by A P Bateman
“And a bloody great storm on the way,” added Rashid. “So, kicking about in the woods isn’t an option. Not for everybody, at least.”
Ramsay frowned. “Meaning?”
Rashid stood up and opened the laptop beside him. He switched it on and said, “Marnie has run a topography program and we’re left with a map that shows the three most suitable places for a person to come in by foot across the border,” he paused. “Given the location of the power station and the hotel, and natural obstacles like ravines and cliffs that Fitzpatrick would have been aware of, it really narrows it down to one place. I can get out there, get a snow hole dug out and hunker down. I have the best clothing available and some modern aids, I can see out this storm.”
Ramsay nodded. He couldn’t help noticing the look of concern on Marnie’s face. He looked back at King and said, “What do you think?”
King shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt. If he gets out there soon it will not only act as a welcoming, but a good contingency if she is followed.” He looked at Rashid and said, “I’ve got some kit you might be interested in. Come to my room after this.”
“Am I going to want to know what?” Ramsay asked.
“No.”
“But the storm?” Marnie interjected. “The polar vortex they have predicted will take temperatures as low as minus sixty!”
Ramsay held up his hand. “If Rashid thinks he’ll be okay, I’ll go with it,” he said tersely. “Rashid are you okay with it?”
“Sure, no bother.”
“Are we bringing in this guy, Peter Stewart?” Marnie asked. “I mean, if he’s MI6, then surely we need to cooperate with him?”
“The jury’s out for the moment,” Ramsay said. “We’ll have to bring him in at some stage, but for now, let’s keep both you and Rashid out of it. He’s working with King, so he’ll know about Caroline and her…” he hesitated and said, “…troubles last summer. That’s why MI6 are pulling one over on MI5, after all. I’ve moved up a notch with Simon Mereweather’s promotion to deputy director, and with that, I imagine he will have an inkling who I am. We’ll not assume, just take it as given that he knows me. But he will have no reason or even the means to know our newest field recruit, nor just a secretary and analyst.”
“None taken…” Marnie said quietly.
Caroline smiled and gave her a wink.
King shrugged. “It won’t hurt.”
“You don’t trust him?” Ramsay asked.
“No.”
“Because?”
“Because he tried to pull the rug out from underneath me once.”
“Any other reason?”
King took something out of his pocket. A small, orange lozenge. He turned it over in his hand and held it out for Ramsay. “Because he found this and didn’t tell me.”
“You took it off him?” Ramsay asked, taking it an undoing the cap to reveal a stubby USB flash drive.
King nodded. “Fitzpatrick buried it in the ice, moments before he died. It was important enough for him to spend his last moments trying to hide it. His fingers were ruined in doing so. The ice split his skin and he tore out a couple of fingernails. I found it but didn’t get time to retrieve it before the Sami hunter shot at me. Stewart found it when he searched the body of the Sami after he tried to ambush us. I thought I saw him palm it then. He was so worried about finding it, he didn’t check the body further. When I found a couple of bullets in the man’s pockets, I knew I’d seen Stewart pocket something. It makes sense now, but at the time I was shocked that he had shot him. I was wrestling the guy down, tricky on the ice, but I was getting there. Stewart just shot the man in the back of the head. I was freezing and needed to get my jacket back on, so I wasn’t watching him when he searched the Sami. When I turned around, I thought I saw him put something in his pocket. I picked his pocket as we got to the hotel. When we pushed the snowmobile into some brush to hide it.”
“And Stewart hasn’t twigged it was you?”
“He will have by now.”
“So, he won’t trust you.”
“He doesn’t anyway.”
“No?”
King shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“An uneasy accord, then,” Ramsay mused.
“In which to bide my time,” said King.
“For what?”
King looked thoughtful for a moment before answering. “Before he tries to kill me,” he paused. “Or I kill him.”
