Firewall (29 page)

One of the others turned and opened fire through the rear window, adding more holes to the safety glass.

Click-thud, dick-thud, dick-thud.

Empty cases hit the side window with a metallic ping-ping-ping, then fell and bounced off my head.

Freezing cold air blasted through the roof, then the motor whined and the rush of air stopped.

"Anybody down?"

"I didn't see anyone." That came from the rear. "If there is, they'll be in the wagons. No one was left."

I got a heavy slap around the head. "Fuckin' Russians! Who do you think you are, man?"

The front passenger was, without doubt, the commander. His WASPy accent sounded as if he should have been standing on a soapbox fighting an election for the Democrats in Massachusetts, not trying to sort out a gang fuck in Finland, but thankfully he seemed to be sorting it out rather well. I was still alive.

There was a short pause, maybe while he marshaled his thoughts, then, "Bravo Alpha." He had to be on the net, listening to his earpiece. "Situation?"

There was silence from the others. Well-trained operators know better than to talk when somebody's on the net.

The Wasp let out a cry. "Shit! They have Bravo's vehicle." He got back on the net, "Roger that, did you total the kit?"

There was five seconds of silence before he replied in a low, depressed voice. "Roger that, Bravo." He addressed the vehicle crew. "The sons-of-bitches have some of the hardware. Shit!"

There was no reply from the crew as the Wasp composed himself before getting back on the net.

"Charlie, Alpha-situation?"

He checked through all his call signs. There seemed to be four of them: Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo. How many people at each call sign I didn't know, but there had seemed to be loads of them at the house. It seemed the whole thing had been a gang fuck for everyone.

Me getting caught; Tom, well, I didn't know; the Americans and Maliskia each only getting part of the hardware they wanted; as for the three Tom lookalikes from the house, they must be more pissed than all of us put together.

The radio traffic had been in clear speech, which indicated they were using secure and probably satellite com ms not like my Motorolas at the Intercontinental. As they transmit, these radios skip up and down through dozens of different frequencies in a sequence that only radios with the same encryption fill, fluctuating at the same rate and frequency, can hear. Everybody else just gets an earful of mush.

He must have got a message from Echo. "Okay, roger that, Echo. Roger that." He turned toward the bodies in the back. "Bobby has gotten hit in the leg. But everything's fine; it's cool." There was a sigh of relief from the back.

I felt the fabric press against my face as he turned. "Is that asshole still breathing?"

My cover answered, "Oh yeah." He gave me another dig with his heel and a muttered insult in Texan drawl.

I moaned in deep Russian acknowledgment. The commander's ass swiveled again and my head moved with it. He got back on the net. "All stations, this is Alpha. We're still going as planned. My group will take the extra paxes. Acknowledge."

I imagined him listening in to the other call signs on his earpiece.

"Bravo."

"Charlie, roger that."

"Delta, roger."

"Echo, roger dee."

It seemed that I was the extra "paxes." Whatever happened to me now, it would be down to the Wasp.

We drove in silence for another twenty minutes, still on the paved road. By my estimation we hadn't gone far; we couldn't have been traveling that fast because of the heavy snow.

The Wasp got back on the net. "Papa One, Alpha."

There was a pause while he listened.

"Any news yet on Super Six?" More silence, then, "Roger that, I'll wait."

"Papa One and Super Six" didn't sound like ground call signs. Where possible these are always short and sharp. It stops confusion when the shit hits the fan or com ms are bad, factors which normally go hand in hand.

Ten minutes later the Wasp was back on the net. "Alpha." He was obviously acknowledging somebody.

There was silence, then, "Roger that, Super Six call signs are no go. A no go."

After a pause of two seconds, he announced, "All stations, all stations. Okay, here's the deal. Go to the road plan; the extra paxes still goes with me. Acknowledge."

