Lost Souls

by Michael Knaggs

  “Listen, I’m sorry for the remark about the dancing. It was a tactless thing to say to someone I hardly know. It wasn’t intended to be sexist or suggestive or…”

  “Forget it, Colonel. I’m used to a lot worse and with no apology forthcoming. This is a man’s world – they keep telling me. By which they mean, if you don’t like it you know what you can do.”

  “I guess you don’t like this part?”

  “It gets the job done. But if you can think of a better way of distracting a bunch of horny males so someone can sneak up on them, please let me know and I’ll go tell Kade. Until then… And they don’t see any more of me than you’re seeing right now. The body-suit makes sure of that. It’s all in their imagination – they just don’t know that.”

  Tom laughed. “Well, I’m sorry anyway.”

  “About saying what you did or about not seeing the show?”

  She gave him a wide smile.

  “Both, I guess,” he said, smiling back.

  Since clearing the air they had been sitting in silence for a long time, content with each other’s company.

  “Is it right you know Kade?” Lydia said.

  “Not until a week ago. What makes you think that?”

  “Just seeing you together. You seem connected somehow.”

  “That’s very perceptive.”

  “I’m a psychologist, remember. I can just about read people’s minds.”

  “Then I’d best be careful what I’m thinking,” Tom said. “Kade and I have – had – a mutual friend – well, my friend, his acquaintance.”

  “John Deverall.”

  Tom turned to her, eyes wide in surprise.

  “It’s a small world at this end of the business,” Lydia said, smiling at him. “Anyway, we’d best be getting back.” She stood up and reached out her hand to him. “Come on, let’s go.” He took her hand and she pulled him to his feet.

  *

  Shirley-Ann had the pointer again, indicating a close-up drawing of the bottom of east column.

  “When Cassie arrives at the column, Lydia will be the only one on deck on either of the Archers. She will have a tactical radio somehow concealed on her and will advise me if and when it is okay to surface. We have no idea, of course, how calm or otherwise the sea will be when we arrive in position below the door. We have ten feet to climb to the door from a craft with no keel. Here’s how we’ll try…”

  She pointed to another diagram showing a plan of the column cross-section and the submersible from above.

  “I’ll pull Cassie in sideways so her port beam will be hard up against the column before we flip the lid. We’ll then secure her with two powerful magnetic discs on the end of telescopic poles. These we’ll attach to the column hull with the poles fully extended, fore and aft from the submersible at just above sea level. Once the magnets are secure, the other ends of the poles will be clamped into brackets in the bow and stern and then retracted to pull us in as tightly against the column as possible – like shortening a guy-rope on a tent or awning. That should hold us long and steady enough for the team to get out of their wet-suits while I fix the magnetic ladder up to the door.

  “Once you’re safely in the shaft, I will remove the ladder and the magnetic poles and lay off the column. This will enable me to take Cassie down if we get any prying air or surface craft – again, Lydia will be in the best position to advise. But it means when you exit the column, you will have to jump into the water and I’ll pick you up. Because of that, you’ll store five lifejackets at the base of the column for your return. And you need to close the door behind you on your way out – in whatever way you can.”

  “Do we all understand that?” Kade put in. “It takes more than one person to handle the poles, so the Major can’t re-attach on her own. On the other hand, we must leave Alpha the way we found it – with the door closed and the ladder removed. Okay?”

  All heads nodded.

  “Thanks, Major. Commander, s’il vous plait.”

  Jules Cartier got to his feet and spoke with a soft voice and a beautiful accent.

  “When we are inside the shaft, I will lead the climb to the top.” He had in his hand what looked like a wide metal g-clamp which he held up high and regarded with a puzzled expression. “This, I believe, is what English-speaking people call a wedge.” He beamed as a ripple of laughter went round the group.

  “At each hatch, we do the same. Three of us go through and make tight a wedge to the rim of the hatch in such a way that it will stop it closing and also keep back the spring bolt.” He opened his eyes wide and gave a quintessential Gallic shrug. “I don’t know why it needs to do both. Eh, bien! We do this each time, leaving one person beneath for safety until we know the hatch does not close. Then he comes through to join us. When we get to the top, we wait for Colonel Tom to catch up, then…” He paused as the laughter came again. “Je suis desolé” he said, nodding to Tom, who mimicked his shrug with a smile and, “C’est d’accord!”

  “After the hatch number four, we tell Mike we are here and wait on the sub floor for him to advise the access point to the corridor. This will depend on where the Exiles are mostly together, and where our target is on the platform.”

  He bowed to the four sides of the room and sat down.

  “Merci, Commander,” Kade said.

  “Je vous en prie.”

  “Mr Needham.”

  Mike turned his chair round to face a laptop on a narrow table against the wall behind him. He entered a password and ID and the screen filled with the digital lattice which represented the populated areas of the platform – the apartments, main deck and lower corridor. Tiny points of light were scattered throughout the network and as Mike moved the mouse, the flat image rotated and tilted slightly into a three-dimensional diagram, causing clusters of lights to separate. He clicked on an icon and the image was projected onto a large screen on the wall above the laptop. Chairs were shuffled round so that all of the group were facing the screen.

