Go Out With A Bang! (15 page)

'I am so
sorry.'

Sandra
kissed his his bloody forehead. He stirred and looked at
her.

'Am I
dreaming?'

'No. I'm
here.' It was painful to watch him try to talk.

'Tell my
family I love them.'

Sandra
was not one for crying, but she wiped away her tears. 'I will. I'm
so sorry.'

She held
his head to her body, stroked his hair matted with blood, twisted
hard and ended his life. Then behind her, she heard the steel door
open.

Chapter 48

Three
guards pointed their long barrelled fixed butt Heckler and Koch H K
33 weapons at her. The door was slammed shut by another guard on
the outside and locked. Even she couldn't fight her way out of this
one. The blow to her head from the butt of a gun was the last thing
she remembered.

She had
drifted in and out of consciousness, her face and body

a mass
of bruises from being beaten and blistered lips from being deprived
of water for three days. Her body had been close to giving up. But
not her spirit. Never her spirit. It was that same indomitable
spirit that had landed her in her present predicament in the first
place.

She
dreamt of her husband, knowing he had died grieving for her. She
thought about Poppy, her wonderful daughter. She had given
everything up to make sure her family would stay safe. She wasn't
about to let that sacrifice be for nothing. Whatever it took, she
was going to live for her daughter.

Deliberately slowly, she had lost three nails on her left
hand to the pliers and had still not talked. They had made the
mistake of leaving her alive to drip blood on the filthy concrete
floor, tied to a chair, locked in a cell in a country far from
home. The body of her friend had been left on the floor of the
cell.

She had
to watch fat rats feed on his flesh, unhurried, occasionally
stopping to sniff around her legs, then continuing eating the
rotting carcass. Some had burrowed into the soft flesh of the
belly, pulling out and running away with pieces of entrails,
disappearing through the hole in the wall, taking its prize along
the river of urine. This not only sickened her, but strengthened
her resolve to take revenge for her friend.

At
daylight, the heavy footsteps had stomped along the stone-flagged
corridor; keys, chains and locks had rattled. From other cells came
the sound of prisoners being beaten, welcoming in another day. A
dawn chorus of screams; the stench of burning flesh. But not in her
cell, not that morning. She spoke their language enough to know
they had planned more than just fingernail pulling and
beatings.

Women
espionage agents were relatively rare, and good looking ones, rarer
still. As the key jiggled in the rusting lock, the guards day was
going to go down hill. The first thing they had seen was the empty
chair. The ropes had gone, too.

They
scratched their greasy locks and then from above them, a lariat
suddenly roped the two big men together. She still had one good
hand and with that, she pummeled their heads with her fist and
followed up with her knees. They hit the ground, but she was too
far gone to stop. It was all pouring out and it was time for some
payback. Ears were good, ears were best. She latched onto those
ears and smashed backs of skulls into the ground, turning both men
into blubbering messes. The backs of their skulls gradually sounded
progressively more like pulped melon as again and again, they hit
the ground, blood flowing easily.

And then
she gouged out their eyes. Digging deep into their sockets, her
finger probing deep, she felt her finger hook under their eyeballs,
then she pulled them out with a satisfying plopping sound. And then
the eyeballs lay there on their cheeks, bloody tendrils, looking at
her, but not seeing anything. She took the eyeballs in her hands,
feeling the slime, feeling the blood. She stared at them, which was
more than they could do to her. Their eyes hung down on their
cheeks, blood running off their chins.

She
enjoyed their screaming, but she didn't want to have her cell
stormed by more guards. Grabbing their ears, she slammed her knee
into their mouths, smashing teeth, disabling speech. Their heads
were again bashed into the stone floor until their skulls became
mush. Not quite enough. One carried a knife. Bowie shaped and
sheathed. She got hold of the handle, real animal bone, and
withdrew it from the leather sheath.

Then, as
their pathetic bodies squirmed and twitched,she undid their trouser
flies. She cupped them and squeezed very hard. There wasn't as much
reaction as she would have liked as the razor sharp blade sliced
off their testicles. She opened their mouths and pushed the bloody
genitals into them, then she cupped their broken dying chins and
forced them to chew.

'This is
your last meal, boys. An English favourite. Spotted dick. All fresh
ingredients. Enjoy.'

They had
died with their own penises hanging from their dying, blood
gurgling mouths. It made some kind of sick sense.

'Jeez.
You two gave up easily. I'd only just got started.'

Taking
their guns, she went out of her cell and killed five men. Only
another couple of dozen more guards to go. She decided she
shouldn't have all the fun. All the other prisoners were released
and it was time for her to go. She shot the two guards on the gate
towers and they had fallen at her feet into the courtyard. One had
died instantly, his glassy dead eyes staring up at her, his limbs
lying at impossible angles.

The
other one although badly wounded, made the mistake of trying to
grab her ankles. She knelt down, her shin across his windpipe. She
enjoyed the moment, watching his eyes bulge and his tongue poking
out of his mouth, turning blue. She pressed a little harder;
something gave way in his neck. Like the others, he had died a
little too quickly for her liking.

'Next
time I have to deal with scum like you, they had better be worth
the bother, you bunch of pussies.'

Behind
her came a satisfying sound of rebellious yelling, gunfire and
prisoners taking their revenge. Sometimes, screams were
good.

