Some two-thousand miles to the east
A classified SVR facility
on the Volga River, Russia
February 2018
The office building was industrial looking, and its drab concrete construction dated back to the early 1980s.
Despite the dreariness of the uninviting building, some four hundred people worked within the walls of the fourteen-storey building. Those people were protected by two hundred troops of the Russian Army, ensuring almost total security. The tenth floor of the building was occupied by senior personnel related to the various programmes which operated within the building. The passageways on each floor all shared the same pale green painted concrete, illuminated with florescent strip lighting. Motivational paintings attempted to provide decoration, but some dated back to the days of the Soviet Union and were simply a reminder of what had once been. However, what went on inside the facility was not that far away from what went on under the former KGB and the associated former Soviet communist regime. Many of those who entered the building did not emerge.
Experimentation was the name of the game and of the many projects underway into the human mind and body, Doctor Constantine Drylov ran several projects, mostly to do with the human mind and how it could be manipulated. To the good doctor, the human mind was as malleable as modellers clay. Yes, some of his earlier experiments had left his test subjects with varying degrees of brain damage but you had to make mistakes before you could hit the jackpot. His experiments had shown that while the adult mind was easy to manipulate, the immature minds of those under twenty were the ideal specimens, especially those in their teens. He had had some success with his own program very similar to Urban Predator and had produced some very able young cadets for the SVR to then train into adult soldiers and operatives. His success ensured his ongoing funding to pay for his experiments which were expensive in both money and human minds. Then, to finally get his hands onto an example of the manipulated minds created by the genius Doctor Albert Hirsch.
That man's experiments and ultimate successes had become legendary despite the secrecy which had hung around a certain CIA black operation. The Russians had tried time and again to penetrate the work of Dr Hirsch with little success despite the many years of attempts. Then, had come the opportunity to place one of their very own into Urban Predator but that operative had gone dark very soon after being recruited and she had not resurfaced for several years, finally appearing in the city of Chicago. The girl had refused to be activated and had refused to be drawn into spying for those who had created her. It had been Chicago where it was first understood that the CIA was attempting to shut down its own operation which appeared to have come off the rails and was about to come under intense public scrutiny. Then Urban Predator had quite literally imploded in upon itself and vanished almost overnight. Rumours had abounded of many dead children across Europe and then had come the worst rumour which had been confirmed: Doctor Albert Hirsch was dead, killed by his very own experiments.
As Doctor Drylov sat in his corner office on the tenth floor, his shoes resting on the corner of his thirty-year-old steel desk, he was reading from a thick file folder trimmed with blue and orange tape. The subject of the file folder was a fourteen-year-old male born in the United Kingdom. A typical specimen of that region, in good health, and with a remarkably high level of fitness. Evidence on upper body of electrical burns – possibly as a result of torture, his trained mind considered. His eyes moved to the report sent in by a lieutenant colonel of the 217th Guards Airborne Regiment then based in the Arctic during a standoff with British troops. One of his men had been monitoring the enemy occupying forces when he had watched two of the enemy – girls – heading into Block Seven and up a ramp where they conversed for a moment with a boy. During the chatter, the man closed and rolled beneath the block before snatching his moment as the boy turned his back to the ramp while the roller shutter rumbled downwards. Then, with the boy's back turned to him and the shutter with just two feet to go, the man grabbed the boy's ankles and yanked him under the roller shutter, the boy's head striking the steel ramp and knocking him senseless before his surprised brain could trigger a response.
As the opposing enemy forces had begun to retire from the all-but-destroyed facility, the soldier had dragged his acquired intelligence bundle through the snow to a rendezvous point with friendly forces.
..._...
Doctor Drylov flicked over a few pages to where he found the report of one Captain First Rank Venedikt Solovev of the Project 971 submarine VEPR (K-157).
The thirteen-thousand-tonne Akula II class submarine had surfaced in a polynya some four kilometres to the east of the smouldering polar facility. There, seven wounded soldiers of the 217th Guards Airborne Regiment were being loaded aboard the submarine along with the unconscious form of a young boy. The boy was taken to the forward torpedo room and placed on a bed clipped to a Type 53 USET-80 heavyweight torpedo. His boots and cold weather gear were removed, and his remaining clothing searched before he was then handcuffed to each side of the bed pallet by his wrists. The submarine then dropped beneath the ice and headed in an easterly direction for its base at the Guba Ara submarine base northwest of Murmansk. However, the report went on, the return cruise did not go well with the boy almost sinking the submarine on the way. Doctor Drylov chuckled to himself; he was intrigued both personally and from a professional point of view to find out how a young boy – even a Predator – could almost sink an advanced nuclear-powered submarine displacing over thirteen thousand tons submerged.
Several hours after diving, the boy had regained consciousness and...
Russian Submarine VEPR
Under the Arctic icecap...
July 2017
Jake was feeling more than a little woozy as he opened his eyes.
He tried to lift his right hand to his face, but he found it pinned, as was his left hand – handcuffs? 'What the fuck!?' he thought. Then he used his senses to provide information. He could see steel above him and many wires and pipes of varying sizes, some with markings; in Cyrillic!? His ears could hear the constant hum of powerful air-conditioning. He could also hear voices – speaking Russian!? His bunk vibrated; they were moving. He looked to his left and right – torpedoes!? His woozy mind joined up the information and came to one conclusion: he was on a Russian submarine underway presumably beneath the ice cap. He knew that he had to act. He could not be taken and interrogated. Where was his equipment; it had to be destroyed. The boy was under no illusion that he could successfully escape the submarine, but he could ensure that he would not become a treasure trove of information for the Russians. The lights in the torpedo room were dimmed. The submarine did not appear to be noisy – was it nighttime? He knew that submarines worked on shifts not necessarily aligned to night and day as on the surface, but daily routines remained as they suited the human minds' craving for repetitive routines.
