The Gilgamesh Conspiracy

by Jeffrey Fleming

  She sat on the bed and pulled on socks and her trainers. Then she heard the mechanical twang of the Taser and she collapsed on to the floor. As she lay immobilised Carson thrust a syringe into her buttock and pressed down the plunger with his thumb. His grinning face was the last thing she saw as her mind faded.

  Gerry woke up with a throbbing headache. She opened her eyes and saw the metal roof of a utility van. She moaned and clutched the side of her head. She remembered being hit by the Taser and then the sharp stab in her backside. She took some deep breaths hoping the pain in her skull would ease off.

  ‘See Mark, she’s awake already,’ said Carson. Gerry felt a foot nudging her in the ribs. ‘Come on Tate, time to wake up.’

  Gerry closed her eyes and opened them slowly. The pain in her head changed from an intense throbbing to a dull ache. She looked around and saw she was strapped inside a covert surveillance van with her arms cuffed behind the seat back. Ryan Carson was sitting next to the communications console. In the other seat sat a powerful man with a Mexican style moustache. He held a Taser which he pointed at Gerry.

  ‘This is Mark Stafford,’ said Carson, ‘he’ll zap you if you make any sudden moves.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ she mumbled. She tried to shake off her drug induced torpor. ‘Ryan! What the hell are you playing at?’ she demanded. ‘I thought we were meant to be on the same side?’

  ‘Well we’re not sure whose side you’re on, Gerry; we think perhaps you’ve gone over to the dark side.’

  ‘It’s that bastard Bruckner who’s the dark side. I want to speak to my boss Cornwall.’

  ‘Sorry, you’re not in any position to make demands,’ said Carson. We’re going to ship you home, where I think they’ll be waiting to arrest you. Now we’re gonna take you to the airport.

  ‘What about my things?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t worry; Dan Hall’s already packing up your stuff, then he’ll pay your hotel bill and return your car to the hire company.’

  Dan Hall? So much for her trusting him. ‘This is ridiculous, why don’t I speak to General Bruckner. I’m sure…’

  ‘Why don’t you just be a good girl and shut the fuck up?’ said Stafford with a slight wave of the Taser.

  She was driven to an anonymous house in a rundown neighbourhood and ushered inside at gunpoint. Carson showed her into a room sparsely furnished with a bed and an armchair, and a small table with a stack of tatty magazines on top of it. He took off the handcuffs.

  ‘There’s water and granola bars in the fridge. Bathroom’s through there,’ he said indicating a doorway. She looked in and saw that the small window was bricked up.

  ‘See that mirror?’ He pointed, and she looked at the large wall mirror with a serving hatch beside it. ‘We’ll be watching you through that. If we think you’re spending too long in the bathroom, we’ll come and see what you’re up to. We’ll pass you water and food through that hatch if you want it.’

  Gerry walked to the hatch and opened it. There was a small ring-stained shelf and another door on the other side of the wall.

  ‘You said we were going to the airport,’ Gerry said.

  ‘True enough, but your flight’s not due to leave until this evening.’

  Gerry woke up slumped in a corner of the SUV. She had no recollection of climbing into it. She remembered spending a few boring hours reading through the pile of magazines that ranged from the Economist and Newsweek through various women’s periodicals, magazines covering fly fishing, golf and baseball and the National Enquirer. She had been provided with a water bottle and when she had grown hungry she asked her captors for a chicken salad. Instead she had been given a spicy pepperoni pizza and told that was all she was going to get. After she had eaten some of it she felt really thirsty and asked for more water. She remembered sitting in the chair, feeling very drowsy and deciding to climb on to the bed and thinking it would take a huge effort to move and then no more until she had come round to find herself in the vehicle.

