by Tim Heath
“But we aren’t here to talk about my failings, Beth. The spotlight is solely on you, my dear. And what a performance you have been giving, up to now. But like all shows, the curtain has come down on you at last. The show’s over, darling–it’s time to face the music.”
The end of Elizabeth’s mouth twitched, just ever so slightly, as if the chance of a smile was there as if her face was begging her finally to release one. But it gave way, the moment passed, and the expressionless, emotionless facade continued. Those who were watching could only guess at the internal turmoil that must be going on behind the scenes.
Two traitors were rarely the same. Some would kill themselves before capture, their ultimate act of defiance. Death would be on their terms only. Maybe they didn’t trust themselves under examination, and maybe it was a shame thing. Others would sing, trying to win favour with their captors, as if that could undo the damage. Others went quiet. They were yet to place where Elizabeth fitted into that spectrum entirely. She wasn’t silent but also wasn’t saying much, anything of any real value anyway. She’d already seen off four interrogators, the latest proving little threat. None of them had found a way of getting under her skin. It seemed shame wasn’t an issue with Elizabeth; they had worked that angle quite a lot and yet nothing was sticking. The latest person would have to come up with something entirely different. Anything to get a reaction. The violence could come later, that wasn’t this current interrogator’s style. Still, there would be plenty of that down the line, if and when it was called for. The threat always had to become a reality otherwise the prisoners, especially the clever ones like Elizabeth, would win. Violence acted as a way of proving the usual rules didn’t count in this room. It was a handy thing to do at times, though would be for others to utilise in later sessions. Both women present knew that aggression wasn’t about to come into play and at that moment, that fact bothered the one asking the questions.
“You’ve not eaten anything all day. Surely let me get you something to eat. A drink perhaps? You never touched the tea that we brought you earlier.”
“And risk eating something I’d regret? Come on, that was basic training when we all signed on. You have to do better than that. What is it, no one here got the balls to come at me?”
She was saying that to the camera more than to the woman sitting before her, who now stood up, straightening her skirt as she paced around the room, thinking things through, doing her best to stay on top of the situation. Elizabeth didn’t take her eyes from her, except once to look at the clock on the wall. Her interrogator happened to pick up on that.
“Am I keeping you? Is this just some game to you? Do you think time will save you? Is that what you are doing here, sitting out the clock like some sports team? You think we play by those rules?”
“You all have to change over sometime,” she said, but there was no emotion in the comment.
The interviewer was about to retake her seat, picking up on another line of questioning, when an alarm sounded from outside the door. It was a building intruder alarm. She looked at Elizabeth out of reflex, thrown by the sound.
“It’s been a pleasure,” Elizabeth said with a broad smile on her face.
The change was powerful, like a kick in the guts, such was the sheer transformation showing on her face. Leaving Elizabeth in the chair, the interviewer walked away, going over to the door, a smile still apparently planted on the face of this previously emotionless prisoner. The interviewer had no idea what was going on. Exiting the room, cameras always watching and recording, she shut the door behind her and went in search of answers.
“Someone’s accessed a fire escape on the roof. It set the alarm off,” a man said, as he appeared at the door not long after the interviewer had emerged. He stayed as she went off in search of others.
“Quick, the roof,” she said as three armed soldiers came from the main control room. “Someone has opened the fire escape upstairs, and we have to assume they are hostile. Weapons ready,” she said, following the three men as they made their way up the first two floors. Doors were checked all the way up, and nothing was open, nothing unlocked. They made their way to the third floor, where the stairs for the loft access and fire escape ran off from the end of the main corridor. The door was closed that led up to the fire escape. Two men stood beside the door, as the third crouched down and took aim at the door, ready for when it was opened. The interviewer, who’d followed the three men there but was now just a spare part, kept back. The team opened the door and the two men stepped through, weapons raised, into the stairway. They climbed the stairs quickly, no sign of anyone around. There was nowhere someone could have hidden. Getting to the top of the stairs, it was clear that the security door was very much still shut. The seals that were on the inside that would have told them if the door had been opened were themselves still all unbroken. No one had recently come through this door.
“Damn!” she screamed from behind, the three men turning, all registering the same thing. They raced to the ground floor, practically running down the stairs, bounding them two at a time, before arriving outside the interrogation room. The female interviewer now also entered, out of breath, and was alarmed to see the door to the room that had held Elizabeth wide open, and stepping straight through it, the chair her prisoner had been secured in now empty.
“Damn you Elizabeth!” she swore. “Search the building. Search everywhere and get me the video feed for this room for the last five minutes.” One of the three soldiers went off to do what she had asked, as Peter and Lucy arrived through the main door having been alerted to the situation.
“What’s going on? Where is she?” Peter said.
“She must be here somewhere. We’re having the place searched.”
“How could this happen?” Lucy said, but not to anyone in general. She summed up how they all felt at that moment. Confused.
20
Washington DC & London
Adam Bennett had stepped outside from his meeting with the CIA to take the call from London. He was not happy to hear the news.
