Sexpionage: The Extraction
Rin Soto
Copyright 2010 by Rin Soto
Smashwords Edition
The courier made it almost a kilometer from the Geser Sum Monastery before the net came down on him, literally. A policeman standing on the roof of a single story dental office pointed a rifle at him with a bore like a coffee can and the net flew at him stretched wide, too wide to be avoided. He ran headlong into it and the weighted edges whipped around to embrace him, instantly tangling his legs and sending him to the pavement. He hit hard, tried to roll onto his back and the police were upon him, dragging their prize off the curb and into the street before heaving him bodily into the back of a New Party supply truck. Four cops climbed up to join him, one sitting on his legs to deter any thoughts of wriggling from the net. He heard a man shout something in Mongolian and the engine belched, gravel shooting from beneath the rain slicked tires. The courier was still trying to catch his breath, his heart pounding from exertion and fear. His view was of wet, worn wooden floorboards, and the boots of the police that were guarding him. It smelled like petrol and damp earth and he wondered if he would be driven out of Ulan Bator where some shallow hole in the ground awaited him. There was no talk, just the rumbling ride off of the side street where he was captured and onto a newer road where they picked up speed.
There was no way for him to know how he’d been detected. His entry cover had been flawless, the Monastery a perfect location for the information transfer. The local team was known for their skill and it would be hard to finder a sleepier part of the New Soviet Socialist Republic than Ulan Bator, and yet it had all fallen apart the moment he’d stepped out into the rain. There was still a chance that the NP had no idea what kind of information he carried, or how he bore it, and that helped him keep his fear in check. He’d been well-trained and understood that panic could destroy his mission just as thoroughly as capture and interrogation.
The truck was slowing, stopping, and they had not nearly left the city. The tailgate was unlocked and lowered and the police took hold of their netted bundle, passing him down to more cops waiting outside. They managed to stand him up so they could unwind the netting, giving the courier an opportunity to look around. He recognized the Naran department store and knew he was on Seoul Street. Looking south he saw the Tuul River Reactor complex, massive and half-buried in the ground, pouring steam heat into the homes and businesses of Ulan Bator. There were pedestrians passing by but they knew better than to watch the NP police too closely. They soon had most of the netting off and he was able to turn and see his destination: New Party headquarters. The five story building had probably been appealing fifty years ago, but now the concrete was stained by smoke from the factories on the east side of the city, and the glass was coated in varicolored petroleum grime. There were cleaner areas in the shape of letters that had once graced the front: SMART BLDG. With a policeman holding onto each arm they marched him up the front steps.
He did not start to become truly afraid until the Commissar entered the cell. The courier had been shackled to the wall and left alone for at least fifteen minutes, and as he observed the scuffmarks on the linoleum floor he wondered what kind of struggle had left them there. The overhead lighting was merciless strips of LEDs that seemed to throb with the distant sound of a diesel generator. He considered that this might be the last place he would ever see and then the bolt was pulled back on the metal door and the Commissar entered. He was tall, strong, but gone to fat, his neck bulging over the collar of his NP uniform, the belt straining to hold up his gut. His head was shaved clean but he sported a short graying beard and a scowl that looked like it had been etched in. He walked with a purpose and approached the courier with enough speed that he thought he was going to be attacked.
The man stopped short, waiting for another person to follow him in, a very old man in a lab coat that had probably been white at some point in the distant past. The man was pushing a small steel cart laden with electronics, a battery pack occupying the bottom shelf.
They were going to torture him.
He broke out into an instant sweat, like the fluid was attempting to flee from every pore on his body. He began to breathe hard, feel his muscles tense. They hadn’t even touched him yet. The old man selected a large hand scanner from the cart and stepped forward to examine the prisoner.
“I want to talk to my embassy,” the courier said.
“SHUT UP!” the Commissar bellowed, spit flying from his mouth and the explosion of hostility garnered instant compliance. The Commissar was watching the scanner’s screen though he did not understand the images and symbols that scrolled across it.
“Where is it?” he asked in Mongolian. “In the blood? The bones?”
“Please, comrade Commissar. A moment to finish my survey.”
The Commissar turned his attention to the courier. He spoke in serviceable Western.
“We are about to find out where your information is hidden. And then we will take it from you. I don’t care what we have to cut off to get at it. It will be ours and you will have failed. You will remain on this wall until the life is done pouring out of you and then you will be sent to a hog farm where you will serve the New Party of Mongolia by helping to feed her people.”
“Comrade Commissar! Please!” the scientist pleaded, “you must not threaten him!”
“Emchi are you trying to order me? Do you wish to join him on the wall?”