A Wild Justice

by Craig Thomas

  There was no longer any sense of humiliation, or subservience to the Iranian; no reminder of meniality and the past.

  Memories of his father always turned on their axis like this.

  They still possessed an initial sting, like a needle being inserted into a forearm vein … but the effect was like a narcotic drug.

  Pleasure, a dreamy confidence, a joy at his power, authority, wealth. How his father would have hated him now, and what a crying shame the old bastard hadn’t lived to see — well, the Mercedes would have been enough, pulling up outside that grimy concrete block of flats!

  ‘Come on, Hamid — let’s get you on your way!’ he called in the greatest good humour as he climbed into the limousine.

  Lock chewed on the lumps of baguette, filled with a hard, rindy cheese and moistureless tomato, swallowing them gratefully, each mouthful awakening rather than abating his hunger.

  Vorontsyev was watching him with a sardonic amusement that did not occupy his flinty grey eyes. Behind the forced humour, the Russian’s face was drawn and grey with the enervation of the pain in his arm and ribs. The dawn seeped slowly, an ineffectual thin dye, into the cloud-heavy sky. The snow no longer blinded, but blew like flimsy material through which the contours of the airport were visible. Snow-laden aircraft, the tower, the terminal building, the snowploughs, a tank, a piece of self propelled artillery, petrol trucks.

  There was no sense of increased or urgent activity. They were not expected. However, Lock accepted that Vorontsyev’s estimate of around fifty troops was probably correct. They were alone in the car, which smelt of dirt and cracked plastic seating and stale food and bodies.

  ‘Can’t be done, it’s too risky,’ Lock said eventually, when he had eaten the last of the baguette. The front of his overcoat was covered with big crumbs. ‘We’d be walking into a blind alley, with no way out. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘Lock, I’m tired. I don’t need this …’ Vorontsyev shifted his body in the rear seat, wincing with pain, breathing in snorted, nasal breaths. ‘We’re already in the blind alley, and our backs are against the wall. The plane is the gate we didn’t expect to be there. We have to get away from here, right away. Can’t you see that?’

  Lubin was in the terminal building, dressed in a cleaner’s overalls he had commandeered. Dmitri was somewhere on the terminal roof, watching the road by which the scientists would be brought to the airport, if they came. Marfa was scouting the hangar which housed Turgenev’s Learjet, and the dispositions of the GRU. Listening to their occasional reports over R/Ts they had stolen from a secure locker in the police room in the terminal increased Lock’s sense of the utter futility of their presence.

  Vorontsyev’s crazy scheme of hijacking Turgenev’s plane and flying out of Novyy Urengoy seemed hardly more impractical than any alternative.

  What alternative?

  ‘Well?’ Vorontsyev prompted. ‘What’s your answer?’

  ‘That’s crazy I’

  ‘What else is there?’

  They glowered at one another like sparring animals, cats with raised backbones, stiff fur. Then Lock relaxed, sipping at the coffee in the plastic beaker. The warm, sweet liquid trickled down a narrow unfrozen track in his gullet.

  ‘I don’t see it that way,’ he said quietly. ‘Turgenev may not come — we don’t know he’s going to be here!’

  ‘Lock — listen to me.’ Vorontsyev’s left hand gripped the sleeve of Lock’s coat like that of a remonstrative parent. ‘Do you want to walk out of here, or not? Does it matter to you, staying alive?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m not here by myself, that’s why!’ He snorted.

  ‘Look, I probably care almost as little as you do about what happens next, but I have a responsibility to the other three. I had enough trouble persuading Lubin he wasn’t abandoning his wife and kid! None of my people deserves obliteration. Understand?’

  His eyes were hot and bleak, his lips quivering with rage.

  ‘I won’t let you do that. You owe Dmitri your life, damn you!’

  Lock tugged at the damp scarf around his throat.

  ‘This idea of mine,’ Vorontsyev continued, ‘may be lunacy, but it’s safer than any other way.’

  ‘It depends on Turgenev being here! Otherwise, they’ll just shell the plane with that tank or the self-propelled gun! Christ, haven’t you thought of that?’

  ‘I’ve thought that if Turgenev does come, you’ll kill him out of hand, and then they’ll simply cut us down. I’ve thought of that, Lock. Have you?’

  ‘What if he doesn’t come?’

