in padded thermals, his face 
all but hidden by a thick woolen scarf. 


"You should wear anything warm you have now," he said, "I tell the 
Commodore, if you freeze to death, not my problem." This prompted 
Bones to crack open the briefcase and apportion what outdoors 
garments they had not already donned, though Keagan siill felt 
alarmingly underdressed next to the Icelander. The propeller spun 
up and they creaked forward along the single airstrip, gaining speed 
until they rose into the grey sky. It didn't take long before the cold, 
which Keagan had thought oppressive in Iceland, began to settle on 
them, biting at their bones. Blaer soent much of the journey on the 
radio, talking in urgent, clipped Danish. 


"He's telling them we're landing at Kulusuk Airport," Bones 
explained. "Actually, we're going to tragically lose contact with air 
traffic control and crash about 20 miles north near the 
Kangerdlugssuaq Glacier." 


This was the longest sustained speech Keagan had heard Bones 
produce, and its content hardly reassured him. He watched the 
horizon for signs of land. About fifteen minutes later, Blaer brought 
the pantomime to a climax, several times yelling what sounded for 
all the world like 'motorfail' before flicking the radio off. 


"Hold onto something," Blaer said cheerfully before wrenching the 
plane onto a new course with what seemed like an excessive 
degree of violence. The bag with the satnav and skiing goggles 
started sliding around below the seat and bashing them in the shins 
until Keagan stepped on it. He wiped the condensation on the 
window away with his sleeve and saw they were passing over land 
—snowbound, but terra firma nonetheless. 


"That's it," Bones said fifteen minutes later, pointing out a distant 
flicker of light which as they approached resolved itself into a 
collection of buildings. Fortunately, their purported fatal crash turned 


out to be a relatively controlled and moderately comfortable landing 
at a small concrete runway at the edge of the compound after 
obtaining permission to land from the English-speaking voice that 
answered when Blaer retuned the radio. As they descended Keagan 
noted two low buildings which might have been barracks and a 
garage, a taller structure which looked like it did double duty as a 
command post and traffic control, and a curious collection of 
tumbledown buildings ringed by a high fence, the whole camp 
surrounded by short sections of cinderblock wall that were probably 
the windbreak Sir Malcolm had mentioned. 


"Isn't it a bit risky to give the impression we've crashed?" Keagan 
asked. "| mean, won't the authorities send out a search party? 
They'll expect to find a burned out Cessna with three dead bodies in 
it.” 


"Already organised that," Bones said, and Keagan decided he and 
the cell member probably weren't destined to be the best of friends. 


Once the Cessna had come to a halt they bundled out and were 
greeted by five men in large parkas, two with Colt C8 Carbines slung 
over their shoulders. 


The centre figure approached and shook hands with Blaer and 
Bones before dislodging just enough of his scarf to speak. 
"Welcome to Greenland, gentlemen," he said in cut-glass tones that 
could have secured him a career as a 1970s BBC newsreader. "Are 
you ready to change the world?" 


The warmth inside the radio station hit them like a blast furnace and 
they quickly shed their outer layers. The man who had addressed 
them removed his hood to reveal an alarming profusity of ginger hair 
and beard, surrounding crinkled blue eyes and an aquiline nose. 
This, Keagan surmised, must be Commodore Schaeffer. 


"You'll be bunked with the men in the barracks," he boomed, "but 
tonight you'll dine with me. Just a little ritual. This is the engineer, 
yes?" He looked Keagan up and down. A bulky blond man emerged 
from the kitchen area with steaming mugs of Bovril and the four new 
arrivals accepted them gratefully. 


"Yes," Bones said. "Sir Malcolm thought he might be of use." 


"He will be, if he's any good. Kaali, give him a quick tour of the place 
with particular emphasis on the garage. That's where he'll be 
working. Two of the 88s broke down last week, so he can start on 
those first thing tomorrow." Then, to Keagan, "I didn't catch the 
name." 


