The Ninth Circle

by Dominic Adler

  He keyed the squelch button on his radio in acknowledgement as I edged forward. The door to the van was held in place with a loop of wire over a bolt screwed into the chassis, an open padlock dangling from it. I clicked my pencil torch on and ran it up the length of the door, looking for tripwires.

  From inside I heard noise, a faint creaking.

  Slipping the wire from the bolt, I let the door swing open. I aimed my rifle into the vehicle, my thumb sliding onto the fire selector. I put my weight on my booted foot as I stepped up into the belly of the big black van.

  The interior of the vehicle was empty apart from a couple of mattresses, sleeping bags and camping junk. It smelt like the residents: of stale booze, unwashed bodies and marijuana. Sat in the middle, under a naked bulb, was Sir Evan Sands. He was lashed to a folding chair with gardening twine, a cheap sports bag dumped at his feet. His face was bruised, blood seeping from his nose and a deep gash on his forehead. A filthy rag had been stuffed into his mouth and duct-taped in place.

  The millionaire businessman stared at me, then at the bag. He grunted. His eyes were wide with fear, his blood-matted hair sticking out at crazy angles.

  “Sir Evan is here, secure the area around the vehicle,” I said into my radio. The others quietly whispered their acknowledgement. I put my finger to my lips and loosened the gag. “Quiet,” I said gently.

  “They’ve gone” he said, voice hoarse, “but get out of here now, before it’s too late. Call the bloody police.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a bomb in that bag, in front of me. One of them explained how it worked while he was wiring it up, laughing like a lunatic. There’s a pressure pad under me, like a plastic cushion. If I get up then the bomb explodes, that’s what the bastard said.”

  Switching my radio off to avoid setting off any radio-sensitive detonator, I got on my knees and switched on my torch. A snake of neatly bundled electrical wires ran from the sports bag up along the chair leg, into a small hole bored into the seat. The bag was zipped up.

  “Why?” I said, “did they say anything about the device?”

  “It’s to create a delay, to allow them to escape” he said, his breathing ragged in the freezing van, “they were furious when they realised I wasn’t Sergei. Pieter came to see me, said he was sorry, but that I’d chosen sides when I went into business with Sergei. To be honest I think Pieter was on an acid trip or something.”

  “Did you see the Russian guy in charge?” I said, checking the rest of the chair, “his name is Fyodor Volk.”

  “No” said Sir Evan, “but Pieter spoke about him. He said that he’d been rescued by a kindred spirit or some-such bollocks.”

  “Wait here” I said, “we’re not leaving without you.” I went outside and found Andy. I explained the situation.

  “I’ll take a look” he said, shaking his head, “crazy fuckers.”

  Alisa joined us, gesturing at the removal van, “what about Volk?”

  “We deal with Volk after we rescue the poor bastard they wired to an IED” I said firmly, “understand?”

  “Sure, but they could still be out there,” she said.

  “Take Dudko and search the rest of the camp” I replied, “get clear of here anyway, in case that bomb goes off.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence” said Andy, “I’ll sort it out, trust Uncle Andrew.”

  I slapped him on the back, “are you trained in EOD, mate?”

  “Can you make an omelette Cal?”

  “Yes”

  “Did you go to catering college?”

  “No”

  “Well fuck off then,” he grinned. He took off his day-sack and rummaged around, pulling out a small black tool bag. He picked up a head torch and, removing his helmet, strapped it to his forehead. “I know” he sighed, “these things make you look like a prick.”

  Turov laughed and kissed Andy on the mouth, clasping the back of his head with her injured hand. “Good luck,” she said quietly.

  “I should offer to defuse bombs more often,” he joked.

  I didn’t get a kiss.

  Dudko waved as we left, and joined Turov. I saw them pad towards the tents, weapons ready.

  Inside the van Evan Sands was shivering in his chair. “I’m trying not to move,” he said.

  Andy crouched down and examined the bag and wiring, “OK, try to relax. If it’s a pressure pad on a chair like that, I’d imagine it’ll need significant movement to set it off. Let’s have a look.” His voice had the detached interest of a plumber looking at a blocked sink. He got on his belly as I shone his Maglite at the wiring running up the chair. “Did the guy who wired you up to this say anything else?”

