by Rob Sinclair
As always, he spoke to me in English. I’m not sure why. Maybe to unsettle me, provide me with a false sense of security. There was no way I was in England.
Was there?
‘I’ve got some questions for you. And I want you to think really hard about how you respond to them. Now, you know what those are, don’t you? The clips attached to your scrotum?’
I bowed my head to look down. I wasn’t sure whether my eyes were actually open or closed. I saw myself, my body, but maybe it was just in my mind. Maybe all of this was just in my mind.
I could see my naked body. Could see that my wrists were tied to the chair arms, as they always were. I tried to move my legs. No, they were secured too. The same each time. But the man was right. Something was different this time. Two crocodile clips, attached to my body, the wires from them trailing off somewhere behind me.
‘As you’ve seen before, we normally attach those to the chest,’ the man said. ‘But you’ve been particularly obtuse with us so far. You’re way behind where you should be by now. So we thought we’d try a different tactic. Perhaps it will help to change your mind about this silent treatment that you’re set on.’
I closed my eyes again, the spinning getting out of control as I did so. But I wanted them closed. I wanted to take myself somewhere else. I knew that was the only way.
In the intensive training period I’d had with the JIA many years ago, I’d been through brutal mock interrogations many times. I’d been trained in subversive techniques, ways to cope with and ultimately ignore pain. I was good it. At least I had been at one time. But here I could feel my resolve weakening by the day. I wasn’t the same man I used to be, that was for sure. And their tactics and persistence were starting to weigh me down.
‘What is your name?’ the man said.
I tried to block out the sound, tried to take my mind to a happier place. But really my life had seen so few. When I thought about it, my many years with the JIA seemed to blur into one. And I had never really lived during those years. I’d been a robot. A by-product of the intense training I’d undertaken. The only happiness I was able to grasp was my brief time with Angela. The only time I had felt true attraction to someone else. But I was finding it harder and harder to remember those good times now.
In the end, all I was left with was a swirling darkness and the echo of the man’s voice.
‘What is your name?’ the man said again. Still cool, calm and collected.
I squeezed my eyes shut. So hard that they began to hurt.
But then it came.
My entire body jolted. My eyes sprang open on a wall of white. Pain ripped through me. And it seemed to go on for an age.
When the electric flow finally stopped, my whole body slumped. If it hadn’t been for the shackles, I would have collapsed onto the floor.
My body throbbed. Twitched. The feeling of the electricity rushing through me was still there, even though the power had been cut. But worse than that, by far the worst thing and what I knew then would haunt me most, was the smell.
The burning smell.
Flesh.
‘Where were you born?’ the man said, his voice unchanged. No emotion. No threat of what might come.
I didn’t reply. No matter what they did to me, I wouldn’t say a word. I couldn’t. For one thing, I knew if I talked, I became expendable. But more than that, I couldn’t betray Mackie, the JIA. My talking could very likely put Mackie’s and others’ lives in danger. I had to do everything I could to prevent that.
I just hoped my brain would eventually take me somewhere else. Because I didn’t want be there when the next wave came. And I knew that it would. Many times.
Because I had been here before. In this room. With this man. Listening to these questions.
And I knew that he had only just started.
Chapter 12
I didn’t move from my stool. Didn’t say anything. The man and the woman were both staring at me. Waiting for a response. But hearing Mackie’s name had stopped me in my tracks.
The thing about Mackie was that he was more than just my boss. He was my mentor and the closest thing I had to a friend and father. I was a lost teenager when I first met him. He rescued me from the clutches of a wasted life. As an unruly teenager being passed from foster home to foster home, I was throwing my life away getting involved in tit-for-tat quarrels amongst rival drug gangs. I’d been going nowhere fast, and in all likelihood would have ended up in a body bag before I was out of my teens.
But Mackie came from nowhere and took me under his wing. I don’t know what he saw in me. Something no-one else had seen. And even though the rebellious me didn’t at first trust him, I quickly came to cherish the fact that someone in the world seemed to give a shit about me.
He brought me into the JIA, gave me something to live for. Turned me into the man I became. Made me indestructible – or so I thought. I’d now spent more than half my life working for him. Carrying out his orders. Unquestioningly. And he’d always been there for me when I needed him.
I thought back to a training exercise, many years ago, where I’d almost lost my life in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands. In conditions not too dissimilar to those I was now experiencing in Siberia. In the aftermath, me with a broken leg and suffering severe hypothermia, it had been Mackie who’d sat by my hospital bed each day. In fact he’d been my only visitor for weeks on end.
He was one of only a handful of people I’d ever truly trusted. Trusted with my life. At least, that’s how I’d felt three months ago.
I wasn’t sure what I thought any more.
I’d always known what working for the JIA entailed. I worked special ops. Black ops, you might call them. The stakes were high. My job was ruthless and deadly. And it came with big risks both for the agency and for agents like me. If you got caught on foreign soil, hell, even if you got caught on home soil, they may not bail you out. There had to be a get-out clause for them to deny you ever existed, because everything we did was officially unofficial. Below the radar.