His first task was to get out of the handcuffs. He began to yell.
"Hey! I need to pee! Hello! Anybody there!"
There was no response.
"HEY!"
Eventually, a sailor appeared – Jake noticed that the man showed no rank which meant that he was a lowly matros (seaman) – and the man glared at Jake. "Чего ты хочешь, паршивец?" { What do you want, brat?}
Jake pretended he did not understand Russian and simply shrugged at the man.
"What you want?" the man said in a strong Russian accent which seemed to exhaust his knowledge of the English language.
"I need to pee – toilet? You know what that is?"
"Старшина! Этот придурок чего-то хочет," the man called in the direction of what Jake assumed was a hatch leading aft – he reasonably assumed that the torpedo room was in the bow of the submarine. { Starshina! This dick wants something.}
A minute later, a more senior sailor arrived – a starshina with twin gold stripes on his shoulders – a petty officer.
"What do you want, boy?" he asked in reasonable English.
"I need the toilet."
The starshina grumped at Jake as he dug into his trouser pocket and produced a handcuff key which he tossed to the matros, who released Jake's wrists. Jake slid off the rack to the steel deck and felt the cold through his socks. He looked around but did not see his boots, nor his equipment.
"This way," the starshina said, pointing at an oval hatch leading aft.
Jake slipped through the hatch, his eyes darting left, right, up, and down. He absorbed everything he saw as he walked past half a dozen officer's cabins, and he was then led down an aluminium ladder to what appeared to be crew quarters.
"In there," the starshina indicated, pointing to a small compartment with an underlying odour identifying its use.
Jake grimaced as he stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him.
..._...
Once he had relieved himself (and helped himself to a few items), Jake washed his hands and rejoined the waiting starshina.
The starshina led him further aft to the galley where a cook smiled at Jake and handed him a plate of cold meat and some black bread. The starshina waved Jake to a table in the adjoining messdeck and Jake sat down to eat. He ate slowly, his eyes darting about. His escort, the starshina, was getting bored of babysitting the youth, and he had moved a few tables down to sit with some other sailors who were drinking coffee. Jake stuffed the last of the meat and bread into his mouth and he washed them down with a mug of coffee provided by the cook. With a casual glance around the galley and messdeck, Jake slipped off the bench he was sitting on, and he vanished out of the nearest hatch which led aft.
He found himself in a small area with an aluminium ladder leading upwards another leading downwards. Another hatch leading further aft was closed. Jake opted to go up a deck. He paused near to the top of the ladder and listened before he poked his head up above the deck level to look around. He knew he had mere minutes, or just seconds, before he was seized. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, and therefore how long the Russians may have had to sift through his equipment, much of which was classified. His pockets were all empty – he had checked. To the left, there was a short passageway leading to an oval hatchway, the hatch of which was open and latched back. The corridor and the space beyond the hatchway were lit in dim red lighting which would aid his movements. The space beyond the hatchway appeared to be the control room and Jake could hear voices giving orders and repeating orders. He turned to the right and headed forwards but only a few feet before he stopped beside a polished but well-worn wooden door. To the left was a room with a long table with chairs on one side and a long, padded bench along the other with a chair on each end. But what had attracted his attention was the equipment arrayed on the table – his equipment.
On closer inspection, it was everything which was not a weapon – his assault rifle, pistol, and knives were missing; presumably locked up somewhere else aboard the submarine. He slipped into the room and began to fish through the items. The cryptographic equipment built into the communications unit was cutting edge technology and could not be inspected by a foreign power such as Russia. However, there was a simple solution and Jake went to work. The first task was confirming that the SD card had not been tampered with – it was secure, as was the backup SD card. Jake snapped both SD cards with his fingers. He went through the remaining equipment, removing sensitive paperwork and his identification. He then grabbed everything up and pushed through a wooden door into a small galley. He dumped his communications equipment, SD cards, and miscellaneous classified paperwork on the galley side while he pulled open the door of an industrial microwave welded to the curved inner hull of the submarine. He dived into the cupboards beneath the galley sink where he rummaged around before he pulled out a bottle of bleach followed by a box of scouring powder and a wire pan scourer. He dumped his acquisitions on the counter and grabbed a large glass bowl from a rack above the counter. Swiftly, he began to make up a nasty, volatile, and very dangerous concoction. The wire scourer went in first followed by a significant covering of scouring powder which was then covered in a good quantity of bleach. Jake sniffed the air and knew that the chemicals were beginning to mix, and the concoction was volatile. Jake grabbed a bottle of vinegar from a rack and added a stiff dose to the bowl before he carefully placed the bowl in the microwave. He added his equipment and documents, dropping the broken SD cards into the volatile concoction in the bowl to further corrupt them. He then pulled a small tab out of his communications unit. That in turn started a ten second timer. He slammed the microwave door and set it to high and turned the device on.
Jake bolted from the compartment.
