by A. D. Winch
There was an open glove compartment in front of Alexander containing Andrea’s phone. He picked it up. According to the tracker, Eric was less than a kilometre away. The ambulance drove on slowly through the trees towards the heart of the base. At a crossroads, Andrea stopped. Alexander jumped out and climbed into the back with Ursula.
Andrea continued to follow the tracker. It led her out of the trees and towards a group of long, rectangular grey buildings. Lights shone out from the square windows which lit up the falling flakes of snow. The tracker led her further, to an area containing two stand-alone buildings. They were larger than the rest. The tracker started to beep and on the screen it indicated that Eric was less than one hundred metres away.
Eric was almost asleep. His eyes were heavy, and he was tired. He had had an exhausting day. Doctor Noel had been right. As the medication was being reduced, he had started to feel the symptoms of ‘Cold Turkey.’ He had mood swings, became angry and had cold sweats. However, he had spoken to Doctor Noel regularly about this.
The Doctor had suggested that Eric manage his anger in a constructive way. Consequently, Eric had spent most of the afternoon and evening in the gym with one of the base’s physical training instructors. They pumped weights and hit the punch bag until they were perspiring heavily. He had enjoyed watching the instructor’s face as he matched him weight for weight, and when he had knocked him to the floor whilst hitting the punch bag. The exercise had helped to control his mood, and he was starting to deal with the reduced medication.
Today had been a day when we had thought more clearly; felt less dopey and was beginning to feel more like himself. He was hoping to feel even better tomorrow, even if this did mean having to deal with his own anger and his feelings of being trapped. As Doctor Noel and Buddy Angel had told him, he wasn’t imprisoned but was under their protection.
It wasn’t warm in his room, but he felt snug in his own pyjamas. They had been freshly washed and smelt like home.
They must use the same washing powder that we had back in Prague, he thought.
He turned off his light and heard a vehicle outside but ignored it. He was looking forward to a peaceful and restful night’s sleep.
Andrea parked the ambulance between two jeeps in front of a lit window at ground level. As she turned off the vehicle’s headlights, the light in the window went out as well. The tracker indicated that Eric was being held right in front of them.
Andrea got out and looked at the building. It was three floors above ground and, according to her sources, the same underground. The ambulance’s rear doors opened and out stepped Father Christmas and a Christmas fairy. Alexander adjusted his woolly, white beard and slung a bulging, brown sack over his shoulder. Ursula smeared white face paint thickly around her mouth and eyes. She placed a white, doll mask over her face and silk gloves onto her hands. She waved a wand and hoped that the deadly, pink-painted throwing stars on its end would not be necessary. While they put the finishing touches to their costumes, Andrea quickly changed in the back of the ambulance and then put her army uniform in the Santa sack.
“Ready?” whispered Alexander when Andrea joined them.
“Yes,” replied Andrea and gave him a look that implied he had asked another pointless question.
Ursula nodded.
Back to Contents
***
Chapter 36 – Into the Lion’s Den
Alexander removed a special bottle of Polish vodka from his sack, took a large swig and staggered drunkenly past the parked military vehicles towards the door of the building. It was metal and looked as if it had been taken from a public toilet. The only clue that it was far more secure was a biometric thumb print reader screwed into the wall beside it.
Alexander ignored the reader and banged heavily on the metal door which creaked and groaned under his weight. At the top of his voice, he began to sing a rude version of a Polish Christmas song he had been practising for weeks.
The light was switched on, and someone stomped towards the door. Alexander kept banging. The door opened and a soldier, in winter combat trousers and a matching T-shirt, stood in the entrance. Alexander pretended not to notice and barged straight into the soldier. The two men fell backwards and landed in a heap with Alexander on top. He showered the soldier with drunken kisses. These were not warmly received, and the soldier fought his way out from underneath Father Christmas’s embrace.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” demanded the soldier.
He gave Alexander a look that could kill, and repeatedly wiped his hand over his mouth.
Alexander replied in a heavy Polish accent, “You my American brothers. It Christmas and I bring Polish vodka.”
The bottle of vodka was waved in the air, and Alexander drunkenly got to his feet. He stood in the doorway between the soldier and Andrea. Two other soldiers appeared, holding semi-automatic weapons. They were fully dressed for combat and watched Alexander like a hawk with their fingers resting on the trigger.
“My American friends, God bless America,” slurred Alexander and staggered down the corridor. “I love America.”
Automatically, the soldiers raised their weapons but neither of them felt like shooting Father Christmas.
Alexander fell to the floor and pretended to cry, “America not love me.”
“This is a restricted area. You should not be here, Sir. Time to go!” The soldier’s voice was tense, “Get up, now!”
Alexander raised his head a little and uttered, “But I bring girls.”
On these words, Andrea entered. She stepped assertively down the corridor. Her black stiletto boots and red trident tapped against the concrete floor.
“I am sorry,” she apologised and placed a boot on Alexander, which pinned him to the floor.
The full body leather outfit she was wearing squeaked as she stretched her arms back and then adjusted her devil mask.
