by David Barker
The agency driver was annoyingly chatty. Gopal could understand why she needed to do something to help stay alert during such a long journey. But at first Gopal had been trying to read and Rabten, when he wasn’t stuffing his face, had been trying to nap. Actually, napping was not a bad idea. The driver had finally taken the hint when she saw Gopal pretend to nod off as well. And who knew what they would need to do when they got to the border, or when they would next get the chance to sleep? Gopal did not feel guilty at all.
Once they left the G11 highway and got to the end of the S26, the quality of road quickly deteriorated. By the time they pulled up outside the Changbai Mountain Tianchi Hostel, the track was more dirt and gravel than tarmac. There were plenty of hotels among the trees here, and the driver reminded them how popular this place was with domestic tourists. The agents unloaded the kit and thanked the driver for getting them here so efficiently. They checked in under their new false identities and retired to the room.
Gopal made contact with OD headquarters. Wardle explained what Feinberg had figured out. About Heaven Lake and what a bomb at the bottom of the lake might do. Not just to the revered site, but to the whole planet.
“I’m sending you a full technical debrief on the warhead you’ll be dealing with. There’s an idiot’s guide to defusing it, if you get there after the thing’s been primed. Even Rabten should be able to follow that.”
Rabten appeared in the background of the vid conference and bowed, clasping his hands in prayer.
“But let’s suppose the TF do get there before us. How are we going to find and retrieve it from the bottom of the lake?”
“I have a stealth Hydra on standby, with a special package. Just send the word as soon as you are on the lake shore. But make sure it’s at night. We still haven’t managed to make these things invisible yet.”
“Understood, Mr Director,” said Gopal, glad now for the bit of sleep he had managed in the car.
“And listen, fellas. I know you’ve been through a lot in the past two months. But I’m counting on you. This is the big one. I know you can pull through for me. For all of us.”
“We won’t let you down.”
They spent the next hour taking it in turns to have a last decent wash for a few days and packing the kit into a pair of rucksacks. Most of it was basic camping gear. Who knew how long they would have to hide out next to the lake waiting for the terrorists to show up? There were a couple of grenades each, but these were concealed within eating utensils. Gopal’s kukri could just about pass for an elaborate camper’s knife and the surveillance equipment might be mistaken for the kit of an over-enthusiastic bird-watcher or nature photographer.
The hunting rifle would be harder to explain, but Gopal was not going to take on a bunch of crazed terrorists armed with just a knife and Rabten’s martial art skills. The gun was lying on the bed, gleaming after a thorough strip down and clean when somebody knocked on the door, declaring ‘room service’ in mandarin. Gopal was in the shower oblivious to the danger. Rabten was already in his light-absorbing stealth cloth, inspecting the mini-bar in their room for food. Not paying attention to where the rifle had been left.
A woman unlocked the door from outside and bustled in just as Rabten came over to block her entrance. She looked at his black outfit and then glanced past the advancing figure. Her eyes opened wide as she saw the weapon on the bed. “You cannot go hunting here. This is a nature reserve.”
Rabten shook his head, trying to explain in his basic mandarin. “No, no, it not like that. We no hunters.”
“What you going to use it for then?” Her voice was rising in tone as her eyes opened even wider. She turned to leave, but Rabten hauled her inside and slammed the door shut.
“Gopal, get in here, quick. I think we have a problem.”
The woman screamed as the naked ex-Gurkha ran out of the bathroom. Rabten clamped his hand over her mouth and kept it there even as her teeth sank into his fingers. Blood oozed out of the bitemarks while Rabten did his best to suppress a scream of his own.
They gagged the maid and tied her up in the bathroom. They tried to re-assure her. They weren’t going to hurt her. They would be leaving soon and she’d be discovered in the morning. Rabten asked her where the snacks for all the mini-bars were kept and, taking her keys, he went to retrieve some. He came back with a bag load of confectionery.