A classified SVR facility
on the Volga River, Russia
February 2018
Doctor Drylov grinned at the creativity.
But then he grimaced as he read the statistics related to the devastating explosion which had rocked the submarine and sent men racing to their battle stations, torn from their sleep by the raucous claxons. Thick black smoke poured out of the officers' galley and men in smoke masks desperately fought the flames all while the captain did all he could to prevent the submarine from diving into the depths and pushing past crush depth. The explosion had destroyed several key electronic circuits and damaged a ballast tank which was leaking air and taking in tonnes of ice-cold sea water, the added weight of which was steadily pulling the submarine ever downwards. An emergency blow to send the submarine racing for the surface was impossible thanks to the thick ice pack many fathoms over their heads.
The fire had taken some nineteen hours to contain. Another eighteen hours were required to level out the submarine and begin to clear the air. Ultimately, the crew had had to resort to oxygen masks for a total of five days before the air was breathable and it was not until they cleared the icepack at the end of the sixth day that they could finally surface and fully ventilate the submarine. They found the boy on the third day, wedged into a corner of the torpedo room wearing a facemask connected into the submarine's oxygen system. Apparently, he had blended into the chaos onboard and his being onboard had been forgotten during the fire. However, it had taken both the captain and the first officer to physically prevent the boy from being lynched by certain members of the crew as twenty-two men had been injured, three seriously. However, Doctor Drylov noted from the report, the captain had mentioned that he respected what the boy had done to destroy his equipment, even if the boy had almost sunk the submarine. They had underestimated their captive which was understandable as he was simply a boy, despite his weaponry.
Dr Dylov paused for a moment, setting the report down. The boy had demonstrated that he was willing to die to destroy anything which might lead back to his colleagues. That had been of interest to the doctor, as it clarified how far the subject may go to achieve his aims . . . or to protect his friends. The boy knew loyalty and that he was expendable if that was the only option to protect those he cared about. He was British and he seemed to have the typically British habit of being able to punch above his weight and take physical and mental abuse on the chin with simple but scathing verbal responses which his adversaries did not fully understand, despite knowing that they were being insulted. Indeed, the doctor had himself learned some new British colloquialisms and for some, he had had to go look them up. It had become very apparent that Jake Wistrum was a superior creation to his own experiments.
Doctor Drylov returned to the report.
Russian Submarine VEPR
Guba Ara Submarine Base
Murmansk, Russia
July 2017
Jake found himself securely bound as he was led across the brow which bridged the gap between the submarine and the concrete pier.
The boy grimaced as he recognised the combat uniforms of the spetsnaz – his reputation had obviously proceeded him. He was handed off to a sergeant who glared down at the boy.
"Does the condemned get a last request," Jake asked with his cheekiest grin.
"Put one foot out of place, and you won't know what's hit you," the sergeant responded.
"Bundle of fucking laughs you are! Lay on Macduff!"
The sergeant shoved Jake towards the four spetsnaz troopers, two of whom grasped him by his upper arms.
"Easy boys; careful with the merchandise."
The sergeant clipped Jake around the back of the head – hard.
"Fucking ow! You are damaging what could be a wonderful friendship," he responded. "But if you wish me to take you to task, then I will, motherfucker!"
"Take him away!" the sergeant ordered.
Jake found himself shoved into the back of a UAZ-469 jeep.
..._...
Despite his overt bravado, Jake was struggling to control his fear.
He hoped his courage would not fail him, but he knew that he was in a foreign country, alone. Nobody knew he was there. He knew that he would be interrogated, most probably tortured. They wanted information, or they would never have taken him – alive. He was thirteen years old, and he doubted he would last long under torture, and he was very aware that he knew enough to hurt his friends and family back in both the UK and the USA.
After a very bumpy fifteen-minute drive, the UAZ stopped and Jake was hauled out by the same two men as before, both of whom seemed to have a deep dislike for Jake. He was taken inside a concrete barracks building where he was told to remove his clothes. Each item of clothing was inspected and cast aside – the submarine crew had checked the boy's pockets on board the submarine after fire and found nothing. However, while he had been able to hide his acquisitions while clothed, when naked, his captors found the items he had secreted away before setting the fire aboard the submarine. One of the spetsnaz troopers pointed at the electrical flex wrapped around the boy's waist and the razor blade wrapped in toilet paper tucked in under the flex.
"Hand over," Jake was directed, and he meekly handed over his wares.
Jake was then ordered to shower before he was handed an ill-fitting boilersuit and then taken to a small room which screamed 'interrogation' where he was shoved into a chair. His two guards remained in the room with him to prevent any attempt at escape. Jake took the time to focus his mind for what had to be an impending interrogation. Time passed and Jake soon dozed off at the table. He was awoken by a loud bang and Jake found himself facing a tall man in military fatigues. One look at the man's face and the insignia on his breast had Jake's courage swindling.
"I am Colonel Anatolii Tarasov," the man announced in reasonable English, "and this is Major Raisa Sokolova. We are F-S-B. Now, your name?"
Jake glared at the colonel as the man sat down across from him.
"It is a simple question, boy – your name?"
Jake focussed his mind on what was to come. He stared straight past the colonel and never moved his gaze. He blanked off the sound and the visual cues, not allowing anything to alter his focus. He ignored the question.
"You are not a soldier. You are not wearing a recognised uniform. You fought against men of Russia. You are the enemy. I am not bound by any Geneva Convention. You are dead to the rest of the world. I can do what I like with you. Make it easier for yourself, boy; tell me your name."
