Murmansk-13

Just like the marbled veneer table tops and plastic aspidistras gathering dust, the implied strength of the security cells was all smoke and mirrors. A pretence to a reality where Party profligacy extended to the superficial, where cannibalized parts, stucco and gaffer tape papered over the cracks. The cells had only ever been designed to serve drunkards who’d made too merry within the recreation district, or aggravated co-workers who’d came to blows after months of ratcheting tensions in close proximity. Anything more serious and the perpetrator would be shipped to the nearest support vessel in shackles and transferred to the first homeward bound frigate or destroyer. They’d never been designed to be tested for escape, because nobody was ever going to try and escape from them. The hydraulically locked antechambers were just another example of Soviet showmanship, they looked good, but you still had to enable the prisoners behind them to breathe.

“You learn shit, on the streets,” said Tala shrugging. The cell key felt heavy and ancient in her hands. An incongruous artefact in the well of space. She’d been surprised Dr. Smith hadn’t become aware of the absence of its weight at her hip, she soon would be.

Diego and Katja looked at the key with a sense of awe. “We need to use it fast,” said Katja, herself eyeing up the heft of the object.

Tala had barely been able to stifle a manic laugh. After enduring the rigmarole of the faltering hydraulic antechambers, to be faced with barred cells straight out of a western movie seemed absurd. Standard key and lock entry was an enduring, steadfast means of detaining a ne’er-do-well and also meant they only had to provide a single duct for air circulation. It was also highly unsound when the cells pinned a narrow corridor not two arms spans in width.

As Katja slept, Tala formulated a plan. It hinged on Dr. Smith returning to the cells with Ildar in tow like a trusted jowly hound dog. Tala sensed the former project lead was now attached to Dr. Smith with an invisible leash as they squabbled out the last few hours of an experiment he’d long lost dominion over.

Tala had been ecstatic to see Hernandez still alive, even if he was at gunpoint. The motorman was her closest friend amongst the Riyadh crew and he’d unwittingly invigorated her plan by being captured. As Tala hoped, Dr. Smith enjoyed her position of superiority over Ildar. Thrashing out her plans in plain sight of her captives while simultaneously subjugating the remaining member of the Unseen Hand. All within the tight confides of the cellblock corridor.

Tala had simply channelled her destitute street urchin days, recalling the fast handed trade of pick pocketing that she’d used to survive – not pretty enough to pedal the safer role as decoy. She’d been a natural, those fast hands eventually paving her passage into the vaguely safer environs of the boxing fraternity, into the hands of Roberto Marcario and the path of Maria de los Santos.

It wasn’t time for mourning and regret.

Quickly, Tala tried the key on the cell lock. The length of the key and the position of the lock made the task awkward.

Soviet budget constraints hadn’t extended to an open sided lock. Craning her arm, she managed to slip the key into the barrel, metal jangled against metal, the key suddenly small within the lock. Tala could feel beads of sweat across her forehead, her grasp on the key merely fingertips. She tried turning it within the cylinder, but felt it clipping inside the mechanism, refusing to rotate. Tala readdressed her grip, pressing her arm painfully into the cell bars, hoping the resistance was simply a lack of strength from her initial position. Her grip was tighter now, she could feel the key refusing to match the pins within the barrel, felt anger welling inside her. She stepped back and growled, her hands clenched into fists, her palms moist with stress exertion. Katja placed a consoling hand on her shoulder and Tala shrugged it off, defiant.

“Yo mi chicha. I don’t think that key is for your door,” Hernandez small face was pressed between the bars of his own cell, watching the scene. “Probably got separate keys for separate doors, eh?”

Tala ignored him and tried again. She forced her arm further into the bar, grimacing as the steel pinched blood vessels shut, pressing coldly through flesh and muscle. She could feel the pins jamming into the metal key, failing to marry with the grooves cut into it. Beneath her breath she uttered obscenities, it had to be the key. The plan hinged on this being the key.

But it wasn’t.

“Tala?” Katja asked, gently.

Tala turned her back on the blasted lock and slid to the ground. “It’s not the cell key,” she said, her voice heavy with failure. Katja sat next to her, not saying anything, just letting Tala rest her head on her shoulder. She was glad Katja didn’t speak, Tala could sense thunderclouds building behind her eyes, threatening to overwhelm her with rage.