Authors: Rob Sinclair
I decided on fight rather than flight. I guess it’s just my nature. I stood and watched as the lights from the vehicle came to a stop, off to my right, possibly fifty or so yards from where I was.
Because of the dense mist, I still hadn’t had proper sight of the vehicle at all. Or who was in it. The engine remained idling, the purr from it loud to my ears. And the lights remained on, though pointing away from me.
Now that I had a target, a focus, the feeling of defeat that had been washing over me only seconds before had disappeared. I wasn’t alone. Whoever the vehicle belonged to, I had a chance to get away from this place. And my body was responding to my renewed motivation, a strength and drive returning to my sore limbs.
I wasn’t sure whether the people in the vehicle had spotted me or not – or even whether they were a threat – but I wasn’t going to stand and wait to find out. Whoever they were I certainly didn’t want them driving off before I got to them, leaving me to my death in this frozen wasteland. I crouched low and began moving forwards, slowly. Not directly towards the vehicle, but around the back of it so that I could approach from behind. With my muscles exhausted
and my body now trying its best to conserve heat, every step I took was an effort.
Two steps later and the engine stopped. Then the lights went dead. There was darkness all around and a creepy silence once more. I slowed up. With the engine off, they weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. Best to keep my advantage and approach with caution.
I kept my eyes busy, darting from one side to the other, looking for any sign of life. I had a mental picture in my head of where the vehicle should be, off to my right. But in the darkness I began to doubt my own senses. I wondered even whether maybe it had driven off, the engine not turned off but the sound simply fading into the distance.
The next step I took was onto something other than snow. Something hard and black.
A road.
A single carriageway, cutting its way through the trees in front of me from left to right. The snow had been cleared from it and was piled up on either side in small mounds every few yards. As I walked out onto the tarmac, the mist seemed to thin. The moonlight for the first time gave me a sense of direction. Of scale. And as I looked up the road, to the right, I saw it. Just a few yards from where I was standing. A military-style Jeep.
It had to be
them
. No-one would come out for a leisurely drive and stop here, in the middle of this desolate space. Wherever the hell here was.
I ducked back into the trees, back into cover. Every step that I took was now critical. I had no doubt that they were armed. I could handle that. But I had to get close to give myself a chance.
I stooped down, brushing away the snow around my feet. Looking for a branch or something, anything, that I could
use as a weapon. I found nothing. Just frozen leaves and wilted foliage.
I took a step forward, kicking the snow as I went, still looking. And I hit lucky. A log. About two feet long, three inches thick. Frozen solid. Like picking up a block of ice. I could immediately feel the cold from it penetrating my right hand, which was now shaking violently – from adrenaline or cold or anxiety, I wasn’t sure. Regardless, the log was exactly what I needed.
I went to straighten up, then froze when I heard a crunching sound only a few yards behind me. I crouched back down again as silently as I could, turning my body as I did so.
At first I didn’t see anything. But then, through the mist, I made out the outline of a person. A man. He was facing away from me, taking long, slow steps. He wore camouflage, grey and white. Each time he stopped moving, with the snow and fog around him, he blended into the scenery. But with each stride, his form was unmistakeable.
He was also armed. A large automatic weapon held in both hands. At the ready.
I knew there would be more than one of them, but I didn’t know how many more. Again I had a decision to make. He hadn’t seen me. He was still moving away. I could track behind him and attack. I was certain I could do it before he noticed me. But one of the others might see me doing it. It would be sensible for them to be spotting one another. And they were dressed for the occasion. I wasn’t. The others could be within a few feet of me and I might not even know it.
And most importantly, the goal wasn’t to take them out. The goal was to get their vehicle.
Still holding the icy log, I began to creep further away from the man. With each step I paused for a short moment,
listening. Nothing. I couldn’t even hear the man I had just seen any more. I crept forward another step, pulling up against a tree trunk that was wide enough to obscure my entire body from the Jeep, just a few more paces from me.
