by David Barker
“What about retinal scanners?”
“Ahh, yes. That’s the tricky bit. We can give you a new pair of retinas. Retinae, whatever. There’s a small chance they won’t take. Could lose your sight…”
“You ever had any of this done, sir?”
“Atkins. This is not about me. It’s not about you or your unborn child. It’s not even about avenging James.”
“Fine,” said Sim quietly.
“It’s the millions of children who could get killed if this virus gets out. It’s about bringing bastards like this—”
“I said, fine. I’ll do it.”
Sim woke up the next day with bandages over his eyes and the rest of his face. His eyelids itched. He felt like there was grit rubbing against his cornea. And worst of all, he couldn’t tell yet if the operation had worked. Somebody came into the room.
“Sir?”
“No, it’s just me,” said the woman who had done the operation on him. “Sit up for me, please. Now, when I take off these bandages, I need you to keep your eyes closed. OK?”
Sim shuffled into an upright position. “Yes.” He felt someone tugging at the bandages and winced as the skin along his forehead pulled from the dressing.
“Hold still, you baby.”
The room seemed to get brighter. Sim gripped the sides of the bed with both hands as he resisted the urge to rub and scratch. Then the room darkened again. Worse than before. “Err, what just happened?”
“I’ve closed the curtains and turned the lights out. Just going to wash your eyelids, put some drops in. Lie back for me.”
Sim tried not to wince again. He could feel his eyelids being pulled open fractionally. But nothing registered. The darkness of the room? Or a sign of failure? Retinal rejection? He tried to think of something else. Give it time. Give it time.
“Right. I’ve re-bandaged the eyes. The rest of the face seems to be healing nicely. I’ll be back tomorrow, for the grand unveiling. Make sure you take your pills, OK?”
Wardle’s assistant, Tom, stepped into the lift and descended to the sub-basement level. At the reception desk, the guard looked up at the approaching steps.
“Ah, Llewellyn. There you are. Needed up in the comms room. Urgent message.”
“I can’t leave my desk. You know that.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll cover for you.”
The guard thought for a moment. “Thanks.” He headed for the lift.
Tom sat down at the guard’s desk and looked at the monitors showing pictures of each of the cells and the interview rooms. Only two cells occupied, no interviews going on. Tom tapped some instructions into the desk glass. The screen showing David Feinberg went blank. Tom got up and walked down the corridor to Feinberg’s cell.
“You really are despicable. Eh?”
David Feinberg looked up, puzzled. “Why are you here?”
“Some of us have a job to do,” said Tom.
“In case you weren’t listening last time, I didn’t do it.”
“Show some fucking balls, at least. It’s going to be your last chance.” Tom pulled out a length of cord and a taser.
David’s eyes went wide as he pulled away from the cell bars. “What the?” He looked up at the camera in the corner of the ceiling.
Tom shook his head. “You can stop pretending now. It’s just you, me and the toys.”
“You’re mad.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing!”
Tom approached the cell bars and put a key into the lock. David watched the key turn and then his eyes darted around his cell. As soon as Tom came into his cell, David launched himself at the other man. Tom’s back smacked into the bars. His breath escaped in a hurry. Then his hand jabbed the taser into David’s ribs and the fight was over. David collapsed on the floor, limbs juddering, teeth chattering.
Tom wrapped the cord around David’s neck and pulled the ends through the bars, on the highest rung. It was hard work, dragging a body and lifting it. Tom grunted and heaved until David was more or less upright. The accused had stopped shaking but his muscles were not yet working properly. Occasionally his head flopped forward and he began to choke on the cord. With one hand holding the ends of the cord, Tom closed the cell door again and locked it, tucking the key into a pocket. Then he heaved some more and lifted David off the ground. A faint groan escaped as if David’s soul was already departing his body. Feet shuffled a desperate dance, trying to stretch to a floor just out of reach.
Tom tied the cord off and left the room. Just as he sat down once again at the reception desk, the lift doors pinged and the guard stepped out. Tom flicked a switch to turn the camera back on and placed the key on its hook before the guard was close enough to see.
“Not sure what that was all about. Could easily have waited until I was off duty.”
“Oh? My bad. I thought they said it was urgent,” said Tom. “No harm done. You can sign me in, I’m going to see David Feinberg, OK?”
The form was filled and the guard waved him through. Tom walked back down the corridor, around the corner and reached out to the door handle, ready to shout in surprise at his colleague’s suicide. He opened the door and was so surprised he forgot to shout out.
Wardle was standing in the middle of the room, hands on hips. Behind him, David was sitting up on his bed, the door to the cell wide open.
“We’ve caught the real mole, finally,” said Wardle.
“What are you doing, sir? You can’t let this scumbag out.”
“Knock it off, Tom. I saw the whole thing.”
Tom’s eyes darted up to the camera.
“You didn’t think I would leave Feinberg here with just one camera for company, did you?
Tom edged backwards and spun through the door. A guard outside in the corridor brought a baton crashing down onto his head and the double agent went sprawling to the ground.
Wardle turned around to look at David. “You sure you’re OK?”
He nodded and rubbed his throat. “Might have to give choir practice a miss.”
