by Gary Weston
'Okay. Keep at it. I'll make myself useful in the kitchen. Have fun.'
It was a healthy stir fry washed down with merlot. They kept the chat light, but Ferret picked up on an atmosphere between Sandra and Steve.
'I noticed your food supplies were a little depleted,' said Sandra.
'My family,' said Steve. 'They can eat like horses when they come here. I'll have to go shopping.'
'I'll go out tomorrow and stock up. The least I can do.'
'I'll come with you,' said Steve.
'No. There's a few things I need to do. Best on my own.'
'Okay. I can take a hint.'
Chapter 46
Bernie had finished his lunch in the headquarters cafeteria and had sat at his desk when he noticed an envelope. It was plain and white and had nothing written on the front of it and had no stamp. He opened it. Then his hands shook slightly and his mouth became instantly dry. On the sheet of A 4 it said. Park. 2. S. That was it. He went out into his P A' s and secretary's office. They were busy with the extra workload from the upcoming conference.
'Chief?'
'Monica. Has anyone been in here? Into my office?'
'No, Sir. I was in your office at nine with the mail.'
Anyone would have had to pass the two women to get to his office.
'It must have been after nine,' said the Chief.
'No,' said Monica. 'Not In the last half hour or so. We would have noticed. Did you see anyone, Amy?'
Secretary Amy Jones said, 'Nobody came through here. Is there a problem?'
Bernie smiled. Only one person could become a ghost and walk through an office and drop a letter on his desk and walk back out again without being seen. 'No problem, Monica. I need to go out for a couple of hours. I should be back before three.'
He drove home. The house was empty. Debbie was at work and Poppy had her own things to do. He took off his uniform and hung it on a hanger. Then he found his scruffiest gardening clothes and dressed in those, roughed up his silver locks and found a baseball cap to complete the look. Three minutes to two he was walking to the bench in Bloomsberry Park, where his eight year old sister had fallen off her new bicycle and cut her knee.
The overcast sky suited his mood, a light breeze chilling his face, making him appreciate the old cap on his head. He was alone apart from a lone sparrow, scavenging in a rubbish bin, exploring take out wrappers. It flew off as he approached and he sat on the nearby bench. A he sat and waited, from behind him, he heard a voice.
'Long time, no see.'
He said nothing. The woman didn't look much like his sister, but he'd have been surprised if she had. She sat by him but didn't look at him.
'I can't stay long,' she said.
'You never can.'
'I may need your help.'
'I'm fine, thanks for asking.'
She ignored that. 'The conference. It's going to be hit.'
Those words iced his veins. He'd rather had not heard them. Images of the Petrolex Haynes building, reduced to rubble, filled his mind. 'How bad?'
'The worst.'
'Worse than the Petrolex building?' He couldn't imagine how. 'Details?'
'I don't have them. Yet. We're working on them.'
'Fred?'
'Yes.'
'Is he..?'
'Fine.'
That was something. As much as he could have hoped for. Bernie asked, 'What do you want me to do?'
'Be ready.' She stood up to go and still didn't look at him, then she walked away from him.
'Poppy's having a baby.'
For a moment she was stopped in her tracks. She didn't turn around, just standing still, her hands thrust into her pockets. Then she walked briskly away and vanished like a wisp of smoke.
Chapter 47
For a woman who's life had been one long dark secret, this was one she struggled with. Sandra stocked the freezer, fridge and pantry, and hadn't been mean with the beer and wine. Steve had been busy, using the last of the frozen food to make a slightly odd, but pleasant stew. It simmered in the slow cooker, ready for when they were.
'I've missed you,' said Steve.
'Well, here I am.'
There was a quietness about her; more than just her natural air of mystery.'Are you alright?'
She dodged that one.'How's Ferret and Nick getting on?'
'Struggling, I think. They're in the pool.'
'I might join them. A quick dip before we eat.'
Steve took her by her shoulders. He was lucky she had her reactions in check and didn't send him flying across the room to crash against the wall. She took his hands from her shoulders and walked out the room towards the pool. He watched her go, wanting to follow, sensing that to be the wrong thing to do.
Ferret and Nick were drinking beer as they wallowed in the warm water. Sandra looked at the gawky computer genius who now thanks to her, also carried death in his hands. He was her son in law and now to be the father of her first grandchild. To anyone else it would have been wonderful news.
Her mind had been in a whirl deciding whether to tell him or not. She cursed her brother for letting slip that news. If she told Ferret, he would be off like a rocket, back to his wife and unborn baby. She had no doubt their mission would be over, the terrorists free to do their worse, putting the world into a spin, unleashing the hell of world war as a consequence. There would be time to play happy families later. The priority was to ensure there was a world to play happy families in.
There was nothing for it but to shoulder the burden of the secret until later. She looked at the young men in the pool, her emotions coursing through her, her mind full of the idea about being a grandmother. Jeez. Where had her life gone? As she pulled her swimming costume on behind the changing screen, she saw the scars. She hadn't won all of her fights. Two bullet wounds, one in her chest, one in her thigh. Several knife wounds. Two had been life threatening.
