‘Frank, I was just about to phone you.’
‘Go on, Jane.’
‘The body in the cabin is a man’s. It’s not Sam.’
Jane could sense the relief gushing down the telephone from over 1,500 miles away. Frank wasn’t the emotional type, but she knew he had a very soft spot for Sam; she had that effect on people.
‘That’s the best news I think I’ve ever heard.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Any idea where she is?’
‘No. We’re about to search the woods near the cabin. And I’m left with the sticky problem of the notion that she’s being held captive by Nikolay Sokolov.’
‘Mmm. Good luck with that, Jane.’ He paused for a second, then added, ‘Do you want my news?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Cressida was spotted passing through the Strait of Messina about four hours ago: 14.30 local. GCHQ have just picked it up on Instagram. There were two tourist posts with Cressida in the text. When they looked at the post locations, one was from Messina, and the other at Villa San Giovanni, on the mainland side of the channel. The tourists were obviously very excited by seeing such a big yacht close to. Both photos had the yacht’s name on its hull. And, have a guess what?’
‘What?’
‘It was pulling a tender – that’s a result.’ Frank sounded pleased.
‘And now the obvious “so what?” question.’
‘London is restricting the target to a choice of two: Rome and Marseilles. They, that is we, have discounted Nice, Naples, Monte Carlo and Barcelona. The view from the Joint Intelligence Committee is that Marseille is the more likely. Drive up, unload, drive away and detonate on the quay. No need for messy additional transportation. The French’s recent history with regard to Islamic terror cells also adds weight to that argument. It’s a country on the edge.’ Frank let it hang.
Jane had yet to sit down; she still had her head in her hand.
‘They’d see it coming. It’s a 200-foot yacht.’
‘But, as your team spotted, the enemy has a tender. The Marines have done some calculations for us. They reckon that Cressida could sit up to 100 miles off shore, and with some extra fuel, the tender could make it in “under the radar” so to speak. Especially at night – like now.’
‘And, according to your map, she could be there now? And could moor at any number of places, and then get the device to Marseilles by van? Or pick any other French port on their Mediterranean coast, detonate the device, and still cause chaos.’
‘Yes – we spent an age on that just now. The French are already soaking the area with troops and police – focusing on Marseilles. And their navy are now about to deploy. The collective view is that the device will be offloaded tonight. Cressida will disappear and be back in the Black Sea within three days. At that point she will be impossible to intercept.’
‘What are London doing about the 14 Signal Regiment Electronic Warfare team, the LEWT?’ Jane asked.
‘The French have that covered; their equipment is as competent as ours. They are pre-positioning a team to cover Marseilles docks. They’ve not disclosed anything about timings – they’re keeping the whole thing as hush-hush as possible. Any leak and there’ll be a stampede out of the city. But we’ve assumed that you won’t be able to play Pokémon Go! near the harbour for a while. The problem is, they can’t keep that level of blanket cover up for long. The terrorists could hold the bomb, and release it later.’
‘Indeed. Although, they’d need some very committed people to stay that close to the device for that long.’
What was she thinking? If they could recruit suicide bombers to blow themselves to heaven, asking some lesser folk to guard a radioactive bomb for a bit wouldn’t be a problem. France had a huge Algerian and Tunisian population. Finding martyrs and their assistants shouldn’t be that tricky.
‘What’s the view on Rome?’ she asked.
‘C’s been in touch with the director of their Intelligence Service, the SISMI. As we know, they’re slightly less organised than us – and the French. They’ve got a maritime patrol boat entering the coastal area about now. And the local carabinieri are looking to set up some form of shield around the city, checking major routes in. They hope to have that up and running in the next 8 to 12 hours.’
‘By which time…’ Jane didn’t need to finish that sentence.
The elephant in the room always with the Italians, was corruption – which was endemic. If you couldn’t buy an official, then you could pay the Mafia to do it for you. That’s why Rome had always been her first choice.
What should I do?
‘Do the Italians have a mobile jamming capability?’
