Arkhangel : A Novel (2020)

by Brabazon, James

  Light.

  Swinging, reeling in stark, brilliant white light – orbiting a blinding sun. Out of the light, colour. Infinity. Swirls of brilliant shapes merging, locking, shifting. The colours deepened with the thud-throb in my brain.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  I could hear.

  Sound.

  The anvil-song of metal striking metal, an undifferentiated, resonating peal that rang with the monstrous timbre of tolling sunken bells.

  But with echo, distance. And with distance, time. I was in the world.

  I was.

  Sweat crept up my torso, dripped into my nose, ran up my legs. My carotid artery bulged in my neck. The sound of blood roared in my ears. My tongue lolled on the roof of my mouth.

  I came to with a rush of realization and nausea and opened my eyes. My hands were tied behind my back. My legs were bound at the ankles. My ankles were fastened to a twist of rope. Back and forth, back and forth: my body swung upside down between two metal walls like a bleeding, lurching pendulum.

  With a start I crunched my abdomen and brought my head up towards my legs. The effort was crippling. I couldn’t hold myself up for more than a few seconds, but it was enough to see how well fixed my feet were. I collapsed again, the abrupt jolt on the rope jerked my head back and pulled at my spine. The movement interrupted the flow of my swing and twisted the rope. I relaxed and let myself go limp and looked around, spinning and swaying on my own axis.

  At their closest point the walls were four feet away on either side. As I spun, they receded and then lurched back towards me. I looked up again, and then craned my neck backwards to look down. Corrugated lines of infinity separated and converged around me. The ceiling was close, a foot above the soles of my bare feet; the plywood floor so near I wondered that my head did not scrape on it as I moved about. Twenty feet distant a bright white halogen lamp shone into my face. The jagged black lines of my own shadow leapt across the grey metal tunnel. The light picked out four air vents and no obvious cameras … but hid the exit behind its blinding halo. At the opposite end was a metal wall. Dead centre, stencilled on a red oblong, white Cyrillic letters spelled out the acronym РЖД: RZD – the name of the Russian state railway. I was, without doubt, inside a shipping container. And I was, without doubt, moving. ‘Where to?’ was the sixty-four thousand dollar question.

  My throat was parched. I licked the sweat from my lips and tried to swallow. My stomach was empty and racked with cramp. The bullet wounds in my thigh and shoulder burned, though separating the pain of one injury from another was almost impossible. But I couldn’t have been hung like that for long. The human body isn’t meant to be inverted – and the consequences are ultimately, inevitably, fatal. At around the twenty-four-hour mark death from asphyxiation becomes imminent. Stroke was a possibility, too, as was heart failure. I knew: I’d seen the CIA string enough people up during black site debriefs to be intimately familiar with the consequences of not cutting people down in time.

  I wasn’t a fan of torture. Especially not when I was the subject. You can make anyone confess to anything – eventually. If your captive doesn’t fear death and you have nothing to trade – their family, usually – then you may as well quit while you’re ahead and save yourself the bruised knuckles and, if you’re that sort, the guilty conscience. I just hoped that whoever had strung me up was as well versed in the medical implications of enhanced interrogation techniques as I was.

  I gave myself a once-over as best I could. No boots, no T-shirt. The dressings Doc had patched me up with were loose and dirty, but still in place. I was wearing the same jeans I’d made my run in. My wrists felt as if they were bound with a cable tie. I peered up towards the ceiling. My ankles looked like they were gaffer-taped together under the rope that held me to the ceiling. How, exactly, I was fixed in place I couldn’t see, but there was no pulley, no guide rope, to lower me.

  I tried to get my head above my heart again. It was pointless. I relaxed and hung there in a grotesque parody of a dirty-blond bat. Outside, metal banged and creaked. The air throbbed with the drone of a powerful engine. Once or twice I thought I could hear the muffled shouts of orders being given – but in what language or to what end I couldn’t tell. I continued to sway. I was definitely moving forward. Not fast, but the container was in perpetual, deliberate motion.

