Everything to Lose

by Gordon Bickerstaff

  "What do you know of human combustion?" Georgi asked.

  "Nothing, I don't think it's possible."

  "You want Jemard Edmond? Here he is."

  Georgi showed Gavin two pictures. One just before combustion took hold and one when it had finished.

  "Jeeesus. Does 80PGen cause this?"

  "He was greedy for success, stupid man. Our product is safe if taken orally. Edmond injected direct to muscles of both legs."

  "That's a side effect to top all side effects."

  "Human combustion was big problem for Nazis. So we designed carrier protein to remove phosphorus, prevent combustion," Georgi explained.

  "Good solution but you'll never stop athletes abusing the product to gain an edge. They'll inject and they'll overdose if they think it will make them one second faster."

  "I know this stupidity now," Georgi said.

  Georgi moved his laptop screen so that Gavin could see it. He searched for a file then pressed play to run a video copy of an old colour film. The scene showed an unconscious naked man strapped to a wooden table. It looked like an old butcher's table and the straps were old brown leather. The room was darkened and there were people standing around the table.

  With flickering and frame damage it was obvious the original film was old. The camera was static and Gavin saw black leather jackboots standing beyond the head of the man lying on the table.

  As they watched they saw what looked like steam rising from the man's chest then a patch of skin on his chest darkened. When it was black the patch burst into small flames. Georgi fast-forwarded the film to show the black patch had spread out over his entire chest. Then Georgi speeded up again to show the point where flames were lapping all parts of his body up to his head.

  All of his body was alight. It was not a large flame but low burning like embers of an old fire that were spreading quickly. There was very little smoke. Parts of his body began to collapse in on itself and were consumed inside. Georgi fast-forwarded the film to the end. On the table were the ash remains of the man in the shape of his body lying on the table. The leather straps were undamaged.

  "Incredible. I can't believe bones and everything are gone."

  "In forty to ninety minutes. It depends on how much phosphorus is already stored in fat. Come I show you," Georgi said.

  Georgi led Gavin from the office to a nearby laboratory and over to a large chest freezer. He opened it and inside was a naked young man, mid-twenties, submerged in oil. Petko followed with a muscle biopsy tool and proceeded to extract a sample of muscle from the leg of the dead man.

  Petko took the sample over to a laboratory bench and opened a glass Petri dish. Gavin and Georgi followed him. With paper tissue Petko mopped up excess oil from the sample.

  "Watch," Georgi said.

  Petko took a scalpel and cut through the sample exposing the inside of the sample to oxygen in the air. Within a few seconds a flame appeared and the sample began to burn.

  "Death warms up," Petko said.

  "I smell burning phosphorus," Gavin said as he recognised the smell of burning strike matches before the smell of burning fat became dominant.

  Gavin remembered a very faint smell of burning phosphorus when he entered Rolley's flat before it was masked by the overwhelming smell of burning fat. His first thought a weapon had been fired.

  "Despite intensive research the Nazis couldn't stop spontaneous ignition," Georgi said.

  "Is the phosphorus coming from surplus phosphate in the body?"

  Georgi said the Nazi research showed the body could convert surplus phosphate released from ATP to phosphorus. Gavin knew that phosphorus combusts spontaneously with oxygen in the air. Georgi said he had files of experiments the Nazis did on phosphor burns. They could not quench ignition.

  Georgi said he aimed his research at the discovery of a fat-soluble carrier protein that can bind phosphorus and transport it to body fat for safe storage. But to work it must be taken orally with the ATP catalyst.

  "Jemard took 80PGen orally during the trials so my carrier protein stored phosphorus in his body fat," Georgi said.

  "He was primed," Gavin added.

  "Injecting directly locks carrier protein in muscle. It cannot reach blood. It cannot carry phosphorus to fat tissues. High oxygen in lungs and active oxygen in muscle ignites phosphorus."

  "POOF!" Petko said and made a gesture with his fingers to mean an explosion.

  "I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it," Gavin said.

