White Gold

by David Barker

  “Greetings to you. I see you’ve found my little secret. Miss Brightwell. You really are quite difficult to kill off, yes? Like the cockroaches, huh?”

  “There’s only one vermin in this conversation, Larsson,” she replied.

  “Ahh, the famous British wit. Of course. Now, don’t tell me. Two British agents, one is Freda Brightwell. Could it be that the other is Sim Atkins? Come back from the dead? Deceiving our security clearance? I have to congratulate you, Mister Atkins. That is no mean feat.”

  Sim stared at the screen. He gazed into the eyes of the man responsible for his son’s death. A heat spread through his body as his breath quickened. “I’m coming to get you, Larsson. You’re finished.”

  “Ooh, I’m getting goose bumps down my spine. So macho. That must be what Miss Brightwell finds so attractive.”

  “Call the bomb off. You don’t need to start world war three, Larsson,” said Freda.

  “Too late for that. The men have had their final instructions. Nothing can stop them now.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Sim started tapping away at the keyboard, hoping to break into the Terror Formers central command system.

  “Well, you know where to find me. Don’t leave me waiting too long, will you?” He sighed. “It was such a nice place to live. Pity.” Mattias smiled for the camera one last time and then leant forward to switch it off at his end.

  The giant screen went blank and the room seemed very dark again. Freda grabbed Sim by the hand and pulled him towards the spiral stairs. “Come on!” They sprinted up, around and around until their thighs burnt with lactic acid and their lungs were screaming for mercy. At the top of the stairs, they ran along the corridor. When they were back in the lounge, Freda sprayed the window with a burst from her machine gun. The glass pitted and cracked but refused to break.

  “Shit!”

  “Keep going,” said Sim dashing for the door out of Larsson’s apartments. There was a rumble from deep below them and a moment later a cloud of smoke billowed out of the corridor that led to the spiral stairs. Sim paused for a moment. “Is that it?”

  “Let’s not wait to find out,” said Freda and they began to run for the main doors.

  CHAPTER 35

  North Korea

  Ivan kept looking up at the sky. The sun was just disappearing behind the summit of Mount Paektu. Soon it would be dark enough for the team to cross the open land that led to the lip of the crater and then down within it, to the lake. But only if the Moon stayed out of sight. Turning to his left, the leader could already see a pale three-quarter Moon, clearly visible in the last of the daylight. If there was no cloud cover, they would have to either risk being spotted on the approach to the lake or wait it out another 24 hours. The food was getting low and the team was getting restless. He knew they were behind schedule and Larsson was not a patient man.

  He ordered the gang to have one last hot drink. Recent mealtimes had been half-rations, trying to stretch out the supplies. But he let them eat a full portion this time. There was a long night ahead of them.

  They packed up the camping gear, raked the ground with branches to hide evidence of their presence and hefted the equipment one last time. The sun’s descent had left nothing but a faint smudge of orange across the top of the mountain, as if the volcano was warming up, ready to erupt. Some clouds began to appear, blown in on a chilly breeze. It was now or never. Ivan surveyed his squad and nodded.

  The banter that usually accompanied hikes or mealtimes was completely absent. The mercenaries kept their mouths shut and their eyes on the slope ahead of them. The leader glanced upwards at the clouds as often as he scanned the horizon left and right for signs of movement. The channels that slowed their progress were big enough to hold a torrent of water but at this time of year contained mere rivulets.

  The burden of the warhead was frequently swapped between soldiers. It was the only way they could carry the 100kg load while maintaining the pace set by their leader. There was no path to follow while the gradient was getting steeper and rocks under foot were becoming smaller and looser as they neared their destination.

  The Moon was almost directly overhead, occasionally peeping out from behind the clouds, as they reached the top of the crater lip. Half a mile to their left was the official summit of Mount Paektu. At last the mercenaries could see their goal, Heaven Lake. It was far larger than Ivan had imagined. He had studied the map of the region before the mission began, of course, but numbers on a map don’t always convey a sense of space. The Chinese shoreline was four or five kilometres away. Somewhere in the middle, an international boundary cut the lake in half.