I had always known that and had always been happy to play the risks. I didn’t have anything – anyone – to go back to, so what difference did it make? But knowing it and living it were different. Deep down, I’d thought Mackie would come for me if I were caught behind enemy lines.
He had done in the past.
For starters, it was in the JIA’s best interests. I was their man. A good agent. Not totally irreplaceable, but why would they want to replace me when they could just come get me? And think of everything that I knew. The agency wouldn’t want that falling into the hands of the enemy, would they? But more than that, it felt personal. How could Mackie, the man who’d given me this life, whom I trusted with mine, let me rot in some torture chamber?
Doubt had begun to creep in within days of my capture. It’s much easier to prepare yourself, to hold out under interrogation, even torture, when you know it’s for a finite period. Two weeks, four weeks, three months, whatever. But as each day passed and no-one came for me, the doubt grew. By the end, I wasn’t sure what to think, what to feel.
So to have two strangers sit next to me, on a Trans-Siberian train in the middle of a most barren and desolate part of Russia, telling me that Mackie had sent them for me? Well, what was I supposed to think about that?
‘What was with the cheap conversation?’ I said, in English now. ‘And buying me a beer? You going to put that through expenses?’
I could feel more stares from the group of loggers. But they really were the least of my concerns now.
‘We just wanted to test your coherence,’ the lady said, responding to me in English, all pretences disposed of. It would make sense if they were English, but their Russian had sounded spot on to me – not that I was an expert. ‘You can understand our wariness. We don’t know what’s happened to you in the last three months. We wanted to make sure you were still…you.’
‘And what was your verdict?’ I said.
‘That it was ok
ay to approach. I imagine you’ve been through a lot, but you’re not a bumbling mess. That’s good. Now, it’s time we got you back home.’
Her voice was smooth and confident. Her neat and tidy appearance together with her mannerisms and stuffy accent suggested she was from a well-to-do family, or had at least been well educated and brought up to appear that way. I don’t know why but it made me all the more wary of her.
‘You think because I made small talk and accepted a free beer that I’m okay? What, are you trained psychiatrists?’
‘No. We’re agents,’ the man said, his voice quieter than it had been before. ‘Just like you.’
‘You’re nothing like me,’ I hissed.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’
What did I care whether they were or not? I wouldn’t have felt any differently towards them either way. Well, maybe I’d feel just a little sorry for them – it’s hardly a life full of happiness and rewards. But I wasn’t going to be their best pal just because we worked for the same employer.
‘How did you find me?’ I said.
‘We shouldn’t talk here,’ the woman said. ‘Why don’t we go to your cabin?’
That sounded like a really bad idea.
‘I’m fine here. What are your names?’
‘Mary and Chris.’
‘Covers?’
‘Of course,’ Mary said.
‘Tell me, Mary, how did you find me?’
‘We should do this somewhere else,’ Chris whispered, leaning over.
‘I said I’m fine here. I’m still drinking my beer.’
‘We’re going to attract too much attention here,’ Chris said, looking behind him.
‘What? Those guys?’ I blurted, deliberately turning around to the group, whose conversation had died down somewhat.
I said, in my best Russian, ‘Oh, they’re just loggers, coming home from their rotations. I wouldn’t worry about them.’
One or two of the group raised an eyebrow at my comment, not sure whether they should be offended by my words or not. But their heads quickly turned back to one another.
Chris shook his head at me, trying not to rise to the bait. ‘Look, Mary and I are supposed to be Russians,’ he said. ‘We’re travelling with our Russian IDs. No point in sitting here talking like this, making anyone suspicious.’
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘Who do you think is watching us, Chris? Do you reckon these guys even understand a word we’re saying? I’m not moving anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on.’
‘Okay, okay. We’ll do this quickly,’ Chris said, nervously looking around. ‘And quietly. We need to get you out of sight. They’ll still be after you.’
‘The FSB, you mean? How do I know you’re not them?’
‘What do you want me to do to prove it to you?’ Chris said, exasperated.
‘Tell me why Mackie left me to rot for three months.’
Chris sighed. ‘It’s not like that,’ he said. ‘We’ve been searching for you for weeks. It was a lot harder to find you than you think. They moved you to a place we didn’t even know existed. We found you about four weeks ago, but we couldn’t get to you. It was too well protected.’
‘Four weeks ago?’ I fizzed, unable to hide my anger. ‘You could have got me out four weeks ago? What the hell have you been doing?’
‘It just wasn’t possible. Why would we have left you there if there was another way?’
‘Indeed. That’s exactly what I want to know.’
‘It’s not like that, Logan.’
‘Was it only the two of you?’ I asked. ‘Was that it? The entire search party?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Chris said.
‘Nothing.’
‘We managed to turn one of the guards,’ he said. ‘Those guys are low-paid slaves. They’ll turn like that if you give them enough in return. He was feeding us back info, telling us about the place. About you. But that was as close as we got. We were making good progress but we needed more time.’
‘And what did you hear? That I was enjoying every minute of it? That it was like a beach holiday?’