"Keagan, sir." Keagan wasn't sure exactly how one addressed a 
Commodore, if indeed the rank was legitimate and not simply a 
nickname. Schaeffer chuckled. 


"Good to make your acquaintance. Come on, let Kaali give you a 
tour. | think the others have seen the camp before—yes?—well 
then, | can give you a rundown of our current progress in the map 
room." With that, Schaeffer turned heel and vigorously strode 
upstairs, leaving Bones, Blaer and the driver to trot after him. The 
large blond man who was presumably Kaali shrugged and began re- 
donning his outer layers. Keagan was hardly thrilled by the notion of 
going back outside so soon but reasoning that dawdling probably 
wouldn't go over too well likewise redressed, and they plunged back 
into the cold, now accompanied by snowflakes swirling in the large 
spotlights that had come on to illuminate the base. 


"The concrete breakers around the base protect us from the worst of 
the chill," Kaali said, which Keagan found hard to believe given how 
biting the wind was even within the barrier. "Out there the wind can 
be strong enough to tip over even a Unimog if it's on rough terrain." 
He rewound the scarf around his face, only speaking again when 
they had attained the shelter of the barracks. 


"There's 32 Foundation men on the base, mostly Danish ex-military. 
They oversee the work and keep the peace." 


"Is Schaeffer a real Commodore?" Keagan asked, gulping what still 
seemed like mostly frozen air. 


"He held that rank in the West German Navy. Whether the 
Bundeswehr still considers him an officer | couldn't say." 


The barracks were built longways, with open-ended partition walls 


dividing the area into pods, each containing two bunk beds. At the 
end, a smaller kitchen and dining area showed some signs of 
activity, iron vessels on gas stoves boiling up what smelt like a lamb 
hotpot. Keagan was minded to stay a little longer but Kaali was 
already pushing back out. He walked quickly past the large fenced 
area and its shacks with Keagan lagging behind—he saw the 
occasional wisp of smoke rising from amongst the buildings. 


"Who lives there?" Keagan asked, looking through the wire mesh. 


"The workers," said Kaali, muffled through his scarf, and did not 
elaborate. The garage was a large, corrugated iron-clad building at 
the edge of the complex with a concrete floor, and was every bit as 
cold as Keagan imagined it would be. Even with a few oil heaters 
scattered around the floor providing sharp, prickly heat, probably for 
the benefit of the vehicles, he'd definitely be working in gloves. The 
Project's vehicle fleet was an eclectic assortment of jeeps, snow 
ploughs, half-tracks and trucks, all by the looks of them military 
surplus. Most of the models were unfamiliar to him but he saw what 
the Colonel had described as 88s—three half-ton Land-Rovers with 
fully enclosed carriages, two of which had been all but 
dismembered, parts strewn around on the floor. 


"Broke down, huh?" Keagan commented. "Looks like someone's 
ripped the things apart." 


"That's Teitur for you. Try to stay on his good side. He's not the best 
vehicle mechanic but he's been the one holding everything together 
up until now. He's probably out at one of the the drill sites." 


"You know," Keagan said, trying to pre-empt Kaali before he strode 
back out into what was threatening to become a blizzard, "| don't 
think anyone's actually explained to me what we're doing here. Drill 
sites? Sir Malcolm seemed to think there was some kind of 'monster' 
out here." 


Kaali grinned. "The Commodore will want to take you out onto the 
glacier tomorrow. You'll see it for yourself then. If | tried to explain it 
now, you wouldn't believe it." 


Dinner was a steaming roast poulet with stuffing balls laced with 
orange rind and crisp roasted parsnips. To celebrate the arrival of 
the newcomers Commodore Schaeffer had them open a bottle of 
1936 cognac, which went a long way towards restoring Keagan's 
spirits after his tour of the frozen base. 


