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  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 f
ar 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.

  Feeling gently around the broken edge, I looked for a place where I could start to peel the side down like an orange. The sensation had virtually gone in my swollen hands, but the touch glove caught on the aluminum and I found what I wanted and started to pick and tear. My fingers slipped a couple of times, cutting me on the razor-sharp metal, but there wasn't time to worry about that; besides, I couldn't feel the pain and it was nothing to what would be inflicted on me if I didn't get away from here.

  Once I'd pared the metal down to under an inch from the tab end, I tried moving my wrists apart as much as possible. It didn't work that well because plasticuffs are designed not to stretch, but there was just enough play to do what I wanted. Cupping the can in my right hand with the sharp edge upward, I bent it toward my wrist, trying to reach the plastic. If I'd left more tin sticking out it would have gone further, but the edge would have buckled under the pressure. That was also why I used the tab end: The thicker rim gave the cutting edge more strength.

  I knew that establishing a cut into the cuffs was going to take the most time, but once I'd got into that nice smooth plastic I could go for it. It must have taken just a minute or two for the jagged tin to finally bite; then, when I was about three-quarters of the way through, I heard the loud, echoing creak of the swing door opening. Light and engine noise spilled through a gap of about two inches under the stall door.

  There was the sound of boots on trash heading in my direction. The light got stronger and I started to stress big time, dropping the can and scrabbling for the hood, and, once it was on, trying to find my gloves. I didn't manage it, but just as I was gritting my teeth for the inevitable confrontation the footsteps went past.

  There was a flurry of muffled pleas in English from the boys as their doors were kicked open and they got dragged out and subdued. They must have heard the Americans during the contact, too, as there was no multilingual begging now.

  Doors banged and soon I could hear their feet dragging past me. Within moments, the door swung shut and silence was restored.

  I felt around for the can end, not bothering to take the hood off. I couldn't have seen anything anyway. I started to work with more of a frenzy; I had to assume that they'd be coming for me next, and soon.

  After two or three minutes of frantic sawing, the plastic finally gave.

  Pulling the hood off, I felt around for the gloves and put them in my pocket, keeping just the touch gloves on.

  Next I located the other can end. Getting slowly to my feet and enjoying being vertical, I felt around the stall. I found the door handle, opened it and walked very slowly and carefully out into what I could feel was a narrow corridor with painted brick walls. A faint glimmer of light under the swing door trickled into the corridor about ten feet up on my left. Picking my feet up and putting them down with infinite care, my left hand supporting me on the wall, I made my way toward the light.

  As I got closer I began to hear a vehicle engine revving, then starting to move off.

  Once at the door I couldn't find a keyhole to look through, so, clearing the debris on the ground, I got down on my knees. Chains rattled as the roller shutter was pulled open. I wondered if the pizza boys were leaving town.

  Lying flat on the floor on my right side, I managed to get my eyeball close to the bottom of the door. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the bottom half of the can, the one I hadn't worked on. Using the light to find a place in the metal where I could start peeling this time, I got to work and put my eye back against the gap.

  I'd been right, it was some sort of hangar or factory space. It was mostly in darkness, but lit in places by twelve-inch-long florescent lighting units, the sort that campers use. These had either been perched on the hoods of wagons or were being carried around. The pools of almost blue light and shadow made the place look like the set of the Twilight Zone.

  Several vehicles were parked in a row on the far left, about forty yards away, sedans, wagons, MPVs, and SUVs, some of which had roof racks piled with skis.

  My thumb slipped and ran along the ripped can. I still couldn't feel it, but at least some sensation was returning to my hands. Pins and needles had started to work their way around my fingers while I carried on peeling the metal back.

  I looked straight ahead to the exit, my only way out, then at the people who would try and stop me. They were mostly by the two remaining vans, parked haphazardly in the middle of the hangar.

  A group of maybe five or six bodies were hurriedly unloading their weapons and taking off their white uniforms and bundling them into what looked like Lacon boxes aluminim airfreight containers. They were in a hurry, but not rushing. No one was talking; everyone seemed to know what was required.

