by David Barker
Wardle came into the room and rushed over when he saw Sim’s body on the floor. He looked up at the camera in the corner of the ceiling. The little red bulb beneath the cupola was not illuminated. He donned some latex gloves and twisted his head around to check the door was closed. Reaching inside his jacket, Wardle pulled out a syringe and needle, injecting Sim underneath the tongue. The head of Overseas Division stood up and calmly walked over to a control panel next to the door, while removing his gloves and hiding the needle and syringe. He pressed a button on the panel.
“This is Wardle. We need an ambulance and a crash team. Room L65. Urgent!”
When the medics finally arrived, sweat was dripping from Wardle’s gaunt face. He stopped doing compressions on Sim’s chest and unlaced his fingers. He tried to stand but his leg muscles were cramping, frozen into a kneeling position.
“We’ll take it from here,” one of the paramedics said. They ripped Sim’s shirt off and placed defib pads on his chest. The machine buzzed and beeped, then Sim’s back arched off the ground. The medics strapped an oxygen mask over Sim’s face and lifted him onto a stretcher.
“I’m coming with you,” said Wardle, standing up and rubbing life into his legs.
The paramedic shook his head. “Best you stay here.”
“Like hell I am. I want to make sure…”
When Wardle returned to the office at 1am his assistant, Tom, was still working at his desk. He stopped typing and looked up.
“How is he?”
Wardle just shook his head and walked straight past.
Tom got up to follow him. “Can I get you something?”
The office door slammed in his face.
An hour later, Wardle re-appeared.
“Sir, let me do the paperwork for you. Go home and get some rest.”
Wardle looked up, already half asleep. “Hmm? No, it’s fine. Done already. Tell the team, will you? I won’t be back until the afternoon.”
“OK, sir.” Tom reached out to touch his boss’ shoulder as Wardle walked past.
Wardle’s hands trembled as he grasped the steering wheel of his car down in the basement of City Centre Tower. His mouth gaped open as hours of tiredness tried to expel themselves from his lungs. He rummaged around in his pockets and pulled out a strip of foil packed pills. He squeezed one from its packet and threw it into his mouth. It started to fizz slightly on his tongue. He kept it there as if he were having second thoughts, then swallowed and pressed the starter button on the dashboard.
The electronic engine hummed into life. Wardle turned off some settings for his on-board computer and drove up to the security gates. He waited as the bollards dropped into the ground, closing his eyes for a moment. His wedding ring tapped against the steering wheel in time with the rhythmical clunk of machinery within the gates. He opened his eyes and drove off into the suburbs of Birmingham, not east towards his house but west.
CHAPTER 20
Chinese-Nepal border
“How the hell are we going to get to Korea now?” asked Gopal. The service station had not been far. There had been a short detour while Freda had sunk the number plates from their hire car in a stagnant ditch away from the road. Rabten was eating again while they assessed their options.
“We could fess up why we’re here. Ask for help from the Chinese… but they might not take kindly to our interference with a neighbour,” said Freda.
“Especially an unstable one. Chinese administration is probably crawling with NK operatives anyway. So, we keep a low profile. What about returning to Kathmandu and catching a train from there?” said Gopal.
Freda shook her head. “Take too long. We need to be on the Korean border ay-sap, ready to go in.”
“Internal flight across China?”
“If the Terror Formers could track our escape from Russia, they’ll know we’re in China. I think they’ll be monitoring flights. We mustn’t let them know we’re closing in on their master plan.”
Rabten gently splashed his spoon in the stew in front of him. “Master Wangdue helped us defeat silver serpent.”
“I know pal, I know,” said Gopal, rubbing Rabten’s shoulder.
“Wait,” said Freda. “The silver serpent. Of course.”
The other two looked up with blank expressions.
“After we’d destroyed the water plants, the Chinese kept the pipes they had built. Put them to a different use.” Freda sighed. “They built a hyper loop. Runs from Tibet all the way to Beijing. We could be there in a few hours.”