Gopal put his hands on his hips as the monk returned to the room. “She doesn’t need them.”
“For us. We’ll need to keep our energy up.” Rabten drew a packet of nuts from the bag, shaking it. “And they come in handy-sized packets.”
“Alright, the nuts and chocolate bars, yes,” said Gopal. “But you’re not making me eat those disgusting olives.”
They had a final hot drink and waited until the hotel complex had gone quiet, then slipped off into the night. They had a few miles of uphill hiking to do. And they needed to get to Heaven Lake well before dawn. It was the kind of place where Chinese tourists got up at 4am so they could enjoy the first rays of sun coming over the North Korean side of the mountain. The agents needed to call in the Hydra and get themselves concealed before there was any risk of being spotted.
Gopal shook his head as Rabten opened the first packet of nuts by the time they had reached the end of the hotel drive.
CHAPTER 34
Kiruna, Sweden
Sim was enjoying the feeling of Freda’s arms around his waist as they rode the bike back to ESCO headquarters. That thought was followed immediately by a pang of guilt. Rosie. Alone in their home, mourning a death, creating a life. Sim twisted his head around a little and shouted into the wind. “Any ideas for breaking back into the base?”
“We could try The Great Escape technique,” she yelled back.
“We’re trying to get in, not out.”
“You must know the film. It’s a classic. Steve McQueen jumps his bike over the barbed wire.”
Sim smiled. He’d missed her film references. One day he was going to get around to catching up on all these ‘classics’.
“Ride parallel to the fencing and look for a slope you can use as a ramp, then just rev it like crazy.”
Sim shook his head. “You’re crazy.”
But he could not think of an alternative. Even if his cover had not been blown yet, and his staff ID still worked, how was he going to smuggle Freda into the base? When they got close to the headquarters, Sim gave the main gate a wide berth and started circling the outer perimeter looking for a suitable incline. He found one about halfway around the fence. They waited behind a ruined house while a guard conducted a perimeter search.
Once the guard was out of the way, Sim turned to look at Freda. Neither of them had helmets to wear. “You sure about this?”
She nodded. Sim lined the bike up, revved the engine and let go of the brake as Freda squeezed his waist tight. The bike’s wheels span in the dirt before it darted forwards, gaining speed as it hit the bottom of the slope. It was still accelerating as they reached the top of the incline. The bike took off and arced through the air, just clearing the barbed wire fence. Freda’s weight at the back of the bike held it level instead of coming down nose first. Both tyres hit the ground hard.
Sim could feel Freda falling sideways. Her grip was threatening to pull him off too, but he squeezed his thighs tight around the bike and they just stayed on. The bike was still travelling at speed and Sim did not dare turn the wheel while their balance was so precarious. The front wheel hit something half buried in the dirt. The vehicle stopped suddenly as the suspension fork snapped. Sim and Freda went hurtling over the handlebars and rolled in the gravel. The motorbike’s engine screamed for a moment then cut out. Silence.
Sim blinked and coughed. He spat out a mouthful of shale. There was blood in his saliva and both his hands were covered in lacerations. He wasn’t sure if his ribs were intact, but it hurt when he spat and when he breathed. Freda was lying motionless, one arm resting across his back.
“
Freda?”
A groan. Sim rolled over and gently lifted her arm off him. He wiped her hair away from her face. The left cheek had been scraped raw, but he could see she was breathing, thank goodness.
“C’mon, sleepy head. No time for a nap yet.” He pulled her upright and held her shoulders while she blinked and slowly came around. Sim turned to look at the bike and could tell that vehicle was going nowhere any time soon. “Can you walk?” Freda looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. “Have you broken anything?”
“Yes.”
Sim scanned her limbs. Nothing was obviously askew.
“Yes, I can walk.” She propped herself up on all fours, then stood and swayed for a moment, before starting to walk in the wrong direction.
