The Fish Kisser (44 page)

“Dave … Over here?” Yolanda sang out from her hiding place behind a cupboard. Then she burst into a torrent of tears.

“I thought you were a guard,” she sobbed into his chest as they hugged. “I was just going to get the elevator to…”

“I was sure they'd got you,” he mumbled, clinging tightly to her as he blinked back the tears.

“I thought they'd got you too.”

Their tears mingled with laughter as they clutched each other and made their way back to the office.

They finished most of the sandwiches in the relative safety of the air duct and Bliss told her the full story of the Americans.

“We have to get them out, Dave,” she said, very subdued.

“I know,” he replied. “But how?”

The night passed slowly, ideas came and went. Fear flowed through their veins at the realization that every conceivable plan had serious flaws and horrendous risks. There were so many unanswerable questions: “Where are we? Where are the guards? How many guards? Would they shoot on sight? How can we get out?”

“There was a gatehouse,” offered Bliss, “We stopped on our way in.”

“I remember.”

“But we've no idea where we are, we might come up in the middle of Baghdad.”

“No,” she shot back. “We would have heard traffic noise before we stopped.”

“I don't remember hearing any city noises since we left the border.”

“We're probably still in the northern mountains.”

“That's why there was only one guard last night.”

“My God!” cried Yolanda, “I'd forgotten all about him. He's still under the elevator.”

After hearing of the treatment meted out to the Americans, Bliss had closed his mind to the soldier. “Might be dead or escaped,” he replied with unconcerned casualness.

“We could find out,” she suggested.

Worming their way along the air ducts they eventually reached the elevator shaft and Bliss peered into the semi-darkness. “I think he's still there,” he said, clambering down the maintenance ladder.

“Yolanda,” he called in a whispered shout. “Get some water and the rest of the sandwiches.”

She was back in a minute and Bliss held the guard's own gun to his head as he removed the gag. The young man hungrily scoffed the food, fearful Bliss would snatch it away. Then, with his shirt tied back into a gag, they tested the ropes on his wrists and legs and clambered back up the shaft, looking high above them at the underside of the elevator cabin.

“I've got it,” Bliss whispered excitedly and his voice echoed eerily around the shaft.

“What?”

“I know how to get us out.”

With fearful expectancy, the Welsh computer expert checked the filing cabinet on his return to the office the following morning. “The food's gone,” he whispered to Peter, his colleague, but found no satisfaction in acknowledging the fact that he hadn't imagined the voice in the air duct.

“What are you going to tell him?”

“The truth,” he replied, “Everyone's too bloody scared to escape.”

“He'll be pissed off.”

“His problem.”

“My wife will be pissed off as well.”

“Bollocks, she thinks she buried you six months ago. Who's going to tell her any different?”

Peter had a far away look in his eye and a wistful edge to his voice, “I wish I could get back. I really miss her, and the kids.”

“We all do. But the chance of getting us out of here is …” He turned to his keyboard, “Let me work it out.”

Reaching over he clicked on the screen, then almost fell out of his chair.

“Hi. This is your friendly neighbourhood cop. We're taking you home tonight. Bring a picnic and be ready to run.”

His finger jabbed the delete key not a moment too soon as one of the Iraqi technicians entered the room.

“Everything is alright, I think, Gentlemen?” enquired the Iraqi, attempting to perfect his English.

They nodded silently and started work.

The elevator doors opened for them on time as usual at eight o'clock that evening. The regular guard, moustachioed, with a ferocious overhanging brow, stood with his arms folded as they lined up: Eight men in an
assortment of ill-fitting clothes, unshaven, tired and pallid from months of working in artificial light without exercise. A day on tender-hooks fruitlessly awaiting Bliss' hushed voice to filter down through the grating in the ceiling had taken a further toll on the Welshman and his face was drawn with the strain. The guard counted them one by one as they entered the elevator. Satisfied with his flock he stepped after them and pressed the “up” button. Three seconds later, the elevator jerked to a halt and hung suspended. Exasperation showed on his face as he picked up the red telephone and pushed the emergency button. Nothing happened. He stabbed the button again. Nothing. Then he started fighting with it, banging and jabbing it over and over again. Fully absorbed, he neither heard nor saw the emergency escape panel in the roof sliding open.

