The Fish Kisser (41 page)

“We've arrived,” he said, his chattering teeth having difficulty with the words and a clamour of activity followed as the cab was detached from the truck.

“I think they're taking him out,” Bliss whispered a few seconds later as he heard voices behind the false wall.

Yolanda was gripped by a sudden panic. “What if they don't open the back doors? Maybe these boxes are only for show.”

The thought had occurred to him. “Let's wait,” he replied, thinking fate had brought them this far—surely not for nought.

Slowly the voices moved away, absolute stillness tensed the air and they clung to each other like guinea pigs in a sensory deprivation experiment.

“We can't get out,” she whispered worriedly after awhile, her muted voice sounding like a shout in the black metal tunnel.

“Shhhh.”

“I knew I shouldn't have drunk all that water,” she moaned as she squirmed to a corner. Then the back doors flew open. “Get down,” he hissed and she flattened herself behind one of the stacks. The brilliant flood of fluorescent light stung after twenty hours of blackout, and they squinted madly, trying to see what was happening.

Two burly men with baseball caps and jeans—truck drivers anywhere—clambered into the truck, and were heaving the heavy pallets around as if they were Styrofoam. Yolanda sidled back to Bliss and made him jump as she stuck her mouth to his ear. “Any ideas?”

He shook his head as another pallet was disappearing, and found himself fighting the almost overwhelming temptation to walk smartly to the back of the container, warrant card in hand, announcing, “Metropolitan Police—you're all under arrest.”

“What if we creep off behind one …” he began

She stopped him with a shake of her head and whispered, “They'll see us.”

“There's plenty of time,” he said quietly, the sound of his voice masked by the men rumbling the pallet along the steel floor.

Six pallets later, they still had no plan.

“We could do a runner,” he breathed, as another pallet was pushed off the back onto the tines of a fork-lift. She didn't bother to reply.

Only four pallets remained, the men chose the one straight in front of them.

Yolanda found Bliss' ear, “Could we push one of these on top of them?”

Bliss considered for a second, then found her ear again, “I don't think so.”

Another stack was being grabbed by the men, and manhandled toward the back of the truck. Just two left.

“I know,” whispered Yolanda, digging into her purse for her gun. “You divert them and I'll shoot.”

“You're armed?” he mouthed, and could have kissed her.

“Where's yours?”

“The sergeant's got it.”

Giving him a funny look, she mouthed, “Ready?”

The men were returning, jabbering to each other as they walked the thirty feet through the almost empty trailer, their heavy boots clanking on the metal floor. Bliss stood poised, his legs vibrating with tension, then a shout shook him rigid. They've seen me, he thought, and desperately tried to get his legs to move, but the footsteps stopped, the shouter called again and the men retreated.

“They've gone,” said Yolanda a few seconds later as she heard a door close. “Quick.”

Jumping off the back of the trailer, their eyes searched the warehouse for a hiding place or a way out. Bliss saw the giant door through which they had come. “We could just drive it out,” he suggested.

“Then what?”

“Go to the local police and tell them what we know,” he tried lamely.

“Dave this is Iraq. This place is probably run by the police. Anyway we've been through this before.”

Without warning he grabbed her and pulled her under the truck. “Camera,” he explained, pointing at the high ceiling. She saw it and ducked. “We've got to get out before they come back to finish unloading. It must be their meal break.”

Then Bliss' eyes picked out an ordinary looking door at the back of the warehouse. “I wonder what's in there?”

“We can't stay here,” said Yolanda, “so we'll have to find out.”

They slithered together across the floor, praying the camera watcher was asleep.

The sleeping guard hadn't stood a chance. Stripped, bound and gagged in under a minute, they took a risk with the security camera and bundled him into the back of the trailer. The scrawny man was little more than an undernourished teenager, and his uniform was such a tight fit on Bliss that Yolanda gave him a screwy smile. Poking out his tongue in retaliation, he pointed the way with the guard's gun and they headed for the elevator.