  I closed my eyes and tried to add up what I knew – which wasn’t much. Doc Levy, dead; the figure of his assassin, fleet-footed, making good his escape; the phone call from Frank – if it had been him who’d called. I felt the knot of revenge tighten in my gut, and chided myself.

  No, Max. Concentrate on what you know – not what you think you saw or heard.

  But my focus wandered. In my mind’s eye I drew a bead with the old Martini–Henry on that little man running away and … and then came back to reality with a start.

  Never make it personal.

  It was one of Colonel Ellard’s rules that I’d never learned to obey. Personal was exactly what the job had become.

  I didn’t know if the man I’d seen leaving that night had killed Doc. But whoever did murder him had left a deliberate calling card: another bullet to the heart – and not the head, as you’d expect from a professional. On the face of it, whoever had shot me up in Donegal had done for Doc, too. If that was true, then perhaps the gunman hadn’t fried. He’d survived.

  Frank had sent me on a job to kill an old terrorist. Why, exactly, he wanted him dead I didn’t know – and Frank wasn’t saying. But he’d expected me to find something important in the cottage. Perhaps I had.

  It wasn’t unusual, either, for Frank to act outside DSF’s chain of command – except for one defining fact: the kill was on home ground. Frank could run his shitshow wherever and whenever he liked, but absolutely not, as General King would say, ‘in bloody Blighty’. The job might have been across the border, but it didn’t matter. Ireland is Ireland, and different rules applied now that the war was over – for Whitehall, at least. Breaking them would have consequences.

  The metal room spun around me. Shooting pains ran through my calves, thighs. It was hard to think straight. There had to have been a security breach. That much seemed obvious. But if the message on the banknote had anything to do with me, then it wasn’t a leak: it was a tsunami. UKN was an entirely black outfit. And Max McLean didn’t exist. I was a creation with no birth certificate, no queen’s commission and no past. A nowhere man with no way of being traced. If London really was out of the loop, then the only way that either Connor or the shooter could have been waiting for me, specifically, was if they knew that Frank would send me. If that was true, if Arkhangel was meant for me because it meant something to me, then UKN had been blown wide open. There was only one possible source for a breach that bad: Commander Frank Knight himself.

  So, Max, I asked myself as the metal box spun around me, how well do you know Frank?

  He’d apparently never let anything slip. Not once. But Frank knew me better than I knew myself. That much I’d learned in the twenty-four years we’d worked together. I considered the last word he’d said to me at Doc’s.

  Run.

  But if he was setting me up, why tip me off? As warped by digital encryption as the voice had been, only Frank had that number. Only Frank had ever had my number. It didn’t sound like him. But it had to have been him.

  It wasn’t just me who’d been tipped off, though. The Gardaí had known exactly where I was and had come prepared: they knew what they were going up against.

  The most palatable explanation was not treachery but technology – though separating the two was nigh on impossible. I’d been very careful with my communications. If the shooter had followed me to Doc’s by tracking my cell phone – or if Frank’s phone had been hacked – they would have needed serious help to do it. Our comms were so protected that even the geeks at Cheltenham weren’t supposed to be able to tail me or monitor our conversations – and purposefully so. UKN is supported by MI6 but operates outside it
s control – a failsafe that keeps us protected, and them in check. If the shooter – or whoever he worked for – had managed it, they must either have been helped from inside our firewall, or have been unnaturally brilliant. Neither prospect filled me with joy.

  And anyway, who’s that good?

  I opened my eyes as the logo of the Russian railway swept past.

  Maybe the Russians were behind it.

  Or the Americans. Or the Israelis. Old alliances were stretched to breaking point; new ones untested, unreliable. Anyone could be bought with a billion bucks. The CIA stood Janus-like at the dawn of a new era: one face looking down on the legacy of Joe Stalin, the other looking forward to the opportunities a frenemy in the Kremlin might afford. Even MI6 – especially MI6 – didn’t know whether to shake the hand of the resurgent Russian devil, or cut it off. The motivations of monsters like Philby and Burgess no longer seemed archaic and irrelevant. Anyone could work for anyone. Everyone was expendable. No one was above suspicion.

