Flight Path: A Wright & Tran Novel

by Ian Andrew

  ɸ

  Kara heard a roar like a rushing tidal wave. The fear of instant death by drowning jerked the sound, from a distant part of her brain, into dead-centre of her consciousness and caused every synaptic nerve to fire for her survival. Her eyes snapped wide open but the blackness was unaltered. Her breath began to catch, her heartbeat raced and her thoughts were swamped in panic. She twisted and squirmed but she was confined in every direction. She tried to raise her head and smashed the side of it into a metal surface. Her breathing speeded up. She was in a box, filling with water. She was going to die. She started to scream but no sound came, her mind yelled to get out, get away. She felt tears in her eyes, her breath coming in rapid but shallow pants, her stomach spiralling in nausea and fear. Then a small voice said, ‘Be quiet now Kara and think.’

  She knew the voice. It had always been a hidden part of her but had only been revealed by her participation on the worst, yet best, training she had ever undertaken. The voice had been hewn from her, then returned, and finally embedded in her deepest psyche. It was her voice. The real Kara. The only part of her mind that had remained when the rest of her had been broken completely. The core of her, as she was built back up.

  It spoke softly, ‘Can you breathe?’

  Yes.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  Her consciousness detached itself and surged through her body. Her focus settled on her feet. Not hurt, still wearing her boots, not tied but her heels were pressed against a solid surface. She mindfully examined her legs. Not hurt, still clothed in her jeans, not restrained, but cramped. Bent at the knees. She was lying on her right side. The surface under her not quite solid, but not a sponge. A slight spring to it. The whole of it rocking and bouncing. The roar was not water. Kara knew what it was. She recognised it, and her prison, from that same training so many years before.

  ‘Continue your checks please.’

  Her arms behind her back, restrained at the wrists by a plastic tie. Her head covered with a dark hood. Her neck tilted at an awkward angle. The top of her head, hard against another restraining surface. Her temple, the target of the punch was pierced by a stabbing, throbbing, aching jumble of pain. But she wasn’t dying.

  Her core voice asked again, ‘So, are you hurt?’

  No.

  ‘Where are you?’

  I’m in the boot of a small car.

  ‘And?’

  And I’ve realised my situation.

  ‘Good. What now?’

  Plan for what could be coming.

  ‘What else do you know?’

  He called me Liz.

  ‘And?’

  And I’m still alive.

  ‘Good. Let’s keep it that way.’

  ɸ

  Tien felt the car decelerate and then swing left onto an unsealed road. The wheels bucked and jumped in and out of significant ruts, and bigger potholes jarred the whole chassis. She concentrated and when the car decelerated again she reckoned the rutted road had been no more than a few hundred yards long. She was jostled and rolled under the feet of the men as the car swung around in a half circle before reversing and stopping with a harsh jolt. The engine was switched off and an oppressive silence enveloped her. She heard doors being opened and felt the shift in weight as the two men in the front got out. She heard their feet crunching on a gravel mix. She heard the boot release catch click open. The two men sitting above her got out. She felt hands on her legs and she was pulled backwards. Bracing herself for the drop onto the ground, four hands grabbed her, carried her a short distance and then let her stand on her own.

  A foot pressed into the back of her knee. She buckled and sank to soft, damp ground. She wondered if she was in a field. Hands on either side grasped her shoulders and held her upper arms fast. Her head remained hooded and she could hear no noise, no talking.

  The muzzle of a pistol was thrust into her left temple. She fought the urge to cry out. Biting down on the inside of her cheek she breathed deeply and tried to calm her thoughts. She heard her mother’s voice, ‘Don’t you dare Tien Margarethe Tran. Don’t you dare let these people know you are afraid. You bite down and if this is it, then you will go with the dignity of your forebears.’

  Tien realised she was smiling. The thought of her mother scolding her gave her strength. The fear slipped away. She silently recited the Hail Mary and waited for the trigger to be pulled.

