CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
A PLAN MISFIRES
The next morning, after a cold night, the sun shone fiercely as it had done each day of our stay in Russia. We had breakfast in the dining room, the sun pouring in at the windows. We sat and waited for a call from Ivan, but no call came. Ivan and his two guests were locked in discussion in the interview room and Svetlana didn’t know how long the meeting would go on. I began to get frustrated at the lack of action and I said so to Sonia.
‘Sonia, I’m getting impatient. By now, if the blood stains in the car, you know, from my cut wrists, if they have been identified as mine, my parents will be frantic with worry, thinking the worst has happened. We are sitting here as prisoners in the middle of Russia, God knows where, with no hope of escape and no idea how long they will keep us locked up here. We have to do something.’
‘Bill, relax. What are you going to do, pinch the jet and fly off into the sunset?’
‘If only I could fly a plane Sonia!’
‘Well, be realistic, you can’t. They can’t keep us here forever.’
‘Still, I wish I could get a message home,’ I said, pulling on my left ear.
‘And how are you going to do that?’
‘I don’t know. But wait! If only I could get on the computer, I could send an e-mail to Ben and Tim.’
‘The keyboard will be in Russian,’ said Sonia.
‘I expect so, but if only I could change the language to English.’
‘Do you think they will be on e-mail, Bill? They are a secret service after all.’
‘I know but they will have some kind of security system and they probably write coded messages.’
‘It’s risky Bill. Suppose you were caught? It might ruin everything.’
‘Why? Ivan knows he can’t do much without me. He has no idea how to contact my Martian friends and I never told him about the bubble. He still isn’t sure exactly how I went to Mars.’
‘Yes, that’s very odd, isn’t it? She paused for a few moments. ‘But those scientists will want to know and they are switched on enough not to be fobbed off with vague stories. They are going to want to know everything. And if you try to lie, they will know. Don’t forget the other methods Ivan threatened you with.’
‘I had forgotten about that,’ I admitted.
‘Anytime now Ivan could call us into the interview room and the questions would start to come your way.’
‘Sonia, I have to get a message out. I will have to take the risk.’
‘Do you know where the computer is?’
‘No but it must be in one of the offices near the interview room. Your room is on the other side, Sonia. How many doors do you pass on your way to your room?’
‘Let’s see, I think only three, and one is a bathroom. That leaves two.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘I have a plan. Tell Svetlana you want to go to your room. On the way, ask her casually what is in those rooms. Then we meet back here and decide on the next phase of the plan.’
She then turned to Svetlana, who was sitting at the far end of the dining room, talking to one of the kitchen staff. Svetlana came over and Sonia told her she needed to get something from her room. They went out and left me sitting there, going over in my mind how I was going to manage with a Russian keyboard. It was not long before they returned. Sonia looked pleased. She sat down and acted as if she had nothing to tell me, but I knew she was dying to tell me something. About two minutes went by and then she leaned forward and spoke in her best conspiratorial voice.
‘It’s the first door after the interview room. She told me that’s where all the computer equipment is kept.’
‘Sonia, you’re a gem!’ I said, full of admiration. “I wonder if it is kept locked.’
‘Sure to be.’
‘Let us not rush into it,’ I said slowly. ‘We’ll bide our time until the right moment comes, then we’ll strike.’
‘You sound just like the Zogg invaders,’ said Sonia laughing, her bright eyes shining.
We left the dining room, Svetlana trailing us faithfully. How to get away from her, I thought, as we went out into the bright sunshine.
Lunchtime came and still there was no call from Ivan. We ate a good lunch and felt sleepy. Suddenly the thought of sleeping gave me a brilliant idea.
‘Sonia, listen, I have a cool plan. After your lunch do you feel sleepy?’
‘A bit, why?’
‘With a couple of headache pills you would sleep in the shade of our tree like a log, wouldn’t you?’
‘I would, but why do I need tablets? I don’t have a headache.’
‘You could fain one though, we both could.’
‘Okay, I don’t get it, Bill.’
‘Go and ask Svetlana for some. Tell her we both have bad headaches.’