Bliss dropped on top of the guard with such ferocity that he ripped the emergency phone out of the wall and the cleanly snipped wires showed why he had received no reply.

“Quick,” Bliss shouted to the stunned audience. “Who wants to be a guard?”

Nobody moved.

“Come on, help me get his clothes off.”

The men were petrified, fearing it was an elaborate trap. Yolanda's voice called from above, “Quick, help him or we'll all be killed.”

Two men leapt to action, stripping the guard in seconds and manhandling his body up through the hatch to Yolanda. The Welshman slipped on the jacket and grabbed the gun, then Yolanda released the brake and jumped down to join them. Bliss prodded the “up” button and the elevator started ascending again. “How many guards at the top?” he asked, his eyes seeking contact with any of the prisoners.

“One usually,” replied one of the men, then he stared accusingly at the Welshman, “I thought we agreed not to escape.”

The Welshman shrugged, the matter was out of his hands.

Bliss quickly gave them instructions. “Walk out normally and one of you fall over in front of the guard.”

It worked like a charm. The guard spontaneously bent to steady the falling man and Bliss smashed him hard on the back of the head. Now they had another uniform and, with the guard's nearly naked body in the elevator, Bliss stabbed the “down” button.

“Come on,” called Yolanda, throwing her shawl over her head, leading the charge toward the garage.

The Welshman grabbed Bliss' arm. “Wait a minute boy's, we decided we wouldn't risk escaping.”

Bliss felt à little exaggeration would not go amiss “It's too late for that—we've already killed three guards.”

“Oh my God! Have you any idea what they'll do to us?”

“Only if we get caught,” shouted Yolanda still running.

“This place is a fortress,” continued the Welshman, then his face brightened in optimism. “You've got helicopters, right?”

Bliss shook his head.

“Well you'd better have half the British army at the gates or we may as well give up now.”

“Leave it to us, Sir,” Bliss replied, with a confidence implying, “I have all the answers, I am a policeman.”

“Will there be anyone in the garage?” he asked as they rushed down the corridor”

“Not usually,” replied a Liverpudlian, his singsong accent instantly recognisable by any Beatles fan.

The garage was deserted and a different truck had
replaced the one in which they had arrived; another secret compartment speaking of another victim.

What could have been a dignified retreat turned into a disorganised rout as men were coerced into the truck by Bliss, Yolanda, and Owain, the Welshman. One petrified man had to be manhandled aboard—his arm twisted painfully behind him as he fought against freedom.

“Everybody in,” shouted Bliss, slapping the button to raise the giant steel shutter, then he slammed the door on the trailer's secret compartment, leaped into the cab, fired up the engine, and fought with the gear lever to get it into reverse.

“Driven one of these before have you?” asked Owain sceptically.

“Of course I have,” he lied.

“Try pressing that red button there then,” he pointed. Bliss pressed and the gear slipped neatly into place.

“Now for the tricky bit,” said Bliss, once the truck was outside. Running back into the garage he attacked the electrical control box which powered the big door, looping wires around the steel rail on which the door ran. “Here goes,” he muttered, hitting the “door close” button, running as it started its descent. Banging the truck into gear, he jerked the rig crazily along the road as he tried to get the hang of the clutch.

“What are you going to do now?” asked the Welshman.

“That depends,” said Bliss.

“Depends on what?”

Behind them an immense blue fireball ignited the garage with a loud “crack” and every light in the complex went out.

“On that,” said Bliss triumphantly.

“Blimey, what happened.”

“I think they've blown a fuse,” he said, grinning for the first time in two days.