  She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but the sun was setting behind the buildings. She knew she should be thinking about the possibilities of escape, but instead she considered how unsuitable she had become for the role of an intelligence agent on foreign soil. She had taken no proper precautions to secure her safety; she should have alarmed the door, kept a weapon handy at all times, even when she was taking a bath. If she had been as careless years ago as she had been in the last few days she would have been dead by now. She remembered the last time she had been taken by surprise in a hotel room. Dan Hall had been around to save her. Perhaps he would live up to his recent promise, hold up the vehicle and set her free. The car drew to a sudden stop and she looked outside. Not Dan Hall; just a security guard raising a striped pole set in the gap of a chain link fence topped with a coil of razor wire. He waved the vehicle through and Gerry slumped back in the seat. She guessed that she had been given dose of rohypnol or something similar to keep her placid after the sleeping drug had worn off.

  The car pulled up beside a set of aircraft steps. The door opened and hands reached out and pulled her towards the stairway. She looked up and saw an airliner painted entirely in white. Along the fuselage she could see the faint outlines of letters of its previous owners, but she could not make out the logo. She saw someone carrying her suitcase up to the aircraft side and a voice encouraging her to follow. She stumbled on the lowest step and banged her shin, but someone hauled her upright and she trod wearily up to the doorway.

  Once inside she saw that there was a row of rearward facing seats at the front of the passenger cabin and rows of tatty looking economy class seats in standard three abreast on each side of the aisle, but instead of being crammed together for cheap air travel the rows were spaced six feet apart.

  She was ushered half way down the cabin and told to sit in the seats on the right. Trying to overcome her dispirited lethargy she inspected her surroundings with more interest. The first thing she noticed was that her seat had a five point harness of the type fitted to a rally car or to a pilot’s seat. The buckle was fitted with a keyhole instead of the usual rotary release knob. Down on the floor by each seat there were steel rings for shackles. The aircraft was plainly used for the transportation of dangerous criminals, part of the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System, JPATS, more commonly known as Con Air.

  She looked up when another figure was escorted on board. It was Ali Hamsin! She called out his name. He did not seem to recognise her but merely stared at the floor as he was prodded down the aisle until he was shoved into a seat three rows ahead of her.

  She heard new voices talking. She looked up and saw General Robert Bruckner talking to Ryan Carson, Vince Parker and Mark Stafford. They all four stared towards her and she stared back towards them hoping she appeared defiant rather than bewildered. Then Dan Hall stepped through the doorway. Here was the man who had told her to place her trust in him; she must have been a bloody idiot to have given him any credence.

  She closed her eyes and tried to organise her thoughts. Why was she being sent back to the UK as a prisoner? If she was to be arrested for the murder of Dean Furness, they could have done that in Florida. Were they actually going back to the UK, or were they heading for some country where human rights were routinely disregarded, including waterboarding and imprisonment without trial?

  ‘Ok Gerry, I’m going to have to strap you in.’ She looked up; it was Dan Hall.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing Dan? I thought I was meant to trust you, but I’m just one of your bloody prisoners.’ His steady gaze carried no hint of the emotions he had expressed yesterday.

  ‘I’m sorry Gerry; I’m unable to answer any of your questions. Please sit back in your seat and allow me to fasten these straps.’ He reached for the harness and began to fasten it. She grabbed his wrists.

  ‘What the hell are you doing to me?’ she demanded.

  ‘Does she need a jolt?’ someone called out. Gerry saw Stafford standing in th
e aisle with his Taser ready. Hall turned back to Gerry and frowned at her.

  ‘No, she’s not going to be a problem.’ Hall gazed into her eyes for a moment and then twisted his hands free and fastened the five point harness in place with a series of sharp decisive clicks. Next he ran his hands down her leg and Gerry suddenly froze as she felt a hard object being pushed down inside her shoe. ‘It’s a key to the buckle,’ he whispered. Then he reached under his jacket and briefly showed her a Smith and Wesson Chief’s Special, a small but effective handgun, and began to push it behind her. She eased her lower back forward to make room. Finally he showed her a card which he pushed under her thigh. ‘Contact me if you can. I’ll be on the run. It’s the best I can do… good luck.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered back.

  He straightened up. ‘That’s not too tight, is it?’ he announced.