  “Let’s just recap on positional terminology so we don’t need to describe in detail where we are on the day.” He used the cursor as a pointer on the screen. “This, near the bottom of the lattice, around three sides of the platform, is the recreational corridor, which we will refer to as ‘the corridor’. Below this is the sub-floor, which we will call ‘the sub-floor’. You will be climbing the east column, so the hatch at the top of the climb which gives you access from the sub-floor to the corridor is ‘east hatch’. Going clockwise around the structure we have south hatch, west hatch and north hatch. Starting at north hatch and coming back around the corridor – or sub-floor – the three sides of the horseshoe are Section A, Section B, Section C.

  “Each pinpoint of light represents a lost soul on Alpha. There should be seven hundred and ninety-eight lights if they are all alive, which, thankfully, they are.”

  He moved the cursor to point to a display showing various data on the right side of the screen, stopping on a cell which displayed the number he had just quoted.

  “You are looking at a live picture – this is the distribution of Exiles on the platform at…” he checked his watch “… two-fifteen this afternoon, and is what they will be seeing in the monitoring suite at the Lochshore Exile Monitoring Centre. This is a simultaneous stream from that system and I will have the same set up on Archer One. It is the only full picture we have of activity on Alpha. All but eight of the three hundred and twenty cameras that initially provided CCTV images have been found and wrecked by the inmates. Not a very clever move on their part because they existed for their benefit, but a conditioned reflex to a symbol of authority, no doubt.

  “The information on this system reaches us from a tiny transmitter surgically implanted close to the heart of each inmate, which sends information in a continuous flow, so the monitoring team can check a range of healt
h indicators and respond accordingly. Our interest in the transmission, of course, is because it also tells us the person’s exact location on the platform. Our target is Oliver Wangari – formerly, Jason Midanda. Let’s see where he usually hangs out.”

  He clicked on another icon, which brought up a blank box at the top of the screen into which he typed the name.

  “Let’s see where he’s been over the past seven days,” Mike said,

  He worked his way through a couple of menus and hit Enter. The image of Alpha which had faded into a muted background while Mike was entering the data, sprang forward again, this time with an animated picture showing a single spot of light moving around the lattice and a changing number at the bottom of the screen displaying time and date. Eventually the light stopped moving when the current time showed.

  “Thank you, Mike,” Kade said. “Sergei, comments, observations?”

  The Russian got to his feet and walked across to where Mike was sitting, leaning over him to point at the screen. “Again, please, Mike,” he said, in a voice whose strength and timbre perfectly suited his huge frame and filled the room. Mike clicked on the screen again to start the same sequence.

  “We can see our friend lives on floor five of south block,” Sergei said. “He rise early and leave apartment each day at half-morning – about ten-thirty. He spend much time in computer suite on main deck; but most time in radio room in Section C corridor on receiving deck level. He is, it seem, communication enthusiast – and, probably, genius. We wish him to be in radio room when team arrive on platform. This we help by radio link with Alpha as team climbs column, wishing target to receive messages I send from A-2 and hope to get him to talk to me. If most are interested in Lydia’s dance more than my message, target should be easy to pick from small number.”

  Lydia smiled across at Tom as Sergei continued.

  “Climbing team will know where he is by Mike telling through radio contact. When target alone or with small number, then team opens correct hatch and takes him. However, if…” Sergei counted on his fingers, “… target goes with others to watch Lydia; if many people are in radio room to listen to message; if he is somewhere not on corridor – perhaps main deck or in apartment, then we have the big problem.”

  Sergei went back to his seat while the group shifted their chairs back to face the table then looked towards Kade for his next prompt. The leader remained silent for a long time then got to his feet. He nodded towards the last speaker.

  “Thank you, Sergei, for your comments and your closing statement – the big problem. For the moment, let’s think of our target as a hostage, though, of course, that isn’t really true. In all this group’s operations together, we have always been fairly clear in advance where the hostages were. They may have been split up and spread out to make it more difficult for a rescue attempt, but we knew where we had to go to get them. We wouldn’t attempt to rescue them until we did know, in fact. Tomorrow – because it will be tomorrow – we have no idea where the target will be when we get there. Although Mike has shown us his movements over the past seven days – and, as Sergei says, we can identify some places of his preference from those – no two of those days have been the same.

  “Once we reach the sub floor, we rely completely on Mike to guide us. And I mean guide in the sense of directional and positional data. He can tell us where Jason is and how many people are with him, where – and in what numbers – the rest of the Exiles are and their proximity to the target. Mike’s is a vital – a critical – role, but I will be the one to decide how we proceed in the light of that information.” He fixed his piercing pale eyes on Tom. “As the Colonel said earlier today, my job is to take four people on to Alpha and bring five back. That’s Plan A. Plan B is for the four to return safely.”

  The group remained silent for a long time. Kade eventually turned to the man across to his right.

  “Rico – weapons.”

  Enrico Santana got to his feet and turned to pick up a gun from a shelf behind him. He held it up in his right hand and turned it back and forth to show the group.

