Authors: Rob Sinclair
‘And they just let you do all that, without stopping you?’ Mackie said, oblivious to the turmoil inside me. ‘I mean, I know you’re good, but are you really
that
good?’
‘So what do you think happened?’ I said, though I could understand his doubt. I had myself doubted the means of my escape. How it had all unfolded. Had it been too easy?
‘Well, I’m finding it hard to believe they’d be stupid enough to just let you break out of there. So either they just let you go and you’re lying to me right now, or they allowed you to escape. Put on a bit of a show for you.’
‘And you still wouldn’t trust me, even if it was the latter.’
‘No. Because either way, they let you go for a reason. Perhaps
you don’t know the reason, in which case I’ll apologise in due course. But whatever that reason is, I can guarantee you it won’t be for our benefit.’
And yet I did know the reason: they wanted me to kill Mackie.
‘When you say
our
benefit, I presume you’re excluding me?’ I said.
‘Right now, of course I am. Don’t you see why?’
‘I’m not sure what I see any more.’
‘Just come back home,’ Mackie said, his voice softer.
‘I can’t. I won’t be locked up any more.’
‘We’re not locking you up. We just need to understand what happened.’
‘That’s not how it would work. I’m not that naive.’
‘Your reluctance to come with me doesn’t look good, you know. You being so scared that we’re going to lock you away. Why is that, Logan? What did you tell them?’
And therein was a big problem. I didn’t
know
what I’d told the Russians. Told Lena. I couldn’t remember. But I did know that I’d talked.
I’d talked a lot.
I’d told Lena things that I’d never told another human being. I may not have known that I was doing it, but I did. It happened. And there was no way I could take it back now. But how could I ever tell anyone? I couldn’t.
I’d never been broken before. And I was scared. I had given away so much information. If Mackie or others at the agency ever found out, how could I blame them if they wanted to lock me up and throw away the key? Or just get rid of me permanently like they’d had me do to others in the past?
And I was ashamed. I was ashamed because after the lost days, I hadn’t stopped talking. Every day that I was in that room with Lena I’d carried on. I talked to Lena. Told her
about myself. And deep down I’d enjoyed the conversations. During that period, those conversations gave me something to live for. I knew that had always been Lena’s intention. But I hadn’t been able to stop myself. In the end I had
wanted
to tell her things. I had wanted to answer her questions.
And, in turn, I had listened to what she had to say. About me. About the agency. About Mackie. About my ill-fated mission and the real reason I’d been sent to Russia.
But I wasn’t about to talk to Mackie about any of that. I couldn’t even begin to tell the story. Instead, my mind was filled with Lena’s words. If what she’d told me was true then it changed everything. They wanted me to kill Mackie. Just one act and then I’d be free; that’s what she’d said. At the time it wasn’t even imaginable. But the situation had changed. The conversation with Mackie had already told me that much.
And I was no longer sure that we’d both be walking out of that café alive.
I hadn’t seen Lena for three days. Not since she’d tried to persuade me to kill Mackie. My point-blank refusal had hidden the turmoil in my head. I may not have agreed to her request, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t at least considering the idea. If what she’d told me was true then didn’t Mackie have it coming?
No, I couldn’t think like that. Mackie was still the same man he’d always been. My friend. About the closest thing to a father I’d ever had. There had to be another explanation for why the raid on RTK had gone wrong. And why no-one had come for me in the three months since my capture.
What I found most puzzling now was the sudden disappearance of Lena. For the last three days I hadn’t been out of my cell at all. I’d been brought food three times daily. They were certainly still feeding me well. But where had Lena gone? What were they planning to do with me now they’d finally shown their hand and I’d declined their offer? I didn’t know. But the change in routine worried me. If I wasn’t going to help them I was expendable. The whole charade over the last three months had been building to this point. Maybe they really thought they’d done enough to persuade me and couldn’t understand my continued resistance. And if I continued to refuse then my days were numbered. At the very least, the days of comparatively good treatment would be over.
So I had to take action.
In the initial period of my captivity escape was unthinkable. I’d been so physically weak, so depleted by the lack of nourishment and the physical abuse, that my brain hadn’t even been able to process a likely scenario. But I was physically and mentally stronger now. I was in a different cell. And because I was now casually walked from my cell to the interrogation room and other areas of the compound, I’d seen much more of the inner layout of where I was being housed. And I knew that each of those factors increased my chances of escape.
The problem was that I hadn’t been out of the cell since the last time I’d seen Lena. And the male guards who watched over me would pass me food through a slit in the locked door. So the door hadn’t even been opened during that time. If the situation stayed like this then the only option I had was to either try to attack a guard as he passed me my food or trick them into opening the door, perhaps feigning ill health or some other ploy.
