by Robert Wilde
These had seen better days, and you wouldn’t get anyone with money operating out of them, which was why they were perfect for people who wanted to hide things. As the truck pulled to a stop people emerged from the darkness, a whole gang of people. This, the driver concluded, was where things could go wrong.
There was a rapping in his window, and he wound it down. Cigarette fumes rushed in.
“You got it?” came a shouted voice.
“It and more,” the soldier replied.
There was a nodding of heads, a bark more than a command, and the warehouse doors opened. Light now flooded out, and the soldier realised he had to drive in, and he did so aware that a single figure stood waiting for him, arms folded, shaved head stern. The soldier decided the best thing to do was let this man come to his door, open it, and look in.
“You got it?” he barked harder than the last man.
“All of it, and more.”
“Show me,” and the man headed round the back. The soldier climbed out, engine off, and was soon climbing into the back.
“We have here a quantity of SA80 rifles, complete with spares, magazines and in here we have the ammunition.”
“Good, good,” said a voice that expected nothing less.
“I have the grenades, in these, just as you ordered.”
“Very good. I’ll have to have a look inside, of course, but you’ve earned your money.”
The soldier smiled. “Two million pounds in cash.”
“In two cases here with us.”
“How quickly can you get your hands on another million?” The soldier said it smiling. This was not returned.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“This is the thing Mog,” and the soldier tapped a box which so far hadn’t been mentioned. “I’ve brought you something extra.”
Mog tilted his head and looked. There was a wooden crate six foot long and a few feet wide and deep.
“So you want to sell me something extra for another million?”
“Yes.”
“Then what the fuck is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can see why you’re running away from the army. They’d discharge you.”
“It’s a weapon, I know it’s a weapon. But it’s a secret weapon they’re developing. I’ve not seen in the box, I don’t know what it is or what it does, but one was in the warehouse for sending for testing, and I nicked it for you. Yours for another million.”
Mog refused to sound impressed. “This is the sort of secret weapon they’ll go crazy looking for?”
“No more than a batch of rifles.”
“I don’t believe you. But alright, get that box unloaded and we’ll look inside.”
Mog’s gang soon manhandled the crate out and it was on the ground in the mouldering warehouse. A pry bar was produced, and the top popped off. Everyone was standing and looking in.
“What the fuck is that…” The sentiment was shared by everyone else in the place, and they all stood a little slack jawed.
Mog turned and looked at the soldier, then back to the box. “Are you sure there’s not a bit missing?”
“No, that’s the whole thing.”
“And you’re sure it’s not going to start working while we keep it in here?”
“It’ll be fine.”
“How do we use it?”
“No idea, I assumed you’d sell it to a rival government. For tens of millions.”
Mog scratched his stubbly chin, said “what’s it made out of,” and reached in and touched the weapon. No one assembled had ever seen him move with the speed he snatched his hand back. “There is something fucking wrong about that. Fucking wrong indeed.”
“So a million?”
“No. I’m not happy about it. If you’d bought us a fucking cruise missile or something that would be fine, but that, that fucking thing is wrong.”
“Come on, you’ll sell it for a shitload.”
“I’ll give you half a million, and it’ll be delivered tomorrow. That’s the best.”
The soldier looked at Mog, decided it was better not to argue, and agreed.
“Good. As you’re here you can help unload. Put the lid back on that thing and store it at the back. I need to go and make some calls. Jesus do I need to make some calls.”
Mog had been away from the warehouse for a while, but had returned today to make sure everything was being done properly. The weaponry had been unloaded, unpacked, and repacked ready to be moved on. The truck had undergone a swift number plate change and was already somewhere on the continent living another, non-military life, and everything that had been planned was going as per the plan. The difficult part was the non-planned surprise, which had gone about as badly as it could without everyone being arrested and charged with treason or something.
“Err boss,” came a voice from behind him and he turned to find one of his men standing looking nervous.
“What is it?”
“There’s two people here to see you.”
“Two… oh, oh right,” and Mog turned and walked to the doors of the warehouse, where he could indeed see two newcomers. Both were tall and thin, one a redhead and the other looking Middle Eastern. Presumably she was here to do the talking and he was here to look after her. Although it didn’t pay to be sexist these days, you never could tell. Still, they shouldn’t be here.
“I take it you didn’t get my message,” Mog said as he walked over.
“No,” Dee lied, “did you increase your price?”
“No, no, look, you’ve had a wasted journey, the weapon is no longer available.”
“You’ve decided to keep it? We’ll double our offer to twenty million.”
“No, no, it’s been sold.”
“We’ll double their offer.”
“Someone else has it. It’s not about the money.”
“Money, money, money…” Nazir sang. Mog and Dee glared at him.
Dee turned back to Mog and did her best to read the man. He was not a crime lord in control of his empire. He looked worried, even scared. That was something to work with.