“They sell tickets for this train?” asked Gopal.
“Government use only. We’ll have to find a way to persuade them.”
“Where is nearest station?” said Rabten.
Freda tapped a few keys on her wrist tab. “Hmm, not far. But off the beaten track. We might have to borrow a jeep.”
Gopal stood up and tapped Rabten on the shoulder. “Eat up. Work to do.”
The pipes that were going to carry freshwater from the Himalayas all the way to Beijing in the east had been re-purposed by now. A hyper-loop – like the train service set up in western America - only longer. And no commuters. The Chinese government had needed a cover-up after Freda, Gopal, Rabten and Sim had helped destroy their efforts to commandeer the Tibetan glaciers. Super-fast trains that could carry troops, officials, equipment from one side of the country to the other. They had not managed to steal the designs for a hyper drone yet. But a hyper-train, yes.
The various staging posts for this network were heavily guarded, even the one Freda was watching through her night-glass on a remote part of the Tibetan plateau. There was some sort of research facility out here and a small garrison of soldiers, judging from the buildings and foot traffic she could see. The front gate was heavily guarded, of course, thought there were large stretches of the perimeter fence in shadow and un-protected.
“We’ve had plenty of practice at getting inside places like this. But we need to get onboard one of the pipe trains. That’s the hard bit,” said Freda while continuing to squint through her scope. “How’s your mandarin, guys?”
“Can’t we just speak Tibetan?” asked Gopal.
“Not if you want to sound like a government official.”
“Rabten can speak it OK. Mine is bad, but I bet yours is worse…”
Freda turned to face the ex-Gurkha. “You’re not wrong.” She assessed their meagre equipment. The guns taken from the tall man. A night-vision scope, with laser signalling device and telescopic stand. Rubber-handled wire cutters. Three micro-sticks of plastic explosives, disguised as chewing gum. A wrist tab each. And a multi-purpose penknife that Gopal had stolen in Russia. “We’ll have to risk something a bit crazy.”
They improvised some camo-face paint from the muddy terrain. The perimeter fence took longer to defeat than Freda had anticipated. Motion sensors had to be disabled before they could cut a slit through the wire mesh. Once inside the base, they headed for one of the buildings furthest away from the barracks. An armed guard was patrolling the outer fence. As she watched him walk past, from the shadow of a pile of crates, Freda prayed that he wouldn’t notice the damage to the wire. They had tried to bend it back into place but had not had time to do a perfect job. The guard paused for a moment, scratched his arse, then kept walking.
Freda had observed people without guns and in different uniform to the soldiers. They were coming in and out of the building next to the agents’ hiding place. She wanted more firepower but a silenced pistol would have to do. “Remember, we don’t need to kill anybody. Just get their uniforms and passes. Without them sounding the alarm.”
Gopal raised an eyebrow. He clicked the safety off the automatic pistol and signalled for Rabten to cover the other exit.
“My fists not fast enough last time,” whispered Rabten.
“What did you do when you lost to Wangdue in training?” said Gopal.
“Tried harder.”
The ex-Gurkha nodded and ran up to the main door, with Freda close
behind. He counted to ten and burst through the door, gun raised straight in front of him. A Chinese man and woman looked up from their desks, their eyes widening.
Gopal shouted something in Tibetan and gestured for them to get down. Freda didn’t want him to shoot. They needed the uniforms without bullet holes. Besides, silencers are not that effective on automatic pistols. But if they tried to set off the alarm... she hoped that the Chinese officials would be too scared to find out.
As Gopal advanced into the room, the man got down onto his knees and the woman started to lie face down. The man waited for Gopal to get a little closer and then dived at the agent’s legs, toppling him backwards. The ex-Gurkha smashed the grip of the pistol down onto the Chinese man’s back. The breath left his lungs in a rush that turned into a cry. Gopal tried to regain his feet, while Freda tried to wrap her hand over the Chinese man’s mouth.