Maybe I could just ask to go and see Lena. Their response to the question would at least be interesting.
I was still contemplating the various less-than-perfect options when without warning I heard the heavy lock of the cell door churning. A few seconds later the thick metal door swung open. Two guards stood in the doorway. One was armed, holding his weapon, an automatic machine gun. The other man was empty handed. Without saying a word to me, he raised his hand and ushered me over.
In the early days they’d shot me with tranquiliser darts each time they wanted to move me. That had not only added to my sense of disorientation but had also made it impossible for me to attack them. Their changing treatment of me had coincided with the start of the sessions with Lena. Just one of numerous small signs of trust that had been put in place to help win me over.
It hadn’t worked. I hadn’t been won over. Not yet.
I walked out, blinking in the bright light. The man who’d opened the door for me had already turned and was ahead of me. I followed him down the long, narrow corridor. The grey concrete walls were shiny and soulless. We walked past other cells, doors closed as always, no signs of any life beyond them.
The man brandishing the machine gun kept pace two yards behind me. After twelve strides we rounded the corner to the right and another man appeared, also with his weapon drawn, and began to follow alongside the man at my rear.
This was different. I hadn’t had three men with me before, normally just two.
And then something else unexpected happened. Where normally we would turn left, we carried straight on, through a doorway that had always in the past been locked with no sign of what lay beyond it.
The unfamiliar routine was making me nervous.
Was this finally the end for me? Were they leading me to my death?
My nerves were shot to pieces. Even though the men had barely spoken I could sense a sinister air about the whole setup. It reminded me of a movie scene of a death row inmate being marched away from his cell one last time.
And yet I carried on, walking with them, because despite the sense of dread I was feeling I was also intrigued as to what was about to happen.
We took more turns down corridors and passed through rooms that I’d never seen before. Finally we came to a stop in a large but almost entirely empty room, probably about twenty-by-twenty-feet square. A simple wooden chair, placed awkwardly in the centre, was the only furniture in the sparse space.
‘Please sit down,’ one of the guards said.
I didn’t.
‘Please sit down,’ the man said again. ‘She’ll be here shortly.’
I took ‘she’ to mean Lena.
The man who’d led stood by the chair. The other two men positioned themselves around me, one by the door, the other off to my right. The one by the door peered out into the corridor, not really paying attention to me. The other pointed his gun toward my chest, but he was holding it casually as though he wasn’t really intending to use it. Which could only mean one thing: they weren’t planning on killing me yet. But that really didn’t make me feel any better. Not when I’d already seen first-hand what else they were capable of.
I looked around, my eyes darting from left to right, my brain whirring, trying to come up with possibilities of how I could get out of what was surely my intended execution.
The man by the chair wasn’t carrying a firearm like the other two. Not in plain sight at least. But he did have on a utility belt. And I could see amongst other things he had a sheathed knife in there.
I began to calculate my move. I didn’t like the odds, but I had to try something.
Then, as if justifying the sense of anxiety I’d been feeling, the man by the chair reached into his jacket pocket and my body instinctively tensed. His hand came back out, wrapped around what looked like the butt of a handgun. My brain registered surprise. It seemed strange that the man had been concealing a weapon when the other two had been so brazenly brandishing theirs.
But then I realised why. It wasn’t a normal gun. It was a dart gun. Not a usual weapon to be carrying around so he’d stashed it awkwardly in his inner pocket. It was the same type they’d used to subdue me in the early days of torture.
And that scared me.
I couldn’t go back to those days. I couldn’t be their plaything any more.
‘If you’re not going to sit down of your own free will then we’ll just have to find another way,’ the man said.
A smirk was creeping up his face as his eyes lifted to meet mine. He began to raise the gun toward me. He was only three or four paces in front.
I couldn’t stand and wait for the inevitable. This was my chance.
I dived forward towards him. He hurriedly tried to adjust his aim but he knew he only had one shot. The gun only held one cartridge at a time. If he missed, he wouldn’t have time to reload. That element of doubt in his mind was all I needed.
I bundled into him before he got his shot off and we tumbled awkwardly into a heap on the floor. He was a big man, wider but not as tall as me. His arms were like tree trunks, and I knew that if the tussle went on for long enough, his strength would overpower me. But I’d taken him by surprise, and if I acted quickly, he’d have no chance.
I’d managed to wrap an arm around his neck as we’d fallen to the ground. I was lying with my back to the floor. He was on top, facing away, his massive body weight crushing me. He was pushing and writhing his body and I knew that my one arm around his neck wouldn’t hold him for long. I reached down with my free arm, trying to grasp his knife. He still had the dart gun in his hand. But despite his best efforts he had no way of turning it on me.