  ‘You fucking bastards,’ she snarled. Carson, Stafford and Bruckner glanced briefly at her but then resumed their conversation as Hall re-joined them. Bruckner stared down the length of the aircraft until his eyes fastened briefly on hers and then he turned and said something to the other three men who chuckled in response. Then he clapped Dan Hall on the shoulder and the two of them disappeared through the entry door. Vince Parker said something to Ryan Carson and they shook hands, then Parker looked towards her, gave an ironic salute and then he followed Bruckner and Hall out of the aircraft.

  Ryan Carson opened the flight deck door and disappeared inside. Stafford sat down in the rearward facing seats at the front of the aircraft and looked at her and Ali briefly. Gerry heard the engines being started. A couple of minutes later she felt the aircraft begin to move. After a few minutes taxying, it turned onto the runway and as it accelerated Gerry was pressed back into her seat and the gun pushing into her lower back seemed to give her a surge of adrenaline as the aircraft roared into the night sky.

  Gerry forced herself not to act too quickly. She waited until the aircraft had reached its cruising altitude and another two hours had elapsed and Stafford had relaxed and stopped watching them closely. While keeping a careful eye on him she felt down inside her shoe and pulled out a metal shaft with some projections. She tried pushing it carefully into the harness buckle where it fitted neatly.

  Next she called to Ali in Arabic. ‘Ali, how are you feeling?’

  ‘Er…I’m alright. I feel I’ve been drugged up for a couple of days. I have a headache but otherwise I’m not injured.’

  ‘I’m trying to see if that bastard speaks Arabic at all.’

  ‘I doubt it Gerry, he doesn’t seem to have been recruited for his intelligence.’

  She watched Stafford; he was reading a magazine and did not appear to be taking in what was said.

  ‘Hey you ugly bastard!’ she said quietly in Arabic, ‘my harness has come undone and I’m about to come over and rip your head off.’

  ‘No reaction,’ said Ali, ‘I think we can assume he doesn’t understand, and he’s not paying attention.’

  ‘Ok Ali, now try not to react to what I tell you. I have a key to unlock the harness and a gun. I’m going to free myself and then when I tell you, I want you to have some sort of fit, so that Stafford comes over to you.’

  ‘What will you do then?’

  ‘I’m going to kill him.’

  As she expected the pilots heard the sound of the shots. The flight deck door opened. It was not Carson, but the other pilot who stepped out. The first thing he saw was Gerry lying down on the floor with blood on her face and chest and her arms flung out. The gun was hidden under her head. He saw Stafford sitting in a seat next to Ali, and stepped over Gerry to talk to him. She climbed silently to her feet and hit him under his back ribs and he crashed to the floor. She knelt on top of him, ground the muzzle into his ear and snarled ‘You’re going to do exactly what I say or I’ll blow your brains out you piece of shit!’

  ‘Yuh..ok,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Ok what’s your name?’

  ‘Reece, Carl Reece.’

  ‘Ok Carl, the first thing you’re going to do is release Ali…ok? This key should probably work. And in case you’re wondering, before I killed him, Stafford handed me his gun, his knife and his Taser, so you behave yourself.’

  She watched him unfasten Ali who grinned up at her.

  ‘Ok Carl, back to the cockpit, at the double.’

  Carson turned round as the door opened. ‘Hey Carl, what the hell’s happened? What was the problem with…’ he broke off as he saw Gerry come into the flight deck behind Reece. ‘Fuck!’ he said.

  ‘Ok Carson, I want a headset so I can hear what’s going on,’ Gerry demanded.

  ‘Er… I don’t think there’s a spare one,’ he said.

  ‘Wrong answer. From now on for each wrong answer I’ll cut off one of your fingers,’ she replied.

  ‘Ok behind you there’s one on a hook. I think it’s already plugged in.’ She gave a quick glance, saw the headset and put it on.

  ‘Good,’ said Gerry. ‘Now you’ll carry on across the Atlantic as normal. Later on I’ll give you some new instructions. And I warn you, I’m in a hell of a bad temper. As you remember I’ve got a pilot’s licence and enough experience to know if you do something unusual with this aircraft.’ She waited until the atmosphere had settled down and the two pilots were looking less tense.

