After signing several confidential contracts and undergoing a fitness and medical examination Mandrick embarked on a week of private schooling. He was the only student in the class. Lessons included the part US embassies played in intelligence processing, agent contact and human-pipeline procedures, field-finance accounting, a basic medical course, clandestine photography and how to operate a sophisticated coded communications system that separated into several innocuous components that fitted into a shaving bag. On the last day he attended a briefing about his potential duties and where he was asked if he would like to go back to Africa and work as an intelligence gatherer and processor for his ‘new’ country.
Mandrick had then become an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency, although he was no ordinary NOC (non-official cover). Older than most new recruits, he had not gone through the usual agent-induction system at The Farm. His level of knowledge of Africa and his military jungle skills could not be learned in any school and his composure in life-threatening situations was, rightly, taken as proven.
He was given a month to set his regular life in order and prepare a cover story for his mother and a handful of friends. His explanation for moving abroad was that he needed a change and had taken a position in an American travel agency that was opening offices all over Africa. On arrival in Nairobi he was given time to acclimatise and to familiarise himself with procedures under the supervision of the US embassy’s operations officer.
Two weeks later he was sent out into the region with the false identity of a road-construction engineer for an American contractor. His main theatre of operations was Uganda, Kenya and the Congo and his main task was to monitor the subversive activities of groups like the Allied Domestic Front and the Lord’s Resistance Army. It was not as exciting as Mandrick had hoped but he embraced the role with enthusiasm and within a couple of years he had set up a comprehensive network of couriers and informants.
While carrying out one of his tasks, the processing and collating of information, Mandrick detected the presence of a home-grown, powerful, dark and disturbing influence that was acquiring an operational foothold in the area. But his efforts to get his superiors to take his findings seriously were doomed to frustration. The faction was at the time a relatively unknown group of Arab Islamic militants and only when the US embassies in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Nairobi in Kenya were blown up by them, killing more than two hundred and twenty people and wounding over four thousand, were his warnings vindicated. By then it was too late. To add to Mandrick’s misfortune he himself was caught up in the Nairobi bombing, barely escaping with his life.
Mandrick was repatriated to the USA to recover from his minor wounds. After sitting at home for a month while waiting to be retasked he was informed, without explanation, that his services were no longer required.
A month later he received what at first appeared to be a severance package that would keep him comfortable for a year or so. But the messenger’s parting comment suggested that Mandrick had not necessarily been dumped and was being held in reserve. It was a vague communication but enough to ease the feeling of rejection. Mandrick waited for the call that he hoped would come soon.
A year passed without a word and then one day, as if the serious inroads into his severance package had been monitored, he received a formal letter on headed notepaper from a company called the Felix Corporation. It invited him to attend a meeting at their headquarters in Houston. The way the message was worded, in a minimalist and coldly cordial manner, Mandrick assumed it was an NOC task. Without hesitation he packed an overnight bag and headed for the airport.
Mandrick expected to meet yet another party of anonymous faces in a sterile, nameless office that had been rented especially for the occasion. He was surprised to discover that the Felix Corporation was in fact a genuine company, and an affluent one at that. After being taken to a five-star hotel to freshen up he was escorted to the executive offices of the CEO where, among other senior members of the corporation, he was introduced to Congressman Forbes. The meeting began with lunch and the rest of the day was taken up with detailed briefings that included models and computer-generated images of a proposed undersea prison. The mine was not discussed in any great detail and was presented more as a remedial employment scheme providing, with luck, a nominal contribution to the running costs of the facility.
Throughout the day Mandrick wondered why he was there and figured that there would be a twist of some sort at any moment. At no time was he asked about his background or if indeed he had any level of experience in maritime technology or correction-facility management. Finally, back in the CEO’s office, in a meeting where Congressman Forbes appeared to be the most influential force, Mandrick was asked if he would consider a position as assistant warden of Styx once it was built. Forbes outlined the basic remuneration package that included a house in Houston, a car, a generous expenses allowance and some handsome incentive bonuses.
Confused as he was, Mandrick was nonetheless nobody’s fool. The whole business had the sniff of the Agency about it. How else had Felix Corp known so much about him - enough not to ask him any questions about his past life and achievements and yet to have such confidence in him? He had been recommended for the post by a covert authority highly placed enough for none of these men to question it and it was therefore wise to assume this influence implied a partnership of some kind. On the other hand, it was a legitimate appointment that he was being offered - or it appeared to be, at any rate.
A couple of weeks before the first batch of Afghan insurgents arrived the warden was suddenly relieved of his position. He was a highly experienced prison officer who had done an exceptional job in getting the facility up and running. Mandrick was handed the job as if that had been the plan all along. His role as assistant warden had been purely so that he could learn the ropes and take over as soon as the CIA’s interests became a reality. Styx was not only a top-security prison far from prying and curious eyes. It was a CIA interrogation centre. And Mandrick was its guardian.