  ‘Then if we can get aboard the aircraft, quickly enough, without giving ourselves away, we might just make it anyway.’

  Vorontsyev looked down, as if shamefaced at a lie he had told.

  ‘If Turgenev doesn’t come himself, I won’t come with you.’

  ‘I know that.’ He was silent for some moments, and then he said: ‘I might not make it myself.’ He was staring down at his broken arm, tightly buttoned inside his topcoat and at the slack, uncomfortable posture of his body in the seat.

  ‘This is your only way back, Lock — take it,’ Vorontsyev announced after another long, tense silence. ‘You agree on that, at least?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right. What time is it?’

  ‘A little after seven. Dawn.’

  Vorontsyev clumsily picked up the R/T that lay between them on the cracked plastic seat. He pressed it against his cold, unshaven cheek.

  ‘Dmitri — anything?’

  The howl of the wind behind Dmitri’s small voice. ‘Nothing, Alexei.’

  Vorontsyev craned to peer through the rear window, out towards the runway. The old car, with its weight and disguise of snow, had become unsuspicious, parked with other cars belonging to airport staff. The snowploughs remained stationary at the end of the runway. Their last run had been an hour earlier, headlights staring through the snow and darkness, the snow flung aside in great fountains.

  Panshin was dead. Lock had told him that. Turgenev didn’t know they had been told of the airport and the flight to Tehran.

  ‘OK. Keep watching, old friend. Lubin?’

  The young man’s voice was a hoarse, secretive whisper. ‘Nothing, Major. No increase in activity, no increase in tempo. Idle bunch of bastards,’ he added, as if to dispel his own nerves rather than to reassure.

  ‘OK — Marfa?’

  Again the howl of wind, audible to both himself and to Lock, who instinctively rubbed his gloved hands together against the thought of the cold.

  ‘They’re still carrying out the routine patrols. The aircraft’s been inspected, but it hasn’t been fuelled-‘ Vorontsyev felt a sick hollow in his stomach. ‘I haven’t seen any sign of the pilots.’

  She, too, was whispering.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the hangar. Behind some crates of spares.’

  ‘Has food been taken aboard?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Stewards, cabin staff — any sign?’

  ‘Just one. No, thefe were two, a man and a woman. They’re on board now, I can’t see them — waitV Her excitement jolted both of them. Then she was whispering less audibly. Lock leaned towards Voiontsyev to try to hear. ‘A car’s just pulled into the hangar, two people getting out — uniforms, caps.’ A tense pause, then: ‘They’re going aboard. Small suitcases, charts — the pilot and copilot?’

  ‘Must be. Don’t move, but keep calling in. Dmitri, stay where you are until you can see something you can confirm. Lubin, get back here now!’ Vorontsyev glared triumphantly at Lock.

  ‘They must be coming, mart! They have to be.’ He chuckled, but the sound turned to a painful cough. He waggled his hand, and continued breathlessly; ‘Turgenev’s providing us with the rope we can hang him with!’

  Lock looked round wildly at the noise of big engines starting.

  One of the snowploughs was on the move. ‘Can we take the scientists inside the hangar
?’

  ‘Where will they fuel up?’

  ‘In the hangar or — ‘ He watched the second snowplough begin to rumble towards the runway. The first snow was gouting from the leading machine in a great wave. ‘Maybe the runway. It’s safer, out in the open. Where, how, Vorontsyev?’

  ‘Alexei — two vehicles. A Mercedes and a small bus, by the look of it. Blacked-out windows. Turgenev’s car?’

  ‘Keep watching, Dmitri!’ Vorontsyev sounded breathless.

  ‘Major, an APC has just pulled up at the hangar, soldiers getting out of it!’ they heard Maria report. ‘Eight, ten Spreading out’

  ‘Shit!’ Lock raged. ‘Where now, Vorontsyev? Uh — how?’

  ‘Yes, Bakunin. We’re heading directly for the hangar. Where are you?’

  Over the car telephone, Bakunin sounded as if he were donning a familiar, stiff, subordinate uniform.

  ‘Half a mile from the airport.’

  ‘Our friends — where are they?’

  ‘Lost them, temporarily. I have given orders, made dispositions.

  They’re hiding out somewhere. It won’t be long before ‘

  ‘Panshin?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘What did they learn from him?’

