‘You drive like this for 30 minutes? Then go back to the airport. Don’t stop. Remember I’m FSB.’ Sam tapped the side of her gilet, the one closest to the passenger door, hoping to signify that she was carrying a handgun.
The taxi driver nodded vigorously.
They stopped behind an orange Opel Corsa which was waiting for the lights to change. Sam looked – the Merc was still five cars back.
She referenced the map in her mind. They were two blocks from the railway station. Up until now the buildings on the side of the road had been a bit ramshackle; single-storey affairs. Industrial. Now, in the centre of town, the blocks were taller. Red-brick. More sturdy. Business-like. There were lot of pedestrians. It was busier.
The cars in front moved off slowly. The taxi driver followed suit. She unclipped her seat belt. The dashboard immediately started to bleep. She waited for exactly the right moment.
Now!
The road bent to the left. The pavement was at its busiest. Shop fronts; a cafe; a pedestrian crossing; a metre-high roadside box, probably containing electrical signalling and switching. Five or six people milling about.
In a flash, Sam flung open the passenger door and threw herself onto the pavement, her bag following in a splurge of green with grey piping, the door bouncing back closed. Fuck! Her right thigh hurt like hell as it took a second beating in under a week – but her gym teacher would have been proud of her shoulder roll and recovery. She was on her feet, a little unsteady, but striding into the Maksim Cafe before the taxi driver had registered her leaving.
Sure, there was commotion on the pavement. At least three people’s gaze had followed her transit. One man had protested, his hands raised in horror. And a dog had yelped as she flew past its nose. But, as she glanced behind to check the progress of the Merc, she saw no recognition in the face of its passenger that something was untoward. She got a reasonably clear view of the man, but not the driver. It was fleeting; too much movement. But enough to recognise him again – probably. He seemed intent on keeping an eye on the taxi, rather than any commotion on the pavement.
She’d bought herself some time.
Sam took a deep breath and looked around the cafe. Almost everyone was staring at her. An elegant woman, wearing a Burberry check jacket, daintily suspended a coffee cup between the table and her mouth; her lips pursed ready to sip.
Sam took out her card case again, waving it around briefly.
‘FSB. Nothing to see here.’
She’d always wanted to say that.
Chapter 6
40°44'37.9"N 28°07'54.9"E, in the Sea of Marmara, South of Istanbul
The brute had hit her yesterday. The back of his hand against her face. She’d never been hit by anyone before. Sure, her mom used to tap her thigh when she was a kid if she misbehaved. But no one had ever struck her before – not with the intent to hurt. He was on top of her, when, out of nowhere, she had screamed at the top of her voice – ‘Get fucking off me, you fucking brute!’ They were words she’d never used before. The ‘f-word’ wasn’t in her vocabulary. The involuntary splurge of expletives had shocked her.
His ears couldn’t have been more than a few inches from her mouth when she screamed, and she guessed it took him as much by surprise as it did her. And it probably made his ears ring.
It did the trick, though – well, partially. He stopped.
Briefly.
His torso was raised above her, resting on his elbow. His eyes, which were normally closed, were wide open. She could see nothing behind them. No feeling. No emotion. Just blank.
Just his ugly, deformed face.
And then he smiled. It was a crooked sort of smile, more like a crack in his hard, disgusting face. A horrible smile. The smile of a deranged man. A man who systematically raped women.
A dribble of spit formed in the corner of his mouth. She watched it, mesmerised as it began its journey directly toward her own. It didn’t drip, not to begin with. It just slowly dropped, hanging onto the brute’s mouth by an extending piece of spittle. She knew the lifeline would break soon, that the globule would fall. And she knew whatever she tried to do the spit would fall on her face – somewhere. She could have turned her head to one side; at least then it would have landed on her cheek. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She just watched as gravity took its course.
Splat. Her mouth was closed, and the brute’s spit landed on her lips. His spit on her mouth. Gross. Fucking gross.