  ɸ

  Kara lay in the boot of the car, her left leg bent high, waiting. She heard footsteps on a crushed-gravel surface. She drew a deep breath and tensed. Sensing the change in light as the boot lid was raised, she waited until the flare of light filled her space. Releasing her tensed muscles she exploded her leg out to where she thought her captor would be.

  She missed.

  Four hands grabbed her and lifted her. She smelled grass and earth, the faintest notes of manure, fertilisers and nearby livestock. A foot kicked her in the back of the knee and she collapsed onto soft, damp ground. Hands grasped her shoulders and held fast. She could hear no talking but as she concentrated she heard a soft rumble. It was another car, coming closer, growing louder. The rutted road made its own cacophony of sound as it attempted to rip the suspension out of the vehicle. Kara stayed kneeling. Listening. She heard the tyres crunch onto crushed gravel as the car came past her, close, then reversed. She heard the engine cut off and one door open and shut. The muzzle of a pistol was thrust into the back of her left ear.

  ‘Breathe.’ her inner voice commanded. ‘Not one sound out of you. You will not say one word. This is a tactic, but if it isn’t then nothing you can say or do will change it. So you will say and do nothing. Are we clear?’

  Yes.

  ‘And if it is a tactic, when we get out of this, then we will make this bastard eat his own fucking gun. Agreed?’

  Yes.

  ‘We will fuck him and his friends up and make them weep as they beg for a mercy we will not give. Agreed?’

  Yes.

  She often wondered what it would be like if her inner monologue could become corporeal. She always imagined her inner self to be cleverer and prettier than the woman she provided the commentary for. She could certainly sing better than the voice that came from her mouth.

  ‘Now, think your happy thoughts.’

  Kara’s mind blanked out the pressure of the muzzle and conjured visions of the people she most loved. She saw her parents, at the door of their house. Smiling at her as she walked up the path. Her father, arm around the waist of her mum, raising his hand in greeting. His right index finger stained yellow-brown from nicotine. His eyes bright and mischievous, like a five-year old boy, held hostage in a sixty-five year old body. His silver hair still thick and still blessed with the full wave that in summers long ago he had tried to pacify with tubs of Brylcreem, in homage to his Mod idols.

  Her mother, elegant in everything she ever wore, dressed in a summery cotton skirt and a brightly coloured top. Her hair, still the vibrant reddish-brown of her youth, albeit now artificially maintained. Her high cheekbones and oval eyes testament to the beautiful girl she had been. The vibrant, youthful hippy-spirit who had fallen for the moped-riding, suited and booted Mod. The only Mod her mum could ever remember seeing out in the wilds of Yeovil in Somerset.

  Kara felt the tears welling in her eyes. She switched her thoughts back to the hard muzzle, crushing into the base of her skull. Suppressing the sob that was building and regaining her control, she pictured her brother David with his wife. She saw her nephew and niece smiling up from a Lego-strewn floor. Snatching a breath, her shoulders heaved but she stayed quiet.

  The gunman leaned in close and whispered in her ear. Softly, like a lover’s murmur, “Not a word. Not one word or you die right now. Nod if you understand.”

  Kara nodded. It had been a Dutch accent but not the man that had greeted her at the harbour. The hands on her shoulders went under her armpits and lifted her back onto her feet. Forcing the images of family out of her mind, she concentrated on buildin
g up a mental picture of her environment.

  She was roughly pushed and guided, her awkward footsteps tripping on a low step. The light coming through the thick hood changed and she figured she had entered a building. It felt small, constrained, a hallway. She listened and could hear another awkward set of steps being guided behind her. She knew it was Tien, but the muzzle of the gun stayed pressed into her skull and she kept quiet. After a few more steps she was dragged sharp right and into a larger room. There was still no light but she could feel more space. The guiding hands shoved her hard and she sprawled forward, hitting her shin on, and falling over, a low, hard-edged object. She half-twisted on the way down and landed on her back, partially knocking the wind out of herself with a gasp. Her bound hands were trapped between her body and the floor.