  ‘Nothing that will be of any use. He wouldn’t have talked. He was aware we were outside, had the place surrounded. He would have been too frightened.’

  ‘Very well.’ Turgenev rubbed his nose. The thought of Lock’s continuing freedom irked but did not unsettle. ‘Check the whole security operation and then let me know when you’ve done so.

  We won’t start engines until I have your all clear.’ He smiled at Hamid beside him. ‘Don’t waste time.’ He put down the telephone.

  ‘The hangar’s been put out of bounds, Vorontsyev! Don’t you understand? Your bright idea isn’t going to pan out!’

  They were standing beside the car, in the bitter wind.

  Occasional flakes of snow plucked against their cold cheeks, but the blizzard had all but quietened. Low cloud still pressed threateningly. The snowploughs were hundreds of yards down the cleared runway. Lubin hovered on the other side of the car like a child ignored while his parents quarrelled. Lock saw Dmitri scuttling towards them with a crab’s wary haste.

  ‘Let me think, Lock,’ Vorontsyev ground out between clenched teeth. ‘Let me think.’

  ‘Well, Alexei — I’ Dmitri blurted as he reached them, red-faced.

  Vorontsyev turned on him. ‘Shut up, Dmitri,’ he warned. He had erred, he realised. Perhaps fatally. He rubbed his unshaven cheeks with his still-damp glove. Stamped his feet against the cold, as he wandered away from the car.

  ‘Marfa?’ he whispered into the R/T.

  ‘Yes? The GRU troops are all outside the hangar, but you won’t be able to get in now.’ He scowled at the information.

  ‘There’s a fuel truck, and one of those tugs they use to tow aircraft. Oh, and a fire truck.’

  ‘The pilots?’

  ‘I can see them in the cockpit — the flight deck,’ she corrected herself.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Keep me informed — tell me when Turgenev and his passengers arrive.’

  He turned back to look at his three companions, huddled in argument. Lock waving his arms in derisive dismissal. The anger wearied him, and was futile. Like everything else. Turgenev was here, bold as brass in his Mercedes, tsar of all he surveyed, just about to hand his lame nuclear physicists onto the boarding steps, ushering them away to Iran or Pakistan or even Iraq, wherever he had contracted to send them. His plane would probably bring in another consignment of heroin when it returned! And he — he was standing amid a line of snow-laden cars stamping his feet like a discarded mistress!

  Marfa’s voice interrupted his flagellatory recriminations.

  The Mercedes is here — with a small bus behind it. Is it them?’

  ‘Yes!’ he exploded. Then: ‘Where exactly are they?’

  ‘Outside. Waiting. The aircraft’s being towed out of the hangar now. There are men around the fuel truck. The fire-fighters are standing to attention — I’ It was all so damned easy for Turgenev.

  He was, truly, truly untouchable. Only hundreds of yards away but immune. ‘The plane’s cleared the hangar — coming to a stop.

  The fuel truck’s alongside it now.’ How long did it take to fuel a Learjet? God, there was an aircraft out there with a range of maybe three thousand miles and more, two pilots on board, a gift from the gods —! He ranted inwardly. ‘The fuelling’s started, by the look-of it,’ he heard.

  ‘Be careful,’ he warned.

  ‘Turgenev, . it’s himV she whispered. ‘He’s watching the fuelling. There’s a smaller, dark-featured man with him, and some people are getting out of the bus.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Four, five — six. That’s all… Just a minute, I’ll try to change my position, get a better look.’

  He waited in furious but impotent impatience. As if events raged beyond a thick wall or tinted, unbreakable glass. He was divorced from them; they continued without him.

  ‘That’s better/ She was breathing harshly. ‘I’m near the hangar doors, there’s no one left inside. There’s — I can see six of the GRU from where I am. The others must be out of my line of sight. The six passengers from the bus are going on board …

  When are we going to move, Alexei?’ She asked her question in a peremptory, agitated manner. ‘Turgenev — he’s …’ She paused, then: ‘He and the dark-skinned chap are going aboard, too!’

  Turgenev could not, simply could not, be taking them to Tehran personally. The other man would be doing that. But he was on board, they were all together, just as he had hoped and planned.