“Just get me eyes and ears on the Terror Formers. When they find out they’ve lost their mole, who knows how they’ll react. We need to be ready.”
CHAPTER 24
Sim was ready to open his new eyes. He’d struggled to sleep, lying in bed wondering whether this day would bring daylight or eternal darkness. Either way, for Rosie, he knew this day would bring pain. A black day. A day for tears and mourning. A coffin containing an unknown body had been taken up to Scotland and would soon be turned to ash. Wardle had promised to attend the funeral and offer his support to Sim’s wife. Widow.
The surgeon had returned and was fussing with Sim’s bandages. She prodded his eyebrows and cheek bones. They were still a bit tender. The room had gone dark again. Sim could tell even through eyelids still closed.
“That’s a good sign, right?” he asked the doctor. “If I can tell you’ve dimmed the lights, must mean I can see something. Doesn’t it?”
“I haven’t dimmed the lights yet.”
“Oh.”
“Hang on a moment.” She wiped a cloth across his eyelids. “OK. Now you can open your eyes.”
Sim took a deep breath and looked. A dark grey fuzz. He blinked a few times as his eyes watered. The dark grey became light grey in patches. A fuzzy image began to form.
“Errmm. Well, I can see something.”
“Good. The next few hours will be key. If the new retinae are taking, your vision will sharpen. By tomorrow, should be back to normal.”
“And if not?” asked Sim. He heard the doctor stand up. A grey blob moved away from him.
“We’ll cross that bridge, if we have to.” The door to his room clicked shut.
By the time lunch arrived, Sim could tell there was a plate in front of him. And some sort of food. Curry, from the smell of it. There was a screen in the corner of the room. Somebody else had come in and turned it on, typing in some commands.
“This is a live feed
from Director Wardle, Mr Atkins. Hidden camera.”
Sim shuffled closer to the screen. Rows of seats in a large, modern building. Lots of people in black clothes. Two people at the front, comforting one another. His mum and dad, presumably. Sim watched his own funeral in grim silence, letting his food go cold. As the coffin disappeared into the chamber behind the curtains, a figure next to his parents began to sob. Shoulders convulsed, head bowed. Sim couldn’t see the face, and even the body was blurred thanks to his new eyes, but he could just tell it was Rosie. What had he done? What sort of a man does that to his pregnant wife? He looked down at the half-full plate in front of him and pushed it away.
David Feinberg was sucking on a strepsil, his throat still sore from his run-in with a noose. He had made his peace with God, thinking he was going to die, not knowing about Wardle’s subterfuge. But David was glad not to be meeting his maker just yet. The precious roll tab had been retrieved, still linked into the Terror Formers’ network. He had important work to do. The traffic on the terrorist’s network was building in volume. The tone of the messages was approaching excitement. Still nothing explicit about the big mission – its objective and method of delivery. But it was imminent. He was sure of that.
A message pinged on David’s desk glass. Another request for a progress report from Director Wardle. The third today. And it was only just gone lunchtime. Well, it would be just gone lunch if David had actually stopped to eat anything. He set a routine running to search for any financial details in the message boards and files being sent across the network. His stomach complained about the missing meal and the IT expert pushed back his chair in search of some kosher food.
Nothing decent in the staff canteen, but plenty of choice in the streets around the centre of Birmingham. David strolled in the sun, a gentle breeze tugging at his jacket. His feet were on autopilot as he walked to his favourite sandwich bar, still turning over the problem in his mind. How to find out what exactly the Terror Formers were up to? He hoped that his search algorithm would turn up something helpful while he was out eating.
David was disappointed in the corned beef sandwich, but not with his search engine. Sitting back down at his desk, he discovered that his routine had linked a number of odd transactions spanning the last two or three years. All of them involved pay-outs from a casino. Regular winnings across a number of Terror Former operatives. Too regular, too large to be a coincidence. David knew, from bitter experience, how fiercely casinos protect their profit margins. In his youth, he had tried to use his programming skills to defeat the odds in a Tel Aviv casino. He’d been lucky to escape with his balls intact. Why was this casino not being more careful? It had to be a front for something. The Golden Antlers, in Kiruna, Sweden. That place rang a bell. He looked it up on his desk glass.
Ahh, yes, the newest spaceport for Virgin Galactic. But look at that. The headquarters for ESCO are also located there. Shalom.
David put in a request for information to the Swedish authorities and leant back in his chair, slurping a sugary drink to try to take away the taste from that sandwich.
One fizzy can – and several sneaky games of Angry Martians on his wrist tab – later, the material from the Swedish employment agency came through. He cross-referenced the known employees of ESCO with the Terror Former operatives receiving pay-outs from the casino. Seven of the eight matched. Good enough for him. David sent an update report to Director Wardle.
His phone rang almost as soon as the message had been sent.
“Feinberg? Wardle, here. This is good work. Not good enough, but helpful.”
David felt his smile disappear as he listened to his boss.