  A break in the clouds allowed beams of moonlight to flood the crater with silvery light. Ivan ordered his men to drop flat. He lay there admiring the huge expanse of water. Despite the stiff breeze on the lip of the crater, the lake’s surface was quite still. A reflected Moon gazed out of the water at him and he could see why this place was revered as a holy site.

  Soon, it would be remembered for different reasons. But first they needed to get down the inner slope of the crater. There was a gentle slope to their left that would be quite easy to descend, but it passed close to the only buildings on the North Korean shore. The route straight down from their current position would minimize the risk of being spotted, but would increase the risk of a fall. Ivan decided that they would have to abseil. Slowly. If the warhead was dropped and damaged now, after all their efforts… No, he wouldn’t let that happen.

  While they found a suitable anchor point and set up the ropes, the leader dispatched Tomkins and Sing-song towards the building. They were instructed to disable any surveillance equipment that might be scanning the shoreline of the lake. Zero contact with any guards. Lethal force only if absolutely necessary. The two people he had chosen were quick and small. He was sure violence would not be needed. Not yet.

  Humper, on the other hand, was going to do what he did best. Making sure the warhead came down the slope in one piece. His footing slipped on loose scree. The bomb smacked into his kneecap. He held his arm against his mouth and muffled a cry of pain into the crook of his elbow.

  When they were all at the bottom of the slope, Ivan began to change into the diving gear. He checked the breathing apparatus and the volume readings on the tanks, leaving the flippers to one side. Then he waited until the other two members of the team rejoined them.

  Humper and another soldier carried the warhead to the water’s edge while the leader inflated a raft that he would use to carry it out into the middle of the lake. The mission briefing had been clear. If the bomb detonated on the surface of the water, there was a chance that the caldera would not crack open. The explosion had to take place on the bed of the lake. Ivan still could not quite believe how deep it was. Over two hundred metres. That was way beyond the range of an amateur diver like him. He had read of experts setting records beyond that, but they had been using special gas mixes and a lifetime of experience.

  He told his team to stay out of sight on the shoreline and wait for his return. A couple of them seemed puzzled that nobody was accompanying him on the raft, but the leader pushed off and began paddling before they could ask why. They wouldn’t have liked the answer.

  Ivan made slow progress. The raft sat deep in the water and he only had a small paddle to propel the cumbersome craft. The lake was so large that from its surface it was hard to tell when he was in the middle. He was running out of time if he was going to make it back to the forest before dawn. Here would have to do. He switched on the breathing gear, fitted his mask and rolled backwards into the water. He swam down a few metres, scanning the water with an underwater torch that he held in his left hand. He descended a little further, just to make sure there were no nets and came back to the surface.

  Scrambling back into the dinghy he took off his mask and tried to breathe some warmth into his fingers. He set the timer on the warhead, not for twenty-four hours like his team expected, but for just eight hours. Minimizing the
risk of discovery. It might be enough time to get away. But if it wasn’t, well, his wife and children had been promised a place in the Bjørnøya sanctuary. Their future was secured.

  Ivan put his mask back on and rolled into the water once more. This time, his left hand held a knife. He punctured both sides of the craft and watched with satisfaction as the warhead slipped below the surface, wrapped in a deflated rubber dinghy. He began to swim for the shore. Everything had gone according to plan. He wanted to smile and celebrate. But he had one final task to accomplish, and he wasn’t looking forward to that at all.