35
The Inari Falls Paatsjoki River Hydroelectric Plant
Russia
She checked the site clock. She was half-way through her window of opportunity and she still had to deal with the air-lock and remove the protective clothing. She wasn’t sure she would make it, but she needed to speak to the two people – her two former colleagues. She needed to see if she could get them free or, with time so critical, just assure them that she would not give up on them, that she could give them hope. What evil was happening here? How could two people be caged alongside primates and monkeys? Who was behind this absurdity?
Natalia had entered the keypad pin she had memorised. It operated a second air-lock. The light went from red through to green and the second door opened with a whoosh. Her helmet was fitted with a fibre particle filter, but she had a sudden panic, as if it were too late, whether whatever was being tested here was an airborne disease, and whether the particle filter was enough to clean the air. She took a deep breath. It was too late now. And she was too close to those two poor souls to backout now. She walked past the first row of cages, close enough for the rhesus monkey to swipe an arm close enough to her for her to jump backwards. She glanced up at the CCTV cameras, realising that in her haste to see the prisoners, her former colleagues, she had put herself in clear view. On record. She panicked, picked up the pace as she walked past the chimpanzee enclosure. She could see that the enclosure was separated into four sections, with a solemn-looking beast in each cage. They did not share the rhesus monkey’s enthusiasm for visitors. She caught the eye of one of the larger chimpanzees. Sad and resigned to fate.
The gorilla was a large male weighing in at more than four-hundred pounds. To her horror, Natalia could see that one of its hands was chained to the wall. Dried blood and torn flaps of skin had formed around the cuff on the chain, and the hair had been worn away. The beast shared eye contact with her, but the look was far more emotive than that of the chimpanzees. It wasn’t fear, nor anger. It was pure rage. Before Natalia could cover the distance of the width of the cage, the gorilla lunged at her and smashed its left fist into the mesh, stretching it and straining the bars. Its right wrist was shackled, but she could see the chain straining against the steel loop in the wall. The wound around its wrist tore open and bled as it tried to get to her, the look in its eyes one of shear hate. Baring its teeth, it let out a deep, resonating grunt. Its fingers had now gripped the mesh and it was using the chain to pull backwards, heaving at the barrier between them. Natalia ran, covering the distance between the two enclosures in seconds, despite the bulky over-boots and thick rubber suit. As she reached the enclosure with the two separate cages, her former work colleagues within, she noticed that the gorilla had forgotten about her and had returned to its bench, sitting contemplatively back down. Pure rage to sedentary in just a few seconds, with no apparent memory of what had incited it so.
Natalia hesitated outside the enclosure. Both the man and the woman were naked. Now that she was closer, she could see welts on their back and buttocks. Both rested on their sides, their backs to her. She approached the cage. The noise of the angry gorilla had not disturbed them, but she could not believe that had been the case. The noise would have woken an entire neighbourhood. She coughed, but neither stirred. She looked at the lock on the gate. A series of bolts recessed into the metal, so that only someone from outside, and standing at an angle to the enclosure could work them. She eased the three bolts backwards.
She turned around, checked for a clock, but there was nothing but a blank wall w
ith the row of CCTV cameras spaced opposite each enclosure. Her finger and thumb still clenched on the last remaining bolt, she looked back to the cage, recoiled when she stared straight into the woman’s face. She went to step backwards, but the woman had squeezed a bloodied hand through the mesh and had taken hold of the rubber suit.
Natalia screamed and tried to batter the woman’s hand away with her gloved hands. She looked into the woman’s eyes, but they were lifeless and yellow. Her face was blistered with tiny burns that looked like weeping pimples. She was perspiring and as Natalia looked down at the woman’s vice-like fist, gripping at her clothing, she could see that the woman had lost bladder and bowel control long before Natalia had entered.
The woman’s head lolled and swayed, and Natalia realised that she was in fact blind, merely turning her head as she sensed her presence, felt her clothing and listened for her erratic breathing.
“Let go of me!” Natalia wailed. The woman’s head cocked to one side and she pulled hard at the handful of rubber suit. “Please! I’ll help you!”
