The Spy I Loved (29 page)

Do not scream with frustration.

It is a waste of time.

A putty knife.

Something
about the shape of the handle, flat, rounded off on the end and
with a flared hole to hang it on a nail.

If only…

Try
again, and she had it. The first time she had it, it was pointing
the wrong way to use it with any effectiveness. She had to take it
on faith that she could do it again. She put it down and reversed
the lie, end for end. She managed to pick it up with the
fingertips. It sat right in her palm, the end of the handle against
the butt of her right hand. She clasped her fingers, put the wide,
sharp scraper blade against the edge of the tape on her wrists and
began to push up against it.

The blade
was well set in the strong, rubber-backed fabric of the tape. There
were a few layers of it. She didn’t have the strength in her wrists
or hands or fingers to saw back and forth, and the pain and the
fear were enough to bring fresh tears.

The car
slowed. The brake lights came on. In a frenzy, Lindsey pulled and
yanked and twisted her arms, aching in their sockets. Her fingers
and especially her thumbs were crying out for relief. Her neck and
upper back were in agony.

Something
gave and her wrists felt looser, the wide tape having let go
halfway. Her hands worked feverishly, twisting back and forth as
the desperate girl tried to free herself before they stopped and
opened the trunk.

There
came an audible sound from the wrist area in behind her and then
the ring of sweaty, bloody tape was loose. She quickly worked it
off.

If only
she could scream, shout, let out the rage that consumed
her.

You bastards.

When she
got home she was going to get Uncle Dale’s shotgun and blow them
away.

Twelve-gauge, double barrel.

Point and pull.

Fuck you, no questions asked.

She was
making herself a few promises. The thoughts kept her
going.

Her arms
were heavy, limp and shrieking in pain. Somehow she lifted the
weight of her body, unable to straighten out. It was so small in
there, toes mashed into the far corner, struggling to get her left
arm out from under. There was so little room. She had to balance up
on her left shoulder, and pull the left arm out with her
right.

She was
still blind, but the ankle tape was easy.

She gave
a good hack at it and kicked hard. It was almost off. Frantically
she scrabbled at it with slippery fingers, unable to be sure it was
completely off. The car was still going. The worst was the tape
over her eyes. She put the blade carefully along the bottom edge
and then with as much caution as she could muster, cut some of it.
Lindsey managed to push the remainder up on her forehead. Her
fingertips, slippery with what must be blood, could not find the
edge of the tape over her mouth and she needed oxygen
badly.

Using a
corner of the putty knife’s flat blade, she opened a slit, cutting
the corner of her mouth painfully when the reinforcing fibres let
go in a run.

“
Argh.” She hacked it off quickly, knowing they were a bare
three or four feet away on the other side of the seat
bolster.

Fuck.

Shit.

Cunt.

Those
expensive speakers were still going, not so loud now. It was a
marvel they hadn’t felt her struggling around back there. It was a
pretty small car. Or maybe they had, as the sound of their voices
and a quick laugh were clearly audible for a moment.

Her pulse
and her heart were racing. Her mind was clear enough.

“
Oh, you stupid bitch…”

The
vehicle was still moving. Lindsey clung to the blade. She tried to
determine with one hand whether her feet were clear. The knee
joints ached, just ached. The insides of the taillights were in
front of her eyes. Now that she had eyes, she realized she was
looking at the inside of the trunk latch assembly. The key was to
get up and out of there the second someone opened the
lid.

In order
to do that, she had to get control of herself. That tire iron
wasn’t such a bad idea.

She had
to prepare, to look around.

To
think.

There was
a cable going along inside the inner layer, clipped to the
metalwork, and then it connected to the latch. The dim light was
just enough to reveal the end of it, or she might never have
thought of it.

She was
just reaching for it when the sound and sensation from the
wheel-well beneath her head changed. They were on a paved road.
They were in a parking lot, or worse, going up somebody’s private
drive.

If this
was where she thought they were, there were some really nice houses
along this section.

Chapter Twenty

Rick
Blyth was assistant to the deputy director for the North American
section.

EMERALD
wasn’t much of priority with the agency, but then it was somebody
else’s brainchild. The operation promised to pay important
dividends if the Brits and the Canadians could pull it off. He
appreciated being kept in the loop, and the opportunity to meet Ron
Marinaro couldn’t have come at a better time.

It was
the International Summit on Crime and Terrorism, held in Bonn every
spring.

A trade show in every sense of the word, it was a chance to
check out the latest technology, and to learn about the newest
developments in the trade. Anybody who was anybody
in the world of espionage and spy-craft was
there. It was a chance to see and be seen, to recruit, to observe,
to refresh those surreptitious head-and-shoulders shots taken from
a camera disguised as a lapel pin. Here were the buyers and the
sellers and those who liked to keep an eye on them.

Blyth
grinned at his companion.

“
Penny for your thoughts.”

Marinaro
snorted.

“
A can of worms as usual.”

They
stood in the lobby of the convention centre, just one small eddy in
a larger flood of humanity. The weather was warm and fine. A good
number of patrons were wearing shorts and sandals, looking a bit
incongruous as they strolled along eating cotton candy, their
wide-eyed children taking in the flame-thrower display from R-Tech
Distributors. This was one of Jackson’s little endeavours,
respectable enough on the face of it. Just inside the door, it was
a prime bit of space for which they had paid dearly. There was such
a thing as the military and security junkie. They were tourists who
bought tickets and programs, gaped at the displays, listened to the
panels and lectures and dreamed of the day when they would become a
proper mercenary. Someone was always recruiting, and here was as
good a place as anywhere. Some of them had a real youthfulness to
them.