Sim grabbed her hand and told her to wait while he covered up the wrecked bike. He led Freda towards the side entrance he had used less than twenty-four hours ago. Sim’s ID card still worked and the pair of agents slipped inside without any guards noticing them. Sim turned to look into Freda’s eyes. “You OK now?”
The real Freda smiled back and nodded. “You look a bit like Steve McQueen with those contacts, you know?”
“Come on, my office is this way. There’s somebody who might help us.”
As they stepped out into a long corridor an armed guard appeared at the other end. He called out when he saw them. “What’s going on here?”
Sim whispered to Freda, “Pretend you’ve got handcuffs on.” He pushed her towards the guard. “I caught this one in the grounds. Must have escaped from the other guards, somehow. Taking her back to see the boss. Reckon she might be dangerous.”
The guard looked down at the filthy clothes the pair were wearing. “Put up a fight, did she? You need a hand?”
“What, and share the glory? You’re alright, no thanks, mate.” Sim pushed Freda past the guard, not waiting for a reply. He whistled once they were around the corner with no signs of the guard following them. “Down these stairs and first left.”
Linnéa looked up from her desk glass when Sim entered the room. “What’s going on? Who’s this? Isn’t she—”
“I followed the guards, Linnéa. They weren’t taking her to the airport, they were going to shoot her and dump the body at the mine.”
“Nonsense.” Linnéa stood up and reached for something under the far end of the desk.
Sim held up his hands. “Please, just hear me out. Before you sound the alarm. You ever wondered how ESCO always manages to stay one step ahead of the Terror Formers? Why the company needs so many armed guards? So much research into toxins? Chemical warfare?”
Linnéa shook her head. “What are you implying? I’ve never seen anything untoward.”
Sim held out his hands. “I’m not accusing you, but surely you must have had some doubts.”
She looked down. “I don’t understand. How could you know? You’ve only been here a couple of days.”
Sim looked at Freda who just shrugged. “We’re British intelligence, trying to capture the most dangerous terrorist on the planet. Mattias Larsson. He’s the mastermind behind the Terror Formers.”
Linnéa smiled and shook her head. “Rubbish.”
“The laboratories here. They’re not just for developing antidotes. Biological weapons too. They’ve created a new strain of Ebola.”
Linnéa’s hand moved away from whatever alarm button she had reached for earlier. “Show me some proof.”
Sim told her about Jember Abdi and the mass grave they had found in the Turkish village. A photo of the ESCO haz-mat suit found at the scene. He told her about the stolen nuclear warhead. And he showed her the files he had uncovered about the secret shelter built by Larsson, ready for the apocalypse.
“I can’t believe it. I’ve been working for those bastards? All this time?”
Sim placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “Don’t feel so bad about it. Every secret service in the world has been trying to trace them for years. Slippery gits.”
“What can I do to help?”
Linnéa had used her security clearance to gain access to all the ESCO files on the system while Sim had explained a little more of the background to his mission. “What am I looking for?”
“Information about the mission to steal a nuclear warhead. And while you’re at it, anything about the bio weapons program. Are they planning to unleash it again?” said Sim.
Linnéa scanned through directories, sub-folders. Wage bills, HR records, accounts. “Nothing obvious.”
It was taking too long. Freda kept looking out into the corridor.
“It must be here somewhere,” said Sim.
“Wait. I have an idea.” Linnéa accessed the floor plans of the headquarters and displayed them on the desk glass. She scrolled through a couple of pages of schematics and then pointed. “Look. This section here. It’s completely self-contained. Only accessible via Larsson’s private apartments. Even has its own electricity supply and communication links. That’s where it will be. It must.”
Freda came away from the office door and nodded. “How are we going to get in there? Way too many guards to get past.”
Sim rummaged around on his desk and found the keys to his rented bedroom. His landlady already hated him. Losing the keys would be just one more item on his list of misdemeanours. He fingered the special fob that he had attached to the keys. “I have a plan. But we’re going to need to get suited up.”
