Fuelling the Fire

by Roland Ladley

  He wanted to be a part of it. As far as he could tell, his boss was still being held in the church’s administration building. And if his boss was still in danger, then he should be there to help in some way.

  Federal Agent Ben Carmen looked up from the table and smiled as Albin approached. He straightened up and made excuses to those at the table, walking across to meet Albin.

  “How you doing, son?”

  “Good, sir, thanks. How’s it going?”

  “Complicated.”

  Albin knew that Agent Carmen was a man of few words.

  “Sir, can I be of help? If my boss is in there”—he pointed in the general direction of where the action was—“then I’d like to help out, sir.”

  Agent Carmen smiled again and warmly patted Albin on his shoulder.

  “Good, son, good. Go over and see my driver, Huck. He’s with my vehicle in the lot. Tell him that I sent you. You can be my spare driver. Travel in the trunk if necessary.” The agent nodded in the direction of the door, making it clear that the conversation was over and he should get going. “We’re moving out in ten minutes, up to the Incident Control Point. So be quick.”

  Albin was already on his way, shouting, “Thank you, sir!” as he jogged off.

  He had no trouble finding Huck. He recognised him immediately. He’d shared a mug of coffee with him a couple of months ago at a conference. Huck was standing beside a Ford Bronco identical to his own, which, earlier on, had been shipped off to forensics in Dallas. This was good news—should he be asked to drive.

  “Hi, Huck,” Albin offered his hand. Huck took it, almost squeezing it to death.

  “Albin! How ya doing?” Huck was a monster of a man, big and square. Albin was unsure how he managed to get into the driver’s seat.

  Albin was about to talk through what Agent Carmen had said, when a shout from behind stopped any further conversation.

  “Let’s go! Up to the ICP. Now!” It was Agent Carmen.

  Huck was in the driver’s seat much quicker than Albin thought possible for such a large man. He dithered.

  “Get in, Albin! In the back!” Agent Carmen barked.

  They were off. The Ford’s five-litre V8 engine burst into life. Huck had the vehicle out of the lot and in the direction of the turn-off to the church in no time. Albin was impressed.

  Agent Carson reached for his dash handset.

  “ICP, this is Carson. I’ll be with you in two. Send Sitrep. Copy.”

  The radio crackled.

  “Good. It’s Dennison here. We have their demands. Let’s talk face to face. Copy.”

  “Copy. Out.” Agent Carson put the handset back in the clip on the dash.

  Huck drove the Bronco effortlessly. With lights flashing, but no siren, a couple of minutes later they pulled up into the newly fenced car park, just short of the ICP.

  “Huck. Stay with the car. Albin, come with me. You can act as a runner if I need one.”

  Albin felt immediately elevated in rank. His boss had only ever asked him to drive from A to B. Now, in the heat of a major operation, his new boss might just ask him to run errands and pass important messages. He really wished he’d brought a notebook and pencil with him. As he strode after Agent Carson, he reached into his pocket and found a handkerchief. He tied a knot in one of its corners—he’d remember next time.

  It took them no time to reach the white tent, next to which a massive generator was chugging away. There was a sign outside the entrance: “ICP.” A state trooper guarded the canvas door.

  “Stay outside, Albin.” Agent Carson put his hand out to gesture Albin to stop.

  Albin walked to the gable end of the tent, careful not to trip over the hundreds of wires that led to numerous poles with antennas on top. He took in the scene.

  They were in a hollow. In front of him, rising up the ridge, was the gravel track that eventually led to the church. On top of the ridge, where the track crested, were the remains of the state trooper car. It was still on its back, blackened by fire. He wasn’t sure, and his stomach didn’t want him to think about it, but were the two officers still inside? The officer who had tried to reach the car, the one who was shot, was definitely not there anymore. Had they been able to retrieve the two other men? Probably not.

  His eyes followed the ridge around. Every twenty metres or so there was a couple of officers, just off the crest line. Above every second pair there was what appeared to be a remote camera or some other sensing device. To his far left, maybe a hundred metres away, were a couple of armoured vehicles. One had a turret with a gun that looked big enough to blow a hole in the moon.

  He stuck his head around the end of the tent and looked right. It was the same setup. There were men and munitions everywhere.

  He’d been so busy focusing on the hardware that he didn’t realise that he could hear what was going on in the tent.

  “So, what is it they want, Dennison?” It was Agent Carson’s voice.

  “You’re not going to believe it. They want the sale of the Koran banned across the whole of the United States. They know it will require legislation, and I have a fax here that looks like a load of lawyer-speak to me. But the bones of it are clear: no more Koran on US bookshelves.”

  Albin couldn’t see the expression on Agent Carson’s face and didn’t really understand the enormity of what the two men were discussing.

  “No shit. Are they kidding? Are there any other demands? Or a timeline?”

  “No other demands. I asked the guy, who refused to be named, if there was anything else. He said that they have no need for money, nor did they indicate that they wished to escape.”

  “And the timeline?”

  “The three hostages will be shot on Sunday, November fifth, at eleven in the morning.”