  “I can’t remember much, I was too busy trying not to piss myself” said Sands, “he said something about the pressure pad on my seat and that the bomb was a ‘clever one.’ He took a long time fixing that wire up the chair leg. He said he learnt about bombs in the army, in Iraq.”

  “Funny that, so did I” said Andy, “I think this device has some sort of anti-tamper mechanism.” He stared up at the bottom of the chair. He peered into the bag and carefully unzipped it a few inches, “yep, that’s at least three kilos of P4. They’ve thoughtfully surrounded it with nails.”

  “Am I going to die?” said Sands matter-of-factly.

  “Well, not if I can help it seeing as I’m lying next to the bomb too” smiled Andy gently, “Cal, you might as well leg it mate. Just leave the torch there. I’ll be fine.”

  “No, I’ll stay in case you need my help with something.”

  Andy rolled onto his back, wriggling gently away from the bag full of explosives. “When you tell me what to do I get on with it, don’t I? Now I’m telling you, there’s no need for you to be here. Fuck off. I don’t like being watched while I work, it’s like you’re spying on me while I’m taking a dump.”

  “I’ll hold that thought. OK, see you when you’re done. Sir Evan, you’re in good hands.”

  The businessman attempted to smile, face sickly-grey, “I’m sure I am, Mister Winter.”

  I left the caravan and jogged over to the trees. The snow had stopped, the wind skimming the top of white hillocks where it had drifted against the tents and vehicles. I joined Dudko and Alisa, who were crouched by one of the vehicles, an old ice cream van.

  “This place looks empty, there are tracks leading south,” said Dudko, sniffing the wind.

  I rubbed my face, trying to knead warmth into it, “that leads to the army training area.”

  “Maybe they have vehicles there,” said Turov, “we should look.”

  “I agree …” said Dudko.

  The explosion ripped through the camp, a dull thump then flash of white light rippling across the clearing. A hail of shrapnel whistled into the ice cream van. We hit the deck, into soft snow. It was only seconds later that I stood up, the twisted carcass of the removal van blazing at the edge of camp. Smoke billowed from the wreckage, stinking of chemicals and charred meat.

  Alisa gripped my shoulder.

  “Even in this weather I think that would be heard” said Dudko.

  “Move” said Alisa urgently, pushing me towards the clearing.

  I said nothing, tucking my rifle into my shoulder as I stumbled forward. As we passed I saw body parts in the snow, soggy meaty things that used to be my friend. I felt something at the back of my head, my old demon. It came to taunt me, coldness worse than any extreme weather, gripping what was left of my soul. It gloated at my failure, my inability to protect my friends.

  “What’s that?” said Dudko, the machinegun at his shoulder, “that noise?”

  We all stopped and listened to the sound being carried on the wind, through the trees.

  It was laughing.

  “We should go back to the house,” said Dudko, machinegun aimed towards the camp. I tried to focus on him, my eyes glazing over as hot tears stung my cheeks.

  “Cal” said Alisa, her hand stroking my face, “you must move.”
>
  I staggered and fell as hot smoke from the explosion roiled across the clearing. I retched and emptied my guts, acid-steaming puke burning a hole in the snow. The demon sat on my shoulder, whispering allegations as I pounded my fists on the ground. I hadn’t taken my medication since I’d left my flat in Hammersmith. It’s easy to forget.

  I fumbled for my rifle, wailing as I looked at what was left of Andy. His booted foot was to my left, a blood-glistening chunk of his chest and torso to my right. Apparently you can get used to friends, people you were drinking tea and joking with five seconds before, being reduced to meat in wartime. I never could, and wouldn’t want to either. In my mind I was in Maysan. I heard Clarkie’s voice, and the screaming after-burners of jets. I knew it wasn’t real, but it was. Normally this happened at three in the morning, when I could drink half a bottle of Scotch, or a fat line of gack.

  “Leave me,” I grunted. I wanted to die. The laughter from the woods rang in my ears, swirling into my brain like sweet poison. Death would be a merciful release. No Firm. No guilt. No failure.