Twenty minutes later, the explosives in Sim’s keyring blew a hole through the outer wall of the laboratories. Linnéa was already climbing the stairs that led to the main atrium and the front doors of the building, waiting to hear the detonation.
She got to the top step and coughed loudly when the noise of the blast had died down. As soon as she had the guards’ attention, she collapsed onto all fours. “Explosion. Gas,” she rasped.
One of the guards ran towards her, while another punched the alarm system. Sirens started going off throughout the complex. A voice was relayed over the intercom. “All personnel, a gas leak has been detected. Please leave the building immediately. This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill.”
Sim and Freda, wearing full haz-mat suits, climbed in through the newly created entrance to the laboratories. Three lab workers were lying dazed on the floor. The agents tied them up and searched through the ice-cold storage units as the workers regained consciousness. Even in the freezers, the cover-up was complete. Phials labelled as antidotes, serums, vaccines. Sim had no way of telling if these glass tubes held death or salvation. He took a few with interesting labels and carefully wrapped them in a cloth, stuffing the bundle into a pocket.
He jumped when Freda tapped him on the shoulder and once he was facing her, she shouted through her Perspex mask. “I’ve rigged a gas leak. It should blow in a few minutes. Let’s head for the inner sanctum.”
“What about the lab technicians?” Sim looked at the three people who were sitting on the floor, their hands behind them. He could see the fear in their eyes. Maybe they were the same as Linnéa? Kept in the dark by a brilliant cover-up?
Freda walked up to them and kicked one in the butt. “On your feet. If you want to live, walk out of here and don’t look back.” She pulled the woman upwards by the lapels on her lab coat. “Got it?”
Sim and Freda kept the suits on in case any heroic guards had decided to stay behind, but all they found was a dropped machine gun. Freda tried to give it to Sim, but he pushed it away.
“You always were a better shot than me,” he said, remembering their very first time together on the shooting range.
Sprinting through the corridors, trying to recall the schematic Linnéa had shown them, they were sweating inside their rubber suits by the time they reached the entrance to Larsson’s private quarters. Even here, the guards had disappeared. Freda ripped off her face mask, breathing deeply and then peeled off the rest of her suit. Sim did the same. He used his OD wrist tab to crack the code on the lock.
Freda grabbed the
handle and pulled the machine gun in tight to her body. “You ready?” Sim nodded and ducked to one side of the doorway, grasping the long screwdriver Linnéa had given him. He had lost count of the number of times he’d approached a fight without being armed properly.
The door swung open and Freda rolled forward into the room beyond, scanning the area from side to side with her gun. Nobody. Just a living room. A well-furnished one, admittedly, with a nice view of Kiirunavaara. But hardly the centre of an evil empire. Sim had expected more torture devices, or bad taste at least.
Freda walked up to a foot cushion and kicked it across the room. “Where are these fuckers?”
They moved through the apartment methodically. Tipping out drawers from the desk, pulling books from shelves, opening kitchen cupboards. Sim found himself an automatic pistol and some dubious sex toys in the bedroom. Drawers were already half open, clothes were strewn around the floor as if Mattias and Precious had left in a hurry. The British agents broke into a corridor that led to some stairs spiralling downwards into darkness. Sim pulled out his torch and went first.
At the bottom of the stairs an unlocked door led through to some sort of command centre. There was a console in the middle of the room, with a banked desk glass, surrounded by several small monitors, and on the far wall a giant screen. A pair of headphones were synched to the left-hand armrest of the chair and there was a pair of motion detector gloves at the end of the other armrest. The small screens were filled with messages, location information, targets and dates. This was definitely the Terror Formers’ nerve centre.
A few seconds after Sim had entered the room, the giant screen flickered into life. A familiar face appeared on the screen. Mattias Larsson settled himself into a chair and put on some headphones. He spoke into the mic and a second later, his voice filled the command centre.