‘Ehh, not as efficient as ours, I’m afraid.’
That’s what I thought.
And that’s what they need more than anything else.
‘OK. This is what we’re going to do. Our office in Rome is scantily manned?’ Jane didn’t know why she asked Frank that question. She knew the answer, and he, almost certainly, didn’t. ‘Sorry. Two older men and a worn-out dog. I knew that.’ She took a breath. ‘I’m going to book a flight to Rome – now. I’ll phone C for confirmation on the way, but can you get clearance to get the 14 Signal Regiment LEWT deployed to Rome asap? I’ll meet them there. In the meantime, have the section’s chief in Rome phone me. I’ll expect one of his team to meet me at the airport. Between now and then he can liaise with the SISMI and tell them they should have a LEWT on the ground in, say, 8 hours. OK, Frank?’
‘Sounds like a plan, Jane. Good luck!’
The phone went dead.
Jane reduced a couple of tabs on M’s desktop and Googled flights from Moscow to Rome. There was a final flight at 21.25. If she got her skates on, she’d just about make it.
41°13'07.4"N 13°42'45.5"E, Mediterranean Sea, South of Rome
The door of the pod opened; Marya came in. She looked at Sam with her head tilted slightly to one side, dangling a pair of cuffs in front of her. Sam offered her wrists. Marya accepted and attached the cuffs. Sam didn’t even ask herself where the key might have ended up.
She was clothed in a new set of blue coveralls. Marya had washed the bleach out of Sam’s hair, running her fingers through it by way of a comb. She redressed her gunshot wound, then carefully helped Sam get dressed, leaving her sitting on the bed. Sam hadn’t thought through how long she had been waiting for Marya to return. It was probably about an hour.
Now she was being taken somewhere. She wasn’t sure where. She really didn’t care. Her shoulder ached like someone had stuck a screwdriver in it, and was tightening up her recently dislocated joint. Carelessly. The pain was crazy. The whole of her right-hand side was hopeless. She dragged her leg. Wherever she was going, she hoped she’d get there soon. And whatever bizarre ritual she had been prepared for, that too.
And then she’d be happy to jump off the side of the boat and into the drink herself. Glug glug.
It was about context. Her life, against her death.
She had no friends, no relatives, and a shitty job that took all her time and gave little back in return. Christ, she’d not even got to the end of the ExtraOil case. She was a poor case-officer. Chasing shadows where there was no sun. Impetuous; maverick; irresponsible; irrelevant. She had brought Simon Page down – she knew that now. And she had cost Vlad his life. Poor Vlad. Vlad – the only one of them she could really trust? Even her quasi-best friend, Jane (quasi, because your boss can’t really be your friend), had let her down. Jane should have told her about Sokolov. She might not have agreed with the party line, but Sam would have towed it. She could have stayed away. Not chased after Sokolov – as both M and Jane had ordered. Saved Simon Page.
And prevented Vlad’s death…
…If I had known, would I really have done as I had been told?
Maybe.
Hah! Even now, after all this, she was questioning the defined authority.
Who the hell did she think she was?
Who?
So, it
was about context. Her life, which was rubbish; worthless.
Against oblivion.
Oblivion won. Hands down.
Marya had reached a door. It wasn’t a door like hers to the pod, squeezed between two others. This one was on its own. It had a grandness to it. Maybe a single sheet of oak, planed to an inch of perfection. Polished with the finest of waxes. The door handle looked gold. Proper gold. The doorframe, equally as sturdy, was beautifully crafted.
There was a key in the door, and an iris reader in its usual place.
Marya did the business with her eye, opened the door, and led her into…
…If you had to choose a single word: a hareem.
What Sam saw hit her like baseball bat. Her current state of emotional stupor vanished. In an instance. Her previous trance-like state received a jolt as if she’d been plugged into three-phase power, and someone had thrown the switch.
Her mind cleared.