  She was pulled up, twisted around, hands delved into her pockets removing her phone and the small amount of cash she had. She mentally said a thank you for the discipline that stopped her carrying any identification when she was going out on a job. Her jacket was unzipped and pulled down her arms, bunching at her wrists. Then she was pressed back against a wall and forced to sit on the floor. Her feet were brought together and a plastic tie was secured around them. She heard footsteps leave the room and the door shut. She tapped her heels on the bare concrete floor and waited, but there was no reply. Tien had been taken to a different room.

  Kara realised that the bunching of her jacket at her wrists made any hope of breaking out from the plastic zip-tie an impossibility. She could also feel the locking tab of the tie had been placed to the rear of her right hand. She was struck that whoever had placed it on her, knew what they were doing. Well, she reflected, so did she.

  Silently and to a long-practised rhythm, she began to count. She knew that each minute estimated would only be out by a second or two at the most. She was her own metronome and while she remained hooded and restrained there was little else to do but count and consider. As the numbers ticked over subconsciously, she put her frontal-lobes to more high-level analysis tasks.

  She estimated that if she had been knocked out for perhaps five or ten minutes, then she wasn’t more than twenty minutes from the Volendam harbour carpark. They had been waiting for her. They had called her Liz. She had only used that alias with Henk, in the hotel. Had someone overheard their enquiries about boats? She thought back to the two men in the corner of the restaurant on Friday morning. Were they the people who made Swift disappear? Had Amberley’s text message put them on alert? Maybe the simple act of asking about the boats tipped them off. How had they known she w-

  Kara cut herself off in mid-thought.

  She thought about going back to talk to Henk on the Saturday. She had gone alone. It wasn’t a set meeting. Just her dropping in casually. She hadn’t even known if he would be there. But he had been and she had talked to him. Then she had driven back to the apartment on her own. The road to Amsterdam from Volendam had been as busy as usual.

  She realised with sudden clarity that had someone been following her, she would never have picked up on it. She hadn’t arranged for Sammi or Tien to operate a trail car coming behind to monitor. She hadn’t collated car registration numbers, she hadn’t noticed if the same cars had followed her this morning. She had potentially compromised the whole lot of them. They could have been under counter-surveillance for the last day. Or more.

  Worse still, Kara, Tien and Sammi had hung around the apartment. They had been easy targets for anyone mounting a surveillance operation. The potential was easy to imagine if Rik, or whoever owned the boat, was already suspicious of out-of-season enquiries coming so soon after an alerting text message from Francis Amberley. This morning would have been a simple trap. Put a decoy on the deck of the Fair Winds and if someone showed up at the harbour, it was too much of a coincidence. She swore to herself.

  Her smarter, prettier, internal-self scolded her, ‘You stupid bitch, Kara. You’ve been lazy, distracted and lax. You underestimated the people you were going up against.’

  Had she understood how badly she had underestimated, the admonishment would have been a lot more severe.

  Chapter 12

  Near Volendam, Holland.

  Eighty-six minutes. Her count continuing, her anger festering into a blind desire to get free of her restraints and take it out on her captors.

  Kara felt the air pressure of the room change as a door opened to her right. Footsteps, two sets. The plastic tie on her feet was cut. Four hands grabbed her, lifting, dragging and pushing her into the hallway, then right. She was shoved a few feet forward before being thrown left into another expansive room. Once more she stumbled, but this time she was grabbed by a third set of hands. Their owner was smaller. She was twisted around, pushed back against a wall and her feet were resecured with a plastic tie.

  “Sit down,” a heavy Dutch accent, on a new voice. She figured she had heard three different voices so far. The man who had punched her at the harbour, the gunman from outside and now this Maitre d'. Given his approximate size, he wasn’t the fat man who had stepped off the boat. In the time she had waited alone she had been struck by the relative professionalism of her captors. They had maintained a fair degree of silence with no excessive talking, no shouting, no hysterics, but she had still heard three of them. She knew there was at least one more and she knew at least one of them was armed.

