by Eric Walters
The two men led us into one of the buildings. It was almost empty except for some long-abandoned industrial equipment, dirty, broken down and dusty. They took us to a smaller room. Here, things were very different. It was like stepping from one universe to another. This well-lit room was filled with new furniture, and there was a computer sitting on a desk. On the wall behind the desk was a bank of TV monitors. They showed images from closed-circuit cameras set up on the outside of the building. In one, I saw our cab parked in the alley.
“Sit,” Jack said, and the three of us sank into seats at one end of the room. The two men then went to the other end of the room and started talking in a foreign language.
“As I thought,” Sir March whispered. “Russian… they must be KGB.”
“Do you know what they’re saying?” Charlie whispered back.
“My Russian isn’t the best, but they seem to want some information. And I know they’ll be prepared to do whatever is needed to get that information.” He turned directly to me. “You’d know about that, though, wouldn’t you, David?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I nodded my head in agreement. The two men stopped talking and came back to stand in front of us.
“Look, this is all some kind of mistake,” I said.
“Is it a mistake, Mr. Nigel Finch?” the second man asked.
The voice. It all came back to me. “You’re the man from by the river. I took your picture with your wife.”
“She is not my wife.”
“And that’s not really my name,” I said.
“We are aware of that,” Jack said. “We know who Mr. Finch is, and we also know that your name is McLean. What we don’t know is why you chose to use that name—Finch.”
“And believe me, you will tell us,” the second man said. “But first we will deal with the important things.”
He went and stood directly over Sir March. “And are we to believe that you are not Bernard March?”
“You can believe whatever you want to believe,” Sir March said. “I just want you to know that before we’re finished here, you’re going to regret the day you were born.”
Jack snickered. “Empty words.”
“We’ll see how funny it is once Winston lets Stalin know how you’ve been treating your allies.”
The two men turned to each other. They looked confused.
“He thinks it’s the forties and the war is still on,” I explained.
“We are aware. You! Get to your feet!” Jack grabbed Sir March and pulled him to his feet.
“Be careful—he’s old,” I said.
The other man pointed the gun directly at my head. “You be careful or you will not have a chance to become old.”
Jack led the old man away, leaving the three of us in the room.
“Look,” I said. “The girl has nothing to do with any of this. If you let her go, I’ll tell you everything.”
“You will tell us everything whether we let her go or not. She stays.”
“Okay, but can you at least tell me what the name Nigel Finch means to you?”
He shrugged. “To me it means nothing. It is a waste of time and resources to be chasing a phantom.”
“What do you mean, a phantom?”
“Maybe I don’t use the word right. A ghost from the past.”
“How far in the past?” I asked.
“Long before you were born and even before I was born,” he said.
“Then how did you even know to come looking for me?” I asked.
“There was increased traffic on the Internet,” he explained. “Many people started looking for certain significant names, obviously doing research.”
It was the Holmesians. It had to be. “The Cambridge Five were Russian agents feeding information to your government. Finch was the sixth,” I said.
“Go on.”
I suddenly realized that I’d been trying to get information out of him when in fact he was getting information out of me.
“I don’t know anything else. I just got caught up with these old geezers who belong to the Sherlock Holmes society thing. As far as I know, this Nigel Finch is just a character in a novel by Arthur Conan Doyle.”
“Really? And is that why you went and kidnapped the former director of MI6?” He laughed. “By the way, we should thank you for saving us the trouble of doing it ourselves.”
“You mean you were planning on kidnapping him?”
“His mind may be scrambled, but there are pieces up there”—he tapped his head—“that might be worth knowing. Kidnapping him makes sense, but you two are a waste of my time.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you.”
“You know somebody will realize we’re missing and call the police,” Charlie said.
“The police will not even take a missing-person report until the person has been missing for at least twenty-four hours. Even then, they will think it is two young people going off for a little fun around the holidays.”
“My parents know I wouldn’t do that,” Charlie said.
“Then they can look. This is a big city, and we are very isolated here. Now I want silence.”
I watched on the closed-circuit screens as day turned to night. Two others had come in and brought us all cold fish and chips. We’d been allowed to get up, stretch and go to the washroom, with a guard stationed outside the windowless toilet. Twice Jack had come back, but we hadn’t seen Sir March.
I was afraid to think about what was happening to him and even more afraid of what it might lead to when it was my turn to be questioned. What exactly was I supposed to tell them when I didn’t know anything? Well, anything except the fact that my grandfather might have been the Russian agent they were looking for. No, wait—if they were looking for him, that meant they didn’t know where he’d gone or what had become of him. Maybe he wasn’t a Russian agent but somebody who was tricking them into thinking he was a traitor. That would make him a triple agent instead of a double agent. Wouldn’t that be better?
I looked up. On the desk by the screens were our phones, my wallet and Charlie’s purse. If we could get to a phone without our guard seeing, maybe we could call the authorities and get the police here.