She focused back on his eyes. All she saw was that empty space. But he was still smiling, that crooked half-smile of an unhinged monster. Which is what he was. She knew nothing of him, so couldn’t put him in a box. He didn’t speak; he didn’t show any kind of emotion. He just held her down. Did what he wanted to do. And then he left. Not a word.
Slap! The back of his hand smacked into her face with the full force of a 200-pound lump.
Shit, that hurt!
Her head had been flung to one side by the force. She immediately sensed her cheek reddening as warm blood flooded the area to deal with the injury. She kept her head turned, tears of pain already welling up in her eyes. She didn’t want to look at the brute again. She didn’t want to do anything. In fact, just then, at that moment, she didn’t want to be alive. She wanted to be dead. She longed for it. Something peaceful, to take away the pain; to remove the ignominy of it all. To find rest. Silence. Relief.
Her longing was broken; he had started again. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered any more.
That was last night. She felt a little better this morning, although her cheek still throbbed. She was still sore and still devoid of emotion, but she didn’t think she could kill herself. Not this morning. Not with the sun streaming through the porthole; a glimpse that there was life outside of this hell. That every day she survived was a day closer to her rescuers breaking down the door and taking her home. Every day she got through, was a day closer to the end of this. She knew that.
The door unlocked and in came that woman carrying breakfast. She didn’t wait to be asked, but swung her legs onto the floor, took up the top sheet and made her way to the bathroom.
As she peed she watched that woman examine the bottom sheet. Even from here she could see a different coloured discharge from normal. It wasn’t usual grey/white left by the brute. There was red in it. Blood. Her blood. She knew she was having her period. She’d felt groggy for the last two days; it’s probably why she screamed out last night. At least she wasn’t carrying his child. Not this month.
‘Come here.’ That woman; an order to be obeyed.
She wiped herself and walked over to the bed, holding the silk sheet in front of her for imaginary protection.
‘Lie down.’
She did as she was told. She thought she knew what was coming. She had no idea why, but she knew that woman was interested in whether she was menstruating.
She was right.
That woman prised open her legs; she didn’t resist – two weeks of brutal rape and a heavy slap from a man who could probably snap her back over his knee, and compliance was easy. That woman peered down and then, using a corner of the top sheet, wiped between her legs, staring at the result, shaking her head.
She was confused. Scared. More scared than usual. She was having her period. That’s all. These things happen – once a month. Maybe the brute didn’t relish the idea of rape when it was accompanied by the lining of her uterus? Maybe she’d get some relief? Just a couple of days? That would be special. Fear headed to the door marked ‘relief’. Maybe he’d be finished with her – for now?
Her thoughts were interrupted by that woman leaving. A departure which was different from normal. Three things initially struck her as odd, that broke the routine. Three things that very quickly so unnerved her, she started to shake uncontrollably.
That woman left without the daily accompanying order: ‘eat’.
She only took the bottom sheet, leaving the rest of the bed unmade.
And, as she left, she took the untouched breakf
ast tray with her.
On the Oil Train just short of the ExtraOil Rigs, Yamal Field, Northern Russia
The clanking of the carriage over a set of points woke Sam from a fitful sleep. She looked at her watch. It was 6.43am. She wiped sleep from her eye and stared out through the dirty window, out across hundreds of kilometres of very little. The sun was making itself known from behind the horizon, illuminating the eastern skyline with a vast palette of blues, reds and yellows – a skyline which included the curvature of the earth, such was the flatness of the terrain. It was the biggest sky Sam had ever seen. And it was one of the most beautiful. Dark blues, from above her, behind the train, merged with turquoises, scarlets and oranges, drawing naturally toward a focus on the horizon: that of a brightening yellow smudge where, very soon, the sun would announce the arrival of the day.
The landscape was equally as bewitching. It lacked the colour of the sky, just greys, dark greens and browns – and a patchwork of white. But it provided the perfect bottom frame for a vibrant sky; a combination of snow-covered tundra, a few trees and, close to the track, spiky brown grass puncturing the icy snow like hair brush pins.