The woman sprang to her feet and ran to the far side of the room. She grabbed the door handle and fumbled with her ID card, trying to press it against a control panel. Freda let go of the Chinese man and ran after her. The woman sprinted through the door, which started to close. Freda reached the handle just in time to stop it clicking shut. She pushed the door open and saw a straight corridor ahead of her. Another door at the far end was swinging shut. She’d never reach that one in time.
“Shit.” She turned around and saw Gopal knock out the Chinese man with the grip of his pistol. “Get that uniform on,” she said. She wedged the door open with a stash of papers and jogged to the door that the other woman had disappeared through. It began to open. Slowly. Freda pressed herself against the wall, prolonging the moment before the person coming through would see her. She pulled out the stand from her night scope and raised it above her head like a cosh.
Rabten staggered through the door, carrying the Chinese woman over her shoulder. “Think I broke her nose, but she be alright.”
Freda looked at the blood dripping onto the floor from the woman’s face. “What about the uniform?”
The nosebleed had missed the uniform, but they still had a problem. Two sets of passes and uniforms, but only one was for a man.
“Hide me in the crate, and you use the woman’s ID,” suggested Gopal.
“Never going to work. I don’t have my Babel app with me. And besides, nobody is going to believe I’m Chinese,” said Freda. She picked her bottom lip. “Stick to the original plan. One of you is going to have be the dame.”
Gopal and Freda turned to look at Rabten. “What a dame?” he asked.
Fortunately, Rabten’s facial hair was almost non-existent. Freda had to remove the woman’s bra because its clasp was beyond the skill of the monk’s trembling fingers. He put that on, Freda stuffed the bra with a pair of socks and then the uniform was donned. At least Chinese female officials wore trousers, the same as men.
Freda stood back to admire the transvestite monk. “It’ll have to do. Now remember, this is a top priority request from Beijing. You two need to accompany the crate, for immediate delivery. Got it?”
The two men nodded and went to select the most suitable box, while Freda looked for a trolley to use. The two men came back and lifted the lid on a crate that was roughly a cubic metre in size. Freda looked at the space inside and tried to figure out how long the hyper loop took to get to Beijing from here. She found a half-drunk bottle of water on the desk where one of the Chinese officials had been working and took it with her as she clambered into the box. She folded her limbs and tried to get comfortable as Gopal lowered the lid into place. It was a dark, tight squeeze. It reminded her of a cargo hold she had once shared with Sim in the back of a plane. She tried to force herself to breathe slowly. But the urge to burst out of the box was almost uncontrollable. Freda wished Sim was with her.
The other two agents wheeled the crate towards the hyper loop and showed their passes to the guard. It was still night and the lighting outside, in the grounds of the base, was patchy. Rabten did his best not to look up at the guard too much. He breathed out when the guard waved them through into the terminal.
There was a small carriage awaiting them. It looked like a huge shell – the sort that train-mounted artillery guns used to fire in World War I. But this one had two doors in its side. There was seating for eight people in the front section and space for several boxes in the rear compartment. The crate was wheeled on and the two agents were relieved to see that nobody else was boarding here. They clambered into the seats and strapped themselves in, while a technician closed up the hatches.
“Safe trip,” he said in mandarin. Gopal just gave the man a thumbs-up sign.
The train accelerated, pressing the two men into their seats and catching their breath. The acceleration kept coming. Far more than when a plane zoomed down the runway before take-off. Their rib cages began to feel heavy. There was nothing to see – the carriage was a sealed unit. A bullet flying down the barrel of a gun. Finally, they could start to breathe more easily again. While the carriage was in motion, there was no access to the rear section that contained Freda’s crate which meant they could not check on her. They just sat and waited for their destination.
After an hour, the train started to slow. Gopal grabbed Rabten’s arm. “Too soon. It ought to take us at least two hours to get to Beijing.”
“They onto us?” asked Rabten.
“I don’t know. Get ready.”