Jake ignored the voice, taking in none of what the man said but processing every word. He never saw the hand which came from the side and slapped him hard across the right side of his head. The force of the blow sent him and his chair careering across the floor and cannoning into the wall. His head swam with the blow but before he could recover, he was seized and thrown bodily against the opposite wall. He tasted blood on his lips and felt intense pain in his right side. Then, before he could recover, he was dragged to his feet and thrust against the same wall by a hand around his neck, choking him.
"NAME!"
Jake noticed it was the woman holding him – part of his mind was impressed with her strength.
..._...
He held out for three weeks.
He absorbed the torture.
He took the electric shocks.
He freaked out during the waterboarding sessions, but he did not break.
Even the starvation diet did not dent his courage and the urge to prove himself, even if those he wanted to impress would never know what he went through and how he resisted. Every ounce of his being went into resisting the relentless pain, the relentless lack of sleep, the relentless hunger in his stomach. He had endured so much pain in his short life, but he had learned to process the pain and file it away in the dark recesses of his mind. He resorted to remembering the happy events of his past. He thought about Stephanie and how much he loved to piss her off. He thought of his sisters and that brought tears of sorrow to his eyes which were mistaken for tears of pain by Major Sokolova as she tore at his very soul.
The fourth week of captivity began like the previous weeks. Interrogation followed by pain, followed by interrogation, followed by pain. It went on and on. But then Jake began to feel real fear as he realised that his mind was failing him. His memories were fading. The important memories which he had to keep . . . Charlotte. He could not focus on anything from a mental standpoint, and he found the days and nights blending together – he was not to know that time was being manipulated by his captors to cause maximum confusion for the boy. He was scared that he was losing his mind and he found he could not remember what he had said at the last interrogation. He never noticed the extra substances in his water or his food as he was conditioned. He endured the freezing 'nights' and the stifling heat of the 'day'. He went through three day/night cycles for every twenty-four hours of captivity.
After a real week of the conditioning, his body was exhausted after what it had considered to be three weeks, and as his captivity entered the fifth week, he collapsed completely.
A classified SVR facility
on the Volga River, Russia
February 2018
Doctor Drylov had been impressed by the boy's ability to resist torture.
Every moment of that five-week period had been recorded on DVDs which were included in the file. They were an intriguing watch for those like Doctor Drylov, but decidedly disturbing for any normal person. It had been during that fourth week when they had discovered that the boy was named Jake Wistrum. At that point, the boy had been transferred to the facility on the Volga River. Heavily sedated, Jake did not regain consciousness for three days after his arrival at the facility. However, conscious was purely relative as he was continuously fed a cocktail of mind-bending drugs to ensure his compliance. Another four weeks of seemingly being left to his own devices had allowed the many bruises to heal and the boy had been fed three meals a day and allowed access to an outside compound twice a day for an hour. His only contact was with a different guard each day to ensure no opportunity for any form of bonding.
No references to the day, date, or time of day were allowed. Jake was forced to rely on mealtimes and regular bedtimes and wake up call to give him routine. The boy's mind told him that he was being messed with but not how. The isolation was getting to him. Rarely had he endured such isolation, and it was getting to him even as he focussed on healing and exercising.
Then the tenth week had dawned, and everything changed.
Mid-September 2017
Despite a surge of warmth, the previous week, the temperature was steadily dropping as autumn took a firm grip.
The Russians had been amicable enough to supply Jake with clothing which fitted and was correct for the weather. As he pulled on a warm waterproof jacket, the uniformed FSB guard appeared and took him on the same walk he had taken for many days – he could not remember exactly how many. But then they stopped at a door when they normally turned left to the compound. The guard opened the door with a swipe card and waved Jake through. Jake took six paces before he stopped dead. It was his first sight of the outside world in a long time. He was standing on a grassy slope which ran for about sixty yards before it hit a wire security fence topped with coils of nasty-looking razor wire. Through the wire, Jake could see a river, twenty yards past the fence. The river was broad, several hundred yards across, and large barges plied the waterway. Across the river, three or four tall apartment buildings told of a large settlement out of sight. Jake savoured the cool breeze which swept in from the river. As he moved around, his eyes took in the passive and active security devices: cameras, vibration sensors, infrared sensors, movement sensors; he was impressed. He also noticed the Russian Army soldiers patrolling the boundary fence – they would be easy to bypass but it was the East European Shepherd dogs which he was very concerned about – they could be deadly, despite their fluffy appearance.
His mind switched gears. Why was he being treated better? What were the Russians up to? Damn the drugs! Whatever they were pumping him with was playing havoc with his mind but not as badly as he had expected. Surprisingly, he was allowed a considerable amount of time outside before he was returned to his room/cell for a lunch consisting of cold meats and black bread. It was not amazing, but it was somewhat tasty and filling. He washed the food down with water before he lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. It was a habit he had got into so he could try and think through the mists of his fogged brain.
As was often the case, he fell asleep.
..._...
He came awake with a start.