“Who did you sell it too?” She asked.
“That’s private.”
Dee reached inside her jacket, and produced and threw a bundle of notes onto the ground. “There’s twenty five thousand there, just to tell us who has it.”
Mog looked at the money. “Who did you say you were again?”
“The CIA.”
“With British accents.”
“You can’t wander about being American everywhere.”
Mog’s face twisted, and Dee knew he was fighting an urge to act. She decided to assist. “What can we help you with?”
“I sold it to the Russians.”
“Oh Jesus,” Nazir sighed, “not them again.”
“Very patriotic of you,” Dee smiled.
“I’d have preferred to sell to someone who’s not a total cunt.”
“Our publicity is finally working.”
“This is how it is. I sold it to them because they took my son hostage.”
“How medieval.”
“They took the weapon and my son, and he won’t be released until it gets into Russia. If I tell you all I know, can you get my son back before they decide to just fill a ditch with him?”
“Yes,” Dee promised not knowing, “we can.”
“Alright. Alright, let’s do this.”
Before
“Are you sure you’re okay to do that?”
The worried tones of Professor Pohl didn’t have far to travel, as she was standing over Dee, who was in turn putting a pair of running shoes onto her feet.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. The doctors say I’m fine, the physio says I’m fine, my stomach is, basically fine. I just need to start getting some exercise again before my muscles fall off. I was in bed for ages.”
“If you’re absolutely sure.”
“I appreciate your concern Professor, but really, I can go for
a run. I’m better.”
“You have your phone in case anything goes wrong?”
“Yes, yes I do.”
“Well… okay.”
Dee jumped up, patted her phone in her pocket, and went to open the front door. She found Nazir coming up the path.
“Guess what I just saw!”
“What Nazir? Because given your combined past anything less than an Easter Bunny will be a let-down.”
“I was passing Tesco when this vision from a Dickens book came out. Young man, twenties, dressed in black clothes suitable for a granddad, face pallid and depressed, in search of a good meal and a warm bed.”
“I think I can see how this is going.”
“I thought about giving him my number.”
“Not the usual sort you go for.”
“No, I must have a pity fuck setting I’ve not realised before.”
“Well there’s a nightmare vision for us all. I’m going for a run, so if you can spare Pohl your newfound desire to shag the poverty stricken I’ll…”
“That’ll be your phone ringing.”
“Yes, yes, hello?”
“Hello Dee.”
It’s the Array, she mouthed to the humans in the hall. “Hi, how are you?”
“I’m hoping you were feeling well enough to do a job for me.”
“I’m well, and the sooner people stop asking the better. So what’s this job?”
“You best put me on speaker phone in the kitchen.” Coffee was put on, running shows were discarded, the phone was set on the kitchen table. “I’m hoping you can help retrieve something for me?”
“What have you lost?”
“Nothing yet. But soon.”
“Right,” Dee said, “start at the start.”
“I have managed to get a project I’m interested in mostly completed. Through my background efforts, the military have built a number of devices, and I have positioned a man desperate to steal from the military so he can take my chosen one of the devices and sell it. I have identified a criminal and put the two in contact. Soon the device will be stolen, and I want you to pose as the CIA, take however many millions of pounds it will take, and buy it for us.”
“That’s a little more complicated than I imagined.” Pohl said.
“Why not just steal it yourself?” Nazir asked.
“I need the layers so nothing can be traced to us. Me, or you. The world works best as an onion.”
“So we just walk in, pay a few million quid, and come out with the device.”
“Yes.”
“So what’s the device?”
“Ah, well, it’s…”
The Present
“Did you say Russians?”
“Yes Professor, I very much did say the fucking Russians.”
Dee and Nazir had collected all the information Mog could supply on the group who’d taken the crate, and it turned out to have been a very recent set of arrivals in London. Then they’d come back to relay it to Joe, Pohl and the Array.
“I do not want to go back to Russia,” the professor groaned.
“Oh come on,” Dee said grinning, “I missed out on that last time, so I’m really going this time.”
“Please explain the situation Dee,” the phone ordered.
“The situation in the British underworld is a bit more complicated than the average TV episode makes out, and there’s been a group of Russian mobsters gathering what they could from the British underworld in an attempt to keep the increasingly stressful situation in the east profitable. That they were suddenly able to act with the government’s best interests at heart when an experimental device comes on the market surprised no one, as it’s the worst kept secret in crime that the Russian mobsters are the Russian government.”
“The device is in Russia…” The Array said with a detachment which signified it had already started reaching out through the digital realm.
“No, it isn’t,” Dee explained, grinning.
“No?”
“No, the device is destined for Russia, and probably some research base, but it’s very hard to smuggle a secret weapon through the boycott. Instead it’s being moved through Eastern Europe, into Ukraine, through the war torn east, and then into Russia.”
“Perfect,” the Array decided.
“That’s perfect?”
