by Robert Wilde
Joe wasn’t wrong. Although kept blind, thirsty and in need of the toilet, the journey was over relatively quickly, and soon the bag was pulled off. Joe didn’t have time to check out the people around him, as he was pulled out of the van, hands unfastened, moved through a building at speed, and then sat in a small, dark room, on a basic wooden chair. There looked like a table of some sort behind him, and a pair of chairs in front.
He paid for the squinting when the light was switched on, and when the stinging went away and he looked round he found a smartly dressed man with a build to play rugby at one of the more violent positions.
“Hello Doctor le Tissier, my name is Kosar.”
“Who do you work for?” Joe forced out, then coughed.
“Let’s get you a drink,” Kosar ordered, and a flunky squirted water into Joe’s mouth, which he savoured.
“Does it matter who I work for?”
“Yes.”
“I see. You will make an extra special effort to stay silent if I’m with the Chinese, but perhaps you’ll weaken quicker if I’m CIA?” He smiled at Joe. “Well Doctor, I work for MI5. Does this appeal to your patriotism?”
“No.” Could it be?”
“It also means absolutely no one is coming to rescue you. Shall we begin?” Joe stayed silent. “You were a leading part of a research team which invented a special device that can talk to the dead.”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
Kosar smiled. “We’ve been bugging you for weeks, we have enough recordings to know this is true,” and Kosar waved a finger. Joe heard his own voice explaining the machine.
“Fuck.”
“The question is not, does this machine exist? The question is, how does it work?” Kosar was expecting many reactions, but not Joe smiling. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know how it works. Honestly, I don’t. It was a magical accident in the lab. I couldn’t even begin to explain it.”
Joe stuck to the story during the next hour, as Kosar quizzed him constantly to break down his defences. But Joe had an advantage, he had nothing to hide. He could give only the truth. This didn’t satisfy Kosar.
“Tie him down to the table.”
Dee pulled up a spoonful of the pasta sauce, smelt it, licked it, looked back down and shouted into the lounge “if Joe takes any longer this is going to turn into napalm.”
“I thought we weren’t having one of your curries tonight,” Nazir shouted back, and Dee just smirked and looked back down. You’d think spaghetti bolognaise would be easy, just mix it all together and make sure the pasta didn’t stick, but when Joe was already forty minutes late the timings were off.
“He better have a good excuse,” Dee shouted back.
“Maybe he’s been buying you an extra-large box of wine.”
“He better fucking have.”
They didn’t want to start without Joe, they never wanted to start without any of them, although of course they would if one let them know they’d be late. But on this occasion Joe hadn’t said anything.
“Try his mobile again,” Dee called out. Nazir did so, and listened to it ringing before shouting back “still no answer.”
Which was odd, because a tech nerd like Joe was strapped to his phone at all times. He’d even given the other three in the group ringtones, although Dee wasn’t sure why hers had recently been changed to the Imperial March from Star Wars. Perhaps their friendly chat had unexpected repercussions.
“Maybe his car has broken down?” Pohl suggested.
“And his phone too?” Nazir replied.
“Maybe he took it apart to add GPS to the machine.”
“That is very much the sort of thing he’d do professor.”
“I…” and Pohl stopped.
“Professor?”
“Dee, come in here a minute,” and she did as Pohl’s raised voice bid her.
“What is it Pohl?”
“Joe is late. His phone isn’t being answered. He’s never late for anything involving you. One might even go as so far to say he’s missing.”
Dee and Nazir pondered on the weight she gave to that final word. Then they realised.
“We’ve been bugged, one of us has dropped out of contact,” Dee gasped.
“The one who knows about the machine. Oh shit.”
Dee yanked a phone out of her pocket. “Who are you calling?” Nazir asked.
“Peters….hello, Peters, it’s Dee Nettleship.”
“Hello Dee, I haven’t concluded anything yet I’m afraid.”
“It’s not that. Joe, the scientist, we don’t know where he is.”
Peters became grave. “You’re sure he’s missing?”
“He’s uncharacteristically late, and even more uncharacteristically not answering his phone, the same day we find bugs.”
“I see your concern.”
“Could you, err, MI5 have taken him?”
“I’m sad to say, but that is something we do. Let me make a few urgent calls, but first I have a few questions for you.”
Joe was tied down to a table, his body stretched out. A thin plastic sheet had been placed over his face, particularly his mouth, and this was held in place while water was poured down onto his head. He felt like he was drowning, desperate for air, suffocating as he struggled, and every so often the sheet would be removed, he would gulp air down, and the question would be asked: “how does the machine work.”
Joe had lost all sense of time, he could have been in there for a whole day, and the calm and control he’d fought to achieve earlier had gone. He was now a panicked, a drowning animal.