  The leader chose Humper once again for his particular attributes. After he had changed out of the diving gear, Ivan called the big guy over to him. Never the sharpest member of the team, it seemed to take Humper’s brain a second or two to register the blade that had slipped between his ribs and stopped his heart. Ivan grabbed Humper’s machine gun, still slung over the man’s shoulder and spun it around to spray bullets into the rest of the team. Most of them fell instantly, too shocked by the attack to react. But Tomkins had dived out of the way and returned fire. Unfortunately for her, the leader had made sure Humper’s bulk was between himself and the rest of the team. Humper’s body jerked with the impact, but Ivan was safe. He fired again. A short round designed merely to flush out the survivor. When the woman darted towards a machine gun that lay next to one of her dead comrades, the leader was ready for her. And this time he was quicker.

  He let Humper’s body slump to the ground and checked the rest of the team to make sure they were dead too. He kept telling himself he was only following orders, but the taste in his mouth made clear what his conscience thought of orders. He was about to climb the rope out of the crater when a movement on the far side of the lake, just above the horizon, caught his eye. He grabbed his star-scope and peered across the water. A hydra, in whisper mode. He watched it slow and bank, landing on the far shoreline. Two men darted out from a concealed spot and unloaded something from the cargo hold.

  The mercenary looked back at his dead team, suddenly wishing he had not been so hasty. He took a couple of fresh magazines for the machine gun and started jogging around the edge of the lake, hoping he could get there in time.

  CHAPTER 36

  Kiruna, Sweden

  Sim had borrowed another bike from ESCO headquarters. The chaos caused by Linnéa’s feigned gas leak had intensified when Larsson’s booby trap exploded. Everybody assumed that the leak was flammable as well as poisonous. So, escaping had been far easier than getting into the compound. While Linnéa sneaked back into the base, Sim drove Freda back to his rented room in New Kiruna, to fetch the rest of his OD kit. His keys were buried in the rubble so he knocked on the front door. His landlady stood there in her dressing gown, her arms folded across her chest and her mouth a thin crack of malice.

  “I know, I know, Mrs Andersson.” Sim walked up the steps. “It’s not worked out, has it? I’ll go and pack my bags.”

  “She’s not coming in,” she said, pointing at Freda.

  Sim shrugged and looked at his partner.

  “It’s alright,” said Freda. “Go get your things while I get in touch with HQ.”

  Sim squeezed past his landlady and went up to his room.

  Freda moved away from the front door and called up Wardle on her wrist tab.

  “Sir, we’re in pursuit of Mattias Larsson. We believe he’s headed for some sort of bunker on Bjørnøya island. We need transport and back up.”

  “Sorry, who is this?”

  “It’s me, Freda. I’m with Sim. This is urgent.”

  “No, I’m afraid you’re very garbled. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

  “This is field agent Freda Brightwell requesting immediate assistance.”

  “That’s impossible. Freda Brightwell went AWOL at Stockholm airport. Overseas Division has been disbanded.”

  “Because of what I did?” asked Freda.

  “All field agents have been ordered to return to headquarters immediately.”

  “They can’t do that,” said Freda.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me, whoever you are, I have work to do. Captain Hamilton is not responding to my requests. He ought to be in Narvik harbour but I can’t seem to track him down. I do hope that sub of his doesn’t wander off somewhere.”

  Freda clicked off the call and stared up at the house.

  Sim emerged with a duffel bag over one shoulder.

  “Hand over the keys, if you’re leaving,” said Mrs Andersson.

  “Oh, I’m afraid I blew them up.” Sim waited while her face moved from puzzlement to shock and then anger. “But you can keep the deposit.”

  The pair of agents climbed back on the bike. Before they set off, Sim checked his watch. Almost exactly 9pm. “You know, something’s bothering me about Larsson’s last comment. He said it was a nice place to live, but he didn’t blow up his apartment. Just the Terror Former basement.”

  “That’s where all the incriminating information was. Makes perfect sense,” said Freda.

  “Yeah, but why mention the place to live?”

  “I’m not sure people like that ever think things through logically.”

  Sim glanced at this watch again, even though he wasn’t sure why the time was important. Just gone nine. He realised he had not heard the church clock ring out. A sense of dread knotted his stomach. He got off the bike and knocked on Mrs Andersson’s door again. She nearly yanked it off its hinges and was about to shout something when Sim got in there first.