“Lukasz told us,” she pointed to herself and Ursula behind her, “that Americans like to have fun. Obviously he was wrong. He thought that as you were so far away from home this Christmas we would bring you some drinks and some company.”
Despite her best efforts, Andrea could not bring any warmth to what she said, and it sounded exactly as she always spoke. She turned away from the soldiers and bent over to pick up Father Christmas. The leather stretched and clung even tighter to her body.
Over her shoulder she said, “We will leave you. Merry Christmas.”
Before she could get to the door, one of the soldiers had pushed past her and the Christmas Fairy and slammed it shut. The automatic locking system secured it.
“No, no, no! You mustn’t go. I’m Hank. Sorry, if we seemed rude,” the soldier apologised. “It’s just that this posting is not like other bases, so it was, er, just a misunderstanding.”
He helped Alexander to his feet. “Of course, you can stay for a while,” Hank stuttered. “Please follow my colleagues.”
The other two soldiers were grinning from ear to ear, and they lowered their weapons. They waited expectantly for Andrea to reach them. When she did so, she placed a hand on the two weapons and stroked along them until she reached their hands. Gently, she prised their fingers away from the triggers and held them.
Alexander noted that even though the whole act did not contain one bit of emotion, the soldiers had been distracted by Andrea’s outfit and were already off guard. The plan was working.
The soldiers walked awkwardly down the tight corridor with Andrea. They led her around a corner and towards a plain door like all the others. Andrea stopped and looked back towards Ursula, who was stumbling towards them from left to right and bumping off the walls. Her head drooped, and she was groaning quietly.
“The fairy has drunk too much vodka already. Please can you show her to the restroom. Once she has vomited she will be able to join us.”
Hank cursed his luck but took Ursula back in the direction they had come from. He opened the door for Ursula and then ran back to be with the
others who were waiting beside the locked room. He took out a large collection of keys and opened the door.
“Welcome to the mess,” greeted Hank, as he entered.
They walked into a medium-sized room. Posters of NHL stars, baseball players and American cars covered the unappealing, grey walls. Next to the door were two large sinks and shelves full of glasses, crockery and cutlery. Everything was lined up neatly and tidily.
Alexander looked around and said, “It not look like mess.”
The soldiers laughed and beckoned their guests to sit down on a large table in the centre of the room. The two soldiers with Andrea introduced themselves as Carl and Brandon. After they had sat either side of her, they placed their guns and helmets on the table in front of them. Hank sat opposite and hoped one of them would leave at some point so he could make his move.
“I showed your friend to the rest room. I’m sure she’ll find us real soon when she has finished,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Andrea, “but I doubt she will join soon so we will have to have the pleasure of your company for a while. I hope that we are not intruding.”
“Oh no,” replied all the soldiers together.
“This ain’t like no ordinary base,” said Carl. “We just sit around, look after packages when they arrive and then send them off when we’re finished with them, that’s all.”
“Good, in that case we need drinks. Father Christmas, where are our drinks?”
Alexander looked through crossed eyes at the bottle and then threw his hands in the air, “No glasses!”
Simultaneously, the soldiers pointed towards the sink area but none of them were going to leave their seat. Alexander staggered towards it. On the way, he bumped into the door that closed. When he returned to the table, he saw that the soldiers had been too engrossed in Andrea to even notice. He hoped they continued to do the talking as Andrea was good at many things but impromptu small talk with men was not one of them. It was all down to Ursula. She had to find Eric quickly.
The toilets were in another grey, concrete room. The white partitions that separated the cubicles had discoloured over time, but the room was still spotlessly clean. Ursula was thankful for this as she placed her head over the toilet bowl and pretended to vomit.
After the soldier had left her, she continued to make retching noises for another two minutes before she dared to leave. First, she looked at the tracker. The dot on the screen showed that Eric was being kept twenty-seven metres away in the direction of the mess.
Ursula peered out from the restroom and into the corridor. It was empty. She looked for cameras but, as Andrea had discovered over a month ago, there were none. She moved nimbly past the identical looking doors and the mess. A little further along, she stopped and looked at the tracker. Directly in front of her was where Eric was being kept. It was a door like all the others, grey and old, but with a new handle and lock.
Something felt wrong, but she couldn’t work out what. She decided to continue anyway. Without expecting the door to open, she put her fingers carefully around the handle and pushed. It opened easily. She jumped through the doorway and closed it abruptly behind her. There was no light at all. She scrambled around trying to find a light switch but couldn’t.
“Eric,” she whispered. “Eric!”
Suddenly the door swung open, and the light came on. She was standing in a room full of industrial sized bags of pasta, bottles of cooking oil and tins of food. She threw the tracker down the front of her dress.
“Who are you?” asked a soldier sternly.
Ursula did not reply. Instead, she staggered on her feet and in the best Polish accent she could manage she said, “Vodka!”
From behind the soldier, there was a loud cheer. He looked over his shoulder towards the mess, grabbed Ursula’s arm and pulled towards the others.