They ate in the map room at the top of the radar tower—the table 
covered in aerial photography and topographic maps of the area had 
been quickly cleared away by two of Schaeffer's men and replaced 
with a spotless white tablecloth. The room had large windows set 
into each wall, against which white snowflakes beat continually in 
front of a black sky, but the whole room was warmed by the kitchen 
below, giving the strange impression of eating on the top of a rocky 
plateau, exposed to the elements yet warm and dry. 


Schaeffer played a charming and sophisticated host, and the 
discussion rapidly escalated out of Keagan's grasp, covering topics 
as diverse as monetary policy and the Impressionist movement. At 
length the discussion swung around to the Foundation itself and the 
civil war. 


"What | don't quite understand," Keagan ventured between 
mouthfuls, "is how the reactionaries see all this. | was told that the 
Foundation—I mean, the faction recognised by the UK and | guess 
Danish Governments—basically considers the Civil War over, but 
how can they take that position when all this," he waved his arm 
around the room to suggest the base, the cells, the whole 
organisation, feeling slightly lightheaded from the cognac, "is going 
on. Do they really not know anything about what you're doing?" 


"Our greatest ally is the reactionaries’ arrogance," Schaeffer said. 
"They know we exist—probably have a vague idea of where we are 
and that we're planning something big. The problem they have is 
they want to control everything, even the minds of the people who 
work for them. Only a few of the reactionaries are told the truth 
about what happened in the 1920s—even then they aren't given the 
full story. Most of them are just told that we are a ‘rogue cell’ of 
agents who quietly disappeared one day and took confidential 
knowledge and preternatural assets with them. They even impugn 
us with a name that as far as | know no-one in the real Foundation 
ever used before they invented it. Invented it to create the 


impression of a splintered, confused terrorist movement, united by 
ideology, no organisation." 


"What was the name?" 


"They call us the Chaos Insurgency. Like something out of a child's 
story." 


Keagan remembered it had been one of the groups Fredericka 
Mendelbrot had mentioned. "So they don't try and shut you—us— 
down? From what I've seen these people seem to have eyes 
everywhere." 


Commodore Schaeffer smiled, wiping a morsel of stuffing out of his 
moustache. "I didn't say they aren't coming after us. But there's a lot 
of other people who want what the Foundation has, as the 
reactionaries see it more powerful and organised than we are. The 
Global Occult Coalition, the Iranians, Marshall, Carter & Dark. One 
upside to our unfortunate exile has been that we aren't the ones 
being targeted by these groups. That will, of course, change once 
we get a foothold back on the international stage, but for now we 
benefit from other players in the preternatural world believing the 
reactionary line." 


"Seems to me if you get it all back you'll be very vulnerable," Keagan 
said. "| mean, even if the government turfs out the reactionaries for 
you, you'll be starting from scratch organisationally. You'd either 
have to let a lot of the reactionaries back into the warm to keep 
things going or recruit a whole load of people at once, which I'm 
guessing would defeat the whole secrecy thing the Foundation has 
going on." 


Schaeffer frowned. "A concern for another day, | think. For now, let's 
eat, drink. And let's toast Sir Malcolm, without whom the Project 
could never have been undertaken." 


The bottle of cognac was recirculated and glasses refilled as 
Commodore Schaeffer's toast was taken up in somewhat muted 
tones by the other men around the table. By the time they had 
finished, Keagan's ears were buzzing from the drink and rich food 
and he wanted nothing more than sleep. Kaali showed him and the 


other newcomers back to the barracks, where a pod had been 
cleared for them—the bunk was hard but the sheets soft and clean, 
and Keagan quickly succumbed to unconsciousness. 


« Book | - "Cells" | HUB | Book III - "Gunning For The Buddha” » 


New Age - Book III: "Gunning for the Buddha" 


FoldUnfold 
Table of Contents 
Chapter Eleven: "Breakers" 
Interlude II 
Chapter Twelve: "Foundations" 
Chapter Thirteen: "Breakdown" 
Chapter Fourteen: "Keagan and the Bomb" 
Chapter Fifteen: "Gunning for the Buddha" 
Epilogue 


Chapter Eleven: "Breakers"