  “How long have the bells been silent?”

  Her anger changed back to puzzlement. She looked towards the tower, the view blocked by a neighbour’s house “I remember hearing them last night. But now you mention it, not all day. Why?”

  Sim held out his hands. “Just stay indoors, close your windows. And tell the police to meet us at the church.” He ran off, not waiting for any more questions.

  Sim and Freda rode the short distance to the church. Even if Mrs Andersson had believed him, the police would not arrive for several minutes. Freda picked the lock on the door into the ground floor of the red tower. There were no windows at this level, just a little evening light streaming in through the open door, and a stairway upwards that was faintly illuminated from the floor above.

  Sim walked over to the staircase, but Freda held out a hand to stop him.

  “Wait. Switch your torch on and check the stairs.”

  The beam of Sim’s torch shone up the staircase. He was about to say all clear, when the last sweep of his light caught something. A thin wire was stretched across one of the steps halfway up the flight.

  “You were right. Sixth one up,” said Sim.

  They climbed the stairs, carefully avoiding the tripwire. Sim double checked further up the stairs and at the entrance onto the next level up. The tower was pinched narrow on this floor. It was a small square room whose only purpose seemed to be to house the ladder up into the bell room. Tiny windows high up each wall let in a little light. The agents continued upwards slowly, checking for more booby traps. Sim went first. When he reached the top of the ladder his head poked through to the level where the bells were hung. The evening sun flooded in through gauze windows. Sim blinked while his eyes adjusted to the brightness and then he gasped as he looked around the room.

  There was at least a dozen gas cannisters, each with a group of small glass phials arranged around the nozzle at the top of the tanks. Wires from each cannister led to a set of batteries in the middle of the floor. The section of flooring around the top of the stairs was slightly higher than the rest of the floor and Sim could see a wire that led from here to the same batteries. A pressure pad, in case the staircase wire hadn’t worked. But how to disarm it all?

  There was a sound of approaching sirens and flashing blue lights began to illuminate the bells intermittently through the open sides of the tower.

  “Plenty of time for the boys in blue to sort this lot out,” said Sim with a smile.


  “The stairs!” shouted Freda. She slid down the ladder and ran across the floor below to the top of the first stairwell. “Don’t move!”

  Sim heard the police asking Freda some questions from the bottom of the stairs. He was willing to bet a large sum of money that these phials contained some airborne form of the Ebola virus. From this elevation, with these open grilles on all sides of the tower, it was the perfect place to launch a gas attack. Why on earth Larsson would want to kill his fellow Swedes? It did not fit the pattern of other Terror Former attacks. Larsson had been counting on some member of the church setting off the cannisters as they came to investigate the silent bells. Perhaps he had some grudge against the Church?

  After a hurried conversation with the Swedish police, they had been allowed to leave. The motorbike got them across the border into Norway. Freda had described her bizarre conversation with Wardle and they’d agreed to go look for the captain. There was no way they were going to abandon this mission halfway through. They were sure the captain would feel the same, if they could find him.

  Sim had stopped outside Narvik, just before midnight. The pair of British agents dismounted and looked down into the town. On the right was a marina filled with small pleasure craft. Further away, on the other side of the peninsular, was the larger industrial harbour. A huge conveyor belt was pouring aggregate – Sim guessed it was iron ore from the Kiirunavaara mine – into the belly of a big tanker. Now they had to hope that Hamilton was still somewhere out there in the Fjord.

  “How are we going to get in touch with him? If he’s gone rogue, like us, he’ll probably ignore messages from an OD device,” said Sim.

  “Hang on. I remember reading the debrief when he rescued that journalist.”

  “Which journo?”

  “You know, the one who helped capture Richard Taylor. Doesn’t matter. The point is when she was escaping she used a dating app to project a distress call to any listeners in the local environment. Quite smart, really,” said Freda getting off the bike.