  They had left her alone with no opportunity to talk to Tien. It was a classic interrogation technique that was meant to isolate, subjugate and demoralise. The first time she had been forced to endure it, almost eleven years earlier on the training course where she had discovered her real inner voice, she had indeed felt most of those emotions. Repeated exposure to the techniques lessened their impact. Kara now found that she was examining what was being done to her and rating its effectiveness. She was giving scores out of ten for prisoner handling, maintenance of isolation, clarity of purpose, use of appropriate techniques. Short of them just shooting her, she was beginning to feel a lot more comfortable.

  Surprisingly, having thought they were doing well with her isolation, her hood was taken off. She blinked rapidly in the bright light of what was a dimmed room and scanned her environment. Opposite was the door she had come through: standard size, domestic, closed, a young, thin, tall man standing guard in front of it. To his left as Kara looked, a pale green wall was marked by lines of bare plaster that showed where long-gone units had once been affixed. There was a small set of shelves, empty other than a stacked set of towels in blues, mauves and greys and a box that reminded her of an old canteen of cutlery. Next to the shelves was another door, almost diagonally opposite from where Kara was seated. The fat man from the harbour was standing in front of it. The wall to the left hand side of the room had a double-width window. Like the doors, it was domestic in its size and placement. The sun filtered through medium-heavy, unpatterned, grey curtains that didn’t quite meet in the middle. Under the window were more bare plaster marks just visible above and to the side of a three-seater couch, its fabric a drab grey. To the left of the couch was a faded half-and-half stable door. The metal bolts and hinges were rusted over and a visible line of dust and grime marked where it met the floor. Kara thought it geographically appropriate that the Americans would have called it a Dutch door. To her immediate left, along the same wall she was propped against, was an old low-level sideboard. Through the gap between the legs of the man who had just removed her hood, she could see more bare plaster marks. The wall to her right was free of furniture but had a mirror, almost identical in size to the window, hung exactly to reflect the light. She looked up to see a lone, unlit, bulb with no shade. She looked down at the floor and her mind jarred. Her eyes widened and for the first time her inner voice sounded less assured.

  ‘Oh what the fuck have we gotten ourselves into here?’

  The man who had removed her hood spoke and she recognised him as the Maitre d’, “Are you thirsty?”

  She kept her eyes cast down and didn’t speak,
but considered that she had chosen his name well. First he had offered her a seat, now he was offering a drink.

  “Are you thirsty?” he repeated, more harshly.

  Kara maintained her downward stare and her silence. Out of the corner of her eye she saw his foot moving and was able to tense her muscles to meet the toe of his boot impacting into her thigh. She muffled the desire to scream obscenities at him and instead fell sideways to her right. He bent and dragged her up. Then he reached behind him and retrieved a small plastic water bottle from the sideboard. Twisting the cap off he took a drink and opened his mouth wide to show he had swallowed. He held it carelessly to her lips. She gulped the water, ignoring the excess pouring down her front.

  He said something in Dutch before turning away. His two companions laughed and Kara processed the similarities to German. She guessed he had said something like silence wouldn’t help her, but she hadn’t a clue about the other words laced throughout the sentence. The soreness of her thigh was lost in the frustration she felt at not understanding what he had said. It was relatively unknown for her to be at such a disadvantage. The Maitre d’ sat down on the arm of the chair next to her. He wore black Chelsea-boots, jeans, a broad check-patterned, short-sleeved shirt and large, thick-framed black glasses. Kara guessed he was in his thirties, about five-foot-six, lightly built with thinning dark hair. As she had been trained to do, she automatically personalised her captors. She decided to give him a new name. He would be Buddy.

  She eyed the other two men. The one to her far left was the fat man from the harbour. He looked even bigger in girth now his overcoat was gone. He wore deck shoes, beige chinos and a cheesecloth shirt which bulged out trying to cover a substantial gut. He appeared to be in his fifties. Or perhaps he was younger and it was his grey hair, hanging in straggly strands to the sides of a bald dome, that made him look aged. His neck was almost as wide as his head and his forearms ended in rolls of fat at his wrists. Kara noticed he stood with his arms folded awkwardly and had heavy strapping on his right hand. She wondered how he had worn gloves at the harbour. The bulge of his stomach was by far his most prominent feature, so Kara named him Tubbs.