Authors: Rob Sinclair
Without a satisfying conclusion, my thoughts soon moved on: Mackie. My boss. The man who had tutored me and given me this life. The only person in the world who even barely resembled a friend. But also the man who’d sent
me to Russia. The man who, according to the Russians, had sent me to die. In the morning I would be meeting with him. And with that playing on my mind, the question of which one of Mary or Chris to trust didn’t seem quite so important any more.
‘We want you to kill Mackie.’
My heart skipped a beat at Lena’s words. Killing had, unfortunately, become a common part of my life. Something I was good at. It wasn’t that I was being asked to kill that was so shocking to me. There weren’t many other things I expected Lena to want me to do. The shock was hearing Mackie’s name in that request.
And yet was it the idea of killing Mackie that was so hard to comprehend? Or the fact I hadn’t realised this was what Lena had been building up to?
‘You want to be a free man, don’t you?’
‘If I killed Mackie, I’d never be free,’ I said.
‘You’d be free to leave here,’ Lena replied, shrugging.
‘That’s not the same thing.’
‘Well, right now you’re not free, whatever way you look at it. Killing Mackie is your only chance of having a life again.’
‘Why would I want to kill him?’
‘For revenge. Isn’t that what drives you?’
‘I couldn’t do it,’ I said. ‘Whatever reason you think I may have, I just couldn’t do it.’
Mackie meant too much to me – it was that simple. Lena knew that. We’d discussed my relationship with Mackie at length, despite it being such a sore subject that I’d seemingly
been abandoned by him. But it didn’t matter. Whatever Mackie may or may not have done to put me in the hands of the Russians, I wasn’t sure I could ever see him as the enemy.
Could I?
‘Mackie put you in here,’ Lena said, as if reading my thoughts.
‘No, you and your people put me in here.’
‘We just brought you here. It was Mackie who sent you on a suicide mission.’
‘So you keep saying. But it makes no sense.’
‘It makes perfect sense. Tell me about your life,’ Lena said.
‘What about my life?’
‘Tell me how you met Mackie. Tell me what it is that makes you trust him so much.’
I didn’t want to be having this conversation. But I had to defend myself. I had to defend being here. I couldn’t face the possibility that the person sitting before me really was on my side. And the person I looked up to, whom I’d trusted for so long, was my enemy.
‘It’s a long story,’ I said.
‘So start at the beginning. How did you meet him?’
‘When I met Mackie,’ I said, aware that she probably knew everything that I was about to tell her; knowing that this was all part of her game, part of her enjoyment, ‘I was just a teenager. I had nothing going for me. I wasn’t some university graduate with a degree in psychology. I was a tearaway, mixed up with the local gangs. Running drugs, carrying out thefts and assaults. Anything they asked, and anything I needed to stay alive.’
‘You certainly have that instinct about you. Survival.’
I ignored the mocking compliment. ‘When Mackie came along, my world was in a mess. I’d just lost a good friend. He’d been killed in a gang fight. Knifed to death before my eyes.’
I paused, looking for a reaction to my words in Lena’s face. I saw none. I wondered again whether she’d heard this story from
me before and what went through her mind when I recounted these episodes from my troubled life. Was it empathy? Pity? Guilt? Or did it merely make her feel some sort of cruel pleasure?
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘And what happened?’
‘Mackie told me that my friend had been working for him. Undercover. And that he wanted me to carry on that work. Helping to bring down the rival drug gangs.’
‘And did you believe him?’
‘I was a screwed-up teenager who’d just seen his closest friend killed. I didn’t know what to believe.’
‘But did you believe him?’
‘No,’ I said with certainty. ‘I didn’t even know him. And he was telling me something that just didn’t make any sense. I’d known Pete, the guy who was killed, for months. We didn’t just work together, we did everything together. So how could I believe that everything I thought I knew about him was a lie?’
‘And yet you started working for Mackie? So where’s the missing link?’
‘He built trust with me.’
‘How? From what you told me before, he lied to you. He got you planting the seed for the destruction of the rival gang without you even knowing it.’
I felt the pit of my stomach churn at the realisation that Lena was, as normal, playing me. Of course she’d heard the story before. She’d heard everything. And she revelled in showing that to me.
And she was right, Mackie had lied to me. Or at least not told me the full truth. I was just a teenager doing small errands for someone I thought was in law enforcement. Mackie paid me handsomely. I didn’t understand the consequences of what I was being asked to do. But a lot of people got hurt or killed because of my work for Mackie. Granted, they were mostly bad people. But Mackie used me.