His room was dark, and he was still dressed; he must have been tired after his time in the real fresh air beside the river. But then his mind processed sounds and movement. He felt a hand grasping his right upper arm. In response, he rolled away, and his right fist flew and encountered something in the darkness. That something grunted with what might have been pain before Jake found himself on the bare wooden floor of his room/cell. He rolled to his feet just in time to intercept a strike from his left side. He grasped the hand and wrist, twisting violently and eliciting a shrill scream from his attacker – a girl? Then he realised that he had two attackers, striking from different directions. They were not soldiers, that swiftly became obvious as he fought. It was not the first time he had fought against the odds, and he dealt out just as much punishment as he received. But then he got the upper hand and managed to wrap his right arm around the neck of the girl – it was most definitely a girl. As he squeezed her neck with his right arm, he punched her left breast with his left fist. The girl struggled as she found herself unable to breathe and suffering major bruising to her upper chest.
Then Jake felt a jarring pain in his back as he was punched hard. He released his grip on the girl as he fell to the ground and struggled to breathe. He felt hands on each of his arms dragging him out of his room/cell and down the corridor – to the right where Jake's mind told him oblivion resided. He was finally thrown to the cold tile floor of 'Комната тринадцать' – Room Thirteen. He had been there before, his mind told him, but he could not remember when or what had occurred within that room. His mind fed him information supplied by his senses as he was violently stripped of his clothing. The pristine white tiles were marred with red splodges of blood, some smeared. He was shivering, but not from fear; it was freezing cold in that room. Bright lights illuminated large objects which he could not distinguish as he was kicked and punched by hands and boots. None of the strikes came near his face or head, his mind told him as he writhed in agony. Then, as the beating eased, he was yanked to his feet by strong hands and then as he was punched again in the right side, he tried to take a breath as he was plunged headfirst into freezing cold water, and he accomplished nothing more than inhaling that freezing cold water. He did not have time to suffer as he was hauled back out and then dumped on the cold tiles where he choked and then threw up a quantity of water and what looked suspiciously like carrots, despite him not having eaten a carrot in months. Before he could recover, he was seized again and dragged through his own vomit – he could feel the warmth of the mixture on his bare skin – and then he felt a heavy hood drawn over his head, blocking out all sight and muting sound. He was dragged off the white smooth tiles and onto rough bare concrete which tore at the screen of his bare thighs.
Then nothing as he heard the sound of steel against steel and he lay shivering with cold on the bare concrete floor, but only for a few moments before he passed out.
..._...
When Jake awoke – he had no idea how long he had slept, he was back in his room/cell.
The hood was gone but his body ached all over from the beating. He forced himself to sit up. He was naked and his body was covered in bruises and welts. Blood was everywhere and so was the remains of vomit. Above all, he stank. Gingerly, he forced himself to stand and then staggered over to the corner of his room/cell where a door led into a bare but functional bathroom. After peeing, he turned on the shower and without waiting for the water to warm he stepped under the cold blast. The cold water was barely bearable, but it numbed the worst of his welts and began to wash off the blood and vomit. As the hot water arrived, and he washed off the vile vomit and bloody mess, he tried to remember events from the previous day. He could remember the beating, partially, and the dunking, and the steel on steel of a prison cell. It was primarily psychological he knew but it was working, and his mind was losing focus.
After the shower, he towelled himself dry – very gingerly – and dressed. He ripped the soiled sheet from his bed and dumped it on the floor. He noticed clean bedding was stacked on a chair beside his bed, so he remade his bed as he had been taught years before. About twenty minutes later, a guard arrived with his breakfast and then Jake was alone again. As he ate, he mused over what he could remember. The girl. It had been a girl. Not an adult. A teenager, like himself, he reasoned. What was she doing in a Russian FSB facility? Was she the enemy? Was she being coerced? Was... His mind... His focus...
They'd drugged him . . . again!
Bastards!
Some months later...
The same classified SVR facility
on the same Volga River, Russia
Friday, March 1st, 2018
The boy had been in his custody for a good six months, and away from his former life for almost eight.
Despite the drugs, and variations of drugs, the boy was not responding as he should. Yes, he was disorientated, and his mind played tricks upon him, but Drylov was worried the boy was putting on an act. Not entirely, that was obvious, but the boy had too many moments of lucidity where he still played the confused prisoner. One of his scientists had a theory that the boy had spent many years under a cocktail of mind-bending drugs during his Urban Predator training and that those drugs had built up some form on immunity to similar drugs. Without knowing what drugs, the boy had been given, it was impossible to identify alternative drugs. The doctor wanted progress, but he could not risk killing or fatally injuring his only patient.
However, that very morning, the doctor received a welcome distraction from his wayward patient.
..._...
The Colonel of FSB was smiling broadly as he entered the doctor's tenth floor office.
"It appears that the British have begun to sniff out the boy."
"What!" Doctor Drylov demanded.
"A girl and a woman were captured not five miles from here, just two hours ago."
"How could they know he was here?"
"We will have to find out, comrade doctor. They will be here within the hour."
Drylov grinned – he enjoyed interrogations and he had just the tools to use. He reached for his phone and pressed a button.
"Send me Yuri and Anastasiya."
"And they are?" the colonel asked.
"Охотники."
The colonel smirked.
That afternoon...
The boy, Yakov, was summoned from his room/cell.
His mind was in a precarious state, verging on the very edge of schizophrenia. Two people resided in his mind. Currently, the more powerful entity was Yakov, a Russian-centric mindset who did not challenge commands and obeyed without conscious thought. Six months of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and general fucking about with the boy's mind had caused the split, leaving the entity which was Jake buried deep but not deep enough for Yakov. His escort led him through various corridors, all of which the boy had memorised, and then down a corridor which he had not seen before. At a door, his escort pointed and left him.