Ursula’s arrival back in the room was met with another cheer from the soldiers. Alexander joined them half-heartedly, and Andrea said nothing. Ursula’s soldier did not look impressed and left straight away.
“Who was that?” asked Andrea. “Would he not like a drink?”
“That’s Brad,” replied Brandon into Andrea’s ear. “He follows orders and the orders don’t say ‘have fun,’ so Brad never has fun.”
“Vodka!” Alexander exclaimed.
He picked up the bottle that had remained stuck to his hand. He poured shots of vodka for the soldiers, twisted the frosted glass bottle and poured an identical clear liquid into his own glass, Ursula’s and Andrea’s.
The twisting of the bottle was an essential part of the plan. They had had four identical bottles especially made with a glass barrier dividing the inside into two halves. One half had been filled with strong vodka and a sleeping drug. The other half had been filled with water.
Everyone drank their shot except Andrea. Alexander poured another into the empty glasses.
“Why aren’t you drinking?” Carl asked Andrea accusingly.
“I like to be in control,” replied Andrea and then winked as Alexander had taught her.
She did not understand why she had to wink, but it seemed to please Carl.
The first bottle was emptied quickly. The second bottle took a little longer but halfway through the third everyone slowed down. The soldiers’ tongues became looser, and they spoke much more freely. Amongst a number of meaningless discussions, Alexander said something more important and hoped that the information he required would be shared.
He slurred, “I thought I see more American brothers.”
“No,” slurred back Carl. “We are a small unit.”
“Why they are not here? You have cameras everywhere? They must see us. In our building, we have cameras everywhere.”
“We are not allowed cameras anywhere. Not even in smart phones. Uncle Sam says this base does not exist so there can’t be any evidence.”
“Hooray,” cheered Alexander, jumping up from his seat. “We drink and no one knows. More vodka,” and he poured more vodka.
The conversations continued, and the soldiers made more amorous advances towards Andrea. She squeezed their knees or stroked their hands as Alexander had taught her to do, but gradually the soldiers became less interested and less talkative. One by one they all fell asleep. Hank was the last to go. He held his glass loosely as his head fell forward and hit the table. The glass tilted and the vodka spilled around the snoring soldiers.
“Well, that was tiresome,” said Alexander standing-up. “Time to get changed.”
“Is that what adults do for fun?” asked Ursula incredulously.
“Yes,” replied Alexander.
“In that case, I don’t want to grow up,” she replied firmly.
“Why did Hank keep kicking his foot against mine under the table?” asked Andrea.
Alexander laughed but would not answer so Andrea turned to Ursula.
“What went wrong earlier? Why did you fail to locate Eric?”
Ursula became defensive, “I followed the dot and entered the room the tracker pointed to, but he wasn’t there.”
“In that case, he will be directly above or below that point. It is most likely he will be in the underground floors. This is where sound can be muffled easier, and visuals can be kept to a minimum. We will change and then go.”
They did as Andrea said. Alexander removed his Father Christmas costume. He was wearing his General’s clothes underneath. Ursula took off her fairy outfit. She was wearing only her body hugging heat-suit. Alexander handed her a combat outfit from his Santa sack. The outfit included a military balaclava which she placed over her head and face straight away. He also removed from his sack the same uniform which Andrea had been wearing earlier. She put it on over the leather body stocking, but removed her mask and changed out of her stilettos into more practical boots.
Once they were ready, they took gaffer tape from the sack, placed it over the sleeping soldiers’ mouths and then secured them to the chairs. They worked fast, and Ursula now appreciated the h
ours of practise that Alexander had insisted upon.
Before they left Alexander searched each of the soldiers. He removed their ID cards and all the keys that Hank was carrying. Andrea looked at the secured soldiers and announced that it was time to go. Alexander locked the door behind them, and they strode off.
Back to Contents
***
Chapter 37 – Christmas Day
The corridor was empty. Ursula handed the tracker to Andrea. She followed it towards the same store room that Ursula had visited earlier but, instead of entering, Andrea walked straight past until they found a staircase. The stairs leading up were open, but a caged gate blocked those leading down. Beyond the thick wire mesh, there were no visible lights.
There was a clinking of metal and Alexander moved in front of the lock with the bunch of keys in his hand. He eyed the keyhole and then worked through each of the keys he thought would fit. Halfway through the pile a key turned, the lock clicked, and the gate opened. They went through and down the stairs. Ursula counted as they descended. There were six to the landing and then seven more which took them directly under the gate.
Thirteen, thought Ursula, unlucky for some.
An automatic floor light switched on and they were confronted by another barrier. This time it was a solid metal door with a thick, heavy bar across it. A huge padlock hung from the bar and secured it in place. Alexander searched through the keys and found the correct fit easily.
The bar screeched as Andrea slid it back, and the noise made the hairs on Ursula’s neck stand on end. They went through and into another corridor. Automatic strip-lights above their heads flickered on to reveal a corridor almost identical to the one above. Ursula shivered as she walked down it. The temperature had dropped slightly, and she sensed that something was very wrong with this place. On both sides of the corridor, there were thick doors and most of them had windows.
