by Rob Sinclair
The man by the chair wasn’t carrying a firearm like the other two. Not in plain sight at least. But he did have on a utility belt. And I could see amongst other things he had a sheathed knife in there.
I began to calculate my move. I didn’t like the odds, but I had to try something.
Then, as if justifying the sense of anxiety I’d been feeling, the man by the chair reached into his jacket pocket and my body instinctively tensed. His hand came back out, wrapped around what looked like the butt of a handgun. My brain registered surprise. It seemed strange that the man had been concealing a weapon when the other two had been so brazenly brandishing theirs.
But then I realised why. It wasn’t a normal gun. It was a dart gun. Not a usual weapon to be carrying around so he’d stashed it awkwardly in his inner pocket. It was the same type they’d used to subdue me in the early days of torture.
And that scared me.
I couldn’t go back to those days. I couldn’t be their plaything any more.
‘If you’re not going to sit down of your own free will then we’ll just have to find another way,’ the man said.
A smirk was creeping up his face as his eyes lifted to meet mine. He began to raise the gun toward me. He was only three or four paces in front.
I couldn’t stand and wait for the inevitable. This was my chance.
I dived forward towards him. He hurriedly tried to adjust his aim but he knew he only had one shot. The gun only held one cartridge at a time. If he missed, he wouldn’t have time to reload. That element of doubt in his mind was all I needed.
I bundled into him before he got his shot off and we tumbled awkwardly into a heap on the floor. He was a big man, wider but not as tall as me. His arms were like tree trunks, and I knew that if the tussle went on for long enough, his strength would overpower me. But I’d taken him by surprise, and if I acted quickly, he’d have no chance.
I’d managed to wrap an arm around his neck as we’d fallen to the ground. I was lying with my back to the floor. He was on top, facing away, his massive body weight crushing me. He was pushing and writhing his body and I knew that my one arm around his neck wouldn’t hold him for long. I reached down with my free arm, trying to grasp his knife. He still had the dart gun in his hand. But despite his best efforts he had no way of turning it on me.
I heard shouts from the other two men. They couldn’t shoot while their friend was on top of me. Or at least I hoped they wouldn’t. Either way I had to be quick. I flailed, trying to reach the knife but not quite able to. The distraction of trying to get the knife got the better of me, though, and my grip around the man’s neck loosened, allowing him to free himself.
My time was up.
But his movement also meant I could reach further. I grabbed for the knife, got it and swung it back as hard and fast as I could, straight into the man’s gut. He screamed in pain and his resistance immediately waned. He finally let go of the dart gun and it clattered to the floor.
Badly wounded, the heavy man was still crushing my chest, screaming and writhing. At least with him on top, he was offering me some protection. I wrapped my left arm around his neck again. I wanted him right where he was. I looked to my side and the saw the other two men, still looking for their chance. I flung the knife out and it caught one of the men in his leg. He fell to the floor. But if he was tough, he wouldn’t be down for long.
I reached out and grabbed the dart gun and hastily aimed at the last man. I fired and the dart hit him in the gut. But the effect of the tranquiliser wasn’t instantaneous and he looked up and then began to bear down on me.
I cowered behind the man’s body, using him like a shield. The guard with the dart in his belly opened fire, a succession of bullets whizzing toward me. The rounds finished off his friend; I could tell by the way his massive body weight slumped onto me. But none of them hit me. And I only had to wait it out for a few more seconds. When I heard the smack on the floor, I knew the final man was down and out.
But I wasn’t home and dry yet. I pushed the dead guard off me, scrambled onto my feet and rushed over to the man with the knife in his leg. He was still on the floor, his teeth gritted, snarling. When he saw me he found the strength to turn his focus away from his wounded limb.
I kicked him hard in the face before he had a chance to reach for his weapon. A shooting pain shot up through my bare foot and into my ankle, but I blocked it out. I smashed my heel down onto his nose, which seemed to squash right into his face on impact. His eyes bulged open and his head lolled to the side. I hit him again with my heel and then again. And then once more with my other foot when the pain in the first became too much.
I don’t know whether the blows were enough to kill him. But he wasn’t going to be fighting again in a hurry.
The three men were all down, if not entirely out. No need to finish them all off. I had to be quick. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do next but I knew there would be more guards out there. And Lena.
But first, if I was going to escape, go on the run, I needed better clothing. I had on a simple cotton shirt and trousers, but the guards wore jackets and boots and I could tell from the ambient temperature in the place that wherever we were it was cold outside. I strode up to the tranquilised man and began to undress him. When I was done, I grabbed his gun and made my way to the open door.
I peered out and looked both ways. No signs of anyone else. But also no signs of which way to go. I certainly hadn’t seen any exit the way we had come, so I opted to go in the other direction.
I was moving fast, almost running. The adrenaline was pumping through my body, making it hard to stay calm and focused. I knew I had to be cautious but I found it almost impossible not to just fall into a full sprint to get out of there as quickly as I could.
