by Andy Maslen
Over and over again he followed the simple but grindingly hard ritual breathing sequence until he felt an odd calm descend upon him. The pain from his wounds was still there. Still a red-hot needle sweeping back and forth in his fingertip. Still a drill-bit boring through the flesh, bones and tendons of his hand. But remote, now, also. Something he could observe from a distance. Not far. But far enough to think.
He opened his eyes.
Looked at his injured hand.
And pulled it towards him.
He bit back the scream as fresh dark blood welled up around the nail’s dully gleaming shaft. Then he pushed it away.
To the left – grunt with pain.
To the right – swallow back the vomit threatening to burst from his throat.
Then in small, agonising circles – ignore the lake of blood spreading to the edges of the table.
He let out the air trapped in his lungs with a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan. Tensing every muscle in his body and concentrating on his left arm until the tendons and muscles stood out against the grimy skin in thick ropes, he swore under his breath – “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” – leaned forwards, then wrenched his hand up.
He turned his head to the side and spewed a thin stream of watery, yellow bile onto the bare concrete floor.
Blood welled out of the ragged-edged hole and began dripping steadily from his hand to join the puddle on the table. Experimenting, he waggled his fingers, swearing under his breath as a fresh wave of agony washed over him. They moved at his command and he was momentarily distracted by the sight of the glistening silvery rods of his tendons moving back and forth in the centre of the red hole.
Panting, he reached for the nail, intending to free it from the table and use it against his torturer. A scrape of key in lock from the door ended that plan before it had begun. Panicking just for a second, he realised what he had to do. He clenched his teeth, placed his palm back over the nail head and hissed out a breath as he jammed his hand back down until it slapped against the tabletop. In the moment of agony, he saw black curtains swinging shut across his eyes and fought back the urge to let them shut completely. They parted and he felt cold tears on the edges of his eyelids.
In walked his tormenter. Razi was brushing crumbs from his lip with a white cotton handkerchief. He smiled as he sat down.
“Well, Gabriel. Shall we begin again? Why did you come here to kill Abbas Darbandi? Who sent you?”
“Please let me go. You’ve made a mistake. If it’s a ransom you’re after, I’m sure my employers will pay whatever you ask for.”
Razi shook his head and retrieved the scalpel from an inside pocket as if reaching for a fountain pen. He leant forwards and picked up Gabriel’s ring finger. Gabriel winced as the pressure pushed the raw edges of the hole through his hand against the nail. He watched as the tip of the blade moved closer to his finger tip.
In a low, steady voice, his own, not that of the panicky, stuttering Robert Denning, he leaned a few degrees forward.
“Stop! My name is Gabriel Wolfe. I work for the British Government. We know all about Darbandi’s work on your nuclear weapon.”
Razi withdrew the scalpel. He removed his sunglasses.
Gabriel saw that he had golden-brown eyes with long, almost girlish lashes.
“Who betrayed us?” Razi asked. “Tell me and you will die quickly and relatively painlessly.”
Gabriel heaved a huge sigh, filling his lungs with fresh oxygen and blowing it out. He mumbled under his breath.
Razi leaned closer, tilting his head a little to the side.
“What? What did you say?”
Gabriel drew in as much air into his lungs as could manage and screamed it out – a full-throated yell of defiance – as he yanked his hand free of the steel nail. He grabbed a handful of the man’s thick, black hair. Using all the remaining energy at his command, he pulled Razi’s head up then slammed it down.
The bridge of Razi’s nose met the nail-head with a dull, wet crunch before slipping sideways, permitting the rest of the steel shaft to disappear into his left eye socket and penetrate deep into his brain.
Gabriel snatched the scalpel from Razi’s hand, which was twitching spasmodically. In three swift movements he sliced through the cable ties binding his right hand and ankles. He staggered round the table, stood behind Razi, who was jerking like a landed fish, leaned down and slit his throat from ear to ear, cutting through both carotid arteries, both jugular veins and the windpipe. Razi died without making any more sound than a wheezing gasp as the last of the air in his lungs issued from the rent in his throat. A flood of bright red blood flowed out of his neck and across the tabletop, before running off the edge to spatter the floor.
