by Tim Heath
The issue for Phelan, and especially his boss, was remaining hidden for long enough for the situation to blow over. Phelan had been told that this was months, maybe a year or so. Standing there at the end of December, watching waves crash against the beachfront as winter winds picked up again, Phelan wasn’t so sure about any of it now. He didn’t want to remain a prisoner forever.
Leaving America raised some problems, however. Firstly, where could they go that was as secure as their current location––and not just physically––but also somewhere that wasn’t open to bribery. It was the one reason they’d avoided anywhere further south, especially Central America, though South America was also notorious for informants. If the Russians came looking and waved enough money around for information, who wouldn’t talk? Crossing the border might complicate things.
It was unlikely that the Russians had contacts or watchers within the American authorities––though you could never rule out the possibility––but wherever they re-entered, there would be no knowing whose computer this unusually large family unit would appear on. And computers could always be hacked.
Phelan felt California was, therefore, more of an option, the distance from there meant it was within easy reach in the van, and it also kept them within the States. There were enough people to hide amongst, though he didn’t fancy the idea of being too close to any of the major cities. It was also a lot warmer, and from all the reports of drought, clearly rained a lot less than anywhere he’d lived before.
They would celebrate the New Year, and then he’d talk with the adults over the next day or two, suggesting they move on once again, and putting into motion what was required so that this latest move would remain a hidden one.
The hum of the van’s engine was beginning to irritate Shane, as he sat there in the back, watching nothing in particular. He’d checked out the young woman in front of him, but she’d ignored him so far if she was even aware of his interest. Outside, the darkness of the morning meant only a few buildings could be seen, illuminated either from the occasional street light or signs of life from within.
The red brick warehouse where they stopped reminded him of Ireland, and he reflected how it had been so long since he’d seen his native land. Too long, though few people––if any––missed him.
The years since he’d last been there had been active, for sure. His operation––as he had viewed it from the moment he accepted the £50,000 upfront payment––had brought him to Russia. There was the suggestion of a lot more on offer if he concluded this mission successfully. He’d never had reason to visit Russia before, but it was a land––a world––and people he was growing more interested in by the hour.
He had no real idea yet of what he’d got caught up in, but he’d always been a thrill seeker. His lack of weighing up the risks, often diving right in instead, had forever given him an edge. It had caught opponents off guard in the past, and had served him well so far––besides the years in prison, but even then it protected him.
The sliding door on the side of the van opened for them, one of the Russians having jumped from his seat at the front and he motioned to them to come forward. Shane allowed the woman to go first, the two making eye contact briefly, she then stepped out onto the slippery ground, and he followed. In front was an open warehouse, and the Russian just extended his hands in that direction––it was clear what he wanted them to do.
Shane entered the darkness, something that had always been hard for him to do in his younger years when his parents were still at home. He’d learned to embrace the shadows like they had adopted him. He’d grown to accept over time that that was who he was, that was what he did.
He could see a few others standing around, many metres apart, and beyond these shadowy strangers, nothing but dark recesses of what he presumed was more warehouse space. It was impossible to see in much further. He assumed there were others also standing in there surrounded by darkness, probably watching him. He took his time, finding his spot and then waited, but within a minute or so, the doors to the warehouse were closed, the pitch black now taking over.
“So we meet again,” Shane said to himself, under his breath and barely audible, not loud enough to have been picked up by any of the mikes above.
All around him there were various movements, some of which were close. He paused, hearing two bodies collide, and made a move in the other direction. He’d been told that there would most probably be supplies available on the higher floors. He was the only one to whom this had been suggested. It was a guess on his Host’s part, but one that turned out to be correct.
Shane worked his way straight up the first set of stairs he found, which led to a small corridor. There were two more sets of stairs––one heading up, the other down. He went up first, but that led to nothing. Every room seemed to be closed off.
He came back down and descended again, which opened into a series of connected rooms. There was a little bit of light, enough to be able to see a way through. Another set of stairs took him up again, and here he came across the room with the explosives in it. His heart leapt. If he could make fire, he could use that to navigate around. He could also use the bombs to stop the others.
This was a competition, after all.
He’d been told to hold nothing back, to do everything within his ability to win––fight dirty had been the exact choice of words used and had been the words that confirmed his interest in taking part in this strange, yet intriguing event.
On the ground, he felt what he took to be some old fabric, maybe a sheet of some kind. Next to it was a lump of wood, and he fashioned the two together to make a torch. Now he needed a flame.
In the box in the centre of the room, the first thing he’d discovered as he entered the room, were five hand grenades. They weren’t much, but they were a start. He’d stowed four of them in his coat pocket, and pulled the pin on the other one, throwing it across the corridor into a room on the other side, which he’d searched already and reckoned to be empty apart from more of the same fabric. He hoped it would burn long enough for him to be able to light his torch.