“This is a disaster. The Americans will eat us alive for this. They’ve been onto me constantly asking when they’ll get their hands on her. I’ll call back in half an hour. I’ll need a full report then, plus what you are doing to catch her again. There’ll be heads on the block if this one fails. Do you understand?”
There was no denying they did, as Adam shut his phone, swearing under his breath, taking a deep intake of air before re-entering the room in which he’d been meeting the Americans.
“Everything okay?” he was asked.
“Fine,” he said, taking his seat and pretending to listen for the rest of the meeting.
In London, the interviewer who’d last seen Elizabeth was sitting with Peter and Lucy in MI6 headquarters. They’d taken all surveillance footage they had with them, plus there were the various live feeds that the agency were watching themselves anyway. However, it was the footage from the hallway that was most interesting, and this was loaded into the system and now displayed on the screen in front of the three British agents plus some technicians. It showed the interviewer leave the room and speak to a man.
“Stop it there,” she said. “Look, this is the man who told me the door on the roof had been accessed.”
“Who is he?” Lucy said.
“We’ve no idea. No one reports seeing him before. Tony, can you get an angle on his face?” Peter said, turning to the technician nearest him.
“We’ll work on that. He’s not looked at the camera once.”
“Okay, play the tape,” Peter said, the image moving again now on the screen, the woman seen leaving the scene, the man just standing there for about five seconds. Then he went over to the door, his hands doing something that couldn’t be picked up on camera, before the door opened and he went inside quickly. The room camera, which MI6 had been watching directly, now showed the next scene. The man went over to Elizabeth, and with some sort of key in his hand he unlocked everyt
hing that was restraining her. She stood up, and the two embraced for a moment. There was warmth there. Maybe even love. They turned to exit, the man not once looking up, his head covered by a hood that he clearly had pulled up as he entered the room. It was only Elizabeth who looked up at the camera, a smile on her face and then an actual wave as she left the room. The hallway video feed showed them leaving the room and then they were out of shot. It was a further two minutes before there was movement again, the three soldiers appearing once more on the screen and then the female interviewer who walked into the room. The rest they knew.
“Jesus,” Peter said, taking a step back. “Was it him?”
“Who, the Chinese enforcer?” Lucy said.
“Yes,” Peter said, turning to the woman who’d carried out the interview and was the one told to her face by this man that the roof door had been accessed. “What did he look like? You spoke with him; surely you have some idea of a description? How did he sound?”
“It happened so fast,” the interviewer started. “I mean, this is meant to be a secure location. The alarm sounds, I come out of the room, and I meet someone outside the door who tells me what’s happened. That’s why I sent the soldiers upstairs. It all so threw me I didn’t question anything. Why would I? This is our building, no one knows about it. What was I meant to do? Ask for ID?”
“Look, we aren’t blaming you for this. We are just looking for answers.”
“I know how it goes. I was last with the prisoner; I let her go. I’m to blame. We’ve been around long enough to know how it goes, so don’t patronise me now. Don’t you think I still have an interest in catching her again.” She paused for a second in her flow, though neither of her two more senior colleagues said anything further before she added; “She knew he was coming for her. That’s what threw me.”
“I don’t follow?” Peter said.
“During the last few moments of the interview––look, take it back to a few minutes before the alarm sounded,” the interviewer said to the technician, who quickly set up the video, the image appearing once more on the screen after a few seconds. It started playing.
“I’d been watching her all day, we all had. She didn’t smile once. I couldn’t read her but knew there was something she was holding back. I’d only actually been in with her for less than half an hour when the alarm sounded. She hadn’t smiled once. I stood,” and right on cue on the screen in front it showed her getting up from the chair. “Watch her now,” she said. It showed Elizabeth glancing up at the clock, which was spotted by the interviewer, and they had some words after. Then the alarm sounded. “There, look the smile. She changed so dramatically, and it threw me. I think I was still reeling from it when I left the room. Maybe that was why I missed it. But it’s clear. She knew when it was going to happen precisely. She knew he was coming for her, knew that she would get rescued. She had to have known.”
“But how?” Lucy said.
“It’s quite obvious that she was up to a lot more than we ever realised. Highly possible, especially given the situation, that she’d found out the location of this building during her time with us. Someone must have leaked it to her, passing on the information. I mean, what would have been the risk? No one ever suspected her.”
“So how did the Chinese know we had her?”
“There are many answers for that. Maybe there was regular contact, though we’ve not picked up anything that might suggest this. But if there was and if it suddenly stopped, maybe procedure means they come looking for her? If they knew the location, then it would be the most obvious place to start. They could have watched the van arrive for all we know. Maybe she got a message to them.”
“You’ve still not told us about this man,” Lucy said. The technicians were still working on an angle for the guy’s face, but nothing was showing anything.
“I didn’t see his face. Don’t think I took him in at all. It was all happening so fast. He told me what I needed to hear, I had absolutely no reason to question that, given the circumstances, and left.”