“We already suspected the link to ESCO. In fact, we have an agent heading to Sweden right now. But this casino information may provide a useful entry point.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What we really need is more information about the North Korean situation. I have agents on standby, of course. But they can’t just barge in again like Jung Li did. We need to know if the Terror Formers really stole that nuke. And what they intend to do with it.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Do you? Because the South Koreans and Japanese are already doing their nut about all the military activity in the area. Even the Chinese are on tenterhooks. If the Terror Formers blow up a warhead in Pyongyang, the North Koreans will assume the rest of the world is out to get them. They’ll lash out with anything and everything.”
There was silence on the phone for a moment.
Wardle continued. “But I don’t know. Something doesn’t smell right with that plan. Not quite their style.”
David pulled a face, grateful this was not a vid call. “Style, sir?”
“All-out war in Asia. What does that achieve for the TF? I mean, it’s not a climate change thing. Nothing about the environment or Mother Gaia. Could be wrong, of course. Maybe they are the sort of bastards who just like causing death and destruction.”
“Understood. I’ll keep monitoring and look for further clues.”
Sim was getting ready to go to the airport. The cosmetic treatments – the dyed hair and coloured contact lenses – had been sorted. His eyesight was becoming sharper. Not quite 20:20 yet, but good enough for now. He bent over the sink to wet his face, ready for a shave. When he looked up, the face staring back at him was not his own. The razor blade ran over contours that were not there before. His skin felt dull – he could see the blade sweeping across his cheek, but shaving had become a visual task, not a tactile one.
The blade was unsteady in his trembling fingers. A line of red showed on his top lip as the razor slipped. He saw blood but felt no pain. It was strange and bewildering. Worse somehow than facing down an armed opponent in the field. This way, he had become a nobody. He waited until the bleeding had stopped, towelled his face dry and got dressed.
He was already dead, his loved ones thought. There was no turning back now. So, let that be his armour. Nothing worse could happen to them. The pain of losing a loved one had already happened. If he failed in this mission, they would never know. If he was going down, he was going down swinging. He grabbed his bag and walked out to the waiting car. Next stop Kiruna.
Director Wardle was missing his wife, almost as much as he missed his fishing. It was a surprise when he admitted that to himself as he browsed through the latest copy of Angling Times. Her cheerful presence at home, the gossip from friends that Anthea had used to distract her husband from the daily pressures of work.
A message from Anthea had popped up on his wrist tab. She, apparently, was having a great time at her sister’s house in the Cotswolds and did not seem to be missing him much. He closed the message without replying and swiped the electronic copy of the fishing magazine into the trash. He checked on his calendar. Another appearance in front of the Joint Committee on Security later that day. Damn, he’d not read his briefing notes yet. He pressed one of the mic buttons on his desk.
“Tom! Why didn’t you…” And then he stopped. Tom was not helping with JCS anymore because he was locked in a prison cell a long way from here. Maybe never to emerge again. Wardle still felt an unpleasant grip across his chest whenever he thought of his ex-assistant. Not spotting him as a mole sooner. How many lives had been jeopardised – agents and civilians – by his incompetence?
Wardle knew that he needed a new assistant, but did not trust himself to pick the right one, not yet.
Well, he would have to cram the briefing papers on the train down to London. He knew what most of the questions would be about anyway. Value for money, departmental budgets, results, blah, blah, blah.
The video conference line started flashing at him. The British Embassy in Beijing was calling. Hmm, not used that channel in a long time. He swiped it open. A subtitle appeared which said ‘line secure’. Freda Brightwell was staring into the camera.
“Director Wardle, I’m glad I caught you.”
“Brightwell. Everything alright?”
“
I lost touch with GR8. We were heading to the North Korean border but things got messy. I think I’m jeopardising the mission, sir.”
“Nonsense, still my best field agent.”
“Right skills, wrong skin for this one, sir. Gopal and Rabten, they can blend in. Close enough at least to look Chinese. I stick out like a sore thumb.”
“True. But do you trust that pair? We’re still not sure what the Terror Formers are up to, or what you’ll need to stop them.”
“I’ve been stuck in a Russian prison with them, trekked halfway across Asia with an assassin on our tail. I trust them, sir.”
“Well, you’re probably right. The best hope for the Korean mission is secrecy, not numbers. OK, come back to the UK straight away. Don’t worry about covering your tracks. If the Terror Formers are still monitoring flight details, that may help them think we’re abandoning the investigation. Besides, I have some bad news. You ought to know, Atkins is dead. Terror Formers got to him.”
At first, Wardle thought that the transmission had been lost. Freda’s image just froze on the screen. She was looking down. A faint nod of her head and then she reached forward to terminate the video conference.
Wardle had just finished breakfast at his desk and was contemplating a second espresso when the emergency channel flashed up on his screen. Another call from Beijing. Not the embassy but an OD wrist tab. He waited for the encryption software to kick in.
“Brightwell, is that you again?”
“No, Mr Director, it’s Gopal. We’ve lost her, sir. We’ve damn well lost her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Rabten and I. We got split up from Freda inside a Chinese government building. She had hidden herself in a crate and—”
“I spoke to her only half an hour ago. She’s safe in the British Embassy.”
“Thank goodness for that. Rabten, you hear that? Freda’s OK. Look out! Behind you.”