“Yes Nazir. A place of chaos and confusion and blurred borders. That gives us somewhere to operate.”
“Well, us,” Nazir added, clearly meaning not you brains in jars.
“I assume you’re all happy to go and retrieve the weapon?”
“And the boy, mainly the boy,” Dee explained, outlining the situation.
“That’s medieval,” the Array added, then apologised when Pohl half choked.
“This is like Resident Evil!” Joe explained from the box.
“What?”
“Resi Four takes place in eastern Europe, as you try and rescue the President’s daughter.”
“What happens then?”
“Oh, there’s a body corrupting parasite that turns people into zombie like creatures and massively powerful monsters.”
“This had better not fucking be like Resident Evil then.” Dee got back on point. “So what’s the plan?”
“Give me a few hours to see what I can acquire, what I can track, and who I can get onside, and then we’ll sort out what you’ll be doing.”
“I suppose I can pack.” Nazir said.
“Yes.”
“Alright, but this time we want guns. Actual guns, for when other nutcases with guns turn up.”
“Given the chaos in eastern Ukraine, I can get you guns easily enough.”
“Thank you.”
“Do we want guns?” Dee asked.
“I want a gun, you can run round in a sheet pretending to be a ghost.”
“I’m still not sure you haven’t made that up.”
It had once been the owner’s pride and joy, a high performance car you could show off while driving. Fuck, you could show it off just by washing it, but the old owner was dead and the mud stained vehicle was being driven with the fearless abandon that comes from living in a war zone. As the car slung round a corner the driver decided he should slow things a little because there was a road block coming up and he didn’t trust those fuckers to realise it was her and not shoot.
Soon the car pulled up outside a pile of earth and wood which formed a rampart, and behind which stood three people in whatever warm clothing they could muster, and as deadly a selection of firearms as they could collect.
“Alright,” one said, as the windscreen revealed the driver.
“I’m going to see the Father, I have news.”
“Ah, okay, better drive on,” and the men turned back to talking to each other. As she put the car into gear and drove off she wondered what would happen if the Ukrainian loyalist army, or the Russians pretending to be Ukrainians, or even the Russian fucking army came up to that checkpoint. She had a feeling very little.
The car was soon winding its way through the village which had formed round the church all those centuries ago, and it skidded to a gritty stop outside the ancient stone building. There wasn’t much point in locking the vehicle, so the woman left it, went to the front doors of the church, and nodded at the guards there. This pair were alert, better armed, and would put up resistance for attackers.
Still, they let her in, and soon she was inside what was now only a part time place of worship, and now a part time command centre. At one end, where the altar still stood, a map had been pinned to the wall, and pins in that showed the disposition of a war raging around them which rarely featured in the western news. A radio was on, the local station doing its best to keep people updated, and stood contemplating the map was the Father.
“Hello,” she said, “I’ve got reports on the movements in the north.”
The Father didn’t reply, he simply turned, showing a face that by all rights should have looked older, and eyes which were precisely
the opposite.
“Thank you, please come forward and help me plot them.”
Soon they were at the map. She couldn’t resist asking. “Father, is there a way out of this?”
“Out of it child?”
“We are running out of ammunition. Our weapons are decaying. Violence is growing. Is there a way to survive this war?”
“You feel we are trapped in a vice which tightens without our control. You are right, of course. But believe in God my child, believe in providence. If we keep ourselves together, something will come and help us. Something is on its way.”
Another car approached the checkpoint, but today was a dry, balmy day and it was free from mud. The men behind the rampart didn’t recognise it as a regular visitor, so they came out and stood in the middle of the road, guns at waist height, because they believed that was how people handled this sort of thing. Soon the car stopped, a window wound down, and a head full of red hair stuck out.
“Hello,” Dee said in English, and immediately afterwards a tiny mobile phone which was attached to her jacket repeated the phrase in the local tongue.
The gunmen came round and peered in the window.
“That translates?” one asked, and the phrase was repeated by the phone in English.
“Yes, yes it does.” That the Array was constantly on the connection doing the translation didn’t need mentioning.
“Handy bit of kit. Who are you?”
“We’re from the British, we’ve come to negotiate with the Father.”
The men looked at each other, then back at the translator. “You’ve come to help us at last?”
“That’s to be discussed.”
“Alright, I’ll come with you,” and the man climbed in the back seat, nodding at Nazir in the passenger seat.
“Hi,” came a greeting.
Soon the car was being directed through the landscape of an eastern Ukrainian village, and they pulled up in front of a church.
“Wait here, I’ll tell him you’ve come,” their guest said, before climbing out and running inside, so Dee and Nazir got out, went to the boot, and popped it open. Soon the man came running back.
“I’m to check you for weapons before he gets here.”
“By all means. We’re both unarmed,” Dee explained, “but there are weapons in the car. Your weapons if things go right.”