That was all years ago, though. Before either of us had even
joined the JIA. And when Mackie moved up in the world and was given a position of commander at the JIA, he brought me in with him. Moulded me into the agent he needed.
A lot of time had passed since then. And the trust had been built. Our relationship cemented.
‘If you already know all the answers then why bother asking me?’
‘Because I want you to see the answers,’ Lena said, pointing at me. ‘I want you to see that the situation you’re in now isn’t too dissimilar to that one all those years ago. It takes years to build up the level of trust you have with Mackie. So I’m not expecting you to suddenly trust me like you trust him. But I want you to see the similarities in your situation right now to that one when you first met Mackie.’
‘This is nothing like back then. I was a foolish teenager. I needed someone to take me under their wing, to show me right from wrong. That was Mackie. He changed my life. He saved my life.’
‘Your life may have changed, but can you not see how the situation you’re in now is just the same?’
‘No. I can’t see it at all,’ I lied.
Because I could see clearly now where she was taking this.
‘The people you trusted lied to you,’ Lena said. ‘Mackie, Pete – they both did. They let you down by betraying your trust.’
Grainger too, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
‘It’s the worst thing that anyone can do,’ Lena continued. ‘My position now is not any different from when you first met Mackie. You may see me as the enemy, as the bearer of bad news, but I’m here to set things straight. You’re in denial, Carl. You don’t want to believe me. Just like you didn’t want to believe Mackie about Pete all those years ago. And I can understand that. Because what I’m telling you is turning your world upside down. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.’
‘It’s different,’ I said. ‘This is nothing like that. I could never
trust you. Just look at what you’ve done to me. Mackie never hurt me. Not like you have.’
Lena shrugged and smiled.
‘These are just mind games,’ I said. ‘You want me to believe that the situation is the same. But you’ve given me no reason to believe what you’re saying is the truth. Without proof, how could I ever listen to you?’
Lena slammed down a fist. ‘Logan, who the hell else have you got to listen to?’
It was an unusual show of aggression from her, making the simple gesture all the more pronounced, and I sat back, unable to find any retort. The only other time I’d seen any sign of real anger in Lena had been the day she’d throttled me. I was forever wary around her since that moment, aware that the slightest indiscretion could lead to her revealing that side again.
‘They sent you here knowing that you’d be caught,’ she carried on, anger evident in her voice. ‘That was their whole plan. They were giving you up.’
‘No, it’s not true,’ I said, but my voice was mild and meek. Lena was in control here.
‘Listen to yourself. Even you don’t believe your own words any more. They gave you up, Logan. Your own agency blew your cover.’
Her words reverberated in my head. I tried to ignore what she was saying, tried to ignore the growing feeling of betrayal. But I just couldn’t.
‘It still doesn’t make sense,’ I said, shaking my head, wanting to doubt what she was saying more than I really did. ‘Why would they want me to be caught?’
‘It’s all politics, Carl,’ Lena said, the anger dissipating now that it appeared her words were having their desired effect. ‘That’s what everything is: politics. A deal was struck between your people and Russia. We got you. In exchange we passed on some very valuable information.’
‘What information?’
‘I can show you if you like.’
I clenched my fists together tightly, frustration threatening to boil over inside me. I didn’t want to listen to any of this. How could I ever trust anything that she said to me or showed me?
But I had to know. I had to find out whether her claims held any truth at all. I had to know why I was here. And why no-one had come for me.
‘Why me?’ I said. ‘Why would they give me up? Why would Mackie give me up?’
‘We have very good memories in my country. This is nothing to do with me, of course. But we – my people, that is – asked for you. Your people were willing to give you up. You’ve got history here, remember?’
‘I remember,’ I said.
I shouldn’t have needed to ask the question. I knew exactly what Lena was referring to. The last assignment I’d been on in Russia had been some years ago. But I was well aware of the mark that had been left.
I’d been in charge of leading a plan to capture and extradite a Russian oligarch from under the noses of the Russian authorities. He was a wanted man in the US and numerous countries in Europe for a whole host of serious offences linked to his rapidly expanding business empire, murders included. But the Russians hadn’t wanted to play ball. So I’d been sent in to snatch him. And I’d succeeded, much to the embarrassment of the FSB and the Russian government, who had close ties to the oligarch. Ever since then he’d been held in secret, without acknowledgment, by the Americans.
So it made sense to me that the Russians would want the person responsible for that coup – me. But that didn’t explain why Mackie or the JIA would want to give me up.