The scars that troubled her most were the ones when on two separate occasions she had slipped up badly, early on in her career. Small round dots from cigarette burns. A few on her breasts, one on her left nipple. That one had really hurt. There were times when her fingers still hurt from having her fingernails pulled out with pliers.
She generally worked alone, but there were times even she needed help. Mostly in the form of like-minded people whom she could rely on for leads and information. Years ago, one such contact had slipped up in his personal quest towards world peace. No trial, no protestations of innocence listened to. Just beatings and to be thrown in a notorious, isolated prison, from which nobody got out alive. Had the same fate befallen her, no way would she expect anyone to come to her rescue. But with the boot on the other foot, it was something she committed herself to, to do the impossible and get her friend out.
The brutal establishment's own reputation was actually in her favour; the guards becoming complacent, convinced of their invincibility. Just its proximity to the formidable range of mountains kept one half of the world out, the single rough road, snaking through jungle and harsh terrain was the single artery to the nearest town. Political prisoners, those with the audacity to speak out against their leaders, would suddenly disappear and would end up in that prison.
Guards were specially selected for their inhumanity; men who enjoyed their job of brutalising those helpless victims. So like the “ghost” she could become, she had found a weakness and one night, had entered the prison.
She carried no weapons. She never did. Weapons had once got her into trouble. The guards, well fed and sleepy after a hard day breaking bones, were easy to elude. Finding the one she was there to help was more problematic. There were a hundred stonewalled cells, with thick steel doors with a small grill for guards to see inside. The locks were basic, one key fits all types, the original antiques.
Using the shadows and her catlike stealth, she finally found him. At first she had been unsure it was him, his face so beaten. A quick look both ways along the corridor, five seconds on the lock and she was in
side the tiny stinking cell.
There was no furniture in the cell apart from a single steel chair. No, bed, nothing but the chair. Prisoners were often tied to the chair, to be ignored for days on end, no food or water given. Cables were sometimes attached to the chairs to administer electric shocks. It was great sport amongst the guards to bet on just how much current could be given without quite killing the prisoner. The smell of burning flesh was a source of much amusement.
At one end of the cell was a gutter set into the concrete floor, with a hole in the wall either end for the gutter to go from one cell to the other. This gutter served two purposes. In the hours the prisoners were not tied to the chair, they could use it to defecate and urinate in so it became an open sewer. The guards simply had to hose it away when they had a mind to do so. Similarly, blood could be hosed away down it, too.
The gutter frequently became blocked and the stench would build up into an eye watering, choking mist even the rats refused to swim down. Sandra had almost gagged when she had entered.
She went to her friend. He was naked and his head was slumped over. He stank of his own filth, deliberately left by the guards. It had taken less than a week to turn him into the broken shell of a man he once was.
Forcing her anger deep down inside her, she opened one of his eyes with her thumb. Although open, it was unseeing. She knew she couldn't drag him out and deal with any guards who got in her way as well. She tried to wake him, and he started to groan as consciousness brought back the pain and she clamped her hand over his mouth.
'Shush. It's me. I need you to walk.'
And then she saw his feet. They had been smashed to a pulp and were turning black from gangrene. Left unchecked, the gangrene would slowly kill him. It was what the guards wanted. She knew it was impossible for him to stand or walk. All he had to look forward to was a slow and excruciating death.
'I am so sorry.'
Sandra kissed his his bloody forehead. He stirred and looked at her.
'Am I dreaming?'
'No. I'm here.' It was painful to watch him try to talk.
'Tell my family I love them.'
Sandra was not one for crying, but she wiped away her tears. 'I will. I'm so sorry.'
She held his head to her body, stroked his hair matted with blood, twisted hard and ended his life. Then behind her, she heard the steel door open.
Chapter 48
Three guards pointed their long barrelled fixed butt Heckler and Koch H K 33 weapons at her. The door was slammed shut by another guard on the outside and locked. Even she couldn't fight her way out of this one. The blow to her head from the butt of a gun was the last thing she remembered.
She had drifted in and out of consciousness, her face and body
a mass of bruises from being beaten and blistered lips from being deprived of water for three days. Her body had been close to giving up. But not her spirit. Never her spirit. It was that same indomitable spirit that had landed her in her present predicament in the first place.
She dreamt of her husband, knowing he had died grieving for her. She thought about Poppy, her wonderful daughter. She had given everything up to make sure her family would stay safe. She wasn't about to let that sacrifice be for nothing. Whatever it took, she was going to live for her daughter.
Deliberately slowly, she had lost three nails on her left hand to the pliers and had still not talked. They had made the mistake of leaving her alive to drip blood on the filthy concrete floor, tied to a chair, locked in a cell in a country far from home. The body of her friend had been left on the floor of the cell.
She had to watch fat rats feed on his flesh, unhurried, occasionally stopping to sniff around her legs, then continuing eating the rotting carcass. Some had burrowed into the soft flesh of the belly, pulling out and running away with pieces of entrails, disappearing through the hole in the wall, taking its prize along the river of urine. This not only sickened her, but strengthened her resolve to take revenge for her friend.