It took Gabriel five minutes to strip him and then dress in his clothes, checking that the key to the door was in his trouser pocket. The pistol in its highly-polished, brown leather holster might come in handy later, but for now it was the wrong weapon. Gabriel pulled Razi’s head off the nail with a wet, sucking noise. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet and it flopped back on the neck, opening up the cut into an obscene gape through which Gabriel could see the front of the spinal column. He dragged the corpse round the table and positioned it, face down, in the chair he had so recently occupied himself. Using the scalpel, he dug a hole through Razi’s left palm and pushed it down over the nail. The left side of the body was disfigured by scar tissue that puckered the skin at the bicep, hip and thigh. Burns, maybe. Or blast trauma.
He picked up the scalpel again and walked to the door. Standing on the hinge side, he called out in Farsi, in a rough approximation of Razi’s voice.
“Ali! Der aaneja. Hala!” Ali! In here. Now!
The key scraped in the lock again and the door opened, hiding Gabriel.
The big man entered, shoulders relaxed, hands loose by his sides. No Kalashnikov this time. His head swung left and right, looking for his master.
As he turned right, Gabriel sprang at him and, in under a second, executed a quartet of deadly moves …
Arm across the forehead.
Lean back.
Slice hard, left to right.
Let the body fall against the wall, and stand clear of the jetting blood.
Panting, he slammed the door closed behind him.
How much time he had, he didn’t know. Torturers didn’t keep regular hours and, in his experience, hated to be disturbed. So he was counting on at least thirty minutes more before anyone noticed the guard’s absence and dared knock on the door.
He wiped his undamaged palm down over his face. His clean-shaven face. Then he looked over at Razi s naked body.
“I’ll show you knowledge of anatomy, you bastard,” he said.
He pulled Razi’s head back, ignoring the red mush filling the eye socket, and cut away the skin of the top lip, retaining the moustache. He stuck the disgusting scrap of tissue to his own lip and held it there until the congealing blood was dry. Once he’d finished, he lowered the head back down onto the tabletop.
On the way out, he lifted the peaked hat from the hook on the wall and settled it low over his forehead. The sunglasses enhanced the deception. He squared his shoulders, puffed out his chest, stuck his wounded hand into his pocket and left, locking the door behind him. He walked down a corridor, mimicking the general’s posture and gait. The words of an MI5 surveillance instructor came back to him now.
“People think its faces that give us away. But they’re easy to alter. What really marks your target out is their body language. Think gait, posture, stature. How does the target use their arms? What’s the stride length? Are they relaxed or twitchy?” She’d used the phrase “human architecture” to describe the sum total of information you could pick up about a target without seeing their face or hearing them speak.
Gabriel kept his head down and his right hand resting on the butt of the pistol. He walked fast, letting his left foot drag a little, stiffening his left arm. He could see a stairwell at the far end
of the corridor. He pulled the fire door open with his right hand and began climbing.
He turned a corner on the first half-landing only to almost collide with a fat, uniformed guard coming the other way, taking the steps two at a time.
“Sorry, General,” the man said breathlessly in Farsi.
He was about to move past, then he stopped and turned.
Gabriel knew what the guard was experiencing before the man did himself. A sense of dislocation. Of things being not quite as they should be. Maybe the moustache had slipped. Perhaps he simply recognised Gabriel. Gabriel drew the General’s pistol and jammed it hard into the guard’s soft midsection before pulling the trigger.
The bang was still loud, but the man’s belly made an effective suppressor. With his mouth open wide in a perfect O and his eyes staring, he fell back against the wall. Not wanting to risk any more noise, Gabriel leaned over him and dealt him two vicious blows with the pistol butt, aiming for and hitting his left temple. The thin bone snapped. The noise was within acceptable levels. The man died with a gasp. Gabriel moved past him, holstering the pistol.