It was as desolate a place as Sam could remember. Untouched by the heavy hand of humans. She couldn’t keep her eyes from it.
The carriage rattled some more, and the train, which was already travelling very slowly, ground to a halt. Sam put her head against the cold window, her breath catching the glass with condensation. She tried her best to look forward, to see what was happening, but the track curved away from her and all she could pick out was the end of the single carriage and the start of the locomotive. She knew that behind them there was a long line of container wagons – she hadn’t counted; but there were enough of them for the train to struggle to make any speed at all. Everywhere else she looked there was tundra. Tundra and a perfect sky.
If she moved over to the other side of the carriage she could probably get a better view – maybe pick out the rigs in the distance. But the four seats opposite her were occupied by two big Russian men, both catching up on their beauty sleep. She really didn’t want to wake them.
The train was due into the oilfields at 7am. In conversation with the two men last night, they had shrugged their shoulders when Sam had asked if 7am was an accurate arrival time. ‘It depends,’ was all they could manage.
Even before the train had set off, both men had tucked into a packed meal of dried meat and bread, and shared a bottle of vodka, drinking alternatively from the bottle. The larger of the two, although that was a tough call, offered some to Sam; he wiped the top with the tail of his shirt. After the rubbish of the previous week it had been a hugely welcome gesture. Sam, not wanting to appear ungrateful, had taken a swig. She’d declined further offers (as she valued her soft palate), and soon the two men had settled into the seven-hour journey, making themselves as comfortable as they could. Once asleep, they serenaded Sam by snoring at a strength of around gale-force eight.
At least she had felt safe. So much so, she had managed to sleep (on and off) – although her right thigh, which had taken the brunt of two makeshift para-rolls in under a week, nagged her that all was not well below her pelvis.
In between snoozing, she reminded herself of where she was.
They were following her, whoever they were. That was immutable. They had clocked her getting onto the plane in Moscow. Either mechanically, by tailing her to the airport (although she’d followed every procedure in SIS’s Ladybird book of ‘losing a tail’ to ensure she was clean), or by having an e-alert on the booking of her flight. She assumed the latter. That didn’t help her narrow down her list of likely enemies: SIS, FSB and, she guessed, Sokolov’s team, could all manage that.
Sam was confident that nobody on the plane was assigned to her. It was a four-hour flight and she’d been to the loo three times to check the passengers out. The plane, which was a 737-600 Next Generation, carried 120 passengers (she wasn’t a plane spotter, she read the detail from the on-board information leaflet). Sam had counted 57 on board. None of them seemed interested in her. Her recollection of the passenger of the black Mercedes 190 in Salekhard didn’t seem to match anyone on the plane.
So, she had been met on arrival. Which was a neat trick.
Which organisation had agents on call to meet a rogue SIS operative who, without warning, catches a plane to the least likely destination in all of Russia?
Sam discounted SIS; certainly not in any official capacity. The FSB may well have that sort of reach, but having worked with them for six months, she struggled to believe they could be that efficient. That left one conclusion, which sort of worked for Sam. The two men were in the employ of Nikolay Sokolov. He probably owned half of Salekhard, with all the oil kicking around. And the two tailers didn’t appear that effective – that is, not FSB-level effective; otherwise they wouldn’t have let Sam get away.
Before she rejoiced in the certainty of that conclusion, she reminded herself of Rich’s comment, mixed in with Vlad’s advice: everyone’s telling me to be careful. Why would an FSB agent tell her to be careful? Was he talking about the way she conducted herself around his colleagues in Lubyanka? Not to press too hard? Or was it something wider, something about what she was up to now? If that was the case, maybe the FSB were party to this. And Rich’s suggestion of a mole? Was someone in her organisation warning off Sokolov?
