by Dan Latus
Common sense prevailed. Reluctantly, no doubt, Harry nodded and turned away.
We set off along the track towards the highway. Provided they hadn’t left people to guard their vehicles, it would be a lot easier than making our way through the forest in the dark.
Three vehicles, all big trucks, were parked near the entrance to the track. No one with them, and they weren’t locked. We spent a few happy minutes sabotaging them in different ways. Harry liked going at tyres. Myself, I preferred soil and pine needles in the fuel tank. Simple, quick to do, and it tends to give a more serious result.
Then we pressed on along the highway until we could turn onto the logging road where we had left Harry’s truck. Thankfully, it was exactly as and where we had left it, undiscovered and intact.
Harry started her up and we drove quietly away. He was handling the situation well. I could guess how angry and upset he would be about abandoning the cabin, but he wasn’t showing it. He was back in professional mode. That made things easier for me. Sensitive, sentimental feelings are no use at all when you’re faced with a life and death situation. Personally, I had no desire whatsoever to end my life in this damned forest, fighting over a log cabin.
Now we were out of there and moving on fast, it was time to look ahead.
‘Harry, we need to find somewhere safe while we work out what we’re going to do to Petrov, instead of just waiting to see what he’s going to do to us. Anywhere come to mind?’
‘Johanne and I have another place not far away.’
‘Is it somewhere Petrov might know about?’
He shook his head. ‘Not a chance.’
‘Let’s go, then. First, though,’ I added, ‘give me your phone. We need to dump it, or the SIM card and battery at least.’
He swore. ‘You’re right, I wasn’t thinking. That must be how they found us.’
I gritted my teeth and tried to hide my irritation. He was lucky he had me with him, even if I wasn’t a career spy.
I stripped the phone and dumped the bits out of the window. As I did so, I spotted a glow in the sky coming from the vicinity of the cabin. They hadn’t wasted much time. I kept my mouth shut.
‘So, where’s this?’ I asked as we drove into a small settlement close to a big expanse of gleaming water.
‘Coal Harbour.’
The name meant nothing to me. It didn’t look much of a place either. A one-horse town, as they used to say in the Westerns. I couldn’t see many buildings, and there were no streetlights. A couple of lamps over a jetty illuminated a few fishing boats tied up there. But I was hopeful. It could be exactly what we needed.
Harry brought the truck to a stop outside a long, single-storey, timber building. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it definitely wasn’t a log cabin. That was a big thing in its favour, so far as I was concerned.
The wall I could see before Harry switched off the headlights was clapboard. There were small windows in it, interspersed at regular intervals. Somewhat surprisingly, there was also a traditional front door, protected by a little porch. So, it was a residential building of some sort. A chalet, perhaps?
‘It’s an old military building,’ Harry volunteered as he opened his door.
‘Oh?’
‘Officer quarters. Used to be, at least.’
‘Officer quarters? I like the sound of that. Lead on, partner.’
We pulled out our bags and made our way to the front door.
‘You have access?’
‘I own it. Bought it off the First Nation band that owns a lot of the stuff around here these days. The government gave them it all back, but they don’t have the money to do things up much.’
‘Another home, eh?’ I said with a chuckle. ‘You seem to have put down pretty deep roots here, Harry. No wonder you haven’t had the time to visit Redcar.’
‘Or the inclination either,’ he said, unlocking and opening the front door. ‘Here suits me just fine. So did this place until I got the chance to take over the cabin.’
We were weary and stressed, and I had too much on my mind to notice a lot about our new base, but I did see that it had all the hallmarks of an institutional building of some sort. It was narrow, and one room deep — the rooms were all off a single access corridor. Not an ideal layout for a house but perfect for an old railway station, or for military officer quarters.
Harry led the way into a room at the far end of the corridor and switched on overhead lights and a halogen heater. Although the decor and furnishings were on the spartan side, the room was tidy and homely. Pretty, too. A big rug covered much of the timber floor, and the wooden walls were painted cream and occupied by a variety of ornaments and pictures.
‘You do all this, Harry?’
He grinned. ‘Hell, no. Most of it is down to Johanne. She’s the one with the home-maker’s touch.’
‘Well, it’s very nice. I’d be happy to have her come and give my place the once-over sometime.’
‘She’d like that. You hungry, by the way? Something to eat? Coffee?’
‘Coffee would be good. And let’s have a quick chat about what we’re going to do.’
Harry filled a kettle and got it going on a stove connected to a big gas bottle. Then he reached unerringly for the doors to the cupboards that contained the mugs and everything else he needed.
It was a very domestic scene, and a far cry from the night in the woods that I had assumed would be what lay ahead of us if we had to abandon the cabin. Perhaps our luck had begun to turn.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Kiev, Ukraine. September 2018.
When the morning meal came that day, it was obvious she was not feeling well. She took no notice of the guard who brought the food and remained curled up on the mattress.
That evening when the guard collected the tray, the food uneaten, and replaced it with another tray, she held her stomach and declined to answer his questions. She said only that she wasn’t well. She was ill, she told him. He scoffed at her, saying she was lucky to be alive, and turned and left.