He reached the ground floor and exited the stairwell through another fire door. The corridor into which he emerged was a better decorated version of the one in the basement. He strode on, ignoring the occasional uniformed guards who appeared from offices or around corners. They caught sight of the moustachioed man in the dress uniform, snapped to attention, looked away, or both. He glanced up at signs screwed to walls until he saw the word he was looking for.
خروج
Kherwej . Exit.
He turned left into a brightly lit corridor and saw a rudimentary reception area straight ahead. A security guard in black with a Kalashnikov over his shoulder. A glassed-in booth housing two more men. And beyond them, a pair of glass doors through which sunlight streamed, illuminating motes of dust floating in the air.
Willing his pulse to settle, and ignoring the rivulets of sweat running from under the peak of his cap, he stroked the moustache to push it back against his top lip and strode onwards.
From behind him a man shouted in Farsi.
“Sir! General Razi!”
Impersonating an Officer
Gabriel carried on walking. Glad to see my impersonation is working . He noticed the man ahead looking at him then straightening up. He waved his right hand dismissively at whoever was calling out for him.
“The report, General. The one you asked for.”
Hearing fear in the man’s voice, Gabriel slowed fractionally and held his right hand out behind him, snapping his fingers. Three dry pops. He felt a sheaf of papers being thrust into his palm, closed his fingers on them and marched on.
He heard the man turn, then footsteps echoing off the stone walls. Ahead the security guard was now standing to attention, eyes heavenwards.
Useful, given I’m only borrowing a bit of your boss’s face , Gabriel thought.
The men in the cubicle were doing their best to look efficient, both standing erect in the tiny space and staring straight ahead. As Gabriel neared the glass security barrier, one bent and pressed a button on the console in front of him. The thick sheet of glass slid sideways. Keeping his head down, as if reading the report, Gabriel strode through.
Five paces.
He could see cream Mercedes taxis in the street beyond the flight of stone steps leading to the street. He held his breath.
Four.
A pigeon waddled along the top step, pecking at grit just outside the doors. He forced himself to unbunch his shoulders.
Three.
Two men in the same crisp, olive-green dress uniform as Gabriel’s crested the steps and approached the doors. Gabriel stared down at the report, trying to ignore the sweat trickling into his eyes.
Two.
The men took a door each and held them open for him. Saluted as he left the building.
“General Razi, sir!” they said in unison.
One.
He stepped out into the searing heat of Tehran. Blinked in the sunlight. Descended the steps, feeling a flare of pain from his left hand with every jolting pace. And left the confines of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security behind him.
A taxi screeched to a halt as he reached the pavement on Delgosha Alley. The driver jumped out and raced round to the passenger side and held the rear door open for Gabriel.
“Salâm, hal-e shoma chetore, ser keredh?” Hello, General. How is your health?
“Salâm.”
The man continued in Farsi.
“Where do you wish me to take you, General, sir?”
“National Jewellery Museum.”
“Yes, sir, General.”
The ride took 20 minutes, thanks in part to the driver’s liberal use of the horn, tailgating and rash overtaking. Perhaps sensing that this particular cream Mercedes carried the sort of person they wouldn’t want to anger, the other drivers braked, swerved or pulled in to let him pass. Gabriel felt his thirst mounting, along with his fatigue, and realised he was down to the dregs of his energy.
The driver pulled up to the kerb on Ferdowsi Avenue, waved away any suggestion that the General might pay, and repeated his performance with the door.
Once the man had disappeared back into the traffic, Gabriel turned away from the museum entrance and headed north to the junction where Ferdowsi Avenue met Jomhouri Avenue. Every step produced a sharp flash of pain in his concealed left hand, which was throbbing in time with his heartbeat.