Finally Kosar stood, walked over and looked down at his notes. He was prepared to believe this scientist really didn’t have any specific detail on how his machine worked. There was almost no chance Joe was resisting the interrogation, which made him a declining asset. The question now remained: did he take the machine apart to solve its design by working backwards, or was the scientist right and any attempt to examine it would destroy the quantum state inside and render it useless? A question well outside his area of understanding, but one he could pass on. It was time to ring some experts and get information from sweet talking, although he’d have loved to waterboard them too.
Dee snatched the phone from the table, jabbed the button, and Nazir and Pohl craned their heads in to see what was said.
“Peters!”
“Yes, it’s me, how are you all doing Dee?”
“Fine, fine, what have you found?”
“There’s good news and there’s bad news. The former is that, based on the situation, I’m happy to conclude that MI5 is currently in possession of Joe.” Dee pulled a ‘we knew that already’ face to the others.
“You’ve got a strange definition of good news.”
“The bad news is I have no idea who’s got him, or where he might be.”
“Okay, your definition of bad news is spot on. So what are you doing about it?”
“Firstly, there will be a car outside your door in two minutes. I want you all to get inside, and be driven to a safe location. I won’t give it over this line, but be assured I am here, as are a few other things.”
“And secondly?”
“I have the germ of a plan, but it needs time.”
“What if Joe doesn’t have time? He could be on a plane to Guantanamo by now.”
“I appreciate that Joe is at risk, but I need a little longer. Please, just get in the car and get here.”
Peters now went, and Dee had to explain it to the others, although it took two attempts as she was tripping over her tongue so much. Then the doorbell rang, and the group went en masse just to make sure no one else vanished. But there was a man with a car that looked like any other, so they grabbed bags, got in and were driven off.
“Where are going?” Dee asked from the front passenger seat.
“London.”
“Any more specific?”
“No.”
“Can we at least p
ut some tunes on,” Nazir said fearing a long and boring journey.
“Of course. But no jazz.”
They drove for several hours, until the car pulled up down at the entrance to what could only be described as a base: barbed wire fences, guards who were no doubt armed, all credentials checked. It was like the lab complex Joe had once worked on if a competent government was really in charge.
Nazir tensed, expecting trouble, but the driver showed a pass and was let straight through. They even ignored the car park and drove through the complex of brick buildings, until they parked up.
“Is this it?” Dee asked to try and wheedle some information, but the driver remained quiet. A minute later Peters appeared from the door, so the trio got out with their stuff and shook hands.
“Very pleased you could make it.”
“We didn’t exactly have a choice. So where are we?”
“Now you’re here I can tell you. This is where we moved the Array.”
“The brains are all here? It still exists?” Pohl gasped.
“Yes, we moved the whole thing.”
“Does it work?” Nazir said.
“Come inside, we need to talk.”
“About your plan?” Dee said. “You’ve had a few hours, have you had enough time?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you discover?”
“My limits.”
“Your what? I thought you were finding Joe not having therapy.”
“No Dee, the limits on what I am prepared to do. And I discovered I’m happy to break the rules to rescue someone like Joe.”
“How?” Dee said growing excited.
By now the group had reached an internal checkpoint and Peters had them all signed in and allowed through a large, safe like door. Then there was a brief corridor and another, smaller, door was opened. Inside was the array, a room filled with brains organised on long rows.
“It doesn’t get less creepy,” Nazir observed.
“I am prepared to use the Array to find Joe.”
“Ah.”
Peters walked up to the screens, flicked a switch, and began to talk.
“I need you to find someone,” he said, “the details are on this stick,” and a small oblong was plugged into a socket.
“Joe le Tissier, Doctor, Scientist, Missing.” This voice was digital, like the machine, and coming from the array.
“Yes,” Peters confirmed, “I want to know where he is and who took him. You’re searching inside MI5.”
“Searching.”
“How long will this take?” Nazir asked.
“The Array is, well, we’re learning how to use it. But I suggest you take a chair.”
“How about some coffee and sugar filled snacks,” Pohl suggested.
“You’ll need to hover in the corridor, but of course.”
The trio wolfed down chocolate and coffee, until Peters pulled the door open and waved them in. They surged back up to the screens and control panel.
“I have some information,” the Array said again.
“What is it?” Peters asked.
“I have identified the location of Joe le Tissier. I will overlay the data on a map for your convenience.” An Ordnance Survey now appeared, with a circle on it. “I will now draw data from Google Maps.” Now a satellite image appeared, and Peters breathed out in apparent surprise.
“What is it, what do you see?” Dee asked urgently.
“He’s not being kept on a base. This is just a safehouse, of sorts.”
“Why the shock?”
“It means we can go get him.”
“Ace,” Nazir said turning.
“Not you, but I can send a team and extract him.”
“You mean men with guns?”
“Sort of Dee, we have a lot of women with guns now too. Maybe you should consider a career change.”