What was she onto that was so important they’d be prepared to murder an SIS operative? As far as she knew, the last time an MI6 agent was killed by the opposition was in the days of the Cambridge Five – in the 50s. Were the stakes that high? Or were east-west relations so poor that no one cared anymore?
That left the key question: who could she trust?
The good news was that she appeared to have got on the very slow train from Salekhard to the oilfields without further incident. She didn’t think she was followed through the station. And the train had only one passenger carriage. There were 15 of them making the journey further north – she was the only woman. Having wandered around the carriage, Sam would have bet a month’s wages that none of them were assigned to her.
She was being tracked, that was for sure. But she may have stolen a short march on her pursuers; bought herself some time.
The next complicated bit was what to do when she got to the oilfield? She was determined to get to see Jim Dutton. That’s why she had come. If he were there, she would persuade him to see her. She could do that.
But, by exposing herself at the oilfield she would become a target again. How long did she have? How far did they reach? Sokolov owned the oilfield. Did that mean everyone at the field was looking out for her? She was hardly inconspicuous.
She had to get onto the oilfield. She had to see Dutton. Once inside the perimeter, she’d turn her mind as to how to get out. Something would crop up.
The train chugged and lurched forward, the movement catching her off guard and forcing her back against her seat. It clattered and clanked for a further ten minutes and then the station came into view: a concrete and block platform, a carriage and a half’s length long. There was the screech of brakes and the train stopped.
The carriage erupted into a slow frenzy of oil-worker movement. Most of the men had big rucksacks and holdalls which, with bangs and scrapes on the narrow thoroughfare, followed their owners to the exit.
Sam waited for all the men to get off. Then she picked up her Osprey and, now wearing a black woollen hat she had bought at the station (which, when added to her uber-warm black army softie, made her look like an SAS groupie), she stepped out into a whole world of unknown.
She stood on the platform, surrounded by a new type of cold – one which mixes low temperatures with a dampness from the sea; she took it all in. First, she looked for a welcoming party of Sokolov’s hoods, ready to wrap her in a blanket and throw her down one of his wells. No one. Just a couple of minibuses, 14 oil workers and her: a 5’ 6” Michelin woman in Doc Martens. There was a large, industrial siding beh
ind her. It was already breaking into activity as trucks, men and cranes started to work on the containers their train had brought with it.
Beyond the minibuses, in the middle distance, she could see the field and rigs. They were maybe a kilometre away, and were clearly large industrial complexes. But, as the rising sun glinted off one of the towers, Sam could see that even they were dwarfed by the enormity of the Russian tundra.
Sam’s ‘what next?’ question was interrupted by a peep from a horn. The platform was now empty, all the train passengers having squeezed into the minibuses.
The driver from the first wound down his window.
He called out in Russian, ‘Where do you want to go, lady?’
Sam came to immediately.
‘Rig number seven, please,’ she shouted back.
‘Rear bus.’ The driver used his thumb to indicate where Sam should go.
Seconds later, standing at the bus’s sliding door, she was pleased to see that her two large, vodka-drinking Russian friends were heading in her direction. One of them tried to move his holdall so she could find a seat. But the bus was too full, and it stayed where it was.
‘No worries,’ Sam said, working hard to sound colloquial rather than fluent. ‘I’ll sit on the bag?’
The man nodded, and Sam plumped her bum on his holdall.
‘Why have you come to the rig?’ the Russian asked.
‘I’m a relative of one of the workers. I’ve travelled all the way from England to give him some good news.’
‘Who’s that?’ The directness of the Russian’s enquiry didn’t faze Sam, she was used to their lack of pleasantries.
‘Jim Dutton. The QA on number seven? I’m his cousin.’
The Russian man’s face, which was already white and blotchy, changed colour markedly. The whites became more translucent and the red of the blotches sharpened – he now had the face of a poorly made-up clown. He didn’t respond to Sam’s comment. He stared straight ahead.
The Innocence of Trust Page 11