  When one of the bodies did a half turn so that it was in profile, I realized that Bobby wasn't the only woman on this job.

  As they continued to throw off their kit, I could now see where the sound of Velcro had come from: She was ripping apart the side straps from sets of body armor before stacking them in the boxes.

  Another group of maybe eight were out of their whites and unpacking civilian clothes from duffel bags. Others were combing their hair in the side mirrors, trying to make themselves look like normal citizens.

  I caught a glimpse of the 4x4 I'd been transported in; its back window safety glass was pockmarked with holes where the rounds had passed through. Beyond it were the shapes of the other vehicles used on the job, which were now probably going to be abandoned. Strike marks from automatic weapons were not the best kind of modification to be sporting at stoplights.

  I couldn't see any evidence of the computer kit. I assumed they'd moved it straight on, along with the pizza boys and probably Bobby and the guy with the hook hanging from his thigh. They'd be in need of proper trauma care. Since the weather had put a stop to a quick exfiltration, the next destination would be a secure area like the U.S. embassy. From there, the equipment would probably be moved by diplomatic bag back to the U.S. Dip bags are basically mail sacks or containers that by mutual agreement other governments cannot have access to, which means they can contain anything from sensitive documents to weapons, ammunition, and dead bodies. I'd even heard a story of the intelligence service bringing back the turret of a new Russian armored personnel carrier in what must have been a party-sized one.

  The pizza boys would be stuck in the embassy or a safe house until a heli could get in sometime tomorrow and airlift them out of the country, unless there was a U.S. warship in dock. If I didn't get a grip of this situation, I knew I'd soon be following them.

  Everyone was now out of their whites and in jeans, down jackets, and hats. The woman was still organizing the loading of the Lacons.

  Loud metallic echoes filled the hangar as the boxes were moved into the vans.

  One man seemed to be running the whole show. I couldn't see his face from this distance, but he was the tallest of the group, maybe six foot two or three, and a head above everyone else. He gathered everyone around him and seemed to be giving them a brief. They were certainly doing a lot of nodding, but his voice wasn't loud enough for me to understand what he was saying.

  While he finished the briefing, the doors of the two vans slammed, both engines revved and they started to leave. Their headlights swept across the group as they turned toward the shutter.

  I felt around the rim of the half can in my hands as th
e chains went into action. I wasn't doing particularly well with it because I hadn't really been concentrating.

  I watched the Wasp team disperse as they moved off toward the line of vehicles like aircrew to their fighters, lights swinging in their hands. They were probably going to split up and do their own thing, probably in exactly the same way as they'd come into the country in the first place.

  They would now be sterile of anything implicating them in the job. They would have cover documents and a perfect cover story and would certainly no longer be armed. All they had to do was wander back to their chalets and hotels as if they'd had a good night out, which I supposed they had. None of them was dead.

  More engines revved, doors slammed, and headlights came on. I could see the fumes rising from exhausts. It looked a bit like the starting grid before a Grand Prix.

  The people from the embassy would probably take care of the abandoned vehicles. Their priority was to get away from here now that the equipment and pizza boys were safely on their way. Their only problem was that they had a little bonus me.

  It looked like the Wasp and another woman were taking on that responsibility. The vehicles were now leaving, but they were still on their feet, the woman with a set of jumper cables dragging along the floor as she moved out of the way of the holiday makers. They were leaving nothing to chance.

  Red brake lights lined up as they took it in turn to exit and hang left. Snow was still falling. I could see it clearly now as full beams shone out into the darkness.

  Soon there was just one car left stationary, its engine running and its lights blazing. The Wasp was sitting sideways in the driver's seat with his feet on the concrete, the glow of a cigarette intensifying as he sucked on it. The interior light was on and I could make out thick curly hair on a very large head.

  The jumper cables were thrown into the rear seat and the woman disappeared into the darkness.

  At last I'd finished the other half of the can. The blood from my fingers felt cold as it was soaked up by my touch gloves. It was a good sign. Feeling had returned to my hands.