“Do we get to watch Irina convert her to dykehood and then have a go ourselves?” They were trying to scare her, Svetlana reasoned, would the English do that, surely they would just bust her door in and show a warrant later? There were unwritten rules in the spy game, ‘You don’t hurt ours and we won’t hurt yours’. A very cultured English voice answered the Irishman,
“Alas time is too short Eamon, and besides which the lovely lady already enjoys both genders with equal relish, do you not, Miss Carlisle”. The voice then spoke to the woman who was still out of Svetlana’s view.
“Leave her alone Irina, we have work to do. If she survives you can have her then, if of course you still want her of course, which is not likely”. Svetlana felt the woman rise and move away as the sound of heavy containers being moved closer filled the building. Her nerve was going and she spoke loudly, as much to steady herself as to ask the question.
“What is it you want, I don’t know you, just tell me?” A green garden hose was lowered into her porcelain prison, coming to rest at the bottom about two feet beyond and perhaps six inches lower than the level of her head. The English voice addressed her,
“You are Svetlana Vorsoff, born in Bryausk, August 21, 1986. Your Mother, Katyana, died in an auto accident a year later. Your Father was a shift supervisor in Bryausk steel works until badly burned in an accident. You entered Moscow State University for Economics. Your tutor, Doctor Ebinov, states you studied hard under him in both the classroom and in his bed. Your Father drank himself to death in your second year at University. You have no other kin. Elena Torneski recruited you initially as a Sparrow but you did not take to the work, or so she reported. Was this because of sexual jealousy on her part Svetlana?” She felt herself begin to colour. The British could not know this, but if it were her own people then why was this being done to her, was it a test she again thought?
The voice continued.
“Who do you think we are Svetlana, Irina and I. Hmm?” he paused “Who do you think these other gentlemen are, although I doubt even their own Mothers would call them ‘Gentlemen’?”
Svetlana decided that if they were British she was blown already. If she were under test she would let nothing bring doubt about her ability. She did not need to put on an act for the fear that was evident in her voice when she shouted back at him
“I don’t know who or what you are talking about, are you crazy, are you all mad?” She jumped as a something struck the surface with a metallic ring and clanged to a halt at the bottom beside the open end of the hose. It was she saw, a rusted metal bolt, about 1” thick and 6” long. A clear liquid began to dribble from the hose. Like a living thing it sought out tiny depressions in the surface as it snaked forward. Did they intend on drowning her? As it touched the rusted surface of the bolt she caught the smell of acrid fumes. Realisation hit her even as the cultured voice began to explain
“Once upon a time they reconditioned engines here, dipped them in acid in this very vat in fact” His calm, matter of fact voice added to the rising terror that was threatening to take total control of her. Her limbs started to shake uncontrollably as the flow of acid increased. She screamed aloud as her arms were seized and she felt a sharp pain in first one hand and then the other. The hands released her and withdrew. Her hands, then wrists grew numb until she could no longer feel them, the numbness slowly climbed her outstretched arms.
“We shouldn’t want you to pass out with shock, we have too many questions to be answered yet. Of course it does mean you will have to witness yourself dissolve away. I imagine it will be quite, quite bizarre to witness your own fingers blacken and burn, then the flesh fall away, to watch it happen as you are slowly burnt away, inch by inch?”
Svetlana screamed aloud and her bladder released. She was sobbing.
“What do you want… please?” She heard him step down beside her and her body jerked as his hand stroked her hair
“We are inquisitors, Irina and I. We had a phone call that these other Gentlemen had expected to collect a car. A car and a suitcase that you were supposed to deliver, where are they Svetlana, and who is the black boy who helped you take them, is he your lover Svetlana, your bit of rough sport, hmm?”.
Tears flowed down her cheeks as she shook her head.
“You are wrong, I delivered the car, exactly as instructed, I don’t know any black boy”. The hand stopped its caress “You are not so stupid as to believe there was no surveillance on the car, no CCTV, or are you that stupid?” he paused for a moment. ”Can it be you graduated the University and the school merely on your ability to fuck your tutors”. The crude term sounded out of place in the public school diction of this man, he leant closer, whispering in her ear.
“There is no one to help you, no little black knight riding to the rescue “. He paused to survey her.
“Ah, the delicious possibilities my dear, we could seal all your entrances and dip you twice, once in this acid and then into water. When we find the little black knight we can reunite you… I don’t think he will want you though, after all, you will be as black as he is by then” he leant closer again. “Yesli vi he kotitye oseet masky, uzhasov meste litsa ne dveegaytyes i otuedhayte pravilno, maya malenkaya lastochka”. Unless you wish to wear a horror mask for a face, be still and answer truthfully little sparrow.
Since the urgent contact from the Irish militant group, who were somewhat miffed at finding an empty bay in the car park, Major Constantine Bedonavich, deputy military attaché at the embassy of the Russian Federation to the Court of St James, had been busy. He was not party to the greater scheme of things, he followed instructions without questioning their origins. This matter was one of delivering to the Irish contact a car and suitcase, just one of varied tasks he was expected to oversee.
Routine security reviews of Svetlana’s integrity were gone over twice. Taped conversations re-examined and CCTV footage from the private car park scrutinised. He was concerned that one of his assets was under question; he was very concerned that Peridenko’s people were interrogating that asset.
Whatever operation had been compromised had to have been an important one but there was nothing to indicate Svetlana was guilty of any collusion. Clearly, an opportunist thief had taken the car.
He had another asset in the British National Crime Intelligence Service, NCIS, working to identify the thief. Another, a specialist in surreptitious hacking was endeavouring to utilise the cars built in ‘Tracker’ anti-theft system without alerting the authorities. Constantine’s job description involved skulduggery but he thought himself a decent man. The pair who had turned up with Moscow Centrals authority had not waited for the initial investigation findings, they had immediately taken it upon themselves that the girl was guilty and the truth would be extracted. He had received information about the pair that caused him to shudder in distaste. Glancing once more at the results before him he opened a safe in the floor, extracting a 9mm Glock pistol.
Locking his office he hurried for his car. Time was no doubt short, if in fact it had not already run out for the girl.
He would of course need to first clear himself of any British or American surveillance.