All thoughts of self-pity and pending death evaporated. It wasn’t that they weren’t there. Or that she didn’t deserve to be feeling so wretched. It was that one huge emotion, fury – red mist on steroids, smashed aside all others; like a prize-winning, full-sized bull, flinging a teenage matador from the ring.
With it, and this surprised her, came a calmness that so complemented the rage she felt that she could conquer the world. Even the oversized and overweight Marya was a takeable target. The bitch.
She took it all in.
White and gold room. The size of a country kitchen. Opulence – painted wood, and gold-leaf. Mirrors (check – a weapon) on the dressing table, and on the ceiling above the bed. Ornaments, pristine pottery and glass vases (check – more weapons). A gold, wooden chair, with a seat covered in green satin (a weapon). Three portholes (check – no latches/locked). A pile of men’s clothes on the floor.
A king-sized bed – she could only glance at it, her mind choking at what she saw. She quickly refocused. Naked, over-sized man on top of slim, equally naked, blonde woman. The woman had her eyes closed. She was in pain. No, that wasn’t any way close to being a strong enough description. Her mind didn’t have time to register a more apposite one. The over-sized man turned his head and glanced at Sam – again, her mind stammered. He was ugly. Not quite deformed, but not a picture. Like a more handsome version of the big guy they kept in a shed by the cave in Goonies. A child in a man’s body?
Pumping away.
Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.
He showed no emotion. No hint of a smile or a frown. He was doing a job. Something that needed to be done. He turned his head back to his victim. And kept pumping.
Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.
Her rage was looking for an outlet. Pressing against the wall of her chest. Making her fingers throb. Her head bulge. But it was all under wraps. In control. She had it where she wanted it. On tap.
For now.
Marya opened a door in the far-right corner of the room (key on outside – check), and led Sam in. She closed the door. She undid Sam’s handcuffs and placed them, with the key still in the lock, in a pocket. Check.
‘Undress.’
Sam did as she was asked – her shoulder screaming at her. But she was no longer paying any attention to its protestations. She was taking in the new room. It wasn’t metal and rivets, like the pod. This was a porcelain, tile and mirror bathroom. Sam could sense opportunities everywhere she looked.
Just for a second, her strength almost collapsed. Having tuned it out, from next door she heard the rhythm of the slap, slap, slap, slap. Its beat had increased slightly – the tempo picking up. She bit into her tongue and scrunched her fists. And got a grip – blocking out the hateful noise. She didn’t need any distractions.
‘You be good. It will be over soon. All of it.’ It was an instruction from Marya. Kindly, but firm.
Sam nodded and smiled sheepishly. An Oscar winning performance.
Marya left, and locked the door behind her.
Sam, naked as the day she was born, picked up a beautiful white bath towel from the rail. She folded it in four so it was slightly wider than the mirror above the sink. She placed the towel against the mirror and waited.
Slap, grunt. Slap, grunt. Slap, grunt. Slap, grunt.
Could the soundtrack be any worse?
As the tempo quickened, the grunts became louder. Sam knew where this was heading. She had to get the timing right.
Slap, grunt. Slap, grunt. Slap, grunt. Slap, GRUNT!
On the last stroke of the man’s evil ecstasy, Sam smashed her left elbow into the bathroom mirror. It broke into a myriad of pieces. She watched them fall into the sink and onto the floor.
Clatter.
She checked that the mirror had all come off the wall. One piece was caught behind a screw. She removed it. She didn’t want anything left on the wall that might catch someone’s attention.
Then she paused. And listened.
Sloppy noises next door – some mopping up.
She had some time.
Sam looked down among the shards of glass. She picked up a piece that seemed the most knife-like – it was shaped like an elongated triangle. She wrapped the larger end in a wet flannel. She held it in her unfavoured left hand – she might have conquered the pain, but her right arm was next to useless; if she exerted it in any way, it could easily pop out of its socket. And she couldn’t have that.
Hastily, but efficiently, she pushed the remnants of mirror that were on the floor, under the sink. She couldn’t hide it, she didn’t think she had the time. But a casual glance might miss the mess.