  My face pivoted into the beam of the halogen spotlight at the end of the container. The rope contracted, fully wound, and held me still for a moment, frozen in the bright white light. Behind it, steel scraped against steel. A rush of cold air. The smell of diesel. The continual pulse of a heavy engine. And then the sound of footsteps striking plywood.

  Here we go.

  Three pairs of feet. Two in boots. One in shoes.

  ‘Bystro! Shevelites’!’ Someone was being begged to get a move on in Russian. ‘Esli ego tak ostavit’, on dolgo ne protyanet.’ Whoever was speaking did so with the calm but urgent authority of a professional – telling the others in no uncertain terms that, tied up like that, I didn’t have much longer to live. He was right. I guessed he was the person wearing the shoes – and that he was wearing the trousers, too.

  The guards hesitated.

  ‘We should leave him. Please,’ a second voice pleaded in Russian. They were scared of me. It was almost flattering.

  The man in charge spoke again.

  ‘Just do it.’

  I spun back around; as I twisted past the men, I squinted at them through upside-down, sweat-clogged eyes. Three upturned figures emerged from the light, clinging to a wooden ceiling like thin black spiders. The two in boots stayed near the door, cradling AKS-74 carbines. Six-two, six-four, a couple of hundred pounds apiece, kitted out in vests and combat fatigues. The man in shoes stepped forward, floating above me. He was lighter, smaller, carrying a tan portmanteau, not an assault rifle. A doctor. Most likely he’d check my vital signs first and then, all else being equal, sedate me and cut me down. I had to convince him there wasn’t time for that, that I had to be untied immediately. Staying conscious was the only hope of escape I had.

  Snipers learn a lot of tricks. Most of them don’t require a rifle. Keeping still keeps you off your target’s score sheet. At Raven Hill, Colonel Ellard kept us on the gun for an hour at first. Then two. After a month we could lie prone for a day. By the time he’d finished with us, we’d all pushed ourselves beyond what the human body is supposed to endure: seventy-two hours without moving more than a whisker. Snipers eat, shit, piss and curse where they lie – very, very quietly. Being immobilized wasn’t out of the ordinary; it was commonplace.

  But no matter how still you are outside, inside there’s always over half a pound of muscle thumping in your chest – beating up to a hundred and thirty times a minute in combat. Slowing your heart down secures the shot. Shooting between the beats is unbeatable. We could slow it quickly, too, like pulling the handbrake on a joyride.

  My blood pressure was already low. No matter who they were, or what they were planning, if the doctor was going to cut me down before he knocked me out, he’d have to be sure I was in immediate danger of death. There were only three things he could measure easily: my heart rate, my breathing and my blood pressure.

  I could control them all with my lungs. They were the only weapons I had left.

  6

  I kept my right eye open just enough to see shape, judge distance. The area beyond the container door was too dimly lit to pick out detail. My only light source was the halogen which, in turn, blinded me with brightness and then plunged me into darkness as I swung on the rope. But I was guided by smell more than by sight. Above the reek of diesel fuel rose the scent of aftershave and clean laundry. The sweet-smelling doctor – if that’s what he was – came close. I rotated slowly on the rope and saw him squat down on his haunches next to me.

  ‘Be careful,’ his chaperones implored him in Russian. ‘He’s fucking dangerous.’ But the doctor seemed unflustered. He was wrapped up in a long black coat and was only now removing his gloves. It was January, and cold outside – wherever outside was.

  ‘Byl opasnim.’ He muttered to himself. Was dangerous. And then so they could hear, also in Russian: ‘You should have kept him in the room, like we agreed. He’s not fucking Houdini.’

  No response.

  From the intact state of Doc Levy’s dressings it didn’t look like the bullet wound in my left shoulder had been properly investigated. If I could convince this Russian doctor that my lung was punctured and collapsing, he’d be forced to take action. It didn’t have to be perfect. Even the mere possibility that I had a tension pneumothorax would, for any doctor worth their salt, elevate me immediately to the category of medical emergency.