Jake found himself at one end of a long corridor-like room. The right side of which was fitted with tinted glazing, angled out at about sixty degrees from the vertical to allow an unimpeded view of the room below. They were raised up about four feet from the floor level in the monitored space which screamed interrogation with a steel table screwed to the concrete floor and two steel chairs. The table was also fitted with a steel ring in the centre to which handcuffs could be fitted. The floor and walls were concrete which had been painted duck-egg blue maybe twenty years before with lots of patches worn through to the chipped concrete. Bright lights prevented anyone inside from seeing the windows, let alone who was watching from beyond. A single steel door led into the room and was currently swung open into the room.
Also in the observation booth, was Drylov, a colonel of FSB he did not recognise, the delightful Major Raisa Sokolova, also of the FSB, who scowled as the boy entered – despite many months of wholesome time together, they were still not hitting it off (she hated his guts), and a woman from the GRU who could rival Arnold Schwarzenegger for muscle (and testosterone) – rumours abounded that she had been on the former East German athletics team. But then came the main event as two soldiers of the GRU in fatigues entered the room below and took up positions on either side of the door. Yakov/Jake looked on expectantly as a woman was pushed into the room by two more GRU soldiers. There was something familiar about the woman, but neither could put a name to her. The woman was pushed into the steel chair with its back to the door and her handcuffs – steel and well worn - were secured to the steel ring by a second set of equally well-worn steel handcuffs.
The woman was not resisting but it was evident that she had been subdued by force. Blood was evident on her face and her long deep brown hair hung down around her shoulders and was a tangled mess. She wore a long-sleeved brown t-shirt which was spattered with blood and torn at the left shoulder and a pair of blue jeans which were caked with mud at the knees. She had obviously tried to fight off her captors at some point and Yakov frowned as he noticed the woman wore just torn, muddy socks and no shoes.
Yakov grinned as he recognised the same colonel of FSB who had originally interrogated him, Colonel Anatoli Tarasov, as he entered the room.
Some three weeks earlier...
Mid-February
MI6 Safehouse
Somewhere outside Oxford, England
The two weeks of training were intense.
From the very moment they had arrived after a long drive south, it had been all business. First had come a head-to-toe medical examination which Charlotte had passed with flying colours and a compliment from the nurse on her well-honed physique. Then had come fittings for the clothing and other effects required for the trip including photographs for their new passports, produced just for that operation. There had also been language classes where Charlotte's grasp of the Russian language and Cyrillic alphabet were tested to the point where Charlotte told her instructor exactly what she thought of him in grammatically accurate Russian without a hint of an accent like she had been speaking the language since birth.
"How long have you been speaking Russian?" the man had asked, somewhat stunned by her grasp of the complex language.
"I started when I was ten – so about three or four years ago."
"You grasped the language swiftly," the man responded, visibly impressed.
"A gun to your head tends to focus the mind," Charlotte had responded darkly without further elaboration.
Debbie had simply waved the man off – he was not cleared for what Charlotte had once been. Their training was never ending and the language at the safehouse switched to Russian with English banned. Nothing had been left out. Charlotte and Debbie had practiced hand-to-hand fighting. They had fired pistols and submachineguns. They had honed their new identities until the facts were second nature to them. They were tested day and night to catch them unawares, but neither was tripped up by the experts of MI6.
Then, finally, they were told to prepare. After a final meal of steak and chips, they went to bed for six hours before they were both awoken and escorted to breakfast – an interesting concoction of Russian dark bread, kasha – a kind of porridge, and coffee. They dressed in Russian clothing – they wore nothing which could betray their origins – with Russian footwear; lightweight boots for the both of them. Light makeup of Russian origin was applied personally and not to even a remotely professional standard. They then built up their legends.
Passports in the names of Mariya Mikhaylova and her daughter, Valeriya were inserted into the inside pockets of their jackets with tickets for a train from Helsinki to St Petersburg by the high-speed Allegro and then a flight from St Petersburg to Moscow on Aeroflot. Money – some Euros and a selection of Russian Rubles. The passports may have been forged but the Rubles were real. Charlotte – sorry, Valeriya – had wondered where a photo of her, taken when she was eleven, had been obtained for her three-year-old passport, but she knew better than to enquire. All their worldly possessions were stuffed haphazardly into small backpacks for the trip.
She was nervous and her hands trembled, but she was assured it would pass once they were aboard a special black Royal Air Force flight and on their way to Finland.
..._...
Helsinki, Finland
It was a first for Valeriya (Charlotte).
The Finnish capital city was beautiful, and she wished they had more time there, but after having been smuggled into the city from a small airfield forty miles to the north, they did not have long to make their train before it left the station. Valeriya loved trains had a genuine love of trains. As they boarded the Allegro and took their first-class seats in Carriage #1. Mariya (Debbie) was pleased to sit in the comfortable leather-faced seats. With Valeriya gazing out the window, Mariya studied their fellow passengers seeking out the FSB trackers. There three-and-a-half-hour journey would race north at some 220-KPH making for Lahti and then east to Kouvola and southeast to Vainikkala on the Finland-Russian border. During the trip through Finland, their passports were checked which was torture for Valeriya, but she played a typical teenager with her nose buried in a Russian magazine suited to her age group.