She then turned and faced the door. The weapon behind her back, in her left hand. Her right hanging loosely by her side. Still naked, other than a dressing and a bandage.
And a weapon.
She didn’t feel naked, or vulnerable. She felt pure. And powerful.
Let it begin.
The lock in the door made a noise. It opened abruptly and there was Holly Mickelson. She must have been a staggeringly beautiful young woman before the ordeal. Before the abuse. Now she looked like a shell. A fragile being, scrunched up like waste paper and thrown away on the floor.
But Sam had missed something – just for that instant. Something hidden deep in the recesses of Holly Mickelson’s soul. She and Holly’s eyes met. Sam knew hers would betray no emotion. They would be glass replicas, devoid of feeling.
Holly’s weren’t. Underneath an opaque sheen, formed from the worst degradation known to woman, there was fire. An unquenchable fire. Sam knew this girl had guts and courage. And there was plenty left; it was just not ready to be unleashed. Yet.
The over-sized man pushed Holly into the bathroom, revealing his own naked body. Sam blanked it – her brain refusing to accept the images that her eyes had seen. He gave Sam a once over, grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and launched her into the bedroom. Sam almost fell, but took a couple of quick steps and managed to stay on her feet. She immediately turned, the weapon still hidden.
The over-sized man was closing the bathroom door, his back partially toward her. He started to bend at the waist to reach for the key that was in the lock. It was obviously fiddly – if you had hands the size of dinner plates.
It was then that Sam’s brain accepted what her eyes were relaying.
He must be six feet two inches tall. Very broad, but flabby round the waist. Thick thighs, some fat, that met above the knees. He was lightly covered in hair – except around his backside and his, now exposed, testicles. The hair in that area was plentiful. Sprouting out of the crack between his cheeks. And hanging down between his legs.
Sam had enough information. It was all she needed.
She struck.
The tip of the broken piece of mirror hit the over-sized man in the soft flesh between his anus and his testicles. Sam had forgotten most of her human biology GCSE, but she reckoned that that area was probably boneless and the best target.
It punctured his skin. Sam forced it in with all her might behind a straight
left arm, the blade didn’t stop until her hand reached his flesh. Instinctively, she turned the blade, but to her surprise the mirror shattered and all she was left holding was a flannel and a smattering of silvered glass. She couldn’t tell, but she didn’t think much of it had landed on the floor. Most of it was inside the underparts of the over-sized man.
Who roared…
…And arched his back, bringing his buttocks together, which could only have compounded the pain.
Sam, who had started to pull back, was surprised by how much blood there was already. She had dropped the flannel and, after a period of such clarity of thought, her mind was now scrabbling around, trying to work out what to do next.
The over-sized man made that decision for her.
He turned and span, striking out, his arms whipping around like a windmill that was toppling in a storm. One of his hands caught Sam on the face, the force of which sent her flying backwards onto the bed.
And then he was on top of her.
How could he be? Why wasn’t he writhing in excruciating pain on the floor? Bleeding to death.
She was immediately winded. And with his weight on her, she was struggling to breathe. He was raising himself up, his fist now high above his head, which, when released, would be on a trajectory for Sam’s head. There was noise, and grunts, and spittle, and pain – her shoulder now very much back in the business of letting her know how it felt.
She looked into his eyes.
What is that?
Pain – certainly. Confusion – yes? Terror, like a child who has just lost a parent – absolutely. And a clear determination to kill or maim the woman who had just stuck a knife between his legs.
His fist began its short journey toward her face.
Sam closed her eyes and turned her head away from the punch.
I might not survive this.
But there was no contact. What?! His fist lost momentum and slammed into the mattress beside her. He yelped and gurgled. And then the whole weight of his over-sized body collapsed on top of her. Lifeless?
She almost panicked. Enclosed spaces. Not for her. She tried to move him, but her shoulder popped – pain beyond all pain followed, and dizziness swept over her. She wouldn’t try that again.
The Innocence of Trust Page 36