by RJ Bailey
Each person mouthed a single phrase that was relayed, slightly out of sync with the image, over speakers I couldn’t see. I pulled out the earplugs. The words were in a polyglot of languages, but even I knew what they were saying.
Thank you.
No buyers. No auction. No girls. No Jess.
He likes to play games.
A red dot scurried along the stone flags like a glowing cockroach, then up my leg until it came to rest on my chest. I could see sections of its beam picked out here and there in the smoke from the grenades. It was coming from just to the side of the projection screen, originating somewhere in the blackness beyond it. I thought about the Kevlar armour I had strapped across my torso. Maybe the gunman did, too, because the dot slowly crawled to my throat. Not an easy shot, but certainly a vulnerable one.
The speakers went quiet. The faces continued to rotate, six of them in all, still silently mouthing their gratitude. I looked at the nearest pillar. Three, maybe four paces.
He read my thoughts. ‘Just remember, Sam, Oktane never misses.’
It was Bojan’s disembodied voice. And this was what Oktane had been activated for.
Me.
‘Stay exactly where you are. You will never make it. And just in case you think you’ll get me, be aware that I am not stupid enough to be in the building, Sam. Neither is Jess actually in here.’
‘The Void? The auction?’ I asked. ‘All a ruse?’
He laughed, a metallic sound over the speakers. ‘All a little game.’
‘How could you know I’d find this place?’ It was, after all, more by luck than any skill I’d found out about The Void.
‘I couldn’t be sure. But the spike of activity of people in London searching for FOTB told me it was very likely you had. I was impressed. I had some other clues ready to feed you if you hadn’t taken the bait. So I knew I’d get you here one way or another.’
What kind of target would I make, turned sideways, crouched, running? Small. How good could he be, this man?
‘Put your weapon down. Now.’
‘Where’s Jess?’
‘All in good time. Do as I say. Or he’ll shoot you where you stand and then you’ll never see your daughter again. Not in this life.’
I did as he said.
‘Kick it away.’
I kicked it away. It skidded over the flags like a curling kettle. It travelled further than I had hoped.
‘Turn around.’
I did so.
‘There’s a pistol in the small of your back, take it out.’ I complied. ‘Throw it after the other one.’
It clattered onto the floor. That was the sum total of guns about my body. The spare Glock was in the backpack. Not an easy extraction, but possible . . .
He read my mind. Again.
‘Now, if you want to know about your daughter, take off your backpack.’ I shrugged it. ‘Place it at your feet. If I know you, Sam Wylde, there’ll be a second weapon in there. Maybe even a third. Very slowly, take it off.’
Again, I did as I was told.
‘You’ll have some restraining straps in there. Yes? I want you, again very slowly, to take one out.’
Four paces to the pillar. Maybe five.
But I unzipped the bag and brought out one of the straps. Four paces was a long way, after all. Five, far too many.
‘Take out the gun. Slowly.’
I was very measured in my movements.
‘Throw it away.’
I complied with his instructions.
‘And rucksack.’
It, too, ended up beyond my reach.
‘Now, using the restraining strap, tie your hands together. Tighten with your teeth. You know how it’s done.’
I knew how it was done. I had made people do it myself. It took a few moments, but eventually my wrists were bound.
‘Tighter.’
I put the free end of the strap in my mouth and pulled. As I did so, I touched my throat.
‘Good. Well done.’
There was a crackle on the speaker. Then the faces on screen found their voices again. Thank you, danke, shukran, xiè xie nǐ.
After two rotations of the cast, they went silent once more. I waited. I killed the time by counting the number and memorising the positions of the rings set into the floor. Easy to trip over those things.
‘You know who they are thanking?’
I didn’t want to play his game. I kept quiet.
‘Jess.’
I swallowed hard. It was best I didn’t speak. Were these the ‘buyers’? Had I missed the sale?
‘And you know what they have to thank her for?’
You’re going to tell me, aren’t you, you sick fuck? But I said nothing.
‘Life.’