The main gatehouse was closer than Bliss had anticipated and the giant truck was still kangarooing wildly as they approached the tubular barriers. An emergency light illuminated the box itself and a guard jabbered frantically into a mute phone. Two more guards were struggling with a huge steel gate, desperately trying to manhandle it shut behind the barriers.

“Look out,” yelled Bliss, as the flash of a pistol spurted from the hand of one of the men. “We'll have to crash the barrier. Get down; cover your head.”

The giant truck lurched toward the barrier in a series of violent hops as Bliss fought with the controls. He was in the wrong gear but couldn't find the right one. The guard who'd fired was frantically yanking the gate and already had it halfway across the road. Bliss jammed his foot on the accelerator and aimed straight at the steel barrier. The truck leaped ahead and wrenched the barrier out of its socket as easily as if it were a doll's arm, then it flung the heavy steel pole at the guard with such ferocity it nearly cut him in half.

“He's dead,” shouted Bliss, without a second glance. The moment the huge steel barrier smacked into the body and crushed it against the gate, all life drained out of the bundle of flesh and bones and it flopped into a ragged heap. Bliss had never killed anyone before and drove pensively for a few seconds wondering why he felt no remorse.

“Where are we going then?” enquired the Welshman above the roar of the engine as Bliss found another gear and they sped away from the compound. There was only one road out of the place and Bliss was
fighting to keep the truck on it. He had no idea where they were going but longed to be able to say, “Home.”

“What are they doing at that place?” he yelled, ignoring the man's question.

“They're going to take over the world,” Owain shouted, as if he were talking about some corporate merger plan. “Or at least that's what they're planning.”

Bliss felt like saying, “Nonsense,” but asked anyway, “How?”

The Welshman looked at him for a few seconds, balancing the pros and cons of telling or keeping his revelations for some more senior authority. He started with a question. “What's happens when there is a
coup d'etat?”

Bliss turned to him blankly and the Welshman carried on, “What's the first thing the ringleaders do when some tin-pot dictator tries to overthrow some other tin-pot dictator?”

“Shoot them,” shouted Bliss.

“No,” then he paused, “Well they might do … but first they seize the radio and TV stations.”

The road started to climb, Bliss searched for a lower gear and the Welshman waited until the engine had stopped screaming. “They always take over the communication systems first,” he continued, “You see, whoever controls information controls the country. Propaganda is everything. Look at the Gulf War when the Yanks made all that fuss about their bloody Patriot missiles knocking out the Scuds. It was a pack of lies; they didn't shoot down a single missile, but as long as the world, and the Iraqis, believed it, that was all that mattered.”

Bliss hadn't heard about the missiles. “I thought the Patriots …”

“Yeah, so did everyone else, Dave, apart from all the people who were blown to bits by the Scuds.”

“I still don't understand what they're doing now,” said Bliss, cresting a hill and ramming the gear stick into a different hole.

“They're planning revenge against the western world,” he replied darkly.

“How?”

“They've got this grand scheme and if they pull it off, it'll be a real doozey.”

“There's lights behind us,” shouted Bliss anxiously.

“Well you didn't think they'd just let us go did you?”

“I thought we might get a good start. We'll never get away in this.”

“What else have you got,” snapped the Welshman angrily. “A bloody Ferrari?”

“There's another one,” shrieked Bliss, noticing a second pair of headlights, and the truck started bouncing on the verge as his concentration drifted.

Owain shouted, “Look where you're going. I'll watch behind.”

One set of headlights was quickly closing the gap as they climbed higher and slower. Bliss fought with yet another gear change to quell the engine's complaint, but as soon as he'd found the right gear, they crested the top of a rise and were barrelling downhill again.

“They're gaining on us,” yelled the Welshman.

Bliss risked a look in the mirror. “At least they're not shooting.”

“They might blast us with a bloody missile. They're crazy enough.”

“They won't want to kill you. It cost them a lot of money to have you brought here and now they haven't got the Americans … what's their plan of anyway?”