‘If my own people gave me up because Russia wants to get its revenge, then why are you now sending me back home to kill
Mackie? The person who’d have helped broker your deal in the first place?’
‘This was always part of our plan,’ Lena chuckled. ‘Of course, I wouldn’t exactly say that all parties signed up to it. The JIA sent you here expecting us to keep you, torture, maybe kill you. This is just our way of taking a bit extra from the deal. The cherry on top.’
‘All’s fair in love and war,’ I said.
‘Yes. I love that saying. Never a truer sentence than that.’
‘On the other hand, say I don’t believe one word you’ve told me?’
‘Then you can stay here. We can keep doing this, hope that maybe you’ll see the truth eventually. Or we could just go back to torturing you. But this is your chance to get out.’
‘And what then? If I accept your offer, do you just let me leave? Let me walk out of here under the pretence that I’m off to kill Mackie? It all sounds a bit risky from your side. I could just go running straight back home.’
‘Yes, of course you could. It’s a risk. But we think we have that covered.’
‘How?’
‘Because we can prove it to you. Everything I’ve just told you. We can prove it all. Once you know the truth, I’ve no doubt as to what you’ll do. Revenge, Logan, is what drives you. Once you’ve seen the truth, there’ll be only one thing on your mind.’
The carrot had been dangled in front of my face. I was doing what every good donkey does and was following it. But why was I even still playing along? I would never kill Mackie.
Would I?
No. I would rather rot to death in my cell.
And yet I couldn’t deny that a part of me was captivated by what had been said. The seeds of doubt were growing. I had to know whether there was any truth in Lena’s words.
‘Show me what you’ve got,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll talk.’
I slept for twelve straight hours on the sofa of the safe house. Together with the meal that Mary had cooked – a warming meat stew – the long rest had done its job. By morning I felt stronger and fresher than I had done in an age.
After a simple breakfast we left the safe house at midday, on foot, headed to the Café Vite to meet Mackie. The rendezvous point was a half-hour’s walk but I was happy to be in the fresh air, even though my feet were aching within minutes. It would be at least a few more days until the sores healed properly.
It was a clear and crisp day, but despite the bright sun the temperature was still unbearably low. There hadn’t been any new snow overnight so what lay on the ground had become hard and icy and slippery. On the main streets of the city the piles of snow that had been cleared from the roads and pavements were already turning black from the petrol and diesel fumes of passing vehicles and vast swathes of mucky slush were splattered here, there and everywhere.
None of us spoke on the walk. That suited me. It gave me more time to ponder what was about to happen. I was full of nerves – a strange feeling for me. I had no idea what to expect from the meeting. Was it going to be another ambush? Were they going to off me there and then? Or was Mackie really
going to be there in conciliatory mode, to offer a helping hand to me like he’d done countless times before?
Lena and the Russians wanted me to kill Mackie. They’d told me that would be my way out, the way to earn my freedom from them. With everything that had been going on around me, I wasn’t sure the proposition was so outlandish any more.
I just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
We arrived at the café, which was fronted by what would probably be a bustling outdoor area during the brief but warm summer, but it was so quiet now, in the mid-winter, that anyone walking by may not even have realised that the place was still open for business. As we walked in, Mary in front, Chris behind me, I noticed only two other patrons in the quaint, French-style interior. Not really surprising given the weather – who comes out for coffee and a slice of cake when it’s minus twenty?
The café was compact with just four rows of neatly aligned tables. I took a seat in the far corner at a small round table that had two chairs. Mary and Chris took one of the tables near to the door, about twelve feet away from me. They were here to babysit me, evidently, but not to be party to my conversation with Mackie.
The waitress came over to me straight away and I ordered a sparkling water. She gave me an odd look, probably unused to people coming in from the cold for a chilled drink. I enjoyed coffee but only when I needed a kick. Mostly I tried not to consume caffeine-based drinks. I’d never seen the point in drinking something that just leaves you more dehydrated than when you started. Actually, no, alcohol was an exception to that. I drank alcohol. And like most people, I sometimes drank too much. But then I’d had a rough life and sometimes alcohol can make things seem better, if only for a little while.
No other customers came in as we sat and waited. My nerves were growing by the second. Despite the cool temperature of the interior, my hands were becoming clammy and I couldn’t stop fidgeting in my seat, my heart jumping every time I saw a figure walk past the café window.
I finally spotted Mackie across the street. My gaze stayed on him as he crossed the road and approached the door, a rush of memories and emotion flowing through me. Unfortunately most of it was bad. Mackie wore a thick woollen hat, a scarf wrapped tight around his neck and a big black parka. He had what appeared to be genuine concern on his face.