I thought I saw some movement on one of the screens. I looked harder but couldn’t see anything. It must have been my eyes playing tricks on me, nothing more than wishful thinking. Then there was more movement—it was an old woman pushing a shopping cart full of what looked like cardboard and cans.
“She is always here,” the man said. “Maybe she will break in and rescue you.” He laughed. “You might as well go to sleep.”
FOURTEEN
DECEMBER 31
Still mostly asleep, I tried to move my arm, but it seemed to be stuck. I pulled harder, and then I opened my eyes. Charlie was cuddled against me, pinning my arm under her head. I startled completely awake as I remembered everything. Across from us, his head down on the desk, sat one of our captors. He was asleep too. Maybe we could sneak out. Then I saw the gun on the desk beside him, not more than a foot away from his hand. There was no point in trying to run if all he had to do was wake up and shoot us as we left. I was fast, but not nearly as fast as a bullet.
“Charlie,” I whispered. She didn’t respond.
Slowly, carefully, I slid my arm out from under her head. She mumbled something, and then her eyes opened. I gestured for her to be quiet. I looked over. The man hadn’t roused. I got to my feet, and the couch groaned ever so slightly. I froze. His head was still down, his eyes still closed.
I started forward, step by step. He was no more than a dozen steps away. Should I move slowly or rush it, counting on him having to wake up before he could react? I knew that both or neither might work—it was time to do what came naturally.
I charged into him, extending my arms like I was knocking a lineman out of the way, and shoved him and his chair. He flew through the air and toward the wall, slamming into it. He crashed down to the floor, and I grabbed the pistol. He yelled and
tried to scramble to his feet.
I pointed the gun right at him. “Don’t move a muscle or I’ll shoot,” I said. I suddenly realized I didn’t know anything at all about guns—if there was a safety, if it was off, how to make it go off… I just had to hope he didn’t realize I had no idea what I was doing.
He looked shocked and confused. Slowly he pulled himself into a sitting position. Then I noticed the dent in the wall, and the blood dripping from the side of his head. His eyes were glazed and glassy. He looked like he’d been concussed.
Charlie was right by my side. “We have to get out.”
“The door is that way. You leave.”
“What about you?”
“I have to stand guard so you can get away. Besides, I can’t just leave Sir March here as their prisoner.”
“We can go and get help.”
“They could be gone before we get back. And what would I say to the police? That I’d helped some Russian spies kidnap the former head of British Security?”
“Not you. We,” she said. “So what should we do?”
“Again, we shouldn’t do anything. You leave and I’ll think of something.”
“What if we tied him up?”
“That could work if we had some rope or—” I looked at him. He had slid lower to the floor, his body at an awkward angle and his eyes closed.
“Is he dead?” Charlie asked.
“I didn’t hit him that hard. Here, hold the gun.” Gingerly, I handed her the pistol and went to his side. I gave him a little shove with my foot. Nothing. It was like pushing dead weight—hopefully, not dead dead weight. I reached down and placed my hand against his neck. I found a pulse—his heart was beating and he was breathing. He was unconscious though.
“He’s alive, just unconscious. I hit him and then he hit his head. It’s like a boxer knocking out his opponent.”
I’d seen this happen on a football field but had never actually caused it.
“Maybe he’s just pretending,” Charlie said.
“Then he’s a really good actor. But either way, I’ll take care of it.”
I undid his belt and pulled it free of the loops. Then I ripped open his shirt, the buttons flying off, and flipped him onto his stomach with his hands behind his back. There was no resistance or reaction. I pulled his shirt almost off and used the material to tie his hands together. I then took his belt and looped it around his hands, snugging it into place and tying it off.
“That should slow him down for a while.”
“What now?” Charlie asked.
“Let me have the gun back.”
“Gladly.” She handed it to me.
“I’m going to go after Sir March,” I said.
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“I have a gun,” I said.
“Do you know anything about firearms?”
“I’ve never even held a gun before,” I said, “but I have played a lot of Assassin’s Creed.”
“Lovely. If we need a high score, you’re the man to call,” she said.
That was neither a kind nor an untruthful thing to say. What was I doing, suggesting that I was going to go after armed Russian spies, even if I was holding a gun? I would have the advantage only if we were having a showdown with PlayStation controllers. It didn’t matter. I was doing it anyway.
“You don’t have to come…you shouldn’t come… I want you to be safe, but I can’t just walk away,” I said.
“I’m talking about running away,” she said.
“I can’t do that either. I’m going to try and get Sir March.”
“Then I’m going too.”
“I really don’t think you should.”
“And I don’t think you should either, so we’re doing this together,” she said.
I took one more look at our prisoner. He was still unconscious and tied up like a calf at a rodeo.
Slowly, I pushed open the door leading into the other part of the building. Of course, Sir March might not still be here. Jack could have taken him away. But wouldn’t I have noticed that on the monitors? Assuming, of course, that I had been awake when they left.