The grenade exploded, noise and flame rising in equal measure, and he jumped across the area, aiming for the fire which had taken root a little, and managed to light the clumsily constructed torch. It wouldn’t last long, but he would have time to find something else more suitable. Another treasure trove of weapons, perhaps.
He came back to the corridor which was cloaked in darkness in either direction as he raised his burning torch. Out of the nothingness, a gun fired, the flash visible just moments before the bullet struck him in the hip. Shane collapsed, dragged himself into the next room along the corridor, and dropped his torch onto the cold concrete floor.
12
It was nine thirty in the morning, on the first day of the new year in St Petersburg. Watching from the screens in front of them, they were half an hour into the latest event, a contest that had eclipsed anything they’d been involved in so far.
The image of one of the Contestants falling to the ground following a gunshot was met with keen interest. The fact it was then confirmed to be Twenty’s man––Shane Brennan––only added something to that particular revelation. The Hosts watched Shane move a little, his thermal image suggesting the bullet had not yet proved fatal. An image from the room where Shane was lying on the floor now appeared, the light from the still burning torch enough to be able to see something, but the light was fading fast as the fabric burnt itself out.
On the ground floor, another Contestant was moving slowly, having been struck in the early encounters. Arnold was bleeding steadily, his hand pressed against the point where he’d been felled by some form of a blunt metal implement. Nineteen––the Contestant’s Host––looked on eagerly, trying not to let his ageing face display concern. Each man had pride––not to mention a lot of money––riding on their Contestant. No one wanted to be out of the running that quickly. No one wanted a lame horse out of the starting gate.
Always watchful, Svetlana stood above them all, on her platform, in a chair that allowed her to stay away from the others, a symbolic position to underline her specialist role within proceedings. She was the Chair, not a Host. She was there to keep order, to strike a balance between what was right and what was wrong, to make sure no one broke the rules––her rules––and brought their whole organisation into disrepute. She wouldn’t allow that, had never tolerated their outbursts and had been quick to annihilate any threat to her control. She used her beauty and charm always in her favour and had her husband’s influence––and his unquestioning love and support for her––to fall back on, following up with industrial action where and when needed.
Nowadays they had all settled into a regular pattern, no one stepping out of line, though Sokoloff was showing signs of threatening to do that. No one liked being eliminated, and they took it all too personally––something Svetlana couldn’t understand. Deadwood needed removing, surely they all realised that, and yet when it came to it and when positions within either group were under threat, feathers were always ruffled.
To her side and at floor level sat the Odds Maker. The person taking on this role had changed a few times––different situations required different abilities––but each person understood what they needed to do. They were there to set the odds, to entice the Hosts into contests with each other. It was through these duels that connections were won and lost. It was what made the events so appealing to the oligarchs, where such risk and reward were otherwise so hard to come across in the real world, where their money, power and influence gave them an element of success before they’d even done anything.
Inside these walls, that could all change, and there was a certain appeal in that. There always had been.
The downfall of Twenty, once the high and mighty Twelve, was a case in point. It was fascinating to see it all unfolding––right in front of their eyes.
Little did they know what cogs were turning in the background. Far from bad luck––Sokoloff's demise was just another part of a much bigger process.
In London that same day it was quite foggy which gave the capital a somewhat mysterious look, something out of a Sherlock Holmes movie. At Vauxhall House, home of MI6, there was less activity, given that it was a national holiday––still, there were some people in the building. For the Security Service, they were never completely closed.
In his office on the upper floors, the Deputy Director General sat working through papers. He’d flown in and out of Russia the previous day, meeting with a high-level connection of his, and was unsettled as he worked through an endless pile of papers. Something was making him feel uncomfortable, a sense he’d learnt to trust over the years.
“Sarah, please can you come in here for a moment,” he called through the intercom on his desk to his long-standing––and long-suffering––secretary. Moments later she walked in through the door to his well-appointed office, no attempt at knocking made, neither was it needed.
“Thanks for coming so quickly,” he said, the first they’d spoken that day, Price in his office long before she’d arrived that morning.
There was no Happy New Year or anything along those lines, with him it always seemed as if these things didn’t matter. The fact most of the office had been given the day off, most other senior personnel staying home with their loved ones and not requiring their support staff to be in as well, didn’t seem to mean anything to a man known as a workaholic for as long as she’d worked for MI6.
“Can you get me the diaries of two agents of ours––an Alex Tolbert and Anissa Edison. Include the last two years, and include where they are reported to be at the moment,” he added, without really looking up at her from his desk, besides the briefest of glances as she walked in through the door.
“Right away, sir,” she said, turning around and returning to her desk. Five minutes later, she went over to the printer and picked up the three dozen pages that had come out as she’d sent both their calendars to print.