But as I rounded the next corner, I regretted having been so hasty when I almost bundled right into her. Lena.
The look of surprise on her face was probably much like mine. But she didn’t cower or back away when she finally realised what was going on. Instead her expression turned to anger.
‘Carl, what the hell are you doing?’ she shouted.
I pulled the gun up toward her chest. Only then did I notice that she was pointing a handgun at mine. She really was a sly fox. I hadn’t even seen her move.
‘I’m getting out of here,’ I said.
‘Where are my men?’ she snapped.
‘Where do you think? You lied to me, Lena.’
‘About what?’
‘What was that back there? What were you planning to do to me?’
‘Oh, Carl,’ she laughed. ‘What do you think we were going to do?’
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘I’m not sticking around for that.’
‘Are you scared, Carl?’ she said, giving a wicked smile.
‘No.’
‘Then why are you running?’
‘I’m not going back to how it was.’
‘This place was once a prison,’ Lena said, looking up and around. ‘Political prisoners mostly.’
I knew what that meant. Anybody who had opposed the communist regimes was locked away in purpose-built facilities. The gulag slave labour camps were notorious. I hadn’t quite twigged that we were in one of the gulags but it made sense.
‘And what do you use it for now?’ I said.
‘Well, you know we don’t execute our political prisoners any more. We’re not animals, Carl. But we do believe in reformation.’
Her last words were emphasised, the grisly meaning behind them evident to me.
‘So now what?’ I said. ‘You’re not taking me back to that cell. Either you let me by or we’re both going to die right here.’
‘They’re a hundred more guards in this place,’ she said. ‘How the hell are you going to get out?’
‘You’re going to tell me how.’
Lena laughed. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Because you don’t want to die. You enjoy your sadistic existence too much.’
‘
You know me too well, Carl,’ she said, still smiling, even though I’d meant my words to be offensive.
We stood and stared for a few seconds. A standoff. Neither of us making a move. But eventually, much to my surprise, Lena lowered her weapon.
‘There’s an exit down the corridor,’ she said. ‘Take a right, then it’s the second door on the left.’
I hesitated for just a second. Was Lena really going to let me go just like that? I know I’d asked it of her, but I’d never really thought she would cave in. Honestly I’d expected to have to use the gun on her. The only question in my mind had been how to do that and avoid being shot myself.
‘Well, go on,’ Lena said, her tone terse. ‘You’re right, Carl. I don’t want to die. But don’t think for a second that as soon as you’re around that corner I’m not going to raise the alarm. The men are getting bored out here anyway. The chase will be fun.’
She smiled at me again. An eerie smile. I didn’t trust her. I never had. Maybe she was sending me straight towards the other guards. But I wasn’t going to stand and debate it with her. If she’d sent me to an ambush, I’d deal with it. If it really was the exit and they came after me, I’d deal with that.
Without another thought, I started to edge past her, my gun trained on her the whole time. I continued to walk backwards, one cautious step at a time, keeping my eyes and my weapon on her. When I finally reached the corner, I turned and ran.
I sprinted down the corridor as fast as I could. As I approached the second door on the left, the one Lena had said was the exit, there was a volley of gun fire, coming from behind me. Bullets whizzed past my head, ricocheting off the floor and walls. I instinctively ducked but it was only through sheer luck that I wasn’t hit.
A bullet caught the gun I was holding. My surprise at the sudden jolt sent the weapon flying from my grip. I didn’t even think about stopping to pick it up.
Without once looking behind to see who was firing on me, I flung myself into the door, pushing down on the security bar.
And then I was out in the cold, dark forest. Running. Where to, I didn’t know.
Chapter 31
‘What is Project Ruby?’ I said.
‘What?’ Mackie responded, sounding surprised.
‘Project Ruby. The reason you sent me here in the first place.’
‘I know what it is. I’m just not sure why you’re asking me.’
‘I’m asking you because you sent me here on a suicide mission to capture information that never existed.’
‘Never existed? You’ve lost me.’
‘Project Ruby isn’t a weapon. It’s a medicine.’
‘Is that what they told you?’ Mackie said.
‘Is it true?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then why did the documents they showed me say otherwise?’
‘I’ve no idea what the Russians showed you, but whatever it was, it wasn’t real. Why would we have sent you after something that never existed?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Hang on. You think we set you up?’ Mackie said quickly – too quickly?
‘Did you?’
‘How long have you known me? Why would I ever do that?’
‘Politics,’ I said, cringing at my own lame answer.
Mackie laughed. ‘Politics? That’s funny. Politics isn’t really my bag. I don’t think I’d be in this job if it was. I do what I want, not what some bureaucrat in an office tells me to do.’
‘You say that, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. We have sponsors. They are the government. How can what we do not get political?’
‘You’re moving off the point. Everything the JIA, everything I told you about Project Ruby was real.’
‘How can you know that? Even if you believed that you were giving me good information, how do you know what you were told wasn’t a load of bull?’