There was a clunk from the hatchway once the train had stopped and the two agents stood as the door swung up and out. There was a faint smell of hot metal that Gopal could almost taste. Four more people were waiting to get on. One man wore several stripes on his lower sleeve and an over-sized military hat, with a bright red band below its peak. He got on first. “No need to stand, let’s keep it informal on board,” he said. “Now, is there’s anything to drink on board these flying tin-cans?”
Rabten sat down again quickly, trying to avert his face. But the Major insisted on sitting opposite the cross-dressing monk and started up a conversation. He rocked back when he finally got Rabten to look up at him.
The Major looked at his colleagues. “Phew. They breed them… tough in Tibet, don’t they? I’m definitely going to need a drink for this trip.”
The train accelerated away. The Major, sitting with his back to the direction of travel, swayed forwards and put his hand on Rabten’s knee to steady himself. He winked at the monk as he settled back into his seat. Even at hyper-speed, it was going to be a long journey to Beijing.
By the time the train began to slow again, the Major had given up trying to chat up the monk. He had produced a flask of spirits from an inside pocket and consumed it steadily throughout the journey. At least the alcohol had taken the edge off his bad breath. The door swung up and out again and the Major pushed himself off first, burping as he stood. His colleagues followed him, leaving Gopal and Rabten the last to leave. Once off the train, they went to collect Freda’s crate from the rear section. The door to this compartment had already been opened and some crates were being wheeled off. Inside the train there were no crates left. Freda had gone.
They stepped out again and Gopal looked across the busy terminal as the panic began to rise from his gut, constricting his throat. The pile of boxes that had been wheeled off their train was already almost out of sight. They had to catch up before Freda was lost forever.
CHAPTER 21
Birmingham
Sim opened his eyes and groaned. It was dark, or his eyes were not working properly. He tried to sit up but that hurt. There was a huge bruise running across his chest. His throat felt raw and dry. Rolling over onto his side, Sim groaned. There was a glass of water on the table next to his bed. He sipped it urgently, spilling some onto the bedcovers.
A door opened and his boss entered the room.
“Where am I?”
“Somewhere safe. For now.”
“I don’t remember. What happened?”
Wardle pulled up a chair and sat next to Sim’s bed. The legs squeaked as
they dragged over the plastic floor. “Somebody tried to poison you, Sim.”
“Who?”
“I’ve been expecting an attack. I thought it better if it happened at City Centre, rather than your home.”
Sim tried to sit up again. “Is Rosie alright?”
Wardle held his hands out for calm. “She’s fine. I have somebody watching your home, but I’m sure she’s not a target.”
Sim sighed and slumped back into his pillow.
“I had to make it look as though the poison had worked. Gave you something to counteract the poison, but also to suppress your heart-rate.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The ambulance crew will swear blind you died on the way to hospital. They’re the only ones who know where you are now. We need to flush out the person who poisoned you. The real mole.”
“What about Feinberg?”
“Misdirection. But he’ll have to stay locked up for a while longer.”
Sim pulled a face. “Pretty harsh. How long’s he been in already?”
“That’s not the worst of it.” He stared into Sim’s eyes.
Sim looked back while the cogs turned. “But. You can’t mean?”
Wardle nodded. “She’s strong, Sim. Stronger than you realise. She’ll get through this. You both will.”
“No, no, that’s not on. She’s pregnant. If she thinks I’m dead, the stress will... She might…” Sim was shaking his head, trying to prop himself up again. He winced as his sternum took the strain of his arms.
“Atkins, we have to do it like this. Everybody has to think you’re dead. Everyone.” Wardle stood up and paced the room. Then stopped to lean both hands on the end of Sim’s bed. “I need you to go undercover in Sweden. Expose that monster for what he is. You want to find out who killed your son, don’t you?”
Sim squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. Damnit. Yes, of course he did. But making Rosie think he’s dead? The cruellest of tricks. “Won’t Larsson recognise me?”