‘What?’
‘Life. That one has Jess’s heart. A fine young heart. The Chinese guy, the liver; the Saudi, new eyes, all thanks to Jess. You know what the old name of this place was? Of Constanta? It was Tomis. It means “to cut”. Ironic, eh?’
The noise began in my head again, the sizzling short circuit. My vision began to darken at the periphery. I took a step forward.
‘And that’s what we have done. Cut her. A young body like your daughter’s is worth more as spare parts than any sex trafficker could get. Of course, we could have sold her on and used the organs when FOTB was finished with her. But there would be a chance of infection then – AIDS, herpes, hepatitis. But how much more could we charge if she was unsullied? A lot. Heart, lungs, liver, corneas, kidneys . . .’
I forced the sounds in my head back to where they had come from, deep, deep into my brain. I spoke loudly, clearly, as if my partner could actually hear me. ‘Freddie. Activate . . . Vesuvius. Vesuvius.’
My words crossed the ether and arrived at a radio receiver in the VAD – Voice Activated Detonator. The explosion from the two TEDs was muffled, but there was nothing subdued about the boom of the metal disc from the ‘window’ as it spun through the air and bounced off one of the pillars, nor about the throaty gurgle and roar of the sea as it rushed in after it.
Tactical Entry Devices were designed to blow down a terrorist’s or a drug dealer’s steel doors and allow the entry of law enforcement. But they had done an equally good job of letting the Black Sea into this old building via the rose-window-style panel, which was actually a sea door.
The plume of water shot across the cellar, slicing through the laser beam, and I made my move to the pillar, scooping up my backpack. There was a crack of a round, fired blindly, but I had no idea where it went. By the time I made it to cover, the gurgling, swirling water was a foot deep and rising, cold and black around me.
I reached into the backpack and pulled out the Snorka cylinder and, hands still tied together, clamped my teeth and lips over the mouthpiece.
Up to my knees now, the sea a torrent of white streaks as it spewed from the aperture, frothing where it hit the surface of the newly created lake, and glistening like ink as it flowed into the far reaches of the room. There was a loud bang followed by a crackle and some of the lights went out.
I found the knife Pavol had bought for me, hit the blade release, and spent a few precious seconds sawing through the ties, cutting the base of my thumb through the glove as I did so. But I couldn’t feel the pain.
I hit the quick-release buttons on the side straps and shed the skin of the Kevlar body armour. It would only get in the way. The spare mags I had hidden behind it plopped into the water.
The incoming sea had seeped into my wetsuit now. It should have kept me warm, but this was winter sea. Plus, my gloves weren’t up to the job. I had selected them for flexibility, not warmth. You can’t flick off a safety and fire a gun with sausage-like fingers.
But that might have been a mistake.
My teeth wanted to chatter. Hypothermia was looming. I turned on the Snorka’s oxygen valve and felt the gas flow brush against my tongue.
The sea was creeping over my hips to my waist. I crouched down and let mysel
f tumble forward and underwater. With no hood, my ears began to hum with pain. And I was blind. Hardly any of what was left of the light penetrated beneath the surface. I could just make out the dark column of one of the brick pillars. Using it as a way marker, I pushed myself down to the floor and began to swim, feeling myself lift towards the surface as I did so. I was too buoyant. My fingers found the first of the metal rings and I yanked, pulling myself down, until I was parallel to the floor. I hadn’t factored these in. I was happy they were there, though. They would act as my weight belt, keeping me submerged.
Worth more as spare parts . . .
Not now. Please, God, not now.
I pushed off and kicked over to the next ring, right where I thought the submachine gun would be. I groped around on the floor, but couldn’t find it. How useful would it be after a submersion? I had no idea. Or the Glocks? The latter were rated for full saltwater immersion, but I had never heard that tested. Besides, I couldn’t find either of the damned things anyway.
I moved to my right, fingertips outstretched for my next handhold. I found it. Six more, I reckoned, and I would be at the entrance to the staircase, where the curtain was. That would be where he would head, too. Oktane. For the exit. I had to get there before him.