  “Our good friend Heckler Koch MP5 – SMG – favourite weapon of hostage rescue teams across world. Assault team will carry these, but these ones are special. They will not have live bullets, for two reasons. First we must not kill anyone; a light suddenly becoming still with no life output will be flagged quick on screen at Monitoring Centre and they will see someone dies. Not good for secret mission.” He opened his eyes wide to emphasise the point. “Second, if someone loses his weapon to one of the Exiles we have enemy armed with live ammo. So no live bullets. Okay?”

  Everyone nodded their understanding.

  “But this gun is special in another way. It is adapted for use with blanks so, when fired, this special chamber on barrel produces sound like ricochets – like bullets bouncing off wall. This will help make it real to Exiles.” He smiled. “I hope so, anyway.”

  He looked across at Kade and sat down. Kade got to his feet.

  “One change,” he said. From the side pocket of his gilet, he took out a second gun, holding it out to the group on the flat of his hand.

  “Glock 18 select fire pistol. Can be used as a standard Glock 17 or flicked to full-auto mode. Along with the Heckler, I will be carrying this, loaded with live ammo.”

  The group exchanged surprised glances; Tom rose from his seat.

  “This is not what we decided. We have been through this four, five times and you have never mentioned…”

  “I’ve been keeping it for this moment, Colonel – just before we go – because I knew this would be your reaction. I have no intention of using the gun; it will be there as a last resort. You have to decide whether you know enough about us to trust me on this, because I am not going without it.”

  Tom remained standing for a few more seconds then nodded and sat down. Kade waited a while before speaking again.

  “One last – huge – piece of the puzzle. What happens to the target if – let’s say when – we get him back. Colonel?”

  Tom got to his feet again as Kade sat down. “Jason is electronically tagged like the rest. The chip is surgically implanted close to the heart, powered by the heartbeat itself, and cannot be removed except by further surgery. So, as things stand, when we drop him through one of the corridor hatches onto the sub-floor, Lochshore will see him move out-of-bounds of his permitted area of access. When we start to descend east column, his light will show for about twenty feet until it goes out of range of the digital lattice. At that point they can – and no doubt will – switch to the national tracking system – NTS – which we use across the UK to monitor the location of Deferred Life Exiles who all carry a similar tag, and track him from there.

  “That, as I said, is as things stand. What we need is a window in time, during which he is effectively off the scanner, from just before he drops through the first hatch to when we can get him to a place where NTS can’t pick up his signal. Mike has explained how this window will be achieved and…” he turned to the engineer, “… he will go through it again in a few minutes.

  “So let’s take it from when we get him into the submersible. When Cassie has cleared the area on a direct heading back to here, Archer-One will pick her up around five miles outside the ring and continue on the same course. As soon after that as it can get to us, a chopper will lift Jason and me off the boat and take us to a place called Farcuillin Lodge tucked away in Knoydart, which is as remote as it gets anywhere in the UK. We are sure NTS can’t pick up a signal from there. The lodge is owned by a close friend of my wife’s family. Access to the property is by a keypad and, conveniently, there’s a helipad close by. I just hope this person’s not taking a late holiday. The chopper will have a stack of food to deliver along with the two of us, but I’m also banking on the lodge being well stocked because we sure as hell won’t be going shopping from there.

 
; “After that, then I’m not sure. New evidence points to a possible mistake with Jason’s – and my son’s – convictions. It’s too late for Jack, but I’m confident – well, hopeful – that we might be able to … If things work out, I mean…”

  He ran out of words and there was a long awkward silence before Kade spoke. “Well,” he said, “we wish you luck, Colonel, and hope things do work out. After all you’ll have been through, I don’t like to think of you both starving to death on a Scottish hillside.”

  Tom smiled. “Thank you,” he said.

  “And now, Mr Needham, tell us how you’re going to create this window in time.”

  The group relaxed and Mike got to his feet.

  “With some help from our number nine.”

  *

  Katey dropped her fork onto her half-empty dinner plate and stared wide-eyed at her mother.

  “He did what?”

  Mags remained silent, looking down at her hands, clasped together on her lap.

  “And you’ve known about this since Dad told you – what – over a month ago?”

  “No, he didn’t say anything about it at the time he told me about Jason. I only found out from Josh Wilcox…”

  “When?”

  “Monday – six days ago.”

  “So you’ve known for nearly a week. Well, thank you for telling me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What was the point? Nothing came of it.”

  “Then why are you telling me now?”

  Mags sighed and leaned back on her chair.

  “Look, Katey, I’ve been agonising all week about whether to say something to you or not. Whether to let you share in yet another disappointment. If I did the wrong thing, then I’m sorry. But how am I supposed to know what the right or wrong thing is anymore? I’ve taken just about as much as I can!”

  Katey reached across and took her hand.

  “I’m sorry, Mum. That was completely out of order. It’s just another shock to have to deal with. But I’m glad you told me, really I am. It’s good to know that he’s still the dad I’ve always been so proud of. But isn’t that a clue as to why he might be up there? Shouldn’t we tell Mr Mackay?”