I peered around the trunk, looked towards the vehicle. I didn’t see him at first, but another man was on the far side, similarly dressed to the one I had just crossed paths with. He was out of the vehicle, but it looked as though his orders were to stay and stand guard. He was slowly walking back and forth in front of the bonnet.
Moving forward further, I soon reached a point where I was adjacent to the back of the Jeep. I moved out of the tree line and onto the smooth and slippery tarmac, pulling up alongside the rear of the vehicle. I bent low, looking for sight of the man. He was across on the opposite front side, his feet pointing away from me. I moved around the near side, staying low, stopping every half-step to check on his position.
When I reached the front tyre, I looked one last time. He was still there, and I saw now he was armed, his automatic gun pointing down at the ground.
I sprang up, the log held back, ready to swing. I took one lunging step forward to take me close enough…
But just at that moment, he turned around.
Our eyes met.
A look of surprise crossed his face. He began to raise the barrel of the weapon toward me. I swung the log back further, right around my neck like a baseball bat. He lifted his gun, pointing it at my chest. As my arms began to recoil, the log swinging forward in a wide arc, I sidestepped, trying to get out of the firing line. I heard the crack as he pulled on his trigger. Once. Twice.
But he missed.
He never got the chance to fire a third time. The log
smashed against his head, the cracking sound it made as it crushed his skull almost as loud as his gun had been. The log snapped in half on impact.
If the man wasn’t dead from that single blow, he wouldn’t be far off.
But the noise had surely alerted his friend. And any others I hadn’t yet seen.
I quickly got down and took his weapon. A Russian-made PP-19 Bizon submachine gun. A good weapon. I’d had doubts about whether I was still in Russia at all. This wasn’t definitive proof, but it was certainly an indication. The PP-19 was commonly used by the FSB, Russia’s internal security service; the new name for the KGB. The people who had been holding me for the last three months.
I was about to check through the dead man’s pockets when I saw movement off to my right. Just inside the tree line. The gunshot caught me by surprise; the clunk as the single bullet lodged in the bumper of the Jeep, only a few inches from my face, was the first indication I’d had. I threw myself to the ground, putting the front left tyre of the vehicle between me and where I calculated the shooter had been.
I hadn’t heard the shot at all. Was it a sniper firing from a distance? Maybe I just hadn’t been concentrating.
On my belly, I slid back so that I could look and aim from underneath the car. Maybe the shooter would stay in position. Waiting for sight of me. Or maybe he was already moving, flanking me.
Because of where the shot came from, I now knew at least three men were out there. The first man I had seen was probably still somewhere behind me. He couldn’t have covered enough distance in such a short space of time to be the shooter. Which meant one man was either side of me.
Which meant I was now a sitting duck.
They should have been able to pick me off with ease. But the shooter was too impatient. I saw more movement, and made out camouflage as it passed in front of a dark tree trunk. Taking just a moment to aim, I squeezed off three shots. I think they all hit. The shape slumped to the ground without a noticeable sound, the soft white snow cushioning the fall.
Unfortunately my weapon hadn’t been so silent. I needed to get away. I sprang to my feet, rushed over to the driver’s door and pulled it open. The key was in the ignition. I had to hold back a smile. I wasn’t in the clear yet, but commandeering the Jeep would make my plight a whole lot better.
If I’d had the time, I’d have checked both of the dead bodies more thoroughly. They may have had a whole multitude of things of interest. Things that I needed like money, food, identification, weapons. But with the third man still out there, possibly more, that was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
Without another second of hesitation, I jumped into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The engine groaned into life, the cold air straining the process of combustion. It was a miracle it started first time. I pushed the gear lever into first and released the handbrake.
As I pulled away, I looked up into the rear-view mirror. From the darkness, thirty or so yards behind me, a man stepped out. He was dressed in camouflage, his weapon held in both hands, trained on the ground. The man who’d walked right past me not long before. He didn’t raise his weapon toward me. Didn’t fire off in desperation. Just looked on, defeated.
As I watched his figure disappear into the distance, I wondered whether he knew the rule of three.