  He produced a stethoscope from inside his bag and hooked it into his ears. At arm’s length he pressed the diaphragm to my chest. On cue I breathed rapid laboured breaths – forcing my heart rate up as high as I could manage. He moved the diaphragm, listened to my heart for a further fifteen seconds and then unhooked the stethoscope’s eartips. The noise of the engines reverberating through the metal cavern was so loud I doubted he could make out anything at all.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ He spoke in faultless English.

  He turned immediately to his chaperones.

  ‘Privedite kapitana,’ he ordered. No one moved to fetch the captain. ‘Nemedlenno!’ he yelled at them in Russian. Now!

  One of the men backed out of the metal tunnel, swallowed by the glare of the halogen. I heard his boots break into a sprint. The other guard walked towards us.

  ‘Idioty,’ the doctor said under his breath as he produced a blood pressure meter from the portmanteau. I took a deep breath, shut my mouth and blew out as hard as I could against my lips, straining as forcefully as possible. My heart rate fell. Moving quickly now, my examiner stood and fixed the rubber cuff around my grazed bicep and began pumping the bulb in his fist.

  I felt the bladder contract around my muscle. I kept trying to drop my heart rate. Forty beats per minute was the lowest I could manage. That wasn’t unusually low – but I hoped he’d think the sudden change was serious enough to take action. I couldn’t see him. Most likely he was checking the gauge. Then he slipped the stethoscope’s diaphragm under the tight cuff and listened again. The bladder deflated.

  ‘Snimite ego!’ Get him down.

  ‘Vrach …’ The guard began to remonstrate. The rope contracted. I saw the doctor straighten up and square off at him.

  ‘Listen to me very carefully. His lung is collapsing. And the reason his lung is collapsing is because you and your mudak colleague hung him upside down.’

  ‘If he escapes, we’re all dead men.’

  ‘He has minutes. Seconds, maybe, before he goes into cardiac arrest.’ The doctor turned his palms out towards me. ‘And if he dies, you’re going to wish you were dead, too.’

  ‘But our orders were to keep the prisoner secure.’

  ‘I am in command of this operation now, soldier. Your orders are to get him down. Immediately.’

  The guard shifted his weight from one foot to the other and then grunted his consent. The doctor unwound the blood pressure meter and then, taking a pair of rescue shears from the leather bag, cut through the cable ties behind my back. My arms fell and struck the ground. Blood forced its way back along my brachial arteries. I couldn’t move my
arms, but I could feel them. And that was a start – even though all I could feel was pain. A cannula had been taped in place on the back of my left hand – through which they’d probably delivered a sedative and saline before we’d set off. I remembered nothing after getting in the car – the pain in my head possibly from the blow that had knocked me out.

  The guard put his shoulder into my back and lifted me up lengthways along the container, facing away from the light. The doctor reached up and severed the rope above my ankles.

  I needed them to move fast. Once the captain and the other guard arrived, the chances of the container becoming my coffin would rise dramatically. In the movies the hero takes everyone by surprise and kills them all. In reality the bad guys watch you on CCTV and then shoot you in the back.

  They laid me down. The doctor passed the scissors to the guard. While he cut through the gaffer tape binding my ankles, the doctor tipped my forehead back, lifted my chin and opened my mouth. Airway clear. He lifted my right forearm, palm out, and rested it beside my head, like a policeman stopping traffic. My left hand he held to my right cheek, palm in. As the guard cut the final binding that pinned my legs, the doctor grabbed my jeans above my left knee and rolled me towards him, swivelling me into the recovery position.

  I was free.

  I kept my left leg moving, pitching it upwards, driving my foot as hard as I could into the back of the guard’s legs. He crumpled at the knees. I pushed myself up on to my feet … and then crumpled, too – my own legs unresponsive lumps of flesh beneath me. I staggered and reached out for the metal wall to steady myself. The doctor backed off, his right hand disappearing into the now open front of his coat.

  Weapon.

  The guard should have done the same, but instead recovered himself and tried to land a clumsy left hook.

  I could barely stand. But I could lead this lamb to the slaughter.