Chris shook his head. ‘We found out that you’d escaped,’ he said. ‘It was a natural conclusion that you’d head for the railway. It’s the best route around this place. Most of the time it’s the only route.’
‘Natural conclusion? I didn’t even know where I was. Not at first. I stumbled across Taishet through nothing more than luck. I could’ve been lost out there in the wilds to die. What would you two have done then?’
‘We managed to catch up with you. Followed you onto the train.’
The whole explanation made me feel uneasy. They were trying to make me trust them. It wasn’t working. How had they followed me here? There hadn’t been another car in sight of my Jeep the whole way. It didn’t make sense. And if these two had found me so easily then where were the Russians?
Mary leant over and put her hand onto mine. I didn’t appreciate the gesture but didn’t move my hand away.
‘You’ve made it this far on your own,’ she said. ‘You’re trained for this. But we’re here to help now. We want to help you get back home, Carl. But you’ve got to be sensible about this. We followed you here and found you on the train easily. Don’t think for a minute that the Russians won’t have done the same. We just don’t know how many or who yet.’
No-one had caught my attention on the station platform or on my way through the train. But then clearly I hadn’t really been on the ball. I hadn’t spotted Chris and Mary getting on at Taishet for starters. And I’d sat down next to them and chatted away in Russian about nonsense without even an inkling that they’d been following me.
‘Where’s Mackie?’ I said.
‘London,’ Mary said.
‘So this is the extent of my welcome party?’
‘For now, yes.’
‘What time is it?’
‘It’s just gone half twelve.’
‘Two and a half days more to go,’ I said, finishing the last of the beer.
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, plenty of time to catch up then. I’m going back to my cabin. Alone. I need to rest.’
I got up to leave. Mary and Chris didn’t try to stop me. They were obviously wary of creating a scene. I walked off towards the other end of the carriage, not bothering to look back to see whether they were following me or not.
On my way out I scrutinised the other customers. But what the hell was I looking for anyway? They wouldn’t have ‘FSB’ tattooed on their foreheads. I didn’t spot anyone else who looked like they might be after me. But that was no guarantee.
I headed to my cabin. As I unlocked the door, I did a quick left and right. I saw Chris and Mary just coming into my view off to the left. I shook my head theatrically, so that they would see, then went into my cabin and locked the door behind me.
I stood looking at the door for a few seconds, watching as the outline of two figures passed across it. They didn’t stop, just kept on walking all the way past.
I double-checked that the cabin door was locked, then lay down on one of the bottom bunks, fully clothed. In theory the cabin could sleep four. But with just me in it I had barely enough room to get around.
Having said that, compared with what I’d been used to for the previous three months, it felt like the penthouse of the Ritz.
I felt tired again, even though I hadn’t long been awake since my last sleep. But I wasn’t about to shut my eyes. The twelve hours I’d had earlier, however disturbed they had been, would be enough to keep me going for a while.
The time wasn’t far off one in the morning. Two and a half days until we would reach Omsk. About four hours until the train’s next stop. I was going to be wide awake until then.
Because that was where I was getting off.
Chapter 13
I was beginning to lose my mind. I could no longer tell what was real and what was a dream. If I’d been further down the line,
at least I’d have been so damaged as to no longer realise there was a reality and a non-reality. Unfortunately I still knew there was a difference – I just could no longer tell them apart.
I thought I was lying in my cell, the faint sensation of cold concrete beneath me. My eyes were shut, but I didn’t think I was sleeping.
I heard the key turning in the lock of my cell door.
Two men walked into the cell. I saw their feet moving toward me, those same leather boots as always. I didn’t look up at their faces. I didn’t have the strength.
One of them bent down, stuffed something in my mouth. Food? No, I wasn’t that lucky. It was a linen gag. The other man taped it in place. The sack came next, over my head.
They pulled me to my feet, dragged me out of the cell. My legs were too weak to walk. Instead, I let the men pull me along, my feet and ankles scraping across the cold, hard stone floor. They took me down corridors, a left turn, then a right, then two more lefts. The same pattern as always.
We arrived at the room that I had now been to countless times before. Not the questioning room. An altogether more sinister place. They hauled me up onto the table and secured my ankles and wrists so that I was lying flat.
Suddenly the table was tipped at an angle. My head was pointing downwards. I began to struggle against the restraints. Weak, pathetic attempts. I don’t know why I bothered, simply an instinctive reaction to what I knew lay ahead.
The men carried out their well-rehearsed duties in eerie silence. I imagined them moving around me like doctors and nurses over an operating table – each fully aware of the others’ roles, gliding with a rhythmic precision.
Moments later, without a single word spoken, water gushed down onto me, covering my face and soaking the hood, which clung to my nose.
I tried to breathe but my brain was stopping me. An automatic reflex to stop me inhaling the water. I writhed and struggled against the ropes, more power in my body now, my brain calculating and responding to the risk that I faced. The ropes cut into my wrists and ankles, quickly rubbing away the scabs from my previous visits, which had yet to fully form. Blood poured down my legs and arms from the wounds that once again opened up.