Despite everything going on in my head – the continual doubts about his betrayal, the things Lena had said and shown me, and the bizarre events of the previous day – I almost smiled when he came through the door and our eyes met. But I stopped myself when I saw that he wasn’t alone.
Two burly men came into view and followed him in, dressed in similar attire, though each was a good few inches taller than Mackie. With the bulk of their clothing they were almost as wide as the door itself.
I stood up as Mackie made his way over.
‘Jesus, Logan, it’s good to see you,’ Mackie said, coming up close to me. ‘I really mean that. I’m glad you’re all right.’
There was an awkward moment where neither of us was sure what to do next. No hug, no pat on the back, no handshake. Eventually we both sat down.
Mackie’s thick-rimmed glasses had fogged up from the warm air in the café. He took them off and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe them. Mackie looked exactly as he always did; plump, well-groomed, his dyed hair cut short and neatly styled. He looked like a corporate boss.
‘Who are the goons?’ I said.
The two men sat themselves down at a table by the
window, on the opposite side of the door to Chris and Mary. One looking out, one looking in.
‘Oh, those two?’ Macke said, rather nonchalantly I thought, as he replaced his glasses. ‘Just ignore them. Necessary precautions, I’m afraid.’
‘They your protection from me or someone else?’
Mackie laughed. ‘They’re my protection from everyone. We’re not entirely sure what’s going on here, what with you turning up, the explosion – it’s hard to know who’s safe from whom.’
‘I can’t believe you actually just said that.’
And from that point I could see clearly where the meeting would go. There would be no pleasantries. No reminiscing. And yet what more could I have expected? Even if it should have been, this wasn’t two old friends meeting for a social drink. It was awkward and clumsy and fraught.
As sad as it made me feel, neither one of us truly trusted the other any more. And why would we? I’d been left for dead by my own people. Given up in order to settle an old score, if Lena was to be believed. Now the Russians wanted me to kill the very man they claimed had bargained with my life. And whether what Lena had told me was true or not, from Mackie’s point of view how could he be anything but sceptical about my sudden reappearance?
The waitress finished with the final customer, who was paying at the counter, and then came over to our table, her face full of smiles.
‘Good morning, Mr McCabe,’ she beamed.
‘Ah, my favourite coffee shop attendant. And how are you?’
The young girl blushed. Mackie ordered himself a double espresso. I said I was fine with my water and the waitress dutifully went to fetch the coffee.
‘So you know this place, then,’ I said, stating the obvious,
hoping that Mackie would fill in the blanks for me. I’d never known him come to Omsk before, but he was clearly a regular here.
‘You’ve got to have safe places to go to, Logan. Whenever I’m in town I like to come here. I’ve been coming here for a long time.’
‘When have you been to Omsk before?’
‘I’ve been everywhere. A lot of times.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
Mackie gave a meek smile. ‘I guess sometimes we don’t know people as well as we think.’
The second sly comment from Mackie in less than a minute. I let it go. I was more concerned about the fact that he knew this place so well. Did that add any more credibility to what Lena had told me?
‘Look, Logan,’ Mackie said, ‘we’re not going to stay here long, so why not cut to the chase. We need to get you out of Russia. We need to get you home.’
‘And then what?’
‘And then we can make sure you’re okay. Please don’t make things harder for yourself than they need to be. You must have been through hell already.’
‘And what would you know about that? Yes, I’ve been through hell. Three months of it. And where were you? What were you doing?’
‘It was out of my hands,’ Mackie said. He looked genuinely ashamed, but how much of it was an act? ‘There was really nothing else I could do. What would you have suggested? I go on a one-man mission to Siberia to break you out? We didn’t even know where they were keeping you.’
‘And what about those two?’ I said, nodding over towards Chris and Mary. They both looked up on cue. ‘They were right there, outside, waiting for me, whilst I was in there being tortured. They knew where I was and
they just sat doing nothing. So don’t tell me nothing could have been done.’
‘It was out of my hands. We found you, but it was deemed too risky to try to break you out. That place was swarming with Russian agents and military. We could’ve lost two of our agents going after one.’
‘That’s what we do. That’s been my whole life. How many times have you sent me in with odds much worse than that?’
‘You’re twisting this. That’s not how it was.’
‘Why are those two worth more than me?’
‘They’re not. But they’re worth just as much. You know, you’re lucky Chris is all right. I heard about what you did to him. He’s got several stitches in his head from that clash. He should really still be in hospital. That’s testament to how much it means to us all to get you out of this.’