MI6 had selected a perfected legend (the term for a sophisticated cover identity painstakingly built up over many years) based around one Mariya Mikhaylova who had actually existed until a few days previously when she (and her daughter) had been extracted from Helsinki and a new Mariya Mikhaylova had taken her place. A well respected academic, Mariya belonged to a strong and patriotic family with money allowing for several foreign trips each year. Their perceived rank in society ensured that the average FSB officer would not interfere with their movements on pain of attracting unwanted attention from senior officers.
Once across the border, they were in Russia and heading southeast towards Vyborg and then onto their destination: St Petersburg where they would meet their contact.
..._...
The Russian city of St Petersburg resides on the Baltic and is home to over five million people.
Amongst that population, Valeriya and her 'mother' sought out their contact. One single person who would betray their country to allow them to complete their mission. Whilst Valeriya had her own focus, that was a secondary mission – an annoyance to the girl but being secondary was better than not featuring at all, she reasoned. The city was amazing, and the canals were a sight to behold. The two British agents made for the Summer Garden just s dig it was a mother and daughter day out. It was bitterly cold – around minus seven degrees Celsius and there was snow on the ground with flakes dropping around them at irregular intervals. For Valeriya it was a rude return to freezing temperatures which reminded her of him and how cold it had been when he had gone missing. But she knew that she could not dwell on the past and that she had to concentrate on the moment. Her eyes searched for FSB hunters or any other officials such as police who may get in the way of the proposed meet with their contact. Neither knew their contact by sight but the contact would be carrying a copy of the Russian newspaper held in a certain manner in a certain hand at a certain time of day.
They spent almost two hours walking around the Summer Garden which while a lovely place was freezing cold, and they were both starting to wonder if their contact would ever show. But then she was there, just twenty yards distant. Mariya checked her watch; yes, the newspaper was being held in just the right manner for the time of day. As they approached, the old women who had to have been in her nineties smiled at Valeriya and spoke directly to her.
"ак приятно видеть, как сегодняшняя молодежь наслаждается воздухом."
"Да, обычно она витает в облаках," Mariya replied casually.
"Не удивительно."
The coded exchange was over, and their contact had been confirmed. Then their contact turned to go.
"Наслаждайтесь вашим визитом," she said as she patted Valeriya on the shoulder.
Valeriya knew that something had occurred even as the old woman walked away but she had no idea what. Together, the pair continued to view the gardens before they left as the daylight began to wane. They made for their pre-booked accommodation for the night, a boutique hotel on Voznesensky Avenue. After a short taxi ride, they arrived and checked into their room where Valeriya was so pleased to be warm again as she sank to the floor beside a radiator which seeped heat throughout her body.
Mariya went about ordering a meal from room service for them both and once that arrived, they sat down to eat, ignoring the elephant in the room: whatever it was that their contact had secreted about Valeriya's person.
..._...
They left the shower running as cover for their movements, fairly confident that the room was wired for sound.
Mariya considered that so much water had to be wasted in Russia as the simple sound of running water was able to defeat even the most sophisticated bugging devices. Carefully, they inspected the jacket worn by Valeriya and they found a small device – a data chip. Quickly, Mariya dug into her backpack and pulled out a fairly standard looking paperback book – only there was nothing standard about it; it originated from Q Branch. Valeriya was very curious as Mariya opened the book at page forty-two. The page was covered in Cyrillic text much as the adjacent page forty-three was. But Mariya placed her hand palm down on page forty-two and after a second the page went blank.
"Прохладный!" Valeriya announced as she handed over the data chip.
Mariya placed the chip onto page forty-three and held it in place with one of her hair pins. Valeriya was wide eyed as text appeared on page forty-two much like a paperwhite Kindle. The text was Cyrillic and Valeriya translated the words in her mind as she read the text. After ten minutes of reading, her heart quite literally skipped a beat as she read the single word: 'Yakov'. It was Russian for 'Jake'. She forced herself to read on. Apparently, a boy had appeared at a secret FSB facility in central Russia sometime in July the previous year. Valeriya laughed out loud as she discovered that a nuclear-powered submarine had been put out of action and was laid up for repairs due to fire damage caused by the same boy. Valeriya began to speed read, looking for any indication of Jake's location. A lot of the document was general stuff about the Russian military and their aims for the Arctic and was a little disjointed but finally, after lots of stuff which would only be of concern to those back in London, she finally reached the parts which, she felt, concerned herself and Jake.
"Nizhny Novgorod," Valeriya breathed, her heart racing.
They had his location – almost.
Thursday, March 1st
Back to the classified SVR facility
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
The interrogation of the woman began in earnest.
"Имя!" {'Name!'}
The woman did not respond.
"ИМЯ!" Colonel Tarasov bellowed. {'NAME!')
The woman lifted her head and glared at Tarasov. "У вас есть мои документы.", said. {'You have my papers.'}
Tarasov was handed the woman's passport by a lieutenant who had accompanied the colonel into the room.
"Да, у нас есть паспорт с вашей фотографией, но с именем; это не твое, не так ли?" {'Yes, we have a passport here with your photo but the name; it is not yours, is it?'}
"Меня зовут Мария Михайлова . . . где моя дочь?" {'My name is Mariya Mikhaylova . . . where is my daughter?'}
The colonel chuckled.