  ‘Good, now you’re going to fly me to Bermuda.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. We’ll fly out across the Atlantic until we get close to the island, and then you’ll turn off your transponder and descend to three thousand feet so the radar can’t see us. Then you’ll divert to Bermuda. When we get real close you can use the radio again and explain that you’ve had pressurisation problems or engine problems or maybe both and that you need to land. You’ll taxy to the edge of the airport and me and Ali will jump out. If I’m happy I won’t shoot you before I go. Is that straightforward enough for you?’

  ‘Ok, I guess you’re calling the shots.’

  ‘Yeah, definitely.’

  Despite her display of self-confidence Gerry felt nervous within the confined space of the flight deck. Her assertion that she would know if things weren’t right had been somewhat hollow. She was in horribly close proximity to the two men, both of whom had detailed knowledge of the complex aircraft. All she had on her side apart from the gun was their knowledge that she would shoot them if she suspected that they were trying to deceive her.

  She looked around the flight deck. The instruments were a mix of the old fashioned type to which she was accustomed from her own training and the large navigation screens which Harvey Wallis had introduced to her on the flight over. The route was on the screen underneath the main flight director. Her best chance was to say as little as possible and not to ask questions that might reveal her lack of confidence or knowledge. First of all she could use some of her experience supplemented by what Wallis had taught her.

  ‘Okay I want to see Bermuda on the screen? What’s the four letter ICAO code for it?’

  ‘TXKF,’ Reece replied, and she saw the sharp look that Carson gave him.

  ‘I want to see it on the screen,’ she repeated.

  ‘I can’t; it’s too far away,’ Carson replied.

  Damn! One mark of credibility lost, but she had an answer. ‘Ok, show it as a diversion airport with bearing and distance,’ she replied. Neither man moved.

  ‘Now!’ she shouted and hit Reece across the side of the skull with the muzzle of the gun. He swore and clutched his head.

  ‘Ok, ok,’ Carson said with a note of resignation that did not fool her for a moment, but he entered TXKF into the alphanumeric keypad and she read 570 nautical miles.

  ‘Ok, this aircraft usually flies at about eight miles a minute, so allowing for the wind and adding a bit for flying at low level for a while, and approach and landing, give me a flight time.’

  Carson entered some more data and turned round to look at her.

  ‘About one hour and forty
minutes to landing at Bermuda,’ he reported.

  That seemed reasonable, she decided. ‘Ok, now I’ll establish some rules. I’ll stand or sit at the back here, and you two will not look around at me unless I give you permission. I know that if I kill one of you, the other one can land the plane. My gun will always be trained on one of you, but you won’t know who. I also have a Taser which will be ready for whomever I don’t shoot. There’ll be no warning shots or wounding shots; I’ll shoot you through the back and into the heart. Any questions?’

  ‘November Two Seven Whisky, climb flight level 350 and route direct to two zero north, six zero west, continue with New York on HF’ came the voice of the air traffic controller.

  ‘Climb flight level 350 and direct two zero north, six zero west, continue on HF November Two Seven Whisky,’ Reece answered automatically and then he froze, expecting another outburst from the British agent.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Gerry. ‘Just take things normally until I say. Now just think of me as your Federal Aviation Authority check pilot not saying much but watching you very, very carefully.’

  She spent the next fifty minutes in a state of high anxiety, not daring to relax her vigil for a moment. Fortunately at cruising altitude there was little for the pilots to do in terms of flying. The operation was carried out using the flight management computer that was coupled to the autopilot. She thanked her good fortune again that Wallis had shown her how to operate the Gulfstream jet. The system fitted to the Boeing was different but by careful observation she noted how the numeric information on the small computer screen related to the navigation display on the instrument panel and the occasional air traffic control communications. Soon the aircraft would be about 250 miles from Bermuda and it would be time to ask for a course to the island’s airport. Her bladder was becoming uncomfortably full, and she wondered if she could get Ali to hold the gun on them, then quickly dismissed the idea. If necessary she would just wet herself. She was becoming increasingly confident that she could pull this off.