She took them back into her boss’s office, putting them on his desk without further comment. She left the room and, although he didn’t acknowledge her, she noticed that he reached for them as she closed the door.
The DDG scanned through the printouts in front of him, before landing on the current week. Both were down as having annual leave. Anissa had listed the fact she was with her family, which would be most understandable. Alex’s calendar hadn’t put any specific details in nor was that needed, besides marking it as annual leave.
Why, therefore, they had both been seen leaving the airport together two days before, he had no idea.
He looked back a little further, going on dates he’d noted down on his sheet of paper. Here he found an unfortunate coincidence. At the critical times when things were underway in Russia, both of these two agents––who’d come to him stating they were looking into things but suggesting they had little real clue as to what was going on––happened to be travelling during those same periods. Neither agent had listed where they were going, but it didn’t take him long, his clearance level and ability to know where to look confirming the agency purchased air tickets to St Petersburg, as well as one trip to Oslo. Always together.
He would have assumed they were conducting some affair––frowned on within the Service, but a lesser of two evils compared to what they might be up to. And what they might know was starting to bother the DDG, someone who’d worked within the service longer than most––including the Director General himself––a man whose job he’d applied for. No reason had been given for the appointment of an apparently less suitable candidate.
These two knew more than they’d been letting on, that much was clear. At least two trips together, and they had to be having some other help. Someone within the service at this end, and now––the thought growing inside the DDG with every passing heartbeat––they had to have someone on the inside in Russia.
He recalled they had been speaking with an informant, long before things had begun to get out of hand. This person had sent a message, which he’d had passed directly to himself but not shared with anyone else. That communication had given up some names and some dates. These same times, the printouts in front of him now, had been listed––using some code––on both the agents’ calendars. The fact the same reference appeared in each agent’s diary made the connection very clear. They’d been passed the message by some other means and had been working on it for months, not weeks.
When they’d brought the issue before him, as they had voluntarily, he’d suggested they drop it. He had thought they had no real handle on the situation and there was no danger of them finding out anything more. The fact their informant had gone silent was only a good sign; hopefully, that particular source of information had been closed off.
But what if they had been in some form of contact again since? What if these two agents––who he had to admit were amongst the best the Service had to offer––were onto him? What if they knew much more about the Russians than he realised? What if they knew of his personal involvement––his hands-on approach to what they were doing in Russia? What then?
He had to warn them off somehow. He had to know where they were and had to go hard on them. This was a breach of role, a violation of trust. They couldn’t risk wading into something so big, so complicated, and setting back many years of work. This was bigger than any one individual, he for one knew that. They weren’t too valuable to be cut loose to keep what was going on from becoming public knowledge. He knew their silence wouldn’t come quickly.
13
In the vastness of the warehouse building, the ten Contestants, currently spread across three of the four floors, kept working their way through the spaces before them, always in near total darkness. On the ground floor, only metres from where he started, Arnold Lucas––representing Nineteen––was only just about sitting up on the floor after being struck hard on the head. He was dazed and semi-conscious.
Upstairs on th
e second floor, Shane also sat in the corner of the room, his torch long since burnt out, the bullet wound fresh and painful in his hip. He had a grenade in his hand, ready should the shooter appear again in the doorway. He’d been listening for movement, but hearing anything was a little difficult for him at the moment. The combination of the explosion––which was close––and the gunshot, which while further away was in a narrow corridor, had led to temporary deafness.
He’d been around his fair share of gunshot wounds, though this surprisingly was his first. He knew it wasn’t good, and he would need treatment for it sooner rather than later. He also knew if he did need to use the grenade in his hand––something he wouldn’t hesitate to do––because he was in a corridor, there was no way to throw it without himself being caught in the explosion. He would take out his opponent but most certainly kill himself in the process.
Wounded, he knew he might not make it as it was, so to take out the man responsible––he could only imagine it was a man who had shot him––would give him some level of mild satisfaction as he breathed his last. Death would be instantaneous.
All the other Contestants were beginning to find their feet. The people who had remained temporarily on the ground floor––Talbot, Stafford, Leona, Benita and Ambra––were also exploring the upper levels. Only Arnold remained below, still clutching his head.
Stafford and Ambra were moving together; clearly, an alliance made between them. There was nothing in the rules against it––they assumed the Contestants would keep to themselves, each being an opponent to the other, after all––but for Eleven and Fifteen, it gave them a temporary connection, at least. They would see how long it would all last.
No one had made it to the fourth, and highest floor, where an exit onto the roof gave one of only two possible escape routes. Located outside that door, in light snow which fell from a grey morning sky, were three sets of information about each of the three locations across the city where the tickets were located. There were two sets of envelopes per ticket, meaning luck determined which Contestants were up against each other. It was up to each Contestant which envelope they selected. They could only pick one, and there would be one Contestant choosing the other, assuming all ten made it out of the building that day––if ever.