“I have servants to do the killing.”
“Is that what you’re telling people?” Pohl said sniffily.
“So who did this?” Peters asked.
The Array almost seemed saddened. “I have been able to establish that MI5 is riddled with factions. Operating in secret from each other. It will take time to discover who has le Tissier.”
“Okay, keep searching, I’ve got a raid to plan.”
“Do you get to say that enough?” Nazir asked.
“To be honest, I’m not sure whether it’s enough or too much.”
There were few good things about the decline in traditional British manufacturing and the shift to a service economy, but if you ever wanted to hide something there were many good things. A surfeit of brown field sites where no one goes and with lots of cheap space, it was a blessing, and Kosar had outlined one site on the edge of London to use for his purposes. In truth he had several such sites, but Joe had been put in this one pending a decision on his future.
There was another advantage of brownfield sites, and that was no one ever went there. Which sounds the same as the previous paragraph, but that was for hiding things, and this advantage was no one seeing you raid it. So when two minibuses full of men pulled up nearby, a range of plain clothes individuals jumped out and fanned into a pattern around the location, no one saw it happen. Each individual now closing had pistols, which they were trained to use, but also carried a taser, as the aim was to arrest not kill anyone they found. Peters had assumed the security wouldn’t start firing guns or else Joe would have been put on a very real, very armed base, and that Joe was floating in a netherworld of not officially being in custody. Stick him out here and he could more easily vanish, as opposed to having him signed into a base where he became part of the system.
The operation was brief and efficient. There were just four people inside the location, and as one of those was lying in a makeshift cell it was a simple matter to overpower, rescue, and withdraw. But there was a downside. A major problem.
Kosar picked up his phone and listened to the message.
“…the safehouse had been raided and le Tissier taken.”
“Any casualties?”
“Our men are also missing, presumed captured. But they don’t know enough to compromise us.”
“Of course not. Still, we must do our best to recover them. I presume this is the CIA?”
“Must be sir, must be, denying us the device.”
“Typical. Okay, thank you for letting me know.”
“What shall we do sir?”
“Let them have him. He can’t tell them anything useful, and we have the machine, in fact it’s on my desk in front of me. They’ll never get it here, I’m surrounded by a wall of bastards.”
“Excellent sir, excellent. And me?”
“I’ll send people with links to the CIA to get our own returned. You get back here, we’re convening a full meeting to show this device.”
Kosar put the phone down and pondered. Was there going to be a war between the agencies? Were spies going to fight and die over a new technology? Were the CIA going to prevent us, and more specifically me, thought Kosar, from developing machines like this? Wouldn’t be the first time, won’t be the last.
He’d have liked time to think, but there was never much of that. So time to act.
Peters was pacing the hall of the Array, while the trio sat on the floor of the corridor comfort eating their way through a free vending machine. That was, until they heard Peters phone ring when they jumped and went in.
“Good, good, oh, that’s not good,”
“What is it?” said an impatient Dee worried about the last part. Peters talked for a few seconds more, then put the phone down.
“Joe has been recovered. He’s safe, he’s in one piece, but he’s shaken up. Tortured to be honest.”
“Cunts.”
“Quite. But the machine wasn’t there.”
“Secondary to Joe.”
“Indeed, but…”
“The machine,” came a digital voice from behind them. “This machine can be used to speak to the dead?”
“I have found your faction.”
All turned to face the array. “Go on,” Peters commanded.
“I have discovered the existence of a secret research project, created in 1946. The aim was to look into the existence of souls and the potential for intelligence. A soul is a perfect spy, if you could talk to it.”
“Does this group have a name?”
“It did, until 2007.”
“What happened then?”
“An MI5 man called Kosar was given command. The project had floundered for decades. No funding, no results. Almost entirely dead. Kosar revived it, removed it from view.”
“With renewed money.”
“Most certainly. Furthermore, the situation has become urgent.”
“Oh?”
“The CIA has the ability to talk to the dead. Our agents are convinced they have an agent with this ability. We think he’s called Keyes.”
“Couldn’t be,” exclaimed Pohl.
“So Kosar discovered the machine,” and Dee ticked off on her fingers, proved it existed, and then removed it and Joe, so he could use it.”
“Perhaps as I should have done,” Peters mused.
“So where does this leave us?” Nazir asked.
“Where is Kosar and the project based?” Peters asked.
“You won’t want to hear this.”
“Odd thing for a computer to say,” Nazir said out loud. The Array stayed silent.
“Why not?” Peters asked.
“I am one hundred percent certain I know where Kosar, his project, and even the machine are currently located.”
Getting frustrated with the technology, Peters asked “well where!”
A map appeared, and Peters did a double take. It couldn’t be. But… “They’re on this base!”
“That is correct. They have the largest complex of buildings, over on the west side.”
“Did you just say here?” Nazir asked.