I kicked hard, hoping not to break the surface. The Snorka produced a thin stream of bubbles, but I reckoned my opponent or opponents would hardly notice them in the turmoil above. Snorkas were used as an emergency air reserve by scuba divers. This model gave me ten minutes, at most. It would be enough. If I didn’t freeze to death first.
Two more handholds were achieved. I was having trouble moving, though. I was heavy, but not in a good way. My limbs felt like wax, making my movements ponderous. My eyes were burning and I should have thought of a nose clip. I was probably consuming the oxygen in the tiny cylinder far faster than I should.
Heart, lungs, liver.
I tried not to scream into the mouthpiece as I swam on, colliding with the base of a pillar. I scrabbled for grip on the floor, but there was no ring. I grabbed the corner of the column for purchase and thrust myself forward. But still no rings. I was in danger of floating up to the surface.
Just then, somebody stood on my hand.
Whether they knew it was a hand, I don’t know, but it slithered off. I could see the shape of the man’s legs and the boots that were trying to find purchase on the floor. The water must be up to his chest, at least, I estimated.
What I did next was instinctive.
I stabbed the back of his knee with my knife and saw something darker than the water squirt out, like a cloud of squid ink. Then I spiked the back of the thigh. Once, twice. And then I stood.
It was up to my chest, maybe a bit lower for him. He had on a sodden balaclava, just his eyes showing. And in those, surprise and pain.
Oktane still had the rifle in his hands, but I was too close for him to bring it to bear. He swung the barrel at me and it caught my freezing cheek, setting off pixels of pain across the side of my head.
As I turned, the front sight of the weapon caught the Snorka, ripping it from my mouth. I slashed at his arm as it came past, and I must have hit something because the rifle flew from his hands and was swallowed by the water.
I sucked in fresh air, stepped in close and sank the blade into his neck and twisted, enjoying the warmth of the blood that penetrated the gloves to my cold fingers. He didn’t move. The shock had petrified him. I extracted the blade, changed hands and did the other side.
Then, as if the spell had been broken, this frozen man came to life and lunged at me. A terrible gurgling sound came out of Oktane’s mouth as he leapt and, with the strength of a madman, wrapped his arms around my upper body and squeezed. I felt a rib pop. I still had my arms free and I carried on stabbing, but he had me in a grip and was dragging me under. His entire weight was on top of me now, and I couldn’t shake him. He screamed again and blood spattered over my face. I raised the knife and brought it down on his back, but it skidded off his ribs, twisting from my grip.
I pushed his head back, gouged the eyes, tore at the mouth, almost ripped off an ear, but I knew he was dead. He was just doing his damnedest to make sure I went with him.
FORTY
I don’t remember the hands that pulled me to the surface or unpeeled me from Oktane’s death grip. It wasn’t Freddie. After all, Freddie wasn’t even in the country. I had simply used a familiar name as a radio trigger.
The first contact I remembered was a young, female medic standing over me, wrapping a dressing around my upper arm. I tried to take in my surroundings, but she forced my head back down. I was on a stretcher, but raised off the ground, so probably a wheeled medical trolley of some description. I was mostly wrapped in a light, shiny metal blanket. I was cold, bloodless, the hand that I could see marbled with blue veins.
‘What happened to my arm?’ I asked through blubbery lips.
‘Bullet wound.’
Bullet wound? Then I remembered the shot as I dashed for the pillar. I thought he’d been firing blind. Maybe not. Or maybe the inrush of water, the disturbance of the air, had affected the flight of the round.
Oktane never misses.
Except when someone has blown a sea door nearby. Even so, why hadn’t I felt it?
I looked up at the dome above my head and the restless pigeons, unsettled by all this activity. I was on the ground floor of the casino. I was aware of other bodies moving around, and in my peripheral vision I could see men in combat gear with serious weaponry held at waist height. Well, I always guessed, no matter what had happened, the cops would turn up, most likely elite ones like these. What I didn’t expect was Tom.