“How did he sound?” The camera in the hallway, the video they’d brought back with them, was visual feed only.
“It was perfect English. What I mean, is nothing sounded out of the ordinary. I’m sure I’d have known otherwise. Something would have registered. But there was no accent.”
“Could it be someone else? Another agent, maybe another British double agent working for the Chinese?”
“It’s possible. We’ll have to look at that angle, too. But given what we know of this guy, the bio seems to fit. Gets inside the building without raising the alarm. Appears outside the main interrogation room and only picked up on a single camera. Sets a localised alarm off that brings Julie running out. They go upstairs for a maximum of three minutes. In that time he’s broken in, removed every lock from Elizabeth and made an escape, gone before we’ve even raised the alarm. Not another camera picked up where they went or how they escaped.”
“We can’t forget the embrace. Elizabeth knew this guy. They’d worked together before, maybe more.”
Peter looked at his watch. “Look, we’ve got to file this. Adam is calling back very soon, and he’ll want to know everything. Let’s each write up what we can. He’ll need to inform the Americans before the day is out.”
“We’ll need to alert the airports. These two people have to be number one priority.”
“Already done that,” one of the technicians said, a standard procedure now with escapes.
Washington DC, USA
In Washington, Adam had read the report that had been sent to him, detailing everything they currently knew about the situation. A national manhunt was underway, again, though Adam sensed that it would become an international one the longer things took. This Chinese enforcer, if it proved to be the same man, was starting to get on his nerves. The Americans had been shown up by him the other month at Guantanamo Bay. Now he had apparently done a similar thing in London, this time taking someone with him, a prisoner of high value.
Adam waited another twenty minutes before breaking the news to the Americans. He could have got away without saying anything at this stage, flying home and only telling them maybe the day after. If they were able to catch Elizabeth again before then, the Americans would be none the wiser. But Adam knew that was unlikely, and it was more likely now that they’d need the Americans to help with the pursuit efforts. They wouldn’t be happy, but in his line of work, these things happened. Its how you dealt with them that mattered most. Adam took a deep breath and entered the room.
“That does it. You lot are incompetent,” the Deputy General of the CIA spat. Adam knew the man he was speaking to was likely to get vocal. Rumour had it he once threw a whole tray of coffee after hearing something he didn’t like, smashing it to pieces, mugs in a million pieces all over the floor. Adam had broken the news when there was nothing to be thrown. He’d at least picked his timing well.
“Do I need to remind you of what happened the other month?” Adam said, not wanting to have to use that line of reasoning. It wouldn’t help the situation and now was not the time to start pulling up each other's failings.
“Damn you, Bennett, if I’m gonna let you stand here and hold that against us every time you guys do something wrong. None of us knew the issue back then. Yes, it was an embarrassment to us at the time. Yes, it was one of our highest security lapses in recent living history. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. We didn’t know the capacity of this man before then, anyway. You had given us some reliable information to go on, and he got to us before we were ready. But this…” he was spitting again as if words were just not enough to express the feeling inside. “This is another matter entirely. You were fully aware of the situation, aware that the Chinese had infiltrated you at the highest level. They’d been beating you for years in fact. Finally, you got hold of someone that might prove to be valuable, holding her at what you naively assumed to be a secure location and then just let this guy walk in and take her.
What was he bloody doing in the UK anyway? How did you miss that one? Come on!”
He’d made his point. If he could get his hands on some china, he would be smashing stuff again, but the table was unusually clear.
21
East Coast of England & the Netherlands
Gudu had taken Elizabeth by car once they’d cleared the building in central London. He knew they had minutes before word got out, so had used a black taxi cab as the getaway vehicle, therefore able to blend into the traffic a little more seamlessly, without drawing any undue attention to themselves. He’d avoid the airports, which would be the first place the British would look. He knew it wouldn’t be long before there were eyes everywhere. They planned to be long gone before it ever got to that.
On the edges of London, where the black cabs naturally thinned out somewhat, he had a car ready. Nothing too fancy but fast enough for their needs. He was heading towards East Anglia, final destination a small town called Wrabness, which sat just south of the River Stour. Further down the river was the international port in Harwich, which ran shipping lines from England across to the Netherlands. It was common to see boats coming and going. Gudu had a high-speed luxury cruiser docked in a private part of the river. They both had fake Dutch passports that would make docking at the other end easy.
Once they were out on open water, the cruiser was large enough to be able to tackle the North Sea. They would change the ship’s registration symbols so that by the time they were approaching the Dutch coast, they would appear to be merely a couple of Dutch people docking after a run out to sea. They would moor at Hook of Holland, in the southwestern corner of Holland, part of the city of Rotterdam. Once there, a train would take them to the Central Station in Rotterdam, where they’d catch the Intercity Direct to Schiphol––the express train getting them to Amsterdam’s airport in twenty-five minutes––where two private jets were waiting for them. They’d then go their separate ways.