Reflexively touching the stinking piece of skin adhering to his top lip, he crossed the road and approached the deep-blue, spike-topped gates of the British Embassy.
A lone guard stood outside. Not a member of the British armed forces, he belonged to the Iranian police.
As Gabriel approached, the guard caught his eye, straightened his spine as if electrified, and snapped off a sharp salute.
“Open them now,” Gabriel said in Farsi to the guard.
The man turned and pressed a button set into the wall. With a series of clangs, the multiple locks opened and the gates began an agonisingly slow journey sideways on well-greased metal rollers. As soon as a man’s width had appeared between them, Gabriel slipped through and walked up to the main doors.
Now he did meet British soldiers. Two Royal Marines in blue Parade Dress uniform standing each side of the Embassy front door. Gabriel came to a stop before them, ignoring curious stares. Each man carried an SA80 rifle and they were levelling them now.
Before they could speak, Gabriel reached up and dragged the remains of General Razi’s face from his lip and dropped it to the ground. He swept the peaked cap from his head and spoke.
“My name is Gabriel Wolfe. Please tell Julian Furnish I am here. He’s expecting me.”
Then he tottered forwards and collapsed into the arms of the left-hand Marine.
Smudged Ink
Gabriel came to in a white-painted room. Above him, a ceiling fan rotated, wafting cool air down onto his face and neck. He turned his head and saw that he was lying in his own bed.
Outside, he could hear his father giving one of the staff instructions about a garden party.
He looked down towards his feet. His left hand lay on top of the bedclothes. From wrist to knuckles it was bandaged. He turned the hand over. In matching spots on his palm and the back of his hand, blood was seeping through to the outer layer of the crepe bandage. The tip of his middle finger was dressed with a sticking plaster. He felt nothing from either wound site. In fact, he felt delightfully pain free all over. He raised himself up on his elbows and examined the spot inside his left elbow where a canula had been inserted. A tube lead away from his arm to a bag of clear fluid hanging on a stainless-steel drip-stand. Cool! he thought. Intravenous gin.
He could taste the Tanqueray coursing through his blood vessels.
The door opened. His mum was standing there.
“Gabriel, you have a visitor,” she said, smiling.
His old friend walked in.
“Hello Smudge, mate. Are you on the gin, too?”
“Nah, Boss. You know me. I like a proper drink.”
Smudge came over from the door, rubbing the alcohol sanitiser gel over and through his twisting fingers. He sat on the edge of Gabriel’s bed and raised his glass of whisky.
“Cheers, Boss.”
“Cheers.”
They clinked glasses and drank.
“How’s everything?” Gabriel asked.
Smudge smiled and rubbed his jaw.
“Fine. Thanks for taking me home to Melody and Nat. How about you, though? Got yourself in a right mess, didn’t you?”
“I had to try though, didn’t I?”
“’Course you did! And fair play, Boss, you got pretty close. Just a shame twenty yards wasn’t twenty feet. So what’re you going to do now”
“Get better. Regroup. Try again.”
“Yeah, but you need to shut that fuckin’ mole down, don’t you?”
“The boss is working on it. But we haven’t got much to go on.”
“What about the bloke with the ink on his wrist?”
“What bloke?”
“One of the ones that attacked you and Eli. Who is very easy on the eye, by the way.” Smudge winked. “It was the one you stabbed in the throat. He had a tattoo on the inside of his left wrist. It was a Russian phrase.”
“What did it say?”
Smudge drew in the air with his index finger. Three words in Cyrillic script appeared at the end of his fingertip in smeary black ink.
убей их всех
“Ubey ikh vsekh , Boss. It means ‘Kill ’em all.’”
Gabriel smiled at his dead friend.
“I didn’t know you spoke Russian.”
Smudge laughed.
“Don’t be daft, Boss. Of course I don’t. But you do.”
He drained the rest of his whisky, stood up and walked away.
“Bye, Smudge,” Gabriel called out.