The man had got up off the bench. His eyes were not as yellow as the woman’s. They were raw and red and wet. He too had lost control of his bodily functions, and he was covered in the same tiny boils. His teeth were broken, and his gums were bleeding. He stepped closer then lunged at the mesh, biting and chewing on the wire, teeth breaking and splintering to the floor. He had squeezed his fingers through the mesh, but the little finger did not fit, and he was breaking it slowly as he clawed at her. The web of the join of skin was cutting on the wire, and as he lunged, the little finger almost severed through. He did not seem to feel the pain, nor register what he had done. His only intent was to get to her.
Natalia punched and struck the woman’s hand and fell backwards when she released her grip. She looked up at the two people, now no more than beasts, clawing and biting on the mesh. The cage door was opening outwards and she kicked it shut, the mesh hitting the woman in the face. The door did not clip shut. Natalia got to her feet but did not look back as she ran down the row of cages. Out of her periphery, she saw the gorilla charge at the mesh as she passed, heard the great smash of metal, the hinges bearing the brunt of three-hundred or more pounds of angry beast. She reached the airlock, typed in the code, but pressed the wrong digit and the unit sounded a short bleep. Two chances remaining. She could hear more cages rattling, the solid crash of metal as the gorilla smashed against the cage again. She glanced backwards, saw the bulge of the mesh. She turned back to the keypad but faltered and cursed as the bleep sounded again. Natalia could hear the cages rattling, the noise consuming her. She realised she had not breathed for the entire time. She could hear own pulse thudding in her ears. It was almost enough to drown out the noise of the cages.
Almost…
Natalia got the code entered and to her relief, the door hissed open. She turned to see the gorilla smashing out through the cage, its hand severed and bleeding. It looked up to see her and started to charge down past the cages. Behind it, Natalia caught sight of the woman stepping out from her cage. She had turned towards the noise and was walking tentatively down the corridor. Each step seemed laboured, and she swayed unsteadily, her equilibrium clearly off kilter.
Time stood still as she waited for the light to change. The gorilla reached the door and started to smash its fist and bloodied stump against the Perspex. The blood smeared and streaked, and the look of anger on the animal’s face was insurmountable. The woman had reached the end of the corridor too. She stood alongside the frantic gorilla at the door, placed her fingers on the glass. The gorilla did not look at her, or even acknowledge her existence. She had cocked her head again, trying to sense her rather than see her. Natalia heard the whoosh of the airlock, looked up and saw the green light and breathed a sigh of relief as she bounded through and the door closed behind her, putting another door between herself and the hell on the other side. She could hear screaming, realised it was her own voice. She looked at the clocks, saw by the site clock that she was down to five minutes left in her window. She looked back at the bank of monitors, then down at the CCTV receiver. She could see it was a digitised unit. She snatched the USB out of the front and gripped it tightly. She still had her mobile clenched in her gloved hand, and it was still filming. As she ran for the second air-lock, she could see the timer running. It would make for chaotic viewing, but she doubted she would make it out alive to give to her contact. She would have to bank on the time window being a conservative estimate. Perhaps whoever had arranged this, had factored in some leeway. She certainly hoped so.
Inside the air-lock, Natalia picked up the spray cannister like she had been instructed and sprayed liberally all over the gloves, boots and suit. She paid extra attention to the helmet and hood. Satisfied she had been completely doused in the chemical, she ripped at the tape on her wrists and ankles and kicked off the boots. She tore off the gloves and removed the helmet. The air tasted better without the filter, and she breathed deeply, her heart still pounding. She unzipped the suit but winced when she reached her stomach. She looked down, horrified to see a section of the yellow rubber had been torn. She got the suit off, reached her fingers inside her cardigan and touched the wound. Natalia looked at her fingertips, suddenly feeling nauseous when she saw them glinting in the light, bloodied and wet.
