‘Approximately ten billion human beings die in an event which is attributed to your son . . .’
‘I know this. I told you this. I came and got you for this very reason.’ He spits the words out bitterly, with the anger surging back up.
Miri has known people survive years of this treatment and never lose a shred of pride. She has served with people who have done it. She has worked on others held captive too, but Roland is a record. She hasn’t known anyone break this quickly. He’s not even been tortured or deprived of food or sleep.
He has no choice. He knows that, and so he starts from the beginning properly. Recounting the same story she has now heard so many times she could repeat it in her sleep.
The first few debriefs saw a Roland entirely focussed on the risk to humanity and how everything had to be done to save the world. How important it was to extract Safa, Ben and Harry. How hard it was to get the bunker built and ready.
He was honest too, and said he’d bitten off more than he could deal with, and in the end he was spending less and less time in the bunker. It was frustrating for him that Ben got sick, and he felt very intimidated by Safa.
At first, he tried making out it was so he could be with his family, but then admitted he was getting hooked on stock markets again. The same way he did when he lost everything before he tried killing himself. This time, however, he was dealing in stocks and shares with the benefit of a time machine. But instead of making vast sums, he became addicted to trying to make money without influencing the timeline.
What becomes clear is that Roland loves his family, but he also loves money, wealth, power and himself either equally, or in some cases, more. He is a greedy coward, but not evil. He tried to do the right thing, and given the circumstances he actually did very well. He lies easily, but not convincingly.
What also becomes clear is that the man is actually very resourceful when he puts his mind to something. He was a government minister once, and admits he was tempted to pass the device to the British government.
In short, Roland is a typical aristocratic man of wealth.
Through her own investigations, Miri ruled out that Roland leaked the device or played any overt part in the British Secret Service finding them in Berlin. It was simple ineptitude.
‘We’re done,’ Miri says. She checks her watch and makes a note of the time, then stands up swiftly. Roland blinks in surprise. Trapped in a loop of monologue about his life and feelings, but his eyes come alive with the glint of hope.
‘Please,’ he whispers, rising unsteadily to his feet with a show of complete submissiveness. ‘Please . . .’
‘Is there anything you have not told me?’ she asks.
His heart thrills at the new question. Something is different. He edges closer to the bars of the door held secure by the thick chain and padlock. ‘Nothing . . . I swear it, Miri. I swear on my children’s lives.’
She pauses, listening, waiting with her head cocked over. She can feel she is being watched. She knows she is being watched.
‘What is it?’ Roland asks, panic in his eyes at seeing her reaction.
‘Okay?’ she calls out. Roland blinks. Confused. The sound of a shoe scraping on the rough floor floats over clear and distinct. Miri nods and looks back at Roland. ‘We’re done here.’
‘Really?’ he asks, his voice quavering with emotion, which drops off as she comes forward while lifting the pistol. ‘No . . . No, please . . . MIRI . . .’
Shots fired from a small pistol held one-handed that send the rounds through the gaps in the bars that embed in his body. A double-tap to his centre of mass that drives him back. A step forward, an adjustment of aim to place the last shot through his head. Killing him outright.
Roland is not evil, but this is Miri’s show now. This is her game and the last thing she wants is someone connected, wealthy and influential looking over her shoulder.
Besides, a question is now answered. A mystery solved. She allows a second of reflection while thinking about fate and destinies. Histories and lives linked in an ever-revolving chain of existences.
She was here before. In this same place. She stood in this same spot in the mid-1990s as part of a UN investigation team ensuring treaty compliance of the Soviet cessation in production of chemical agents. They were all confused back then, and she’s thought about it ever since. The Russians suppressed it. It was never leaked or mentioned.
Miri takes the bag left in the next cell along then returns to unlock the door to Roland’s room. She checks the body first. Ensuring he is dead. She opens the bag and takes out the incendiary charge that she places next to the corpse. Every movement seems prophetic and loaded with meaning. There is enough charge to destroy everything in this cell, but not enough to damage the structure of a building constructed to withstand a direct missile strike.
With the timer set, she walks off. The damage will be enough to destroy any evidence. She knows that for a fact.
Miri reaches the portal on the ninth floor and pauses for a few seconds until she hears the dull whump of the explosion and stands to think for a second.
They all wondered, back when they visited this site, how a man died in a fireball in a cell ten floors below ground level in a bunker welded shut from the outside that had not been accessed for over a decade.
Now she knows.
She killed him and made it happen.
Twenty-Seven
Ben waits in the portal room. Pensive and quiet. A large black holdall at his feet. He knows what she is doing. They all do. Emily told them what she saw when she came back with Miri that night. He never liked Roland, but still, the thought of the man being executed in such a way is abhorrent. Only Miri and Emily have seen the underground complex Roland is held in, but Emily’s description was enough for them to know that Miri’s treatment of him is uncomfortably close to torture.
He questioned it, of course. Quietly, when he and Miri were alone. She just looked at him and told him to let her work. He declined to accept that answer. She declined to explain. They argued. In the end, she gave enough of an explanation to satisfy him. Again, he knew he was being manipulated, but at least it was overt and obvious, and although the end is justified by the means, it still leaves a bitter aftertaste.
She comes through, nods once, then focusses on the tablet to change the setting.
‘You killed him?’
‘Yes.’
Roland is too great a risk. His ego is too vast. His vanity and addiction to wealth and power would constantly place them in danger. That’s what Miri had said. Roland’s own actions almost cost the life of his son and daughter and the loss of the device. This is the level we are working at, Mr Ryder, and not all our decisions will be easy ones.
She looks up from the tablet to Ben, thoughtful for a second. ‘We know where he is, Mr Ryder. If we need him, we can go back and get him. Bag?’
‘Here,’ Ben says, handing it over with a heavy sigh. ‘Want me to come?’