The next morning, when the guard brought her breakfast, she was no longer on the mattress. He found her prostrate, motionless, in the middle of the floor, her face pressed into the rough concrete. He nudged her with his foot. When there was no movement in response, he gave her a sharp kick. Again, nothing happened. He kicked her several more times, with the same result. Nothing.
He studied the inert body on the floor, uncertain, unwilling to touch her. If she carried some disease, he didn’t want it. He turned and made for the door. He needed to tell somebody, and for that somebody to tell him what to do.
As she sensed the guard moving away, she glanced up to confirm he had his back to her. Then she scrambled up and hurled herself forward to rugby tackle him around the legs. With a yell, he crashed to the floor. She scrambled over him and made for the open door. He grasped her ankle, but she turned and kicked him hard in the face. Even more shocked, he let go. She stumbled through the doorway and triumphantly slammed the door shut behind her, knowing there was no way of opening it from the inside.
She leaned back against the door for a moment, eyes briefly closed, panting heavily. Panic and terror competed with exhilaration and the knowledge that she had done it. Not safe, perhaps, but she was out! And the guard could no more open the door than she had been able to herself.
Opening her eyes, she saw a big key protruding from the old-fashioned lock in the door. She turned it, almost as a matter of principle, and permitted herself a small smile. Then she listened to the guard kicking the door and shouting. The sound was so muffled that no one would hear him. The tables were turned, she thought with grim satisfaction.
She took stock. Her heart was racing madly. She felt faint after not having eaten for nearly two days. Her ribs ached, too, from the kicking the guard had given her. But this was no time to give in to any of that. She had to move fast. She had a chance now. She had to take it.
Summoning all her strength and resolve, she pushed off from the door
and began climbing the stairs that she hoped would lead her to freedom, and to Harry.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Coal Harbour, Vancouver Island. September 2018.
Harry and I didn’t get far with our discussion that first night. In fact, we didn’t get anywhere at all. We were both too tired and overwrought to think straight. After a desultory half hour, we agreed to leave it for now and start again in the morning.
Surprisingly, it didn’t take me long to get to sleep, and I slept for several hours straight. It was broad daylight when I woke up, although the sun had yet to make an appearance. I was beginning to wonder if they bothered with sunrise at this end of the island.
I got up and took a look out of the bedroom window. It was an intriguing view. The house, if it could be called that, was a little way up a slope that fell away to either a bay or a big lake. I could see several large commercial fishing boats tied up near the end of a long jetty that began on land and protruded a hundred yards or so out over the water. Nearby, a dozen small craft, recreation vessels and hobby fishing boats, bobbed up and down.
The weed-strewn ground between the house and the water’s edge looked derelict, industrial. It made me almost nostalgic for Teesside, and the South Gare breakwater. I could see the foundations of disappeared buildings, as well as ruined structures that still had some sort of existence above ground.
There were broken and abandoned boats and vehicles widely scattered around. Plus dismounted engines, and a variety of discarded mechanical parts and vehicle body shells, all gathering rust. Was that an aeroplane wing I could see, sticking up in the air? Surely not! But what else could it be?
Over to my right there was an enormous shed, an old hanger perhaps, or an enclosed boatbuilding yard. It was surrounded by yet more dereliction and industrial clutter. Way beyond that, I could see a group of more modern buildings, still intact, located around a big yard surrounded by a security fence. They looked to be part of a working transport depot. Forklift trucks were busily manoeuvring around three or four wagons.
While I was still taking in the outlook from the window, and wondering where on earth Harry had brought us, I heard a shout from the kitchen.
‘Breakfast ready, Frank. Come and get it!’
I splashed water on my face in the bathroom along the corridor and went to join my host. He seemed to be in a good mood, as well rested and relaxed as I felt myself.
‘How come you’re so cheerful?’ I asked.
‘This is a good place to be, Frank. We’re safe here. We’ve slept well — at least, I have. Sun’s about to come up. Come on — eat!’
Saying that, he pushed a plate of pancakes and bacon in front of me and drew my attention to a bottle of maple syrup.
‘What am I supposed to do with that?’
‘Pour it on — and eat!’
‘Syrup on bacon?’
‘You liked it yesterday morning.’
I’d forgotten that. Somehow it didn’t seem the same in a domestic kitchen as in a café on the highway, but I gingerly followed his instructions and enjoyed my second novelty breakfast.
Harry poured us both mugs of coffee. ‘I’ll show you around afterwards,’ he said, for all the world as if we were on holiday. I took that to mean he was happy to be here.
‘Coal Harbour, right?’ I said. ‘What is this place?’
‘I thought you’d never ask. Now, where are my geographical background notes?’
He mimed a search for missing papers and cleared his throat.
‘As you know, the town is called Coal Harbour. It’s on the Holberg Inlet, which is connected to Quatsino Sound, a major sea inlet from the Pacific Ocean. The town started life in the 1890s, when a coal mine was opened. That didn’t last long, and fishing and logging soon became the economic mainstays. Then in the Second World War the Royal Canadian Air Force established an airbase here, part of a line of defences set up to protect against the Japanese submarine threat. After the War, the military pulled out and the base was taken over by a whaling company. When that finished in the 1970s — the last Canadian whaling station, by the way — logging and fishing were left as the main economic activities once again, as they are to this day. Finally, just a few years ago, the government decided the area should be given back to the First Nation band, whose land it had originally been anyway. So now they own the land and a lot of the property on it, such as it is, and they run the fishing jetty.’