"Твоя дочь. Валерия? Если она ваша дочь, то я Дональд Трамп!" {'Your daughter. Valeriya? If she is your daughter, then I am Donald Trump!'}
"Что! Она моя дочь. Я требую встречи с дочерью. Вы не имеете права..." {'What! She is my daughter. I demand to see my daughter. You have no right...'}
"Я считаю тебя врагом государства, которое дает мне все права," Tarasov stated as he stood up and walked around the table. {'I believe you to be an enemy of the state which gives me every right,'}
The colonel took everyone by surprise when he reached out with a gloved hand and slapped the woman across the face hard enough to leave a red welt and almost knock her from her chair.
"Я не играю с тобой в игры. Возможно, я не знаю, кто вы, но знаю, что вы не русский. Вы британский агент, посланный шпионить за Россией-матушкой. Что касается этой девчонки – она бесполезна; опора для вашей шпионской деятельности." {'I am not playing games with you. I may not know who you are, but I do know that you are not Russian. You are a British agent sent to spy on Mother Russia. As for that whelp of a girl – she is useless; a prop for your spying activities.'}
Colonel Tarasov, Yakov noticed, was simply building up steam as he worked through his own variation of the FSB interrogation manual.
"Это может пройти для тебя легко, Мария – давай использовать это имя – или может оказаться очень трудным и очень болезненным." {'This can go easy for you, Mariya – let's use that name shall we – or it can get very difficult and very painful.'}
The woman made no move to respond.
"Поднимите ее," Tarasov ordered his lieutenant. {'Stand her up'}
The lieutenant did as he was ordered and removed the handcuff securing the woman's cuffs to the steel ring fixed into the table and hauled the women from her chair. Tarasov then grasped the woman around the neck and slammed her against the concrete wall. Yakov could see defiance in the woman's eyes but also fear, but not as much fear as he would expect of a Russian citizen facing interrogation by the FSB. Tarasov held the woman's passport up beside her bloodied face comparing the features to the photo.
"Паспорт — очень хорошая подделка. Не от какого-то закулисного фальсификатора. Нет. Это работа национального государства. Но какое национальное государство? Великобритания? Америка? Франция?" {'The passport is a very good forgery. Not from some back-alley forger. No. This is the work of a nation state. But which nation state? Great Britain? America? France?'}
Yakov (and Tarasov) had studied the woman's face for a flicker as each country was mentioned, but she was good, very good.
"Что ты можешь сказать о себе, женщина?" {'What have you got to say for yourself, woman?'}
The woman lifted her head and she glared at Tarasov.
"Я Мария Михайлова, и вы пожалеете о том, что здесь сделали. У меня есть друзья в Москве, и они увидят, что вы и ваша семья пострадаете за это безобразие." {'I am Mariya Mikhaylova, and you will be sorry for what you have done here. I have friends in Moscow, and they will see that you and your family suffer for this outrage.'}
Colonel Tarasov paused for a moment before he threw the passport onto the table and then turned back to Mariya. His right fist drove hard into her left side, putting the woman down to her knees, gasping in agony.
"Лишить ее!" he ordered the two soldiers standing at the door. {'Strip her!'}
A few quick slashes of their combat knives and the woman lay on the cold concrete floor completely naked. The room was cold and at a command from Tarasov the woman began to shiver as she was lifted to her feet and dumped back into her chair which had been moved against the wall at the opposite end to the door. Her handcuffed wrists were pulled above her head and secured to a ring bolt with a second set of handcuffs, leaving her exposed and in a very uncomfortable position, her toes barely touching the cold concrete floor.
"Сейчас!" Colonel Tarasov said as he looked up at the viewing gallery. "Я думаю, у нас здесь британский агент, который ищет этого парня." Yakov scowled as he realised Tarasov was referring to his former self: Jake. "Я не ожидал, что она скоро сломает это, но она сломается . . . в конце концов. Давайте перейдем к дочери, ладно? У меня такое ощущение, что у нас не обычная девушка. Пригласите охотников." {'Now!' 'I believe we have a British agent here, searching for the brat.' 'I did not expect her to break this soon, but she will break . . . eventually. Let's move onto the daughter, shall we? I have a feeling we have no ordinary girl. Bring in the Hunters.'}
Yakov scowled again at the mention of those abortions, but he watched as the door to the room opened and three people entered – actually, two people dragged a third into the room. If Yakov was startled at seeing Jake's girlfriend in a secret Russian FSB facility, he did not reveal it. Yakov wanted to but Jake had enough control to prevent it. It was a constant battle of the minds: Yakov vs Jake for control. Jake was strong, despite the mind-bending drugs and other measures. As for the two teenagers dragging Valeriya/Charlotte into the room, Yakov knew Yuri and Anastasiya; very well in fact – they were Охотники – Hunters. They and an unknown number of similar teenagers were Drylov's wet dream – his creations – much as Jake was the creation of Dr Albert Hirsch as a Predator. Valeriya/Charlotte was stumbling and needed help to reach the table and the other chair where she was dumped into place and her handcuffs secured to the steel ring. Then she slumped onto the table, only partially conscious. Colonel Tarasov glared at the two Hunters who stood at ridged attention under his gaze.
"Она отказывалась сотрудничать," the female Hunter responded. {'She was being uncooperative.'}
"Вода!" the colonel directed. {'Water!'}
Valeriya/Charlotte screamed as she was doused with ice cold water from a metal bucket held by one of the two soldiers.