  "Now you understand. We cannot stop idiots who inject muscle. You must design inhibitor to block conversion of phosphate to phosphorus. Make a better solution for our product," Georgi demanded.

  Gavin realised they were not thinking on the same page. He had told Suzie Griffan he could inhibit the natural system the body uses when surplus ATP is used to generate heat. Georgi was talking about inhibiting conversion of phosphate to phosphorus to prevent fire ignition. In fact Buzzwall had misunderstood Suzie and Buzzwall compounded the confusion when he told Georgi what Shawlens had offered to do.

  "No. I can't do that."

  "I shoot him now," Petko shouted.

  "Design an inhibitor. Or you will scream through fire pain until you die," Georgi threatened.

  "It's impossible."

  Petko pushed his handgun against the side of Gavin's head. Gavin clamped his eyes shut. He tried to summon up a picture of Emma Patersun to tell her he was coming to her. He didn't see Georgi fetch a large syringe and fill it from an 80PGen vial. He plunged the needle into Gavin's left thigh and pushed the plunger to deliver the fluid. Gavin Shawlens looked shocked at the syringe sticking out of his leg. He felt an overwhelming nausea before he passed out.

  42

  Devonshire Avenue, Southsea

  Zoe looked anxiously at her watch. It was 21.39 p.m. Forty-eight hours had passed since Gavin Shawlens disappeared. Zoe just finished an unpleasant update call with Alan Cairn. He told her in no uncertain language that loss of two academics would be an irretrievable setback for the Lambeth Group and its work with MI5. Her body ached from long spells sitting in her car, she needed to be fed and washed. Now her head ached and she'd run out of painkillers.

  Zoe wanted to grab Suzie Griffan and squeeze the weasel words out of her mouth. Alan Cairn ordered her to wait. Zoe took out her frustration on the car dashboard. If it hadn't already cracked it soon would. Zoe thought the flat's occupants would return within eight hours. She resigned herself to the belief they'd moved to another location and might not return for many days.

  Cairn told her to maintain surveillance for another twelve hours then if nothing she could interrogate Suzie Griffan. Zoe had just ended the call when a red Ford estate car with Czech plates pulled up outside the flat. A man got out and walked toward the flat.

  "Heads-up Toni this looks promising. Please God." Zoe said into her SEM phone.

  Zoe watched him enter the flat. He was about forty-five, about five-ten, bald, tanned with thick eyebrows. He swaggered like a military man. She followed and this time she rattled the door more forcefully than she had done the first time. When the door opened she faced a man two inches taller than her. He had taken off his coat. He held the open edge of the door with his right hand. His thumb flicking against the door edge and the palm of his hand behind the door ready to push it shut.

  "What?"

  "I'm looking for Dr Shawlens."

  "No-one here."

  She saw his thumb tense on the door as he prepared to shut it forcefully. She leaned back and turned her body as if to leave then swung round and booted the door before he got it moving. It spun backwards out of his hand and crashed into the wall. He pulled his right hand back to fire a punch at her head.

  She stood her ground and deflected his hand onto the doorframe. He squealed and swore in Bulgarian when his hand pounded the metal door keep and cracked two of his fingers. Zoe followed through and kicked him hard in the groin. He fell to his knees with a ruptured scrotum. She stepped ar
ound him and rabbit punched him on the side of the neck with such force she crushed some of his cervical vertebrae against his spinal cord. Extremely painful.

  Zoe Tampin doesn't do long Hollywood-type show fights. When she fights she uses FiFaH rules - first, fast and hard. One or two hits hard and fast to the right spots will end a fight in seconds. She closed the front door and the man lay on the floor, rocking his body, unable to get up. Toni stepped out of the bedroom, smiled and pointed her handgun at the man. Zoe told her to call Scott.

  "Already done boss."

  "Gavin Shawlens where is he?" Zoe started anxiously.

  The man's face exploded with rage as he spluttered splattered and swore at her. He told her the disgusting things that were going to happen to her when his family take their revenge on her, her family and her family's family.