‘Hospital? Jesus, where do you get these guys from? All he had was a banged head. I’ve been held captive and tortured for three months! Do you even have the first idea of the things they did to me? So where’s my hospital treatment?’
Mackie looked embarrassed and bowed his head. ‘I’m so sorry, Logan,’ he said. ‘But there was nothing I could do. Believe me. We need to get you back now, though. You’ll get everything you need.’
‘No. What that means is that you’ll lock me up while you perform all your tests on me. That’s not too far removed from what the Russians have just done to me.’
‘Come on, man, it’s completely different and you know it.’
The waitress came back over with the coffee for Mackie. He gave her a less jolly smile this time and she walked off looking just a little uncomfortable. Mackie was looking flustered by the conversation, by the mood that was cast over us.
‘You know how these things work,’ Mackie said. ‘No-one is unbreakable, Logan. You’re my best man. We need to understand everything that’s happened to you, because we want to have you back out there working for us again. But that can’t happen until we know, until we understand, what happened to you.’
‘Just admit it,’ I snapped.
Mackie took a sip of his drink before answering. ‘Admit what?’
‘Admit that you don’t trust me.’
I’d hit on something. I’d known Mackie a long time. When cornered, his forehead creases over, making him look confused, like he’s deep in thought. Which he probably was: trying to figure out how he could deflect another question. I knew if I pushed harder he would blow. That was his style. But I wanted to get to the bottom of this.
‘It’s not that,’ was all he could say in the end.
‘What is it then?’
‘Just think about it. What would you have me do?’
‘Grovel to me? Say sorry for what you put me through? Tell me how you’re going to make it up to me? How about any of those?’
‘This is ridiculous,’ Mackie said, shifting in his seat.
‘You don’t trust me,’ I said again.
‘It’s not like that,’ he said, but it wasn’t even slightly convincing any more.
‘After everything I’ve done for you. The countless times I risked my own life. And now you don’t trust me.’
My words were forceful, angry. Confrontational. Mackie held his tongue. But I could tell he was getting hot under the collar. Gone were any remaining niceties. I wanted to see the real Mackie.
‘You don’t trust me,’ I said yet again, raising my voice.
‘You’re the one who left me to rot for three months. And now that I’m back, you want to get rid of me like I’m nothing to you.’
Mackie sat forward in his seat. When he spoke he was baring his teeth like an angry dog.
‘Well, Logan, that’s exactly it, isn’t it? You’ve been gone for three months. God knows what they’ve said and done to you in that time. And what about what you’ve said to them? How much information have you spilled about you, me, the agency? And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you get out.’
‘All of a sudden? I was there for three months!’
‘You’re missing the point. You were held in an area so off our radar and so secure that in three months we were never certain whether you were even alive. And you got out of there all on your own. And after three months of captivity, do you contact us? Do you call me to tell me to come and get you? No, you run off to Omsk, doing your best to evade us and almost killing two of our agents in the process. So do I trust you? Right now? Hell, no. How could I?’
‘You think the Russians sent me here? You think they let me go?’
‘I haven’t ruled it out.’
‘And why would they do that?’ I said, recalling my conversations with Lena. What she had told me about the deal. The little extra that the Russians had added on top. About how they wanted me to kill Mackie.
‘Well, tell me, how
did
you escape?’ Mackie said.
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘Neither did you. And I’m not going to answer yours until you answer mine. So, tell me, how did you escape?’
‘Well, it wasn’t exactly a spur-of-the-moment thing,’ I said sarcastically. ‘It took me three months to get the opportunity.’
‘And then what? One day they just opened the door for you?’
The energy of the conversation had shifted. Now it was my turn to be on the defensive. Because I didn’t want to take my mind back to that place. I didn’t want to put myself back in that cell, remember what it had been like.
Since my escape, I’d tried my hardest not to think about it. But your subconscious has ways of planting these thoughts in your head. I closed my eyes, just for a second, squeezing them shut, hoping that the memories, the smells, the pain and aches in my body would go away. But with my eyes shut it only became worse. All of a sudden I found myself back there again. Gone was the smell of coffee and hot milk, replaced by the smell of sour urine, faeces, blood and burning flesh. The darkness, the dank cell and the sounds of the guards’ boots on the cold stone floor.
I opened my eyes and it all disappeared. But putting myself back there had knocked me.
‘I overpowered the guards,’ I said, wanting more than anything to just get off the subject. ‘I’d been building up to it for days. I killed two getting out, another two on my way to Taishet. What more do you want me to say?’