He knelt next to my trolley and touched my face. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ I said. And I began to cry; great sobs that caused the medic to tut. Tom hugged me as best he could and waited until the worst of it had gone. ‘How . . .?’
‘Bratislava,’ he said. ‘You told Adam you were going there, remember?’
I didn’t remember. It must have been a slip of the tongue. Careless. It was one of the gaps in my memory of recent events. There seemed to be quite a number of them.
‘Adam, in his own sweet time, told Freddie, Freddie put two and two together. Weapons training. She figured you went there to get tooled up and get your eye back in. So, she sent me out to see your chum Pavol. Who was very worried about you. Very.’
There was a lot of weight to that ‘very’. I kept quiet.
‘He told me about the weapons and that you had asked to see the plans for this building. I told Europol that there was a sex-slave auction here. They contacted the FBI . . .’
I sighed. My words came slow, deliberate so the chatter of my teeth didn’t distort them. ‘The FBI? Jesus. There’s no auction. It was all a . . . it was all a sick game. A ruse to draw me in.’
‘We know that now. The FBI has cyber-forensics on it. It was all a front: the auction, FOTB. He knew you’d come if he laid out the breadcrumbs properly.’
There was a question I was afraid to ask, but it came out anyway, escaping like a greyhound out of the traps. ‘Is there a body down there?’
‘Yes.’
My throat caught before I realised: of course there was a body down there. I created it. ‘No, no. Jess, I mean. Is Jess there?’
He squeezed my good arm through the blanket. ‘Not that they’ve found.’
The tears came again, hot, but as salty as that sea. ‘Oh, God. What have I done, Tom? To Jess. And he’s not here. Bojan. He was using a remote set-up. He got away.’ And I had to find him. I had to know whether Bojan was telling the truth about Jess or whether it was another of his psychological tortures. His games.
‘Shush. We’re taking you to hospital. You need to rest. Get checked out.’ Where had I heard that before?
The medic finished. Suddenly, after feeling like I was entombed in an iceberg, I was warm, but the sort of warmth you get from an electric blanket. Artificial. Not quite right. I’d been giv
en drugs. I felt my head drop to one side. Bollocks, not now.
My words slurred, as if I was half a bottle of vodka down. I struggled to keep it slow and deliberate. ‘I need something. From downstairs. When they . . . when they pump the water out.’
‘What?’
‘There’s a projector or a computer. Something rigged up to show a short film. I need it. Don’t let the police take it. Don’t.’
‘It’s the FBI. They know what they are doing.’
‘The FBI means it’ll disappear for years. I need it now.’
‘Why? It’ll be water-damaged anyway.’
‘I want you to get it,’ I said with as much feeling as I could muster. I could feel a veil coming down. ‘Get it. Steal it if you have to. Bribe someone. Please.’
There was a commotion of clanging and groaning as another trolley was manhandled up the stairs. I swivelled on one elbow.
There was a body strapped to it. A body with a balaclava on his face.
One of the cops stepped forward and pulled it off. With a final push, I raised myself up further to see the face of Oktane.
Except it wasn’t Oktane.
Or maybe it was all along, and there had only been one of them from the get-go. Perhaps all that bullshit about the Phantom had been just that. Either way, the man I was looking at, as pallid as a dead fish on a slab, his neck disfigured by vicious sawing wounds, was Bojan.
I’d killed the one man who could tell me what had really happened to my daughter.
EPILOGUE
I can see Freddie, her face illuminated by the light from the TV screen in her living room. Lovely, loyal Freddie. She deserves a better friend than me.
She is sipping a glass of wine. Of course she is. I am smoking another cigarette. Well, not smoking. Holding. Last one for a long time, I promise myself.
Spring is almost here and the trees in her road are ready to unveil their new foliage. It is dusk and the street-lamps have flickered on. New, sterile white ones that remind me of an operating theatre. I miss the yellow of sodium. It was less clinical, the tones of my childhood; warm and safe.