Nothing more came from him as he got the acknowledgment from the other call signs. At least these guys were having a shit day too. The Super Six call signs must have been helicopters or fixed wing aircraft that couldn't fly in these conditions. In better weather we would have been flown out of here by people who worked for their Firm. Nine out of ten times these are civilian pilots with background jobs as commercial fliers, so they have solid cover stories. They'd fly in on NVGs, maybe pick us all up, or at least the kit, injured, and prisoners, and scream back out of the country to a U.S. base. Or maybe, if they were helis, they'd land on an American warship in the Baltic, where the computer equipment and its operators would be sorted out and moved on to whoever was so anxious to have them. If I didn't sort my shit out soon and escape I'd land up with them in one of the Americans' "reception centers." I'd been shown them in the past; the rooms ranged from cold and wet 3x9 foot cells to virtually self-contained suites, depending on what was judged the best way to get information out of "paxes" like me. No matter how you looked at it, they were interrogation centers, and it was up to the interrogators CIA, NSA, whoever they were whether you got processed the easy way or the hard way.

Fuck the pizza boys; I didn't care what happened to them. But now being one of the Maliskia, I'd be checking straight into my personal 3x9 with corner en suite. There was nothing I could do about that for the time being. I could only hope I'd have a chance to escape before they found out who I really was.

24

We drove quite slowly for about another twenty minutes. It was physically painful lying crammed in the foot well but that was nothing compared with how depressed I felt about what the future held.

"Papa One, Alpha-at blue one."

The Wasp was back on the net. Papa One must be the operating base. The Wasp was counting down to it, sending a report line so that Papa One knew the group's location.

A minute or so later we turned a sharp right.

"Papa One, Alpha-blue two."

I could hear the material on the driver's arms rustling as he worked at the wheel, and the tire noise told me we were still on pavement and snow.

There was a sharp right turn and my head was squeezed against the door.

Then we were bumping over what felt like a speed bump, and drove another ninety feet or so before the vehicle came to a halt.

The Wasp got out, leaving his door open. As the rear doors opened, other vehicles passed and stopped all around me. The screech of tires on a dry surface told me we were under cover, and judging by the echoes made by the vehicles we were somewhere large and cavernous.

The three on top of me started to exit. Elsewhere, engines were still running as other doors were pushed or slid open. People clambered out and walked around, but there was no voice noise, only movement. Then came the echoing clatter of steel roller garage doors being pulled down manually with chains.

Whatever kind of building we were inside, they didn't waste money on heating. Maybe it was an aircraft hangar, which would make sense if we were going to have a pickup with a fixed wing or chopper. Then again, maybe it was just an old warehouse. I couldn't see a single glint of light through my mask.

The air was becoming heavy with vehicle fumes. As soon as the three pairs of feet had used me as a platform to get out of the wagon, a pair of hands gripped my ankles and started to pull me out, feet first. I was dragged over the door sill and had to put my arms out to protect myself as I dropped the two feet or so onto the ground. The dry surface was concrete.

There was lots of movement around me, and the same sort of sound as there had been in the house, the shuffling and dragging of electric plugs. The equipment was being moved out of the vans.

I heard the telltale clunk of metal on metal as working parts were brought back and weapons unloaded, along with the clicking of the ejected rounds being pressed back into magazines.

I was turned over onto my back and my feet were released and left to drop to the floor. I gave a very Russian moan. Two pairs of boots walked round to my head. They pulled me up by the armpits and started marching me. My feet dragged along the concrete, toes catching on bumps and potholes and now and again colliding with a lump of brick or other hard debris.

It might have seemed to the two either side of me that I was doing nothing, but at brain ell level I was really quite busy, trying to take in all the sensory information around me. They dragged me past a wagon and even through the hood I caught the aroma of coffee, probably them opening the flasks they'd had waiting for them at the end of the job.

We passed some subdued sounds of pain and short, sharp breathing. It sounded like a woman. There were men around her.

"Okay, let's get another line up."

It seemed that Bobby in call sign Echo was a woman. They were getting fluids into her and treating her GSW (gunshot wound).

We kept moving, my feet dragging through bits of wood, cans, and newspapers, theirs occasionally crunching down on plastic drinks cups.

I heard the rip of Velcro, then was dragged sideways through a heavy door. They steered me round to the right as the door swung back.