They pressed themselves into the corner as the enamelled elevator rattled downwards and hissed to a halt. The doors opened with a tired sigh and the silent emptiness laughed at them.

It was two hours before they breathed freely again. Two hours of mind sharpening anxiety as they eased open door after door, expecting every time to hear sirens or feel the sting of a bullet. Two hours of constant apprehension; two hours of concentrated tension; two hours of sweat-soaking, nerve racking, mouth-drying, diarrhoeainducing fear. Fear that every camera was eyeing them; every step might break an invisible beam; every door would be alarmed; every movement picked up by a sensor; and every sound heard by a hidden microphone. Room after room had shown them it's empty face. Desks, chairs, filing cabinets, and all the detritus of a modern office complex filled each room. And at least a hundred computers idled in neutral, their engines ticking over with a constant buzz—all that was missing were the drivers.

“Nobody here,” said Bliss checking his wrist before realizing he'd left his broken watch in his suit pocket.

“It's half past four in the morning,” said Yolanda as they stood back at the lift. “What shall we do now?”

He was looking very thoughtful. “What day is it?”

“Sunday,” she replied confidently, then corrected herself, “No, I think it's Monday.”

“It must be Monday,” he said, quickly working it out for himself. “Do you realize we haven't slept in a bed since last Thursday.”

“Well there's no beds here, Dave.”

He nodded, “They must work here and sleep in another building. We'll have to wait 'til they arrive.”

“What about the guard?” she cried in alarm.

Both had tried to forget the nearly-naked youth tied in the truck and the trace of a grin broke through Bliss' serious expression. “We could brush him down, give him his gun back and say sorry.”

Yolanda shot him a look, then smiled. “You're joking?”

“Come on,” he laughed, “I've got an idea.”

An hour later they snuggled together in a wide ventilation duct above the computer room. The guard, still bound and gagged, was lying in the bottom of the elevator shaft. “He's quite safe,” insisted Bliss. “Although God knows what will happen when the day shift arrive and find him missing.”

“Let's get some sleep,” suggested Yolanda with a yawn and she nuzzled into his shoulder and instantly nodded off.

The scream of a jet engine shook them awake a few hours later as the air conditioner revved up for the day.

“Stay here,” he whispered, then inched his way along the duct above the computer rooms to peer down through each of the gratings into the offices below. Hundreds of fingers were flying across keyboards, and technicians in white coats were fiddling
with bits of machinery as they constructed and de-constructed computers. In one of the small rooms Bliss found what he was looking for—a familiar face—a face so typically British that it had to belong to one of the snatched men.

“Psst, psst,” hissed Bliss.

“What the …”

“Shhh,” he whispered, “I'm up here in the air duct. Don't say anything. Just nod.”

The head nodded.

“Can you talk?”

The head swayed slowly from side to side. Then the man picked up a pen and wrote on a large scratch pad. “Wait a minute.”

“Peter,” he shouted across the room with a distinctly Welsh accent.

“Yeah.”

“I'm going for a crap boy'o. Back in ten minutes.”

Peter's tone rose in confusion. “Why are you telling me? I hope you don't want me to come and wipe your bum?”

The man was still writing. “Toilet—second room on left.”

“Won't be long, Peter,” he continued, for the benefit of the guards, as he got up to leave.

Bliss slithered through the duct and sniffed out the toilet, the rustling of his clothes swallowed in the gush of forced air. The man was already sitting, the top of his bald head pixilated by the grid of the register. “We've come to rescue you,” Bliss whispered.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, head down, eyes boring at the door.

“Detective Inspector Bliss, Metropolitan Police.

The man was on his way out—set-up on his mind. “Yeah right—you expect me to believe that?”

“I am …” started Bliss, then paused, realizing that nothing he could say would persuade a determined disbeliever. “Tell me what I would need to do to convince you,” he continued, recalling his hostage negotiation training seminars.

The man re-sat, stumped, then took a chance. “O.K., say I believe you. How do we get out?”

That's a good point, thought Bliss, realizing he had no idea. “How many of you?”