  It was all in Bulgarian so she ignored the words but recognised the meaning. Zoe secured his hands and feet behind his back with hard plastic ties.

  "Find his ID. I want his name and where he's been. Find the other location."

  "Right boss," Toni said as she holstered her weapon.

  Zoe called Alan Cairn and apprised him of the situation. She requested an MI5 safe house for interrogation of the prisoner and Alan send an address to her phone. She told Cairn the flat landline number and asked him to trace all calls to and from the number. She gave him the Czech car registration and asked him to search for its movements over the past forty-eight hours.

  She told Cairn that from the prisoner's swear words she was pretty sure he was Bulgarian. She asked for a translator to be on standby in case he didn't speak English. Scott arrived at the flat and Toni opened the door. She gave Scott Ivan's car keys and told him to search the car for documents.

  After a quick search of the flat Toni had found nothing. Scott returned and said he found nothing in the car. Toni said to Scott that there had to be something in the flat. Scott went back to his van and brought back a special hand scanner and began sweeping the flat with the scanner.

  Scott pushed the prisoner's face to one side for a better look before he told Zoe that he had found his passport and other documents hidden in a pocket cleverly sewed into the lining of a curtain behind the front room window. His name was Ivan Fillipovar, Bulgarian national.

  Scott had used a special Home Office scanner, designed to find the passports of illegal immigrants. It detected the electronic chip in Ivan's passport. Zoe took the passport and documents and told Scott to get the man ready for travel. Scott zapped him with a military version M-26 taser gun and cut the plastic ties on his legs

  "Okay campers let's go. We've got work to do," Zoe said.

  Scott and Toni lifted Ivan to a standing position secured between them as they stood together. Zoe went outside, looked around and after a minute she whistled and the three shuffled out of the building and along to Scott's van. Zoe opened the door as the three reached the back of the van. They bundled Ivan inside and secured him with fresh plastic ties. Toni got into the driver's seat and Scott took the passenger's seat. Zoe told them to follow her car.

  Zoe set her phone to provide directions to the safe house address. As she drove Zoe contemplated how she was going to force this man to tell her who had Gavin Shawlens and where they had taken him. Every hour that passed put Shawlens further out of her reach. She decided she would be hard and decisive.

  In the van both Scott and Toni felt relieved. Scott felt it was his fault Shawlens got snatched. He shouldn't have gone inside and sat down with a pint of beer to wait for Shawlens and he shouldn't have left the building on a personal errand even though he was gone only eighteen minutes.

  "Think the boss will be able to make this shit talk?" Scott asked Toni.

  "I've watched her interrogations. One, he's just a grunt, two she's much smarter than him by a mile and three she knows exactly which buttons to press."

  "I hope so."

  "Don't sweat it Scott."

  Scott kept flashing his eyes back and forth to Toni looking for a chance to speak again.

  "What?"

  "Thanks for not telling the boss."

  "Read the memo Scott. That's the first and last time I will ever lie for you."

  "It won't ever happen again."

  "You put your career and mine on the line. I hope she was worth it."

  While waiting for Gavin Shawlens in the Student Union bar Scott intervened to rescue a young female student who was being harassed. She was taking part in an initiation ceremony for the women's football team.

  Although feeling degraded, embarrassed and humiliated she was being pressurised by a group of males and females to allow two members of the male football team to scrawl rude and obscene words over her breasts. She didn't know that one of the men 'for a laugh' had a permanent marker pen what would take ages to remove from her skin.

  Fresh out of school she was not sexually active or experienced. She didn't want to do it and was been subjected to a stream of intimidation from male and female 'friends'.

  "... too uptight, not a real student, not getting in the spirit, gutless wimp, go back to school, lesbian," were a few of the calls to weaken her resolve.

  Scott saw her distress and stepped in to stop them. He took the girl to sit with him. When she calmed down and felt more confident; he drove her back to her flat. Scott said he didn't think much of her friends. She told Scott they weren't her friends they were members of a club she wanted to join. Still she thanked him for stepping in to save her.