  I heard Dudko’s machinegun bark, yellow flame spewing from the muzzle as Alisa tried to drag me towards the trees, her wiry arms straining under the dead weight of my body, armour and weapons.

  “You’ll be OK, baby,” she gasped into my ear in Russian, breath hot. She mashed her lips against the side of my head. “Come on, Cal, you’re gonna be OK.”

  That’s what medics are trained to say, when they know you’re going to die. I tried to feel my feet, lead weights at the end of my legs. My heart was racing as I shook, freezing sweat bathing my living carcass. I hadn’t had a panic attack like this, a breakdown, for two years. You look down on your crazy self, lucid but detached as a CCTV camera as you freak out.

  Meanwhile the men in white prepare the syringe.

  “Alisa” I groaned, “Go. I’m fucked.”

  The SVR officer gripped me under the arms as she dragged me towards the trees, wincing as she flexed her mangled hand. “Screw you, Cal Winter,” she panted. Bullets whipped at the snow around us.

  I looked over my shoulder. Dudko had fallen, his hands flailing at his neck. His eyes popped open and closed as he scrabbled in the bloody snow. His face turned towards me as he tried to point into the trees.

  “Alisa?” I said.

  Then I felt a blunt, crushing pain at the side of my head. Above me, dark shapes shimmered in my peripheral vision as heavy boots stomped on my face and head. And still, the laughing and giggling like a pack of hyenas.

  Then, mercifully, the pain was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  I don’t know how long I dreamt. I had familiar flashbacks: Colonel Petrovych sitting in my shrapnel-scarred Land Rover, Clarkie’s lifeless body gripping the steering wheel as he tried to drive us out of Amara.

  I dreamt of Sergei performing a slow waltz with Melissa’s bullet-riddled body, her gown trailing blood across a polished marble floor, slack-jawed face trembling as they swayed to the music.

  I had a picnic with Sam and the kids in Whitstable, looking out over the sea on a summer’s day. We laughed as we watched Brigadier Justin Powell’s corpse bobbing in the sea. His head was blown into chunks, which I found especially funny.

  I saw a boiling, golden mushroom cloud over the nuclear reactor at Shakuvo. Children’s flesh melted from their bones in a cloud of radioactive gas, others hobbling under hideous deformities. Men in gas masks, armed with flamethrowers, cleansed the city of its suffering.

  Watching my dreams with me, like we were at the cinema together, was a Demon. He was a friendly Demon, who understood all the bad things I’d ever done. He sympathised knowingly with my excuses and self-justification. He asked lots of questions. If it wasn’t for his appearance I would have thought him an angel. He told me of his sins, and how the worst was Treachery. I agreed, and felt warm and happy, like a kid on his birthday. I was thirsty and hungry, but the Demon told me that food and drink would be bad for me right now, because I was ill.

  I believed him. Then I slept. When I awoke my head was woozy, my mouth dry and tasting of chemicals and bile. The Demon wore black, a neatly pressed boiler suit, gloves and close-fitting mask. Now I was shivering but hot, staked out in the desert. I could feel my brain pulse, waves of colour splashing across my eyes. I tried to stare at my arm, caught sight of the IV tubes plugged into the veins. I wondered where I was and how long I’d been there, but couldn’t make the words in my mouth.

  “So you killed your best friend?” said the Demon. His voice was like a musical instrument, his accent difficult to place, “in the Iraq war.”

  “I blame myself for his death, yes,” I said, feeling like I was sobering up, “Sergeant Clarke. Clarkie.”

  “He died when you panicked, called in an American bomber. Correct?”

  “How do you know that?” I said.

  The Demon cocked his hooded head, “you told me. You told me a great deal. I like talking to you, Captain Winter. I think we shall be friends. And you killed your other friend, in the bomb near Croll House, didn’t you?”

  “No,” I said. My voice was stereophonic, crashing in waves of sound inside my head, “the person who set the IED killed Andy, not me.”

  The Demon stepped closer, “perhaps, but Sands deserved to die. My people loathe his ilk, killing him was my gift to them. You made the decision to interfere but didn’t have the skills to disarm the bomb. So you sent your friend, who thought he did. We all have to send others to do our dirty work sometimes, don’t we?”