The pizza boys were already here: The sound of crying, moans, and groans filled what felt like a smaller area than before. The echoes made it sound like we were in a medieval torture chamber, and even in the sanitizing cold this place stank of decay and neglect.

A couple more paces and we stopped, and I realized the others were being kicked; that was why they were screaming. I heard boots making contact with bodies and the grunts of the kickers.

I was pushed down to the ground and given a good kicking as well. The moans and sobs seemed to come from my right, and were now somehow muffled one by one. We weren't all in one big room; I guessed we were being put into closets or storage spaces.

The moment my head banged against the toilet bowl, I knew where I was.

A bathroom.

Another scream and a grunt echoed as the boys were subdued and persuaded into their new accommodation. I didn't know what was worse, their noise or the fact that the kickers were doing all this without a word, making best use of the echoes to scare the shit out of everyone.

Guided by their kicks I crawled into the far-right corner of the stall, coming to rest on what felt like years of debris. The paper I felt was crispy and brittle, like very thin nacho chips. Still getting kicked, I felt a hard brick wall against my back and the base of the toilet bowl against my stomach. I kept my head down and knees up in protection, gritting my teeth and waiting for the worst. Instead my hands were gripped and pulled up into the air, the plastic now tighter against my wrists because they were swelling up. I felt a knife go into the handcuffs and they were cut. Shackling my left arm over the waste pipe at the rear of the toilet bowl, they grabbed hold of the other arm and shoved it underneath so I had a hand on either side. It was pointless resisting; they had total control over me. There was nothing I could do yet, apart from save my energy.

They gripped my wrists together. I tensed up my forearm muscles, trying to bulk them out as much as possible. The plasticuffs came on and I heard the ratcheting and felt the pressure as they were tightened. I moaned as soon as it seemed the right thing to do. I wanted to appear as petrified and broken as the pizza boys. They left, slamming the door behind them.

I tried resting my head against the pipe, but it was unbearably cold.

If there was any water inside it must be frozen solid.

I lay there amongst the rubble and trash, trying to get comfortable, but feeling very aware of the cold floor through my clothing.

There was a loud, prolonged creak as the heavy main door into the hangar area swung closed. Then there was silence, even from the pizza boys. Certainly no sounds of dripping plumbing; it was too cold for that. I couldn't hear any of the vehicles, either. Nothing but pitch-black silence.

A couple of seconds later, as if the pizza boys had all been holding their breath waiting for the bogeymen to go away, the moaning and hooded sobs began once more; after a few moments of that, the boys muttered a few words to each other in Finnish, trying to give each other a boost. They sounded severely scared.

I shifted my position in an attempt to get some pressure off my wrists, trying to find out if that extra millimeter or two of muscle flexing had given me any chance of moving my wrists in the handcuffs.

As I stretched my legs, I connected with what sounded like an empty can. The noise as it rattled and scraped over the concrete gave spark to an idea.

I waggled my head past the waste pipe, so that it was resting on top of my hands. Then, feeling with my teeth through the hood, I got hold of my right outer glove. That came off easily enough and I let it drop to the ground, leaving the touch glove still on my hand.

I reached forward with my head, positioning the bottom of the hood over my fingers, and got to work. I now knew the hoods were done up with a drawstring and ties round the bottom, and it wasn't long before it lay on the ground.

It seemed a total waste of effort. The stall was in complete darkness, and now that I had the hood off, my head was getting cold. My nose started to run almost immediately.

Leaning as far forward as I could to free up my hands, I started to feel around on the ground. My fingers sifted through old paper cups and all sorts of garbage until I found what I wanted.

I readjusted my body around the pan to make myself comfortable while I pulled off my other outer glove with my teeth. Then, with both touch gloves still on, I squeezed the thin metal of the soda can between my thumbs and forefingers until the sides touched in the middle. I then started to bend the two parts backward and forward. After only six or seven goes the thin metal cracked, and soon the two halves were apart. I felt for the ring-pull end and dropped the other one next to my gloves and hood.