Undersea Prison

‘What else are friends for?’ Sir Bartholomew said, his smile back on his face.

Ogden’s suspicions increased.

‘Shall I continue?’ Sir Bartholomew asked, unsure if he might have gone too far too soon. Personally, he would have preferred more time to prepare the field before setting out his troops. But London had insisted that he should make his way to the proposal as soon as possible. That meant by the end of this meeting.

‘I’ve got a few more minutes.’

‘You’d like to shut down Styx but you might run into some obstacles. If you try and point accusatory fingers the resultant inevitable mud-slinging could leave you as dirty as anyone else.’

Ogden stared at Sir Bartholomew, remaining poker-faced, waiting for him to get to his point.

‘What if we could provide you with a good enough reason to shut the place down?’ Sir Bartholomew asked.

The VP’s expression did not change. As he saw it, he had two options at that stage. The first was to end the meeting politely there and then. The other was to acknowledge the existence of the problems and hear out the offer.The Brits didn’t usually go to these lengths without being sure of their position and the ambassador did appear confident that he had something of value to offer. It would be timely to present the President with a solution, if the Brits indeed had one. Then there was, of course, the reason why the Brits were doing it - the pay-off. All things considered, though, Ogden didn’t see a reason not to continue. Barty had not been far off the mark and the administration was prepared to pay a good price to see the back of this particular problem. ‘I’m listening,’ he said.

Sir Bartholomew smiled to himself. He was over the first hurdle. It would seem that the transcript he had received from London that morning was accurate.‘Time is a factor, of course,’ Sir Bartholomew added.

‘I’m interested to hear what you could do that we couldn’t,’ Ogden said.

‘If we were to be of reasonable help in this matter, could we expect our three British subjects to be released into our custody?’ The ambassador had to ask for a payment of some kind. Any demand could not be too greedy to risk scaring the VP off. But it had to be weighty enough to divert any suspicions.

Ogden knew Sir Bartholomew to be a shrewd old fox: after all, the Brit had been in the business twice as many years as himself. And the old boy was right about one thing. Time was indeed running out. ‘Let’s hear what you have to say first.’

‘The PM would also like to make the opening address at the summit meeting next week.’

Ogden sat back with a smile. ‘This had better be good,’ he said. Ogden knew the President could not care less who opened the summit. Who spoke first was more important to the Brits than it was to the Americans and was probably just part of a strategy aimed at one of the other summit members.The three Brit prisoners were not such an easy issue. But, even so, Barty’s price was paltry compared to the administration’s gains if there was any substance to this offer. Ogden remained suspicious, though.

Sir Bartholomew was about to speak when a gentle knock on the door stopped him. The door opened just enough for the aide to stick his head through. ‘Your meeting, sir.’

Ogden nodded to the aide who closed the door. His look conveyed to Sir Bartholomew that time was tight but he had the chair.

‘We propose an escape,’ Sir Bartholomew said.

‘What?’

‘An escape. Prove the prison is flawed and the President can immediately order a temporary closure to review security - which will, of course, become a permanent closure. Rather like Alcatraz.’

Ogden frowned.‘First of all that place is escape-proof. I’ve been through all the scenarios and, trust me, it doesn’t get any tighter than Styx. Therefore you would need help from the inside. We won’t get any cooperation from the Agency and we sure as hell can’t ask the Felix Corporation to leave a door open.’

‘Of course not. We understand that entirely.’

‘So how the hell are you going to do it?’

‘We’ll manage.’

‘You guys’ll manage?’ Ogden asked, unable to mask his cynicism.

‘Hear me out. First, let me stress that if anything should go wrong at any stage of this operation you’ll be protected from having any connection with it. I think that’s a most important point to bear in mind. Let me give you the opening scenario . . . The White House will commission a private British company to carry out a survey of the prison’s security.We will need a little help with aspects of the initial set-up phase but it’s very insignificant and in any case it would be an expected detail in setting up the evaluation. Then we get a man inside - and he escapes. If it looks like the game is up at any stage we say it’s just a part of the private security appraisal.’

‘You’re kinda missing one glaring point here, Barty. Styx actually is impossible to escape from. I’ve been down there. It makes Alcatraz look like a paper bag.’

‘We don’t think Styx is impossible to escape from.’

‘Houdini’s dead, Barty, and “Beam me up, Scotty” - you know, Star Trek - is fiction.’

Sir Bartholomew’s smile was like that of a father to a naive son. The truth was that he had no idea what the operation entailed and, like Ogden, believed the prison to be as he described. But he was ostensibly a salesman and on a good day he could sell ice to an Eskimo. ‘This private company will be getting a little bit of help, of course.’

‘You mean your SIS will do the job.’

‘One of those organisations, I suppose.’

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘I’m well known for laughing at my own jokes,’ the ambassador said, no sign of a smile on his face now.

‘So how are you going to do it?’

‘The plans have not been finalised but I’m told the operations department is very pleased with what they’ve come up with.’

‘I sure would like to see those plans . . . Look, I’ll be honest, Barty. I can maybe buy someone getting in. I never saw a study on that because, well, who would want to? But getting out? No. Not without help.’

‘Of course you can see the plans.’

‘I would have to approve every phase.’

Sir Bartholomew sighed. ‘Planning by committee is a recipe for disaster.’

‘That’s non-negotiable, Barty.’

‘OK, but let these chaps get on with it. They are rather good at it, you know . . . And bear in mind that any interference by your chaps is tantamount to culpability. It would only compromise the authenticity of the independent survey.’

A frown wrinkled Ogden’s forehead as he searched for pitfalls. ‘How long before the plans are ready?’

‘I’m told the latter phases are complete. The initial phase requires some input from your chaps.’

Ogden got out of his chair and went to the window. ‘As I said, should anything go wrong at any stage . . .’ said Sir Bartholomew.

‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll be covered . . . You guys just love your secret-service missions, don’t you?’

‘And you don’t, I suppose?’

‘You really think you can get a man inside that place and then out without assistance from the prison?’

‘Me? No.’

Ogden looked back at Sir Bartholomew quizzically.

‘I’m with you,’ the ambassador said.‘I think it’s impossible. But someone clearly thinks it isn’t. Point is, you have nothing to lose by letting them have a go and quite a lot to gain if they should succeed - don’t you think?’

Ogden looked back out of the window. ‘Assuming the plan has some merit, which I doubt, how soon could this “independent survey” be ready to kick off?’

‘I’m told within a week - depending on your contribution. ’

‘Do you at least have something for me to look at?’

Sir Bartholomew got to his feet,walked over to Ogden’s’s desk, took an envelope from his inside breast pocket, opened it and removed several mugshots of a man. ‘They want you to find someone in your criminal system who looks like this man. Any level of criminal will do, even a parolee. You have an estimated one point two million white males at various stages of the judicial process in this country. I’m sure you can find someone who resembles