A single
shot to the lock on the gate and it creaked open like a vampires
coffin. The wind whistled around her, freezing her bones. She was
suddenly free. Before her, a mountain range of wild, snow filled
terrain and two hundred miles of biting hell to cross to claim
freedom. It was impossible. More than a human being could possibly
endure. Many would have given up there and then. Not Sandra
Mitchell. She started walking.

Now here
she was, still fighting the enemies of her country, her son in law
sipping beer in the pool, unaware he was the father of her first
grandchild. She covered up most of her scars with the swimming
costume, and slipped into the warm water.

'Had a
good day?' Ferret asked her.

She
shrugged. 'Just a little shopping.'

Chapter 49

Bernie
was also in a dilemma. Sitting alone at home in his armchair, he
was in a reflective mood. Brothers who loved their sisters went out
for meals together; sent each other cheesy birthday cards; swapped
sad and happy memories about their lives, their family; laughed
together at embarrassing photographs. They slipped each other money
when things got tough; looked out for each other.

What
they didn't do was wonder what insane adventure they were on and
whether or not they would survive. A happy family reunion, or
throwing a rose on a coffin in a dark, cold grave as a final
farewell? That was a choice?

His
sister was an enigma. He wondered if he'd ever really known Sandra.
Had there ever been signs of the tough woman she was to become?
Four years in age difference and centuries in life seemed to
separate them. Other than the time she had hurt her knee falling
off her bicycle aged eight, he could recall only one other time he
had stepped in to help her as kids.

Two
girls, bigger and older had been bullying her at school. They both
lived nearby. Bernie's mother had told him. You have to look out
for your sister. That same mother had also instilled in him,
Bernie, you never hit girls. What was he to do?

He had
seen Sandra cry once too often. As he'd cycled home from school, he
saw one of the girls. Fat and ugly and smug looking. He pulled up
on his bike and dropped it to the ground and got off.

'I want
a word with you,' he'd told her. He grabbed her collar and dragged
her along the street to his house. He knocked on the door. His
mother and Sandra opened it. 'You got something to say to my
sister?'

'I...'

'Can't
hear you. You got something to say to my sister?'

'I'm
sorry, Sandra.'

'And?'

'I'll
never hit you again.'

'You
do,' said Bernie, 'You'll have me to deal with.'

He let
her go and watched her in tears, running for home. That night,
Sandra had gone to his room. 'Thanks, Bernie.'

'You're
my sister.'

'I hate
bullies. Nobody is going to bully me ever again.'

'I won't
let them.'

'No, Bernie.
I
won't let
them.'

And
nobody ever did from that day on. At least not in school. If there
was ass kicking to do, she did it. Bullies were fair game. Any
bitch picking on friends of hers often ended up in the school
dumpster minus their knickers for total humiliation. So yes. There
were signs. It was just Sandra now, dealing to bigger bullies. This
time she had set her sights on terrorists bent on destroying the
ten leaders of the most powerful nations of the western
world.

His problem was, should he tell
his niece he had seen her mother, and
she
now knew her daughter was having a baby
and
might
decide to tell the father to be? He was certain Sandra
wasn't about to tell Fred he was going to be a father; not yet. Not
until the mission was finished. He was Chief of the country's main
police headquarters. Could he ever be as strong willed as his
sister? He doubted it.

Debbie
let herself in the front door. 'Hi. Okay?'

'Yeah.
I'm okay.'

Chapter 50

'It has
to be a simple alphabetical conversion, right?' said
Nick.

Ferret
was patient with a kindred spirit, no matter how limited. 'Stuff
that simple would have been automatically translated by the
software, once the base language is identified. Basic
stuff.'

'Basic?
In how many languages have you got covered?'

'Twenty
three. Just some of the generic ones. That's all I had time
for.'

'The
culture of these people goes back hundreds if not thousands of
years. The language they use will be ancient, right?'

'I
considered that. Greek and Latin are built in.'

'Just
those two?'

'Like I
said. Time constraints. I must admit. I don't understand the
language they are communicating in.'

'How
about we go way back? Pre Greek. Pre Latin?'

'You
speak those?'

Nick
tapped the computer. 'Here. It's all here. Floating. Hundreds of
them. Lost in space. Cyberspace. What we have isn't working,
right?'

Ferret
admitted, 'Not yet.'

'Not
ever. We are dealing with five different cultures with a single
ambition. One thing they have in common is a hatred of us. What
they do not have is a common language, other than English as a
secondary one. If I were them, I'd not use an everyday common link.
That would make it too easy for hacks like us. They would go way
back to a time and language unfamiliar to all of us. They would use
a nearly extinct language, then translate it into English as their
universal language, using a code. That's what we are up
against.'

Ferret
looked at Nick in a new light. 'That is not quite as stupid as it
sounds.'

'I
appreciate the compliment. May I?'

'Be my
guest. You're going to be on this all night, right?'

'Sleeping is so last century. Goodnight, Ferret.'

To
Ferret, a computer was a musical instrument from which a maestro
could extract sublime sounds. Stick one computer hack onto another
hacks computer, it became detuned. Ferret never let other hacks
loose on his computers. He had been appalled to discover his
special baby at the police headquarters had been violated. But Nick
had an understanding. His touch was light, his thinking in tune.
Nick didn't quite have his finesse, his symbiotic relationship with
the software, a true understanding of the hardware, his deft touch
of a keyboard, the connection with the mouse, but at least he
wasn't a knuckle dragger who would stuff this up.

'Would
you like to fly solo?'

This was
a big moment for both of them. A computer genius and a young man
with something to prove.

'Will
you trust me?'Nick tapped the box. 'With this?'