  And there were ten armed guards, and fifty more within shouting distance …

  Lock was at his side. He twitched with impatience. ‘What’s happening?’ Then he heard:

  ‘Yes, they’re all on board now ‘

  ‘What?’ His eyes burned. ‘They’re leaving while we stand around here?’ He drew the Makarov pistol from inside his topcoat and thrust a round into the chamber. ‘You can kiss my ass, Vorontsycv! If you won’t do something, I will!’

  ‘Are you coming?’ they heard Marfa ask.

  ‘I am, lady — / am!’ Then he added: ‘Your boss doesn’t have the chutzpah for it, apparently, honey!’ He scowled in contempt.

  ‘Wait!’ Vorontsyev cried.

  ‘What for, man? Hell to freeze over?’

  ‘The aircraft’s engines have been switched on, they’re running them up,’ Marfa reported. ‘The GRU are scattering like mice!’

  Then she sensed the situation; or the quarrel between Vorontsyev and Lock impinged at last. ‘What are we going to do, Alexei?’

  ‘We’re coming!’ he snapped. ‘All of us. Two minutes-!’ He grabbed Lock’s arm. They reached Dmitri and Lubin. ‘The hangar. Come on, let’s get moving!’ He retained his hold on Lock’s sleeve, as if to prevent the man from bolting, or firing the pistol he held in his hand. ‘We must try to stop the plane.’

  ŚHow?’

  ‘The tower?’

  Lock shook his head. They hurried across snow that was barely disturbed by footprints, through a scattering of warehouses blazoned with Cyrillic script and English. A tank creaked across their path, a hundred yards away, imperious and oblivious.

  ‘There’s no way to stop the plane except by ramming it,’ he admitted breathlessly.

  They passed the first of the long row of hangars. The clouds seemed a lighter grey, though no less thick. There was little more than the scent of snow in the air.

  ‘The plane’s beginning to taxi!’ Marfa’s voice was high with excitement, then suddenly filled with disappointment. ‘Alexei, Dmitri — come onV

  Lock ducked back at the corner of a hangar, waving the others to a halt. Someone grabbed his arm to prevent themselves overbalancing.

  Then he peered round the edge of the building. The sol
diers had passed out of sight. The APC stood as if abandoned fifty yards from them. He saw Turgenev’s Mercedes and the empty bus next to it … And the Learjet sliding gracefully as a swan across the perspective between the two hangars.

  Where was Turgenev? The plane was beyond reach, but —

  ‘Where’s Turgenev?’ he snapped into Vorontsyev’s R/T.

  ‘Still aboard’

  ‘Oh — Christ!’ he wailed, staring at the lowering sky.

  The Learjet began taxiing away from the hangar, slowly increasing its speed. Yellow-painted self-propelled passenger steps followed servantlike in its wake, out towards the taxiway.

  The fuel bowser moved off, puffing grey fumes. The APC, the bus, the Mercedes … The driver was standing beside it, smoking -

  scattered pieces. He couldn’t make the jigsaw come together.

  Mercedes, relaxed driver, plane, Turgenev, plane, Mercedes, driver still smoking, in no hurry to leave, waiting, waiting for ‘The car! His car — for God’s sake, we can use his car! Look, it’s waiting to pick him up. He’s not going anywhere! He’s getting out before it takes off, has to be—!’

  Then he was running along the side of the hangar, its corrugated wall a hypnotic blur, disorientating him. The driver had his back to him, he heard the sound of laughter, presumably from a soldier he could not see. He heard his breathing, his heart thudded in his chest and the blood pounded in his ears. He had no idea whether or not they were behind him. He could see the aircraft, dazzling against the grey sky like a great dove, its flank emblazoned with the logo of— GraingerTurgenev. His throat was dry, he could not swallow, could hardly breathe. It was as if it was put there to mock him. GraingerTurgenev.

  Rage, desperation, compulsion — all expressed in the swing of his arm at the surprised, half-turned face of the driver, all weighted in the strength of the blow he delivered to the man’s face with the barrel of the Makarov.

  He was still looking at the body when hands grabbed him and thrust him into the car’s leather-scented interior. Someone, grunting with pain, got heavily in beside him, there was a third, wearing the chauffeur’s uniform cap, in the driving seat. Dmitri, the first he recognized, was in the front passenger seat. Marfa flung open the door and clambered in, squashing Vorontsyev, who yelled with pain. His face was ashen with effort. The car was heavy with tension, exhilaration.