I heard shouts from the other two men. They couldn’t shoot while their friend was on top of me. Or at least I hoped they wouldn’t. Either way I had to be quick. I flailed, trying to reach the knife but not quite able to. The distraction of trying to get the knife got the better of me, though, and my grip around the man’s neck loosened, allowing him to free himself.
My time was up.
But his movement also meant I could reach further. I grabbed for the knife, got it and swung it back as hard and fast as I could, straight into the man’s gut. He screamed in pain and his resistance immediately waned. He finally let go of the dart
gun and it clattered to the floor.
Badly wounded, the heavy man was still crushing my chest, screaming and writhing. At least with him on top, he was offering me some protection. I wrapped my left arm around his neck again. I wanted him right where he was. I looked to my side and the saw the other two men, still looking for their chance. I flung the knife out and it caught one of the men in his leg. He fell to the floor. But if he was tough, he wouldn’t be down for long.
I reached out and grabbed the dart gun and hastily aimed at the last man. I fired and the dart hit him in the gut. But the effect of the tranquiliser wasn’t instantaneous and he looked up and then began to bear down on me.
I cowered behind the man’s body, using him like a shield. The guard with the dart in his belly opened fire, a succession of bullets whizzing toward me. The rounds finished off his friend; I could tell by the way his massive body weight slumped onto me. But none of them hit me. And I only had to wait it out for a few more seconds. When I heard the smack on the floor, I knew the final man was down and out.
But I wasn’t home and dry yet. I pushed the dead guard off me, scrambled onto my feet and rushed over to the man with the knife in his leg. He was still on the floor, his teeth gritted, snarling. When he saw me he found the strength to turn his focus away from his wounded limb.
I kicked him hard in the face before he had a chance to reach for his weapon. A shooting pain shot up through my bare foot and into my ankle, but I blocked it out. I smashed my heel down onto his nose, which seemed to squash right into his face on impact. His eyes bulged open and his head lolled to the side. I hit him again with my heel and then again. And then once more with my other foot when the pain in the first became too much.
I don’t know whether the blows were enough to kill him. But he wasn’t going to be fighting again in a hurry.
The three men were all down, if not entirely out. No need
to finish them all off. I had to be quick. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do next but I knew there would be more guards out there. And Lena.
But first, if I was going to escape, go on the run, I needed better clothing. I had on a simple cotton shirt and trousers, but the guards wore jackets and boots and I could tell from the ambient temperature in the place that wherever we were it was cold outside. I strode up to the tranquilised man and began to undress him. When I was done, I grabbed his gun and made my way to the open door.
I peered out and looked both ways. No signs of anyone else. But also no signs of which way to go. I certainly hadn’t seen any exit the way we had come, so I opted to go in the other direction.
I was moving fast, almost running. The adrenaline was pumping through my body, making it hard to stay calm and focused. I knew I had to be cautious but I found it almost impossible not to just fall into a full sprint to get out of there as quickly as I could.
But as I rounded the next corner, I regretted having been so hasty when I almost bundled right into her. Lena.
The look of surprise on her face was probably much like mine. But she didn’t cower or back away when she finally realised what was going on. Instead her expression turned to anger.
‘Carl, what the hell are you doing?’ she shouted.
I pulled the gun up toward her chest. Only then did I notice that she was pointing a handgun at mine. She really was a sly fox. I hadn’t even seen her move.
‘I’m getting out of here,’ I said.
‘Where are my men?’ she snapped.
‘Where do you think? You lied to me, Lena.’
‘About what?’
‘What was that back there? What were you planning to do to me?’
‘Oh, Carl,’ she laughed. ‘What do you think we were going
to do?’
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘I’m not sticking around for that.’
‘Are you scared, Carl?’ she said, giving a wicked smile.
‘No.’
‘Then why are you running?’
‘I’m not going back to how it was.’
‘This place was once a prison,’ Lena said, looking up and around. ‘Political prisoners mostly.’
I knew what that meant. Anybody who had opposed the communist regimes was locked away in purpose-built facilities. The gulag slave labour camps were notorious. I hadn’t quite twigged that we were in one of the gulags but it made sense.
‘And what do you use it for now?’ I said.
‘Well, you know we don’t execute our political prisoners any more. We’re not animals, Carl. But we do believe in reformation.’
Her last words were emphasised, the grisly meaning behind them evident to me.
‘So now what?’ I said. ‘You’re not taking me back to that cell. Either you let me by or we’re both going to die right here.’
‘They’re a hundred more guards in this place,’ she said. ‘How the hell are you going to get out?’
‘You’re going to tell me how.’
Lena laughed. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Because you don’t want to die. You enjoy your sadistic existence too much.’
‘You know me too well, Carl,’ she said, still smiling, even though I’d meant my words to be offensive.