‘I know because of what I’ve seen. And I can prove it to you.’
‘How?’
Mackie smiled. ‘Logan, we got the information. From RTK. We got the information you were sent there for. Your mission was a success.’
My heart lurched. With relief.
I’d been struggling so hard to come to terms with what Lena had told me, all of the confusing paperwork she’d thrust before me. I’d never wanted to believe any of it. But in the end, I had. She’d been very convincing. All bases had been covered. Even though my heart wanted so much to refute it, my head just couldn’t.
There had always been that small window of hope, though, that everything she’d told me was the lie. I’d had no empirical evidence to back that up. It had been nothing more than pure, desperate hope. But as the days had gone on, that little piece of hope had been pushed further and further back, as my mind was filled with the information that I was being fed. Pushed so far back to the recesses of my mind that there had come a point when I wasn’t even sure whether it was still there.
Mackie’s words had just brought it back to the fore. I sat, unable to speak. I was desperate for what he’d said to be true even though I had no way knowing. I’d been lied to so many times that I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t any more.
‘How?’ I said.
‘The wireless feed. It worked. Everything Dmitri tapped into came straight to us. We’re not sure the Russians even know that yet. But we got it all, Logan. The mission was a complete success.’
I raised an eyebrow and Mackie quickly caught on why. His cheeks blushed a little and he nervously rubbed the back of his neck.
‘Well, you know what I mean,’ he said. ‘A complete success in that we got the information. Obviously you…well –’
‘I think you mean me being caught and tortured would be viewed as less than successful.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And what about Dmitri?’
Mackie simply shook his head. I knew what that meant.
‘But the information,’ Mackie said, ‘we got it all. You don’t believe me?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know,’ I said.
‘What did the Russians tell you?’
‘Quite a different story to you. What have you got? I want to see it.’
‘You can see it,’ Mackie said. ‘But not here.’
‘No. I need to see it. Now.’
‘Come on, man, I don’t have anything here with me. It’s not the sort of information you just lug around. Think about what would happen if we were caught.’
‘Then where?’
‘Come back with me. Back to England.’
My heart sank. Because we were back to square one. I wanted everything Mackie had said to be true. But going back to England with him would be a massive leap of faith. And I wasn’t sure I had any faith left in me.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not until I’ve seen something. I need to get my head around this before I do anything else.’
‘The information’s not here. We need to get you home. That’s not a request. It’s an order.’
This was all too much. Not just what Mackie was telling me, but the constant changes in mood. The way the conversation kept going off at unexpected angles, pulling my thoughts, my feelings, my loyalties in different directions.
What was I supposed to believe? The Mackie who was telling me what a success I’d been? Or the one who didn’t trust me and didn’t believe the nature of my escape?
‘You have to show me something, or I’m not going anywhere,’ I said.
Mackie finished the rest of his coffee, then folded his arms, sitting back against his chair rest.
‘No. You’re coming back with us, Logan. It’s the only way.’
‘Or what?’
‘There’s no “or”.’
‘What if I refuse?’
Mackie sighed. ‘I hope it doesn’t come to this, but we’re going to get you back to England whether you like it or not. By whatever means necessary.’ Mackie looked around at the two goons as he spoke.
I laughed, but I wasn’t amused.
‘What? Are you going to take me out the back to give me a beating? Your two chums hold my arms while you throw a couple of punches into my gut?’
‘Don’t antagonise me, Logan. Why do we even need to talk about that route? Just come with me.’
‘You really think the three of you could stop me?’ I said.
‘There’s five of us, Logan. Not three.’
‘You’re going to need more than five. I thought you knew me better than that.’
‘I do,’ Mackie said.
‘Then why the empty threats?’
‘Look, let’s not carried away. I’m under no illusions as to what you’re capable of, Logan. Hell, I trained you. But don’t make us take things to that level.’
‘Just get me something to prove what you’re saying. Then I’ll come home.’
Mackie sighed again and shuffled in his seat, making sure I knew that he was struggling with my request but was nonetheless mulling it over. It would be easy for him to get me some proof. The question was why he was so reluctant to do it.
Did it even exist at all?
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said eventually.
‘So what now?’
‘Now we leave. I’ll have to make a few calls. Give me a few hours. You go back with Chris and Mary.’
‘You’re kidding, right? I still need my chaperones?’
‘You’re just not getting it, are you?’ Mackie said, talking down to me like I was being dumb. ‘Right now none of us really knows what’s going on here. And quite frankly if you really have escaped from the Russians – which I want to believe – then don’t you think they’re going to be after you? You’ll be better off keeping company.’
I didn’t respond. I guess I could agree to stick around with Chris and Mary. At least if only for a few more hours.
‘Do you need anything?’ Mackie asked.
‘What are you offering?’
‘What do you need?’
‘Money. A gun. Passports. The usual.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘You can’t or you won’t?’
‘I won’t.’