Out there, I didn’t fancy his chances.
I opened my eyes. A bright beam of light was shining in my face. Reflexively I jerked my right arm, trying to bring my hand up as cover. But I couldn’t move it. Looking down, I saw I was naked and secured to a chair by my wrists and ankles. The small hole where the dart had pierced my skin was sealed with dried blood, the bruising around the puncture site only just evident. I couldn’t have been out for long.
I squinted into the light. I could make out the form of a desk in front of me. But with the angle of the beam directed at my face I could see nothing of who or what lay beyond.
I tried to rock on the chair but it didn’t move. The legs were bolted to the ground.
‘Well, now that you’re awake, why don’t we get started?’
The voice was a man’s. Calm and assured. I couldn’t see his face but the sound had come from the other side of the desk. He had spoken to me in English. Just like the guard had before. Except this guy’s English was perfect. No hint of a foreign accent. It only added to my confusion as to where I now was.
My job with the JIA had seen me operate in many countries across the world, including Russia. I had made many enemies in the process. So it wasn’t unthinkable that I had already been moved to another country as a means of settling old scores. Or
simply to better hide me from my compatriots, whom I could only hope were looking for me.
I heard the rustling of papers, then he said, ‘Please tell me your name.’
I didn’t answer him. I stared directly in front of me. Directly towards where he would be sitting, even though I couldn’t see his face. I wanted to make a stand, however futile it might have been.
The man waited for a good thirty seconds. Didn’t repeat the question. Didn’t push me for a response.
‘What is your name?’ he said eventually. His voice still calm, matter-of-fact.
Again, I didn’t answer.
‘Where were you born?’ he asked after what I counted as another thirty-second pause.
I pursed my lips, breathing through my nose. A feeble show of strength. But I wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t going to be giving him anything.
‘Who do you work for?’ he asked.
No answer.
‘Why were you in Russia?’
Did the past tense of the question mean I no longer was in Russia?
‘Why were you at RTK Technologies?’
I remained silent. After a longer pause, I heard more rustling of papers.
‘What is your name?’ he asked again.
He proceeded to repeat the same questions for a second time. And then a third and fourth. A set thirty seconds between each question. I didn’t say a word. His voice remained placid, emotionless even, throughout. No intimidation, no threats.
The situation was unnerving. Disturbing. I didn’t know who they were. I didn’t know what they wanted from me. But
I knew then that they were going to try to break me. I couldn’t let that happen. My whole life had been about the JIA. Mackie, in particular, I felt great loyalty to. We’d worked together for more than half my life. He was a commander in the JIA; I was his agent. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t fail now, let Mackie and everyone else down. Put their lives at risk.
But I knew that this timid questioning would just be the start of my ordeal. Things were going to get a whole lot worse from here. They didn’t need to intimidate or threaten me to tell me that. I just hoped, in the end, something would give.
I had never been broken before. But everyone has a breaking point. I just hoped they wouldn’t find mine.
‘Okay. We’re done here. Take him away.’
I heard footsteps approaching me from behind. I hadn’t even known anyone was back there. How would I have?
Before I knew it, my world once again turned black as a thick cloth bag was placed over my head.
I didn’t know where the road led, but I kept going. Putting as much distance between myself and where I had come from as I could.
The Jeep was a lifesaver: not only was I mobile but I was kitted out with snack food, a flask of hot tea, a torch, a first-aid kit and a wallet full of cash. Roubles. Those, and the Russian branding on the snack food, told me I was still in Russia. I still didn’t know where I was in the vast country, but it was a start.
Given the terrain and the weather, my best guess was Siberia. The very same place I had started out from, some months ago now, in the city of Omsk. That was where I wanted to get back to. The safe house that Dmitri and I had been staying at was there. More than that, Omsk was a place I knew. Somewhere I could feel comfortable while I figured out what to do next.
I should have been eager to contact my people, my boss: Mackie. We’d worked together from when I had just been a teenager. He was loyal to me, had shown his faith in me countless times when others had wanted to hang me out to dry.