The most problematic feature of the prison was the apparently innocuous mine. It caused Mandrick more concern than the interrogation cells themselves. The prison itself was a going concern although its profits were not very big. But the mainstream revenue came from the US government and could therefore be accounted for. The mining department, however, had apparently ‘discovered’ a tidy vein of precious minerals and was turning over a considerable amount of money. The problem was that it was mostly undeclared revenue. This was the quid pro quo aspect of the deal.The minerals were a private bonus as long as the Agency got what it wanted. It was also their leverage. The arrangement was a minor one compared with the deals that the CIA made with major global drugs and arms dealers in the pursuit of international terrorists. Unlike the drug and weapons deals where thousands of lives were lost or ruined daily as a result, the mine gave a handful of American businessmen profits for their patriotism. Mandrick and the prison guards were also beneficiaries.
Before the rather desperate phone call from Congressman Forbes, in the great scheme of things it had all seemed justified. Mandrick had no problems sleeping at night. But the project had suddenly become considerably more sinister and dangerous. He was being asked to kill an FBI agent.Warning bells were sounding in his head.
Mandrick was in his own office seated behind his desk, a high-tech steel construction with a glass surface. A window made of thick, toughened glass behind him offered a view of bright lights attempting to illuminate a grey darkness. A little shrimp-like creature scurried across the glass as a large fish cruised past in the background. The spacious dome-like room was supported by steel girders set at intervals against the walls, arching to a central point in the ceiling. Rows of cabinets were sunk into the rock walls between the girders on one side of the room and across from Mandrick’s desk a bank of flat-screen monitors displayed multiple views of the prison. Some of the monitors showed split-screen vistas while others flipped viewpoints between different came
ras at intervals.
Mandrick climbed out of his leather chair and walked over to a complex communications console as he pondered the congressman’s unusual and disturbing request. But even as he considered what course to take he was reaching for the internal phone system to start doing his masters’ bidding. To ignore them would be to turn his back on his own future - perhaps worse. If the powers that be were prepared to kill an FBI agent to protect their interests then Mandrick himself was of little consequence. But it was not fear that kept Mandrick in line. He was made of more complex and sterner stuff. Since his earliest days he had enjoyed being a part of a team and, even though the Agency was a cold and distant master, he did feel like a small yet important cog in a big and powerful machine - and a winning one at that. He did not know precisely why the FBI agent had to be stopped but he was expected to carry out the order without question. It was the first real opportunity he’d had recently to self-examine his moral fibre. Now that he found it was indeed corrupt, what he’d initially believed to be a spasm of guilt when he’d received the order turned out to be merely a pause for thought before he obeyed.
Mandrick picked up a phone, punched in a series of numbers and held the receiver to his ear. ‘Get me the manifest for the next in-transfer,’ he said, his accent a cross between New York and somewhere else that few could guess at. ‘Who’s the transport officer for that serial? . . . Anderson? . . . I want Gann on it . . . Yeah, and send him to my office . . . Yeah, right away.’
Mandrick replaced the phone, pushed his fingers through his short tan hair and walked over to a detailed model of the prison facility.
A buzzer sounded and Mandrick glanced at one of the monitors showing two angled images of a large man wearing a lime-green tailored uniform and standing outside a door. The man looked up into one of the camera lenses, his expression blank, his eyes cold.
Mandrick took a hand-held remote from his pocket and pushed one of several coloured buttons on it. The sound of escaping gas lasted a couple of seconds as a thick rubber seal around a steel oval-shaped door shrank and, after a heavy clunking sound, the door moved back into the room like a filing cabinet drawer before pivoting open.
Gann walked into the room, a big heavy-boned man of distant Scandinavian origins. He was almost a head taller than Mandrick and remained standing by the opening like a barely obedient hound, staring at his master with an arrogant indifference that those who did not know him might have mistaken for insolence.
Mandrick pushed a button on his remote and the door closed with another clunk and a further escape of air as the seal puffed back up to fill the space around it. ‘You’ll be picking up the next in-transfer,’ Mandrick said without a trace of drama.
Gann waited for an explanation. He was not particularly interested but was curious nevertheless about why the schedule was being changed.
‘Didn’t we have a problem with one of the ferries a couple weeks ago?’ Mandrick asked, suddenly remembering.
‘Number four,’ Gann said.
‘What was the problem?’
‘The number-three relief valve in the main cabin. The seal needs changing. It leaks.’ Gann’s accent was soft: many thought he was from Chicago or Philly but no one knew for sure.
‘Why hasn’t it been changed?’
‘It has a scheduled service next week. I guess they’re waiting till then.’
Mandrick looked at Gann, gauging him as he often did. The man was a gift from Felix Corp, a special assistant. A thug, in other words. He hadn’t gone through the normal vetting procedures and his personnel file was clearly a fairy tale. Gann was supposedly a former US Marine sergeant, an ideal pedigree for the prison service in which he had to look after the most desperate individuals in the world. Mandrick knew soldiers and Gann did not even begin to fit the profile. What Gann did for the company required a pedigree far more ominous than any that the Marines could provide. When they’d first met at the corporate offices in Houston, the day Mandrick was promoted to warden, Gann had been introduced as his key security officer. Forbes went even further, seeming to boast of some secret information when he said to Mandrick, sotto voce, that Gann would take care of any ‘delicate situations’.