  “But that’s over three weeks away!” Albin could hear the frustration in Agent Carson’s voice. “Do they really expect us to sit around here and wait for them to execute three of our own?”

  “I guess they expect the president, the House of Representatives, and the Senate to have passed a new bill by then.”

  “In three weeks? Are they out of their minds?”

  “Apparently, the guy said that he already knew of fifty-eight Republican senators who would support such a bill. I don’t know how many you need to get it through, but it might just be possible.”

  “Or three good people will die?”

  There was quiet for a bit. Overhead, a recently arrived helicopter was more than making up for the break in the conversation.

  “Keep this on close hold. I’ll take the fax back down to the headquarters and pass the details to Washington. I’ll make it clear to everyone down there that we’re in for the long haul—with an almighty big punch-up at the end of it. We’ll need to get a political and a legal rep here to help out with the dialogue. I’ll make that happen as well.”

  “Thanks, Ben.”

  “Oh, and, Dennison . . .”

  “Yup.”

  “We have a demand. Tell them we’re going to remove the two dead troopers from the car. Tell them we’re going to do it at . . .” There was a pause. Albin imagined Agent Carson looking at his watch. “Fifteen hundred hours. Tell them that, as Christians, they’ll get this. And tell them that we won’t take no for an answer.”

  “OK, Ben. And if they disagree?”

  “Tell them we’ll nuke the place before midnight. I’m off now.”

  Albin rushed around to the front of the tent and met Agent Carson on his way out.

  “Come on, Albin. This thing has just got a whole lot tougher.”

  Disused Warehouse Complex, Altglienicke Industrial Estate, Berlin

  Sam felt the temperature dropping well before it started to get dark. It was 4.35. She had been laid out on a couple of pallets for over an hour. She just couldn’t go on. Everything ached, and she had blisters on her feet. Her left hand, where she had been hitting the metal doors, felt like it was twice as big as her right—a hand that had only recently starte
d to look like it belonged on the end of her arm after the washroom incident. Her stomach groaned with hunger, and, above all, she was overwhelmingly tired. Now that the temperature was dropping, she reckoned that when hypothermia came, and it would very soon, she would be gone within an hour.

  She had lost her resolve. At some point during the afternoon she thought she heard someone or something outside. The rain had stopped, and there was a clanking sound. It was a long way off, but it wasn’t a sound she had heard before. She had screamed until she was hoarse, and she had banged on the door with her fists when her voice had given out.

  But no one came.

  The noise had given her the briefest of hope that someone might find them. However, within half an hour, this hope had turned to desperation. Half an hour after that, her desperation had slid into depression. She’d stopped walking, and she’d stopped banging. She had resigned herself to not making it through the night. She would die here. In the cold.

  Why had they left them to die in the container rather than shoot them when they had shot Wolfgang’s mother? It jarred—it made her angry. Maybe Mauning had received an order that it was better that they were left to perish in this cell. That didn’t make any sense. None of it did.

  Who cares? Who gives a shit?

  To her credit, even if she said so herself, she had continued to check on Wolfgang. It was possibly, she thought, her military training. Never leave a man behind. Or maybe the sense of duty that had been drilled into her by her parents. “Look after others—they will look after you.”

  Regardless, Wolfgang was, somehow or other, hanging in there. He had grunted a couple of times during the day; maybe it was a dream surfacing—not that she would want to be exposed to any of his dreams after the murder of his mother. During her half-hour checks she had often spoken to him, offering some solace. A couple of times she held his cold and clammy hand. Sam thought he had squeezed hers at one point, but as she had lost all sensation in her fingers since the debilitating cold of last night, she couldn’t really tell.

  She would look at him again, and no matter how rubbish she felt, she would continue to look at him until she couldn’t make the short journey from her couple of pallets to his.

  Voices.

  Clunk. More voices. Clunk.

  Sam’s heart rate shot through the roof. She was on her feet, but was so short of energy she had to make two attempts to stay upright.

  Clunk. And then that wonderful scraping sound of her prison door being opened.

  What’s happening? Who is it? What will they do?

  The open doors allowed what little light there was outside to infiltrate into the container. She couldn’t stop herself from looking around. It was as her mind described it in the dark. Nine pallets and four metal walls. She’d missed nothing.

  Three men came in. One lifted Wolfgang onto his shoulders. She was relieved that he gave out a groan as the man carried him off. There’s life still in him.

  Two men came for her. It was the same two men from yesterday. They spoke some German to each other and, without any ceremony, picked her up by putting a hand under each arm and dragged her out of the container. Their hands are so warm! The heat of their bodies was like two radiators. She pulled her elbows in tight and felt the warmth spread under her arms. What a fabulous feeling. She closed her eyes and willed the heat from their arms and shoulders to penetrate her fleece, bring back some energy to her cold and limp body.

  They were back inside the warehouse within a minute. Any sense of elation that Sam had briefly felt was shattered when she saw the tarpaulin back out on the floor with two chairs placed in the middle of it. Both chairs faced away from the direction they entered. They were maybe six feet apart. Wolfgang was put on one chair, and she was dumped on the other.