But the truth was, I really wasn’t sure whom I could trust any more, Mackie included. I gripped the steering wheel
tightly, my knuckles turned white. Even just thinking about my long-term commander and mentor in that way made me feel alone and vulnerable. Scared. Because without Mackie, I wasn’t sure what else in the world I had.
I tried to block out the gloomy thoughts. Tried my best to cast off the tension that was gripping me. I hoped Omsk would hold some answers as to what had happened to me. But Siberia covers ten per cent of the world’s entire land surface. It’s a massive area. Even if I was correct and that was where I was, I could still be thousands of miles from where I wanted to be.
I had been in the Jeep for several hours already. When I had first got in, I had put the air on cool, just sixteen degrees. The lowest it would go. I didn’t want to warm my shivering body too fast. A sudden jump in temperature could have sent me into shock. Even that low temperature had felt like a Saharan wind to start with. By the time I had felt warmed through, some hours later, I had raised the bar to twenty-two. The warmth, together with the food and drink, made me feel somewhat normal again.
That is, as normal as one could be after three months of what I had been through. Scratch that, make that nineteen years of what I had been through.
I passed several signs of almost-life on the trip: signposts that gave the names of various places I had never heard of, a solitary petrol station that was closed up for the night, maybe for the entire season. I had even seen three other vehicles going in the opposite direction to me. But I’d seen nothing that I could use to pinpoint my position. The petrol tank had been three-quarters full when I got in. In the two hundred miles that I had covered since, the tank had dropped to just over a quarter full. If I didn’t find somewhere to stop, a town or a village, or at the very least a petrol station, I would soon be out in the cold again.
But just as I was pondering how things might pan out, I finally hit lucky. A signpost told me Taishet was only sixty miles away. The first place name I had recognised, and the first one that was actually within touching distance. More than that, though, I knew Taishet has a railway junction that the Trans-Siberian railway passes through.
My ticket back to Omsk.
In the end, I found the station easily. The town was tiny, seemingly only in existence to cater for the railway. The Trans-Siberian covers almost six thousand miles. Taishet, I knew, was roughly halfway across the line. It would take me maybe three days to reach Omsk. I was prepared to lie, beg or steal to get back there. But I hoped the wallet full of cash meant I wouldn’t need to. Hell, what was I talking about: I already
had
stolen that.
The station was open when I arrived. A half-dozen other people were milling around. Dawn had come not long before. The darkness had made way for bright sunlight that had quickly cleared away the night-time mist. I could feel that the temperature had improved slightly, but it was still some way below zero. It wasn’t until I saw the clock in the terminal building, though, that I actually knew the time.
Ten minutes after nine.
It may sound odd, but knowing that made me feel a little more alive. It’s so easy to become disorientated when you don’t know what the time is. What day it is. For weeks and months on end. Just having those simple reference points can make a whole lot of difference to your outlook.
Which was the very reason I had been deprived of such things.
I could see on the simple electronic board that the next train was in two hours. I bought a ticket. The teller forced me to splash out on a four-berth cabin. It was the only available ticket in second class and I wasn’t going to pass up the
chance to be on the train. It used up nearly all of the available cash. But it was lucky that I had any at all. For the first time in a long time, I felt like things might just start going my way again.
I’d left the PP-19 in the Jeep. As much as I wanted to be armed for the journey ahead, there was no way for me to carry such a weapon inconspicuously. I would find something more suitable before long, though knowing I was unarmed made me feel just that little bit more vulnerable.
The station had a sheltered waiting area but I didn’t head there, preferring to wait in the far corner of the frozen platform, out of sight. I had to assume people were still after me and it probably wouldn’t take a genius to figure that I would head for the railway. That was one of the reasons I had driven the Jeep straight past the station and dumped it discreetly on the outskirts of the town.
It was cold and my body didn’t appreciate my passing up the opportunity to stay indoors, but it had to be the safest option. With my ticket in hand, I huddled deep down into my coat and waited.