36
They had separated. Ramsay had gone down to the bar with the aim of chatting casually to the waitress, who had been a free source of information. He would make a point of tipping her when she brought his drink, ask about the hotel and try not to look at her breasts. That had been Caroline’s advice. Eye contact, sincerity and make it clear he wasn’t hitting on her. He was twenty-five years her senior and his wedding ring had practically grown into his ring finger.
Caroline had gone down to the bar, where she was going to drink coffee and simply watch the world go by. She would scroll on her phone, apparently uninterested in her fellow guests, but take film and photos of anybody of interest. She would send them to Marnie, who would be in her own room connected to the Wi-Fi and comparing the photos to MI5’s Russian personnel database. A hard-won asset that the Russian’s had no idea had been compromised. In the meantime, Marnie would also be working on unlocking and viewing the flash drive.
King had taken the bundle out from under his bed and placed it on the bed for Rashid to examine.
Rashid unwrapped the coat to reveal the Sami’s rifle, the barrel and magazine removed.
“This will be handy,” he said.
“Right up your street.”
“Ammo?”
“Just the five rounds.”
“Not even enough to check the zero.” Rashid looked deflated. “How am I going to know if it shoots straight?”
King shrugged. “Well, happy bloody Christmas…”
Rashid pulled a face. “You know what I mean.”
“The Sami was around a hundred yards from me when he took his shot. I was reaching for that USB drive and he damned-near took my hand off. I reckon a hunter will zero to minute of accuracy at one-hundred metres, no more than one-fifty. It’s a three-oh-eight, it can take deer, black bears and wolves, but it’s pushing it for large bull moose and brown bears at a distance greater than three-hundred metres. So, he’d have to be close to cover the big game up here. I reckon it’s zeroed for close kills. He’d stalk and get near. It’s not a theatre of war, and nor is it a rifle range. It’s the wild, and it’s all about one shot, one kill. Protecting yourself and putting food on the table. The scope is only a four by forty. That would indicate one-fifty metres, say two-hundred tops.”
“So, you’re saying bank on it being accurate at those ranges?” Rashid shrugged. “I suppose it’s all I can go on. Unless I can get some more ammo?”
King shook his head. “That’s not going to be easy.”
Rashid nodded. “Well, it’s better than nothing, I suppose.”
“Well, that’s it,” King said. “Socks for you next time.” He watched as Ras
hid put the rifle together. It was a simple screw in the bottom of the fore-stock. Once the barrel had recessed into three lugs, the screw tightened it all together. Rashid used a coin to turn the head of the screw. “Keep the bullets as warm as you can, close to your body. Load them when you want to fire, and remember, with this freezing air, the second round will be the accurate one.”
“Thanks, dad. But I learned a fair bit about warmed barrels and cold shots when I was with the SAS.”
“Keep up the attitude and you’ll get a ticket back there.” King chided. “How is the colonel’s daughter anyway?”
“Bastard.”
“I’d leave that particular piece of personnel integration off your CV if I were you.”
Rashid smiled. “I’ve moved on, mate.”
“I can see that.”
“Meaning?”
“Nice a cosy with the analyst bird.”
“She’s got a name,” Rashid said tersely. “Christ, you’re as bad as Ramsay.”
“Now do I go around taking Allah’s name in vain?”
Rashid shrugged. “You can if you want. Two billion people can’t be wrong.”
“Well, by that logic the other five billion are barking up the wrong tree then.” King smiled. “Or pillar…”
“I miss our intellectual chats,” Rashid said. “Remind me when we start to have one, won’t you?”
“Marnie, then,” said King. “Nice girl. Unusual for her to be here. Ramsay must like her.”
“Piss off,” he paused, looking at King’s teasing expression. “I like her. We’re casual. I don’t want anything to get in the way of work. Imagine if we got close, then some nutjob kidnapped her and I went off on a rampage that compromised the service, put people’s lives at risk and stirred up troubles with foreign governments…”
“Okay, twist the knife,” King conceded. “You’re no fun anymore…”
