The Carnival Master

1.

The light was on and Maria woke up cold and sore. The chills and aches in her body combined like a string section playing a continuous glissando, but then the still not fully-healed wound on her head from The Nose’s pistol-whipping took centre stage. For a moment she thought that they had switched the refrigeration back on, then she realised it was just her body’s reaction to the abuse it had suffered. For Maria the cold no longer meant death; it meant she could still feel. It meant life.

But they’ve broken my mind, she thought to herself calmly. She knew there was something different about the way she thought; the way she felt. She lay and thought of Maria Klee as if she were someone she knew rather than someone she was. Maybe Maria Klee was dead, but whoever or whatever was left was determined to survive. She knew, lying bruised and broken in an empty cold store, that her only strategy for survival was to separate herself from her own flesh: to focus her mind and use whatever internal resources she had left on thinking her way out of this situation.

Maria dragged herself to her feet, wrapping the blanket around her body and moving across to the cold store heavy door. She pressed the side of her head against the cold steel, but it was too thick to conduct any sounds from the room beyond. She made a circuit of the meat locker, seeking out anything that might be useful as a weapon. There was nothing. And even if she had found something, she doubted that an improvised weapon would have given her any kind of chance against The Nose and his handgun. She returned to the mattress and sat contemplating her situation. They were feeding her. That meant that, for some reason, Vitrenko was keeping her alive, but perhaps only for a matter of days. She gingerly touched the raised ridge on her head to remind herself that there seemed to be little other consideration for her welfare. She was in a hostage situation. She could not have been kept in more appropriate surroundings: she was just a lump of meat being preserved until she could be put to some profitable use.

The next meal was brought in by Olga Sarapenko. The one after that by The Nose. Perhaps they spelled each other, taking shifts. If she was going to make an attempt to escape, it would be that bitch Sarapenko she would go for. Maria knew that she could never succeed against the Nose. And even fully fit she didn’t know if she would have been a match for Olga Sarapenko. But one thing that her years in the Murder Commission had taught her was that anyone could kill anyone else. It wasn’t about strength. It was about murderous intent. About knowing no boundaries.

Maria knew that even if Vitrenko intended to use her as a bargaining chip, there was still no way he would let her survive. And when she became surplus to his needs he would kill her in a manner that would fit his perverted sense of natural justice. It would be messy, it would be slow, and it would be painful. She brought her thoughts back to her immediate situation. She would escape Vitrenko and the fate he had planned for her, either by getting herself free or by dying in the attempt. She would escape either in flesh or in spirit.

Her plan began to take form.

There was a chance that either The Nose or Olga Sarapenko was alone in the building. The charade of a surveillance operation had been for her benefit. No… that wasn’t right. There had been another point to the exercise: Vitrenko had suspected betrayal and had put Molokov under electronic surveillance. Molokov had been marked for death long before Maria had entered the picture. Vitrenko had said that Buslenko’s mission had been genuine but had been betrayed. Perhaps Olga Sarapenko really had been part of the operation.

She had seen no other guard. When Sarapenko or The Nose had brought food there had been no sounds of activity outside when the door had been opened. The worst case might be that The Nose would be out there when Sarapenko came in. Maria played and replayed scenarios in her head, running through all the possible ways she could take Sarapenko down. But they would be ready for almost every scenario. Sarapenko or The Nose would anticipate her hiding beside the door, pretending to be ill or dead, or her launching a sudden attack. She had to think of the extraordinary, the unexpected. It would have to be when Olga Sarapenko came in with the meal. Maria was bitterly aware of the irony that food had been the one thing she had avoided and now its delivery offered her the only chance of survival. She thought about all the times she had made herself vomit to void her body of food. How she had perfected the technique. It was then that the idea started to take shape.

She reckoned she would have about four or five hours until the next meal. Time that she had to spend wisely.