  I felt a surge of anger at the masked Demon, tried to clench my fists but couldn’t feel my hands, “fuck you.”

  “And now you look after Clarkie’s family. How kind. Samantha, this is the widow’s name isn’t it? Samantha Clarke.” He rolled the name around in his mouth, “I could … find her.”

  “Careful” I growled, “because I’ve never met anything that couldn’t be killed.”

  The Demon walked towards me. I realised that I was on some sort of table, the desert turning from orange to yellow to green as I tried to focus. He stroked my hair with neoprene-gloved fingers, his voice almost a whisper, “anger isn’t helpful, Captain Winter. There’s a pattern developing here, isn’t there? You kill your friends because you lack the qualities required of an effective leader. It’s a form of treachery, and you know how I feel about that. Then you turn to anger. You told me about your fear of failure earlier. Do you remember?”

  “No, I don’t. What are those tubes in my arm for?”

  “The tubes are for your medicine. I’m healing you. You have injuries, mainly in your subconscious, but also facial injuries from where my friends stamped on your head. You’re lucky, they were about to kill you but I stopped them. You have a broken cheekbone, I think.”

  “So you’re a shrink too?” I tried to turn my head. I became aware of a dull pain in my neck.

  “Of a sort” the Demon chuckled, “I was trained in psychiatry at one point. I think it is a bogus discipline, personally, but elements of the technique are useful. I prefer chemistry myself, like the medicine I am giving you now. It is more effective than the counselling I’m sure you’ve had, or the pathetically weak antidepressants you were probably prescribed.”

  “What is the medicine?” I replied.

  He shrugged, “a mixture: barbiturates – sodium pentothal if you wish to be precise, something wonderful called SP-117 which I doubt you’ve ever heard of, a little LSD and some other substances I like to use as part of the healing process. Oh, and heroin. I know you like it. What’s not to like about heroin?”

  “Why do you want to heal me?” I said “when you could just kill me?”

  “You have useful information. When you are well and you have told me what I wish to know then I will let you go on your way. We are professionals whose paths have crossed in unfortunate circumstances, nothing more and nothing less.”

  I laughed, the sound booming like cannon fire in my head. “I don’t believe you.”


  “You are the one who betrays his friends and sends them to die, not I” shrugged The Demon, “my friends enjoy my bounty: promises of comfort and justice and revenge.”

  “I thought I’d told you everything,” I said.

  “No, not everything Captain Winter,” sighed The Demon, “the substances I’ve given you aren’t fool-proof. They are wearing off right now, if I give you more you might go into a coma and never recover. And there’s still more for us to discuss.”

  The colours began to fade, the desert slowly morphing into darkness, “what do you want to know?”

  “I require information on Sergei Belov. Everything you know about him. His relationship with your Government? What he told you about Pieter Van Basten? The risk to Pieter from FSB? Where Belov is likely to flee next?”

  “Why?” I said. A dull ache gnawed at the back of my head. My vision started to blur then focus, the room getting darker and colder.

  “There are many reasons: self-preservation. Revenge. But primarily Love. A powerful trinity of motivations, I hope you agree. The circumstances under which I’ve led my life so far has precluded love, but now I have experienced it, I realise that there is nothing I will not do to feed it. And it needs to be fed. It is insatiable. Does that make sense?”

  “Can I have something to drink?” I said, trying to sit up. I realised that I was strapped to a hospital gurney, rough leather straps around my ankles and wrists. Someone had stripped me naked and dressed me in a surgical gown. My feet were freezing. I tried to focus on the rest of the room, but my eyes were drawn to the face in the tight black mask. Behind the eye-slits emerald-green eyes stared at me.

  “Of course, here is some coffee. I am going to release your left hand, if you try to move I will have to kill you.” The black-clothed figure undid the strap on my wrist and passed me a chipped mug.

  I drank gratefully, noting the pistol in his gloved hand “I thought you were a demon, in my dream.”

  The voice was gentle and calm. “Yes, part of your hallucinations. I did nothing to disabuse you of it. You exited the Seventh Circle and entered the Eighth.”