I shook my head and grinned. ‘Thank you, professor! A remarkable history.’
‘Not really, not in this neck of the woods. Holberg, the town Johanne’s ancestors helped to found, started off the same way. They had a copper mine there, though. During the War, the air force built a base at Holberg too, although I think it was just a radar base. Now, logging and fishing are back to being the main activities. Plus a bit of tourism these days.’
‘Tourism? Out here?’
‘Sure. Hikers, kayakers, wildlife enthusiasts, explorers. That kind of tourism. But Johanne and I decided there wasn’t enough in Holberg to keep us there. There’s a bit more here. The populations are about the same — a hundred and fifty people or so — but we’re a lot closer to Port Hardy, the main town in the region. So, Johanne and I took this old place on, and spent time and money fixing it up. That became pretty much a never-ending work in progress, but we were happy doing it when we got the chance.’
‘Let me guess,’ I said, tiring of this ode to the simple life. ‘Then you discovered the log cabin, and the delights of living in the middle of a dense forest without all these distracting views from the window?’
‘Pretty much.’ Harry grinned, unaffected by my cynicism. ‘That’s right, basically. Neither of us had ever experienced such wonderful solitude before.’
He glanced around. ‘We still have to decide what we’re going to do with this place.’
‘Keep it. I like it.’
‘You do? But if we’re living at the cabin—’
‘That’s gone, Harry,’ I said gently, knowing I had to tell him what I’d seen in the night sky.
His face fell then. ‘Yeah. The bastards lit up the sky with it last night, didn’t they? You were right about what would happen back there.’
So he had noticed, even if he hadn’t said anything. I just nodded.
Chapter Thirty-Five
After breakfast, Harry and I talked about our current predicament and what we could do to get out of it. For the moment, we ourselves were safe enough, but we knew nothing about Johanne’s situation. Harry was struggling to cope with that.
‘If you have one or two ideas about what we could do, Frank, now would be a good time to put them on the table.’
I felt for him, I really did. He’d been alone, wrestling with his problems, for far too long. He desperately needed someone’s input and help, but I hadn’t been here long enough to have much to offer. Instead, I just tried to start a sensible conversation about the situation. We could at least do that, now we were no longer running for our lives.
‘We need an attack strategy,’ I said. ‘Petrov has had it all his own way for far too long. I’ve only been here five minutes, and I’m already sick of running.’
‘You’re right about that,’ Harry admitted. ‘It’s all been about survival so far.’
‘Remind me what you have that has Petrov so fired up, and why he wants it back so badly.’
‘Basically, it’s the blueprint for what the Russians did in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, updated with reference to Estonia. Petrov was given it because Moscow wants to use his militia again in Estonia, along with other militias and some regular troops.’
‘The latter minus their regimental badges again, presumably?’
‘Yeah. The “volunteers” on leave from the armed forces.’ Harry grimaced. ‘It worked well once. Why wouldn’t it work again?’
He was right. It had worked very well in Crimea. Perhaps slightly less well in other parts of Eastern Ukraine, but still well enough to allow Moscow to wrest contr
ol of substantial territory out of the hands of Kiev. The West had had no idea how to handle that kind of asymmetric warfare, as it was called back then, and still didn’t. New-age warfare, and highly effective.
‘Why the interest in Estonia?’
‘The same thing all over again. A sizeable Russian-speaking population will be encouraged to air their grievances and complain about being second-class citizens. In fact, that’s been happening for a few years already. Disadvantaged, discriminated against, etcetera, etcetera. Putin will support them because it’s all part of his strategy to recreate the borderland buffer that the Soviet Union established in 1945.’
It all seemed so improbable, somehow. So old-fashioned and redolent of a bygone era. Western governments, preoccupied with domestic issues like unemployment, housing shortages and keeping health services afloat had found it hard even to think about such things, let alone find answers.
And that’s without even mentioning many European countries’ reluctance to risk upsetting Russia because of their dependence on Russian gas. Better just to hope it would all go away without affecting them.
‘Does Putin really believe Russia is going to be attacked by the West?’ I wondered.
Harry shrugged. ‘I doubt it, but fermenting fears that they might be strengthens Russian nationalism and helps keep his own political position unassailable. Hell, even the Orthodox Church believes in him as the saviour of Mother Russia!’
‘And it wouldn’t stop with Estonia, would it?’
‘Probably not, no. There’s the other Baltic republics, Latvia and Lithuania. Then there’s Finland to keep in line, as well as the countries all around the edge, like Montenegro and Macedonia. Plus the rest of Ukraine. After that, of course, he might want to work at destabilising Poland. Then we’d be back to 1945 all over again. Yippee!’
I shook my head. It was all too depressing, and too much for me to contemplate. World geopolitics was on a par with searching for life in other galaxies or contemplating infinity, so far as I was concerned. I just couldn’t do it.
