A month later he received what at first appeared to be a severance package that would keep him comfortable for a year or so. But the messenger’s parting comment suggested that Mandrick had not necessarily been dumped and was being held in reserve. It was a vague communication but enough to ease the feeling of rejection. Mandrick waited for the call that he hoped would come soon.
A year passed without a word and then one day, as if the serious inroads into his severance package had been monitored, he received a formal letter on headed notepaper from a company called the Felix Corporation. It invited him to attend a meeting at their headquarters in Houston. The way the message was worded, in a minimalist and coldly cordial manner, Mandrick assumed it was an NOC task. Without hesitation he packed an overnight bag and headed for the airport.
Mandrick expected to meet yet another party of anonymous faces in a sterile, nameless office that had been rented especially for the occasion. He was surprised to discover that the Felix Corporation was in fact a genuine company, and an affluent one at that. After being taken to a five-star hotel to freshen up he was escorted to the executive offices of the CEO where, among other senior members of the corporation, he was introduced to Congressman Forbes. The meeting began with lunch and the rest of the day was taken up with detailed briefings that included models and computer-generated images of a proposed undersea prison. The mine was not discussed in any great detail and was presented more as a remedial employment scheme providing, with luck, a nominal contribution to the running costs of the facility.
Throughout the day Mandrick wondered why he was there and figured that there would be a twist of some sort at any moment. At no time was he asked about his background or if indeed he had any level of experience in maritime technology or correction-facility management. Finally, back in the CEO’s office, in a meeting where Congressman Forbes appeared to be the most influential force, Mandrick was asked if he would consider a position as assistant warden of Styx once it was built. Forbes outlined the basic remuneration package that included a house in Houston, a car, a generous expenses allowance and some handsome incentive bonuses.
Confused as he was, Mandrick was nonetheless nobody’s fool. The whole business had the sniff of the Agency about it. How else had Felix Corp known so much about him - enough not to ask him any questions about his past life and achievements and yet to have such confidence in him? He had been recommended for the post by a covert authority highly placed enough for none of these men to question it and it was therefore wise to assume this influence implied a partnership of some kind. On the other hand, it was a legitimate appointment that he was being offered - or it appeared to be, at any rate.
A couple of weeks before the first batch of Afghan insurgents arrived the warden was suddenly relieved of his position. He was a highly experienced prison officer who had done an exceptional job in getting the facility up and running. Mandrick was handed the job as if that had been the plan all along. His role as assistant warden had been purely so that he could learn the ropes and take over as soon as the CIA’s interests became a reality. Styx was not only a top-security prison far from prying and curious eyes. It was a CIA interrogation centre. And Mandrick was its guardian.
The most problematic feature of the prison was the apparently innocuous mine. It caused Mandrick more concern than the interrogation cells themselves. The prison itself was a going concern although its profits were not very big. But the mainstream revenue came from the US government and could therefore be accounted for. The mining department, however, had apparently ‘discovered’ a tidy vein of precious minerals and was turning over a considerable amount of money. The problem was that it was mostly undeclared revenue. This was the
Before the rather desperate phone call from Congressman Forbes, in the great scheme of things it had all seemed justified. Mandrick had no problems sleeping at night. But the project had suddenly become considerably more sinister and dangerous. He was being asked to kill an FBI agent.Warning bells were sounding in his head.
Mandrick was in his own office seated behind his desk, a high-tech steel construction with a glass surface. A window made of thick, toughened glass behind him offered a view of bright lights attempting to illuminate a grey darkness. A little shrimp-like creature scurried across the glass as a large fish cruised past in the background. The spacious dome-like room was supported by steel girders set at intervals against the walls, arching to a central point in the ceiling. Rows of cabinets were sunk into the rock walls between the girders on one side of the room and across from Mandrick’s desk a bank of flat-screen monitors displayed multiple views of the prison. Some of the monitors showed split-screen vistas while others flipped viewpoints between different cameras at intervals.
Mandrick climbed out of his leather chair and walked over to a complex communications console as he pondered the congressman’s unusual and disturbing request. But even as he considered what course to take he was reaching for the internal phone system to start doing his masters’ bidding. To ignore them would be to turn his back on his own future - perhaps worse. If the powers that be were prepared to kill an FBI agent to protect their interests then Mandrick himself was of little consequence. But it was not fear that kept Mandrick in line. He was made of more complex and sterner stuff. Since his earliest days he had enjoyed being a part of a team and, even though the Agency was a cold and distant master, he did feel like a small yet important cog in a big and powerful machine - and a winning one at that. He did not know precisely why the FBI agent had to be stopped but he was expected to carry out the order without question. It was the first real opportunity he’d had recently to self-examine his moral fibre. Now that he found it was indeed corrupt, what he’d initially believed to be a spasm of guilt when he’d received the order turned out to be merely a pause for thought before he obeyed.
Mandrick picked up a phone, punched in a series of numbers and held the receiver to his ear. ‘Get me the manifest for the next in-transfer,’ he said, his accent a cross between New York and somewhere else that few could guess at. ‘Who’s the transport officer for that serial? . . . Anderson? . . . I want Gann on it . . . Yeah, and send him to my office . . . Yeah, right away.’
Mandrick replaced the phone, pushed his fingers through his short tan hair and walked over to a detailed model of the prison facility.
A buzzer sounded and Mandrick glanced at one of the monitors showing two angled images of a large man wearing a lime-green tailored uniform and standing outside a door. The man looked up into one of the camera lenses, his expression blank, his eyes cold.
Mandrick took a hand-held remote from his pocket and pushed one of several coloured buttons on it. The sound of escaping gas lasted a couple of seconds as a thick rubber seal around a steel oval-shaped door shrank and, after a heavy clunking sound, the door moved back into the room like a filing cabinet drawer before pivoting open.
Gann walked into the room, a big heavy-boned man of distant Scandinavian origins. He was almost a head taller than Mandrick and remained standing by the opening like a barely obedient hound, staring at his master with an arrogant indifference that those who did not know him might have mistaken for insolence.
Mandrick pushed a button on his remote and the door closed with another clunk and a further escape of air as the seal puffed back up to fill the space around it. ‘You’ll be picking up the next in-transfer,’ Mandrick said without a trace of drama.
Gann waited for an explanation. He was not particularly interested but was curious nevertheless about why the schedule was being changed.
‘Didn’t we have a problem with one of the ferries a couple weeks ago?’ Mandrick asked, suddenly remembering.
‘Number four,’ Gann said.
‘What was the problem?’
‘The number-three relief valve in the main cabin. The seal needs changing. It leaks.’ Gann’s accent was soft: many thought he was from Chicago or Philly but no one knew for sure.
‘Why hasn’t it been changed?’
‘It has a scheduled service next week. I guess they’re waiting till then.’
Mandrick looked at Gann, gauging him as he often did. The man was a gift from Felix Corp, a special assistant. A thug, in other words. He hadn’t gone through the normal vetting procedures and his personnel file was clearly a fairy tale. Gann was supposedly a former US Marine sergeant, an ideal pedigree for the prison service in which he had to look after the most desperate individuals in the world. Mandrick knew soldiers and Gann did not