She went off to the end of the dining room where Svetlana was sitting and spoke to her. Svetlana got up and went into the kitchen, returning with four tablets, which she gave to Sonia.
‘Don’t take them,’ I said, as soon as Svetlana was out of earshot.
‘Why not? What’s your game, Bill?’ she said with a puzzled expression.
‘Because they are not for us, Idiot!’
‘Who are they for then?’ Then her face lit up. ‘I get it now. It’s a brilliant idea! Now who’s the genius?
‘It’s nothing really,’ I said with mock modesty. ‘Just pretend to take them,’ I said, pouring water from a jug into Sonia’s glass and offering it to her.
We both pretended to swallow the tablets. Then, shielded by Sonia’s body from Svetlana’s view, I put the four tablets into a paper serviette and crushed them with a knife. I screwed up the serviette and held it my hand.
It was normal for tea to be made after lunch. We could either take it in the dining room or outside.
‘When the girl comes out of the kitchen with the tray,’ I told Sonia, ‘ask Svetlana if you can help her carry it outside. As soon as you get outside the door into the sunlight I will slip the powder into her tea.’
The plan worked even better than I had thought it would. Svetlana took her cup of tea with the bowl of sugar and sat under a tree while we found our usual spot in the shade. We drank our tea and watched Svetlana closely out of the corners of our eyes. We saw her put three teaspoons of sugar into the tea and stir it well. She drank it slowly, showing no signs of anything wrong with it. It is just as well she likes her tea sweet, I thought. Sure enough, after ten minutes, her head dropped onto her chest and she fell into a deep sleep. We waited for a further ten minutes.
‘It’s now or never,’ I said to Sonia. ‘You stay here, so that if she wakes up you can make up some story about my having gone for a sleep.’
‘Good luck Bill. Take care,’ she said, taking my hand and putting it to her lips.
I went across to Svetlana and untied the bunch of keys from her belt, hoping that one of them would unlock the computer room. I sauntered as casually as I could into the building and down the corridor to the first door past the interview room. I tried the door: it was locked. With trembling hands, I fumbled though the keys until I found some that I thought would fit. I tried one, then another and yet another. There was only one more. I looked left and right down the corridor, expecting someone to appear at any moment. I tried the last key with shaking hands and a beating heart.
It fitted! The door swung open and I slipped quickly inside, closing the door quietly behind me. There on the table stood a desktop computer and it was switched on. It’s my lucky day, I thought. I stared at the keyboard. It could have been Greek, Japanese, Chinese or Arabic for all I could understand it. The fact that it was Russian didn’t help me one bit.
My eyes scanned the shelves of the room. There on a shelf about two and a half metres above the floor I spied another keyboard. I reached for it and brought it down, being careful not to disturb anything else that would create a noise. The thing had a layer of dust on it and I blew strongly to remove it. I felt a sneeze coming on. My Dad always complained that my snee
zes were enough to wake the dead. If they could wake the dead, they could certainly attract the attention of Ivan in the room next door. I put down the keyboard and buried my face in my shirt to muffle the sound. I waited with bated breath for the sound of footsteps but none came.
The keyboard was in English! I couldn’t believe my luck. I quickly unplugged the Russian one and replaced it with the one from the shelf. Then I clicked on what looked to me like the e-mail icon and waited for the inbox to appear. So far so good! Although I didn’t understand the commands I recognised the symbols. I clicked on the new message symbol and when the page opened I typed out the following message, as quickly as I could, with my heart thumping in my ribs like a pneumatic drill.
‘This is Bill. We are in the hands of the Secret Service somewhere in Russia. We are well and they are good to us. Try to get a message to Priam or Michu. Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone except Mum and Dad where we are. You understand why. See you soon. By the way, who won the Test Match? For God’s sake don’t reply! From Russia with love.’
I entered Ben’s e-mail address and clicked the ‘send’ symbol. I waited, trembling and sweating for what seemed like a century. Would it go or was there some codeword I needed to enter? Then I saw that it had gone. I deleted it from the ‘sent items.’
I had succeeded! I sat back in the chair and heaved a big sigh of relief.
At that moment the door opened and in walked Alexei.