R-Tech’s
eye-popping display consisted of a line of mannequins, fully
camouflaged. They were wearing helmets and dramatically posed with
various models, from the heavy military attack version to the
lighter sport and weed-control models. Short, noisy spurts of fire
from the tips of the little household versions drew the eye and
would be remembered for a long time.

Two other
men stood a metre and half away from Blyth and Marinaro. One faced
inwards, watching foot traffic, and one faced outwards. He was also
watching the foot traffic. One fellow leaned to his left and spoke
quietly to Blyth.

“
Our car’s outside, sir.”

Blyth put
his hand on Marinaro’s arm and the pair exited through the green
tinted doors, a revolving glass drum. Pairs of relatively
unobtrusive operatives were visible all over the place, if one knew
what to look for. Move and mingle as they might, they were a little
too still in the face, a little too intent. Ron had a couple of his
own people in the crowd, just as anyone of importance presumably
did. Familiar faces were getting into the sedan behind them. They
would have an unobtrusive escort.

A man
stepped forward and opened the door for them. Blyth waited for
Marinaro to climb in. Blyth’s assistant was next, and on a nod from
Marinaro, his own man Freed took a jump seat.

The
vehicle moved off and the men could now speak with relative
freedom. Marinaro had clearance for what he had to say, and so
would Blyth. The conversation would be recorded by both sides,
which was to both of their benefits. It avoided misunderstandings,
and put responsibility squarely where it belonged, if one cared to
look at it that way.

“
So.”

Marinaro
opened his briefcase. He pulled out a thin computer tablet and
activated it.

“
Pictures.” He showed Blyth the icon to forward the slide
show. “From EMERALD.”

As the
assistant deputy director held the machine in his own hands,
Marinaro, turned slightly sideways on the back seat, looked over
his shoulder and explained exactly what he was seeing.

***

“
I’d like to borrow a half a dozen surveillance drones.”
Marinaro closed out the file.

Blyth
heaved a breath.

The satellite pictures were as good as any he’d ever seen,
but they still had their limitations. The pictures, taken at all
times of day, were for the most part flat. Taken from great height,
they relied on contrast and enhancement, exacting interpretation to
be of any use. The opposition’s cars and vehicles were there in one
frame, and then gone in the next. This was partly due to the
heavily forested terrain in the operating environment. He was
familiar with the phenomena—sooner or later it happened in the best
of terrains. Flying much lower, the Predators and their newest
acquisition the
Pelican,
could look into bedroom windows and zoom in on
individuals in stores or vehicles on something more like their own
level.

The real
problem was letting them out from under direct C.I.A. control.
There were ways around that.

“
Do you want Hellfires?”

“
No.”

“
Okay. We’ll set up some sort of cooperative training
exercise. Strictly uniformed military. Possibly reservists.” He
knew exactly where he could borrow some.

Marinaro
nodded.

“
That would be very welcome.” More resources, more men and
boots on the ground.

More
action, more confusion. More convincing.

The
fellow beside him, impeccably dressed in the Washington power elite
fashion but otherwise physically undistinguished, was said to be
one hell of a quick and creative thinker. Ron himself had been
rather uninspired as to justifications.

Blyth was
just thinking out loud in an informative way at this
stage.

“
We have a small number of military units in the northern
tier. We’ll bring in some low-level air defence measures. It’ll be
a joint exercise, simulating a rapid, ah, a rapid joint-forces
response.” This would consist of everything from portable radar
units, shoulder-fired missiles, trailered missile packs, and light
anti-aircraft cannon systems. “Anything up to forty or fifty-seven
millimetre.”

Marinaro
typed rapidly into his keyboard as the older man went
on.

“
We can jointly put it about that our forces are cooperating.
We’ll call it
Operation Boreal Owl
or something. The ostensible mission is to learn
how to detect and destroy enemy surveillance drones. How’s that for
an idea?”

Blyth, knuckles cracking as he gave his hands a good
wringing, looked pleased with himself. Marinaro would have to put
it through the Ministry of Defense, where he had many friends. The
request would be fairly sudden, perhaps even unexpected. Blyth had
an explanation. It was a structured test of their allied
responsiveness, and the speed with which the units in question
could be re-tasked and re-deployed. The units would receive no
notification or warning of the exercise in advance. Canadian Forces
were being asked to cooperate with the U.S., rather than the other
way around. With the friendly relations between the two, this would
not be too unusual. It would be good to tell the press something.
The story would be picked up in a number of glossy magazines,
newspapers, journals, and of course many of the
enthusias
t websites, both pro and
anti.

The fact that
Predators
and other craft would now be patrolling in
racetrack and more random patterns over their area of concern, was
the real reason for their being there. This aspect could be
downplayed with the press, or even denied. This applied to all
subordinates, all agencies, on a need-to-know basis. The Canadians
would be supplied with the feed in real-time.

He turned
and his pebbly glasses flashed with reflections from the street
outside Marinaro’s window.

“
You’re at the Marriott, right?” Blyth’s memory wasn’t exactly
photographic but he had a way with names, faces and
details.

His
assistants helped keep him on track.