“That depends.”

Bliss didn't understand and said so.

“There's eight,” the voice continued, the owner quickly glancing up at him, “But they might not want to escape.”

Bliss' voice rose incredulously, “Why?”

His eyes returned fearfully to the door. “Because of the Americans.”

Six had escaped, five men and a woman, world experts in their field. People who could coherently discuss data encryption, system analysis, and advanced programming in their sleep.

“What happened?” asked Bliss, then wished he hadn't.

“Do you remember that downed pilot they tortured during the war. They showed him on T.V.?”

“Yes,” Bliss mumbled, wincing at the memory of the beaten pilot who'd been propped in front of the world's T.V. cameras wearing a face more mangled than a horrifically mutilated horror mask.

“He looked good compared to what they'd done to the Americans,” he continued, adding, “Not the woman; they left her face alone, but she couldn't stand up.”

From his perch in the ventilation shaft Bliss couldn't see the terror in the man's face as he recalled the occasion. The six Americans had been caught the same
day they had escaped. Three days later the Welshman and his English colleagues were úshered into a room, “Come and say goodbye to your friends,” the Iraqi officer had said.

The Americans were propped upright in armchairs, their pulped faces staring blankly through slits in puffy eyelids; smashed hands and arms flopped at crazy angles in their laps. Few could speak and none had anything to say. One tried a smile of recognition but managed a toothless bloody grin.

“Say goodbye,” the officer ordered and the sorry group mumbled obediently, “Goodbye.” Then the guards entered and carried the shattered bodies outside.

The officer prodded them forward. “Come and wave,” he said.

“They shot them one at a time,” continued the fragmented face peering up at Bliss, pleading for some kind of help, “and they made us watch until the only the woman was left.” His eyes closed, trying to shut out the images but he kept talking. “They stoned her to death,” he said, as tears squeezed from between his tightly closed lids. “An' that bloody bastard of an officer said, 'We always stone whores to death.' And Mary, the Englishwoman, said 'Doris wasn't a whore.'” He opened his eyes and stared at Bliss through the grating. “Do you know what that bastard said? He said that any woman who screwed forty soldiers in one night was a whore. Then he picked up a rock and hit her right in the face.” The tears were streaming down his face. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Bliss found himself choking back tears. “You've got to get out. They know we're onto them.”

The man wasn't listening, the horrendous images torturing his mind were too powerful to let go. “Mary killed herself the next day,” he rambled, as if Bliss had
not spoken. “Wired herself up to the power supply and switched it on. Blew every fuse in the place.”

Bliss tried again. “You must escape.”

“Ripped her eye out,” continued the man, his brain still struggling with Doris' nightmare. “Then they all picked up stones—like a coconut shy at the fair—but the coconut was Doris' head.”

“Sir,” tried Bliss, more forcefully. “They will kill us all if we don't get out.”

“I know,” he replied, as if part of his brain had been listening all along. “We should try to get out. I'll talk to the others tonight and give you a decision tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” exclaimed Bliss in a strangled shout.

“It's the best I can do. We get an hour together each evening in our sleeping quarters. I can't talk to the others during the day.”

Bliss was panicking. “What about lunchtime?”

“No go. They bring it round to us.”

Bliss suddenly realised he and Yolanda had no food and little water. Neither did he have any idea how they were going to escape. “Can you get any food and drink for us?” he asked. “We didn't expect to spend another night here.”

“I'll leave some in my filing cabinet,” he replied, pulling up his pants, then he pointedly flushed the toilet and was gone.

“It's the Home Secretary's Principal Private Secretary.” The sergeant enunciated carefully as he handed the phone to Superintendent Edwards.

“Shit!” breathed Edwards.

“Edwards?” the manicured voice queried as he put the phone to his ear.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Glad we caught you so early,” the P.P.S. continued chattily, as if he were an old friend. “Thought you might be in late this morning after such a busy weekend. The minister would like to have a quick word with you, if that's alright—is this a secure line?”