  She felt her mood shifting again. Depression had been replaced briefly with elation as she had been pulled from the container. Now she had a new feeling. It was an odd sensation, as if her body had taken on an electrical charge. She shivered, but in a way that she thought probably looked like a fit. Her head flicked left and then right, in a sharp motion. She looked at her hands. They both seemed to jump, independently of each other. Her head went again, jerking, a jagged movement as though she were plugged into the mains. Everything was involuntary. I must look very odd.

  Even with her head moving uncontrollably, she tried to take in the scene. Recce a route out. Find a gap.

  Unless it was behind her, there was no crate with a purple cloth. And no handgun. That was some relief. There were four, maybe five men. They were all standing around as if they were waiting for something. She tried to keep her head still, and when she thought she had it under control, she twisted to her right to see if she could work out what was happening behind her.

  Smack! A flat hand to her face.

  Shit! That hurt.

  Someone was on her shoulder, keeping an eye. She wouldn’t do that again.

  She and Wolfgang sat there like dummies for what seemed like an age, but it was probably no more than five minutes.

  “Hello, Sam Green.” An American accent.

  What? The words came from the direction of the entrance behind her. She wanted to look, but she didn’t want another slap. I recognise that voice. Her head was full of cotton wool, and nothing was working as it should. She continued to fidget and jump without intending to. Get a grip, Sam!

  Then she saw him. He gave her a wide berth and came into her peripheral vision about three metres away. He stopped in front of her just off the tarpaulin, and then, she thought possibly to get on her level, he crouched down, his hands on his knees. It was a patronising stance. Like talking to a child.

  “We meet again, Sam Green.”

  It was Kurt Manning. It’s Kurt Manning!

  Her brain went into overdrive—all other sensations were lost. She stopped jerking; her limbs become her own again. A rush of heat seemed to percolate throughout her body. She was momentarily alive, the fog in her brain cleared, the red mist not far from taking control.

  “Kurt Manning. You shit.” It was meant to come out much stronger, but her voice was still raspy after her shouting match in the container earlier in the afternoon.

  “Oh, don’t be so hard on me.” He stood up, smiling. “Are you not well?”

  Sam didn’t say anything. With her faculties back, even temporarily, she took in the scene with a greater sense of awareness. She couldn’t see behind her, but there was at least one man on her shoulder and three men to her front. They all had rifles.

  Manning gave a nod to the man behind her. He slapped her across the face.

  “What the . . .” That hurt!

  “Talk to me, Sam Green. Answer my questions. You know you’re going to die. But I need to understand a few things first. Things you will tell me.” He nodded again. This time the accompanying pain came from a punch to the back of her neck.

  Shit! She fell to the floor, her hands preventing her head from hitting the concrete. Her head span. She had to stop herself from throwing up. Her breathing was short and erratic.

  “Get back on the chair, Sam Green.”

  She was on all fours. She was down, but her mind was her own. This was her Daniel Craig moment.

  “Fuck you, Manning.” The swearing lost its impact with the rasping of her voice.

  It was her torso this time. A kick from the man’s boot. The pain was instantaneous and flooded her senses. She collapsed on the floor. She closed her eyes, but she couldn’t stop the tears from dripping onto the concrete, turning patches from grey to black.

  Sam was then manhandled back onto her chair. As her minder dragged her, she noticed that he was limping. She glanced up at his face. It’s Bischoff. What a surprise. He roughly turned her head to face forward and held her in place. His hand on her shoulder.

  Everything hurt.

  “Where did you learn about the Church of the White Cross? Was it here in Germany?”

  Sam stared across at the monster. If she told him everyth
ing, would she die sooner? If she didn’t, the beating would continue. How long would she last? Would her body give in before her mind did? She hoped it would. Could she hold out? She would have been dead if she had stayed in the container. Could she channel the pain to give her more resolve?

  Above all, she wouldn’t talk. At all. She would die first. She could get through the pain. Somehow.

  Sam spat on the floor. Blood was mixed in with the sputum. It dribbled down her cheek.

  “OK, Sam Green. Let’s do it your way.”

  Manning nodded at Bischoff again. She was treated to an earful of fist. She couldn’t stop herself from falling sideward off her chair again. Stars floated in front of her eyes, her head throbbed, and her ear felt like it had been poked at with a screwdriver. Everything went grey for a while, her eyesight briefly gone. Even with her eyes closed, her world span. She opened them and looked up at Manning. She saw two of him. He eventually coalesced into one. Colours returned. This time she spat because her mouth was full of saliva. Blood was ever present.

  She didn’t wait to get picked up and placed back on the chair. She didn’t want to give Bischoff the satisfaction. She lifted herself off the concrete floor, and, as best she could, she crawled up the chair. And then something came to her. As she was climbing what felt like an alpine mountain just to sit herself back down, she looked across to Manning. She caught him side on. A penny dropped. A big penny. It might not have been the right penny, but she thought she was onto something.

  Not that it mattered now.

  Holding on to the chair with all her strength, she put her bum back on the seat, tentatively turning around, avoiding any movement that she thought might add to the pain. She settled down and breathed out through a closed mouth, rasping—her cheeks inflamed like a trumpet player.