The warehouse was still dark, despite the rising sun. There were only a few windows in the building, and the ones that weren’t smashed were covered by plywood. Charlie was tucked in so close behind me that when I stopped, she bumped into me.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
I moved again, leading with the pistol. I didn’t know if I could use it as a weapon, but it felt like a shield.
The building was huge and seemingly deserted. Jack must have taken Sir March away. If that was the case, there was nothing we could do but run. And then I heard voices. I tried to figure out where they were coming from. Charlie had heard them too and pointed off to the left. I nodded. Slowly, we started in that direction. The darkness and abandoned equipment helped hide us—and anything else out there.
As we crept closer, the voices got louder. It sounded like two voices, with different accents. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting—maybe raised voices and cries of pain—but this sounded like a regular conversation.
I stopped and whispered to Charlie, “Stay here. If there’s a problem, just stay put and hide. If they capture me, I’ll tell them you already took off to get the police.”
She nodded.
I circled around to the side instead of heading directly for the voices. I didn’t want to lead them back to Charlie. Up ahead there was a patch of light, and I could see them, sitting in two chairs, facing each other. It did look like they were chatting, two friends having a friendly discussion. And, sure enough, one was Sir March. That made no sense…unless he was part of this, if his kidnapping had just been a ploy to get him away because he was really a Russian sleeper agent himself. Was he the Cambridge sixth? And then I noticed that he wasn’t simply sitting in the chair—his hands were tied to the arms. There were marks on his face as if he’d been struck repeatedly. He was talking, but he wasn’t a willing part of the discussion.
I moved from one piece of machinery to another, hidden in the darkness, until I was right behind Jack.
“You can be as stubborn as you wish,” Jack was saying, “but sooner or later you will give me everything. Do not make this any harder on yourself.”
“If I tell you the rest, will you let the young couple leave?” he asked.
“If I think you have told me everything, yes.”
“I have told you a great deal about our plans to invade Europe,” he said.
“Again with the Europe. I do not want to hear anything else about D-day or the Nazis. I want to know what you know about the sleeper cells,” Jack said. He seemed frustrated, and he buried his head in his hands. This was my chance.
I came out of the shadows directly behind him.
“I am so tired,” Jack said. “You must be tired too. Just tell me what I want to know.”
Sir March was right in front of me. He saw me, and a small smile came to his face. I came closer and closer. I turned the gun around. I didn’t know how to fire it, but I certainly could use it as a club. I jumped forward and brought the handle down on the side of Jack’s head with a loud, sickening crack. He collapsed and fell to the floor.
“Bravo, David, bravo!” Sir March yelled.
I started toward Sir March, and he yelled, “Get his gun! Get his weapon!”
I turned, bent down and fumbled around the crumpled figure. He was wearing a holster under his jacket, and I removed the pistol from it. I now had two guns that I didn’t know how to use. Charlie appeared out of the darkness and ran to Sir March. She started to pull at the ropes to release him.
I put one of the guns down on the floor and went to place a hand against Jack’s neck to feel for a pulse. He reached out and grabbed for the gun, which was inches away from his fingertips. I kicked it away and then jumped back, holding my gun out in front of me. He tried to push himself up but fell back, landing on his butt.
“Don’t move,” I said.
He snarled at me. “You should put that gun down before you shoot yourself.”
“It’s not aimed at me.”
“Stupid boy…are you going to shoot me?”
“If I need to…I will.”
“I do not think you wish to shoot,” he said. He got to his feet, and I took a small step backward. I had the gun, but I was the one who felt threatened and scared.
Then I had an idea. “Funny, your friend said the same thing—that I wouldn’t shoot—but he looked pretty surprised when I shot him.”
“If you shot Yuri, I would have heard it.”
I had to think fast. What did they do in murder mysteries to muffle the sound? “A pillow makes a great silencer,” I said. His expression changed to doubt. Maybe I’d convinced him. “It would be better to take you prisoner, but really, I don’t care either way.” I tried to sound confident and wished my voice hadn’t cracked on the last few words.
Jack stopped moving forward and raised his hands.
“Get into that chair, and do it quickly before I change my mind about shooting you,” I snapped.
Jack sat.
“Tie him up while I cover him,” I said to Charlie.
Charlie picked up the pieces of rope that had been used on Sir March and tied them around Jack’s wrists and ankles. Sir March checked each knot. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to the cab.
“Our getaway vehicle,” he said. “You don’t mind us borrowing your cab, do you, Jack?”
Before Jack could answer, Sir March pushed the chair, and Jack tumbled over backward, crashing onto the floor.
“I didn’t think he’d object.” Sir March tossed me the keys.
Since the exit and the cab were both back toward the room where we’d been held, we went back in the direction we’d come. Charlie took Sir March by the arm, offering him assistance, hurrying him along.
“It’s not far, Mr. March,” I said.
“Mr. March? David, when did you stop calling me Bunny?”
“Sorry, Bunny, the exit is right ahead.”
“Wait, we need to get our cell phones and your wallets and my bag,” Charlie said.
“And we can check on the other guy,” I said.