At daylight, the heavy footsteps had stomped along the stone-flagged corridor; keys, chains and locks had rattled. From other cells came the sound of prisoners being beaten, welcoming in another day. A dawn chorus of screams; the stench of burning flesh. But not in her cell, not that morning. She spoke their language enough to know they had planned more than just fingernail pulling and beatings.
Women espionage agents were relatively rare, and good looking ones, rarer still. As the key jiggled in the rusting lock, the guards day was going to go down hill. The first thing they had seen was the empty chair. The ropes had gone, too.
They scratched their greasy locks and then from above them, a lariat suddenly roped the two big men together. She still had one good hand and with that, she pummeled their heads with her fist and followed up with her knees. They hit the ground, but she was too far gone to stop. It was all pouring out and it was time for some payback. Ears were good, ears were best. She latched onto those ears and smashed backs of skulls into the ground, turning both men into blubbering messes. The backs of their skulls gradually sounded progressively more like pulped melon as again and again, they hit the ground, blood flowing easily.
And then she gouged out their eyes. Digging deep into their sockets, her finger probing deep, she felt her finger hook under their eyeballs, then she pulled them out with a satisfying plopping sound. And then the eyeballs lay there on their cheeks, bloody tendrils, looking at her, but not seeing anything. She took the eyeballs in her hands, feeling the slime, feeling the blood. She stared at them, which was more than they could do to her. Their eyes hung down on their cheeks, blood running off their chins.
She enjoyed their screaming, but she didn't want to have her cell stormed by more guards. Grabbing their ears, she slammed her knee into their mouths, smashing teeth, disabling speech. Their heads were again bashed into the stone floor until their skulls became mush. Not quite enough. One carried a knife. Bowie shaped and sheathed. She got hold of the handle, real animal bone, and withdrew it from the leather sheath.
Then, as their pathetic bodies squirmed and twitched,she undid their trouser flies. She cupped them and squeezed very hard. There wasn't as much reaction as she would have liked as the razor sharp blade sliced off their testicles. She opened their mouths and pushed the bloody genitals into them, then she cupped their broken dying chins and forced them to chew.
'This is your last meal, boys. An English favourite. Spotted dick. All fresh ingredients. Enjoy.'
They had died with their own penises hanging from their dying, blood gurgling mouths. It made some kind of sick sense.
'Jeez. You two gave up easily. I'd only just got started.'
Taking their guns, she went out of her cell and killed five men. Only another couple of dozen more guards to go. She decided she shouldn't have all the fun. All the other prisoners were released and it was time for her to go. She shot the two guards on the gate towers and they had fallen at her feet into the courtyard. One had died instantly, his glassy dead eyes staring up at her, his limbs lying at impossible angles.
The other one although badly wounded, made the mistake of trying to grab her ankles. She knelt down, her shin across his windpipe. She enjoyed the moment, watching his eyes bulge and his tongue poking out of his mouth, turning blue. She pressed a little harder; something gave way in his neck. Like the others, he had died a little too quickly for her liking.
'Next time I have to deal with scum like you, they had better be worth the bother, you bunch of pussies.'
Behind her came a satisfying sound of rebellious yelling, gunfire and prisoners taking their revenge. Sometimes, screams were good.
A single shot to the lock on the gate and it creaked open like a vampires coffin. The wind whistled around her, freezing her bones. She was suddenly free. Before her, a mountain range of wild, snow filled terrain and two hundred miles of biting hell to cross to claim freedom. It was impossible. More than a human being could possibly endure. Many would have given up there and then. Not Sand
ra Mitchell. She started walking.
Now here she was, still fighting the enemies of her country, her son in law sipping beer in the pool, unaware he was the father of her first grandchild. She covered up most of her scars with the swimming costume, and slipped into the warm water.
'Had a good day?' Ferret asked her.
She shrugged. 'Just a little shopping.'
Chapter 49
Bernie was also in a dilemma. Sitting alone at home in his armchair, he was in a reflective mood. Brothers who loved their sisters went out for meals together; sent each other cheesy birthday cards; swapped sad and happy memories about their lives, their family; laughed together at embarrassing photographs. They slipped each other money when things got tough; looked out for each other.
What they didn't do was wonder what insane adventure they were on and whether or not they would survive. A happy family reunion, or throwing a rose on a coffin in a dark, cold grave as a final farewell? That was a choice?
His sister was an enigma. He wondered if he'd ever really known Sandra. Had there ever been signs of the tough woman she was to become? Four years in age difference and centuries in life seemed to separate them. Other than the time she had hurt her knee falling off her bicycle aged eight, he could recall only one other time he had stepped in to help her as kids.
Two girls, bigger and older had been bullying her at school. They both lived nearby. Bernie's mother had told him. You have to look out for your sister. That same mother had also instilled in him, Bernie, you never hit girls. What was he to do?
He had seen Sandra cry once too often. As he'd cycled home from school, he saw one of the girls. Fat and ugly and smug looking. He pulled up on his bike and dropped it to the ground and got off.
'I want a word with you,' he'd told her. He grabbed her collar and dragged her along the street to his house. He knocked on the door. His mother and Sandra opened it. 'You got something to say to my sister?'