At the time Mandrick could not accurately imagine what that might entail but he got a taste within the first few days Gann was on the job when an inmate was caught stealing gems from the mine. The prisoner, an armed robber and escape artist from Leavenworth penitentiary who was serving three life sentences, had a partner in the guard force who was smuggling the ‘merchandise’ ashore. The inmate suffered a paralysing injury when a piece of machinery fell on his back and in that same week the guard was involved in a fatal alcohol-related traffic accident. When Mandrick had mentioned that the inmate could have died Gann must have thought he’d said ‘should have’ because his reply was that a dead man attracted attention whereas one who’d had an accident and was recovering from his injuries did not.
It was a wise theory. Only one inmate had died in Styx since it had opened, an impressive record which helped protect it from outside scrutiny. But it did have an unusually high rate of injuries, the level of whose seriousness was often concealed. But as Gann so accurately pointed out, as in a war, the ‘merely’ wounded were hardly taken into account, no matter how serious the damage they’d sustained.
Mandrick had never personally ordered Gann to do anything unsavoury, nothing beyond the bounds of what a normal prison guard looking after category one-plus prisoners might be expected to do. That was indication enough that the man received his orders from someone else. Mandrick had no problem with that. They were all steering in the same direction. And this particular request was going to require a team effort. It was not only serious but technically complicated. Gann could not achieve success without Mandrick’s assistance.
The order was also proof that Forbes received his orders from someone. It wasn’t easy to get a congressman to become a willing party to a murder - and of an FBI agent, at that. Forbes wasn’t a tough guy. Mandrick personally found him weak and pathetic. He was typical of the type: born to wealth and influence, carried through school, did his time in the army in an administrative role, thus avoiding Vietnam, and was handed his political career on a plate. Someone must have dangled him by his testicles over a pool of sharks to get him to do this.
‘We have a problem,’ Mandrick said in his usual calm, controlled manner. ‘One of the prisoners on the next intake cannot be allowed to enter the prison.’
The printer on Mandrick’s desk came to life and spat out a sheet of paper. Mandrick picked it out of the tray and glanced over it.‘Six prisoners . . . but we don’t know which one is our unwanted guest.’ Mandrick glanced up at Gann who was staring at him without a shred of emotion in his expression. ‘Would the valve be enough, do you think?’ Mandrick asked, knowing the answer but wanting Gann to get involved in the conversation.
‘Everyone?’ Gann asked, impressed. This was by far the biggest deal he had been presented with since taking on the job. Come to think of it, it was the biggest hit numbers-wise that he had ever been asked to carry out.
‘It looks that way. We don’t have the time to figure out who it is.’
Gann took a moment to absorb the request. ‘I guess the valve would do it . . . with some added insurance.’
‘Like what?’
‘It would have to happen deep . . . close to the dock would be best but not too close. They’d have to be denied access to the escape suits, for one thing.’
Mandrick was satisfied that Gann was on the right track and would come up with a plan. He looked at the six names again, none of whom he had heard of before. Five would be collateral victims. Once again he was surprised at how easy it was for him to ignore the evil of the decision. Perhaps it was because they were all scum anyway. The list did not include their crimes - he would have to look at the files for that - but he didn’t need to. No one got a ticket to Styx who wasn’t a special-category prisoner. As for the FBI agent, the risk came
with the job.
‘We can’t afford to screw this up,’ Mandrick said, sounding like an officer even to himself. He did not particularly care what Gann thought about him. The man was an ape and needed to be reminded as often as possible of his place in the pecking order, even if his strings were usually pulled from somewhere way above Mandrick’s own position.‘What about the other guard?’ Mandrick asked.A minimum of two guards was required to ferry an intake of prisoners from the surface. Escape was considered impossible but this minimum was a procedural requirement in case there was a medical incident - like a guard becoming incapacitated due to a bad compression or something similar.
The prison’s seventy-five guards were divided into three shifts. When the dark side of the system was designed it had been regarded as dangerous if not impossible to try and recruit only corrupt employees. However, applying principles learned from the infiltration of entire police forces by organised-crime syndicates, the compromising of key positions of responsibility could be coordinated. Once the necessary personnel were in place it was easy to recruit and then manipulate the lower ranks by using the basic motivating principle of greed.
The thinnest of smiles came to Gann’s lips. ‘Use Palanski.’
‘Palanski?’ Mandrick was unaware of any significant connection between Palanski and Gann. ‘Why him?’
‘He’s a leak,’ Gann said. ‘He’s been talking to a journalist. They’ve met a coupla times already. We’ve been wondering what to do with him.’
We?This was another reminder that Gann had sources and controllers that bypassed Mandrick’s own authority. It had CIA written all over it. Mandrick showed no hint of surprise or disapproval. Palanski was a fool for going outside the corporation and deserved whatever he got anyway.
Undersea Prison s-4 Page 12