  When Scott returned to the Student Union there was no sign of Gavin Shawlens. Scott phoned Toni for help and told her what he'd done. She told him what to do and what to tell Zoe.

  The MI5 safe house in Gudge Heath Lane, Fareham near Portsmouth was bleak to say the least and Toni had to search up and downstairs cupboards to find a light bulb that was functional. In an upstairs bedroom there was a single well-constructed chair bolted to the floor. Zoe and Scott secured the prisoner to the chair. Scott gagged him with gaffer tape and blindfolded him with a black hood.

  From the old residues of gaffer tape and rope still attached to the legs and back of the chair it was clear this chair had taken part in many interrogations. Toni placed a set of earphones on his head and set them to play eardrum-bashing thumping noise so he couldn't hear their plans.

  Scott set up his field laptop computer and connected it to the MI5 network. Ten minutes later he started to receive data based on Ivan's passport and international driving license that he had found. Zoe and Scott read through the information searching for leverage.

  Toni went to fetch some food and drinks to see them through the night and a spare lightbulb. Scott sat on a strong wooden box with his field laptop perched on another box while he followed up the information trail leading from Ivan's passport. Zoe walked around the room slowly as she scanned through Ivan's mobile phone, occasionally looking over Scott's shoulder to see what he'd gathered.

  When Toni returned they had some coffee, some water, some fast food and some chocolate biscuits to restore blood sugar levels and expel hunger pangs. While they ate and drank the three discussed the intelligence received from Ivan's papers and background information sent by MI5.

  Zoe contemplated her approach. Time was not on her side. Once the opposition discovered one of theirs was captured, they would make Gavin disappear to cover their tracks like they'd done with Jemard Edmond. Uncharacteristically her rock solid confidence began to waver as she fought to expel thoughts of failure from her mind.

  43

  Gudge Heath Lane, Fareham

  Scott had traced Ivan's history through the Security Service and Secret Service databases. It was now two a.m. and Zoe was ready to begin. She removed the headphones, the black hood and gaffer tape from his mouth.

  "Ivan Fillipovar, Bulgarian national, Bulgarian army until 1992 when the end of the cold war put you out of a job. Now freelance muscle," Zoe read out loud.

  He raised his head to stare at the ceiling.

  "Pain is m
y first love. We waltz together like young lovers, we sing together, we die together," Ivan announced proudly.

  "Freelance security ever since ..."

  "Let your dogs loose. I die happy I say nothing."

  "Who is Yordan?"

  "Nothing I give up nothing."

  "Looking at these call logs I think he's your boyfriend. Does Yordan have Gavin Shawlens and Oliver Mansole?"

  Ivan laughed out loud. His expression told her he knew something she didn't know.

  "Good. You know nothing. Is very good news."

  "No wife or children. One sister Zlatka, a nurse with two daughters, husband deceased. One brother Tidor married to Eva, one son. Father, Andon aged 66 lives alone in a high rise flat, outside Sofia. Nice family group," Zoe read out loud.

  "You know nothing. Bulgarian family reprisals are way of life for hundreds of years. Yordan knows you come. He already moved my family to safety. Tiss automatic thing we do. Too late for you."

  "I don't think so Ivan," Zoe said as she pondered over the screen on Scott's laptop.

  "I have no breaking point. I am iron man. I am iron man FOUR!" he laughed.

  "I believe you Ivan."

  "Beat me now. Let your dogs tear my flesh. I spit in their ugly faces."

  "You spoke to Yordan three hours ago. I'm sure if he doesn't hear from you in the next couple of hours then he'll leap into action to protect your family. They'll run to the hills, back to the village."

  "I love you Yordan," he shouted.

  "I'm sure you can hold out for a couple of hours. Send Yordan a text," Zoe said to Scott.

  Scott saw from the translation of his texts that every four hours they exchanged short texts to confirm everything was okay. The last text had been sent from Yordan to Ivan so Scott copied one of Ivan's earlier texts and sent it to Yordan.