A Wild Justice

by Craig Thomas

  ‘His lungs are filling up with blood, like a swimming pool,’

  Turgenev hissed. ‘I don’t have to wait long.’

  ‘But he worries you — he’s nothing to lose.’

  ‘You won’t let him kill me, Vorontsyev. You don’t want to die.’ Turgenev’s voice was a hoarse whisper. He was leaning forward intently, but seemed distracted by Lock, who wiped the latest blood from his chin, uhen waved Marfa’s solicitations aside.

  And Lock was studying the conversation as closely as if lip reading. Vorontsyev was increasingly aware of his detached, Olympian manner. ‘We both know that,’ Turgenev continued, his priorities buzzing insectlike in the tense, cramped space of the cabin. Vorontsyev was worried by Lock’s control of the situation. ‘So, we wait. Bakunin won’t give you a pilot … you can only deal through me.’ Turgenev leaned back, but his confident assurance was something being rehearsed in a large mirror.

  Turgenev wondered if he could buy them off … then the thought made him smile. He need only string them along until Lock coughed his way into oblivion. Even Bakunin, out there behind the swiftly returned blizzard, was too greedy ever to contemplate a solution that involved harming Turgenev.

  There was only Lock …

  … and the evident fact that Vorontsyev and his people seemed subservient to Lock’s priority. They were becoming no more than observers of the scene.

  Yes … It was that that was unsettling, the creeping foreboding that they might act too late. They may hesitate just long enough for Lock to kill him before their sense of their own survival awoke …

  Bakunin glanced around him at the detritus of the control tower, its litter of operators and managers, his second in command, the GRU troops. The tinted windows of the tower were blind with driving snow. The idiot who stood beside him, taller, slimmer, younger, had suggested storming the aircraft. Special troops, he had replied, then added an assertion that We can handle the situation. The captain had accepted his decision, probably without a moment’s reflection on his own small accumulation of bribes, kickbacks, payments for looking the other way, even the occasional squalid, unimportant murder.

  But Bakunin had reflected. Special troops would be under outside command. Other people would have to have the situation explained — the American, the town police, Turgenev, all of it would have to be justified. It was too dangerous to himself to involve a specialist anti-hijacking unit.

  And his own troops couldn’t cope with it, couldn’t pull it off…

  … even though — and the thought returned like a wasp he could not rid himself of on a hot afternoon — no one could be allowed to come off that plane alive, with the sole exception of Turgenev.

  Finality. Vorontsyev, the stupid, lazy, time-serving policeman who’d got something akin to religion over Turgenev … and especially the American, whoever and whatever he was or had been. Acting or hoping to act as a nemesis. The incident had to be wiped from the tarmac and from reality, just as Panshin had been despatched, falling into the snow, a bullet through his forehead. For safety’s sake.

  ‘What do you estimate visibility to be?’ he asked his second in command.

  ‘Around twenty to twentyfive metres, sir.’ Georgian accent.

  He distrusted Georgians, but the man was efficient after the manner of his own dim certitudes.

  ‘Very well. Have the aircraft surrounded by armed troops in a forty-metre perimeter. Anyone trying to come or go — have them stopped.’ He glared at the younger man. ‘You understand me, Josef? These people must be neutralised. A closed incident is what we must achieve — together with the safety of Turgenev, of course.’

  ‘Will you try to negotiate them out?’

  The storm made the windows fiercely blank, writhing outside the octagonal enclosure of the tower like fanned smoke from a conflagration. He shook his head.

  ‘Turgenev is making his own arrangements, Josef. I do not intend to jeopardise — ‘ He shrugged.’- the man makes the rules here. If he feels in any real danger, he will begin negotiations.’

  ‘The pilots?’ the captain asked, looking much like a bemused boy as he spoke. ‘He — just, well, he killed them? Himself?’

  ‘That’s it, Josef. Admirably decisive, mm?’ He laughed. ‘They haven’t any idea of the kind of man they’re playing with. None whatsoever!’

  ‘Should we — you, call him again?’

  Bakunin thought for a moment, then said: ‘In ten minutes.

  If he wants something, or is in the unlikely position of having to ask for help, he’ll call us. The others don’t want to talk to us — he’s in charge. He never let them gain control of the situation.’

  He disliked the admiration in his voice. ‘The weather has this place in a vice for the next twelve hours, minimum. Now, get that plane encircled, just in case they try to run for it.’

  The captain saluted and turned away. Bakunin moved towards the blind windows and their rushing snow. The whole tower quivered in the wind’s force.

  Brilliantly ruthless, killing the pilots.

  What would he do? Buy them off? Just sit and wait? Expect to be rescued?

  Offer them an alternative victim, a smaller scandal?

  His suspicion was spreading and inflating like a wasp sting

  It began with the blinking, the effort to keep the small cabin in focus. His eye movements.were becoming more exaggerated, more frequent. Before that, there had been a kind of exhilaration in the pain, a fierce clarity of sensation and thought. Or perhaps that had come from his understanding that he was dying, and deteriorating very quickly. Now, the cabin swam in and out of clarity, as if it were sometimes there around him and at other times outside the streaming, blind windows.

  The girl, Marfa, was an unwelcome nurse. Rather than seeming solicitous, she loomed now as a reminder. Memento mori. Vorontsyev’s pain was another signal of his decline which he resented, having been so detached only minutes earlier. He had been above and outside it all, controlling them.

  He coughed, a gout of blood fell onto his lap and he disregarded it, fighting for breath. Gradually hearing the appalling, liquid noises in his chest. The girl had propped him up with pillows from one of the lockers. He was bleeding into one of them, his head resting on another. She had wrapped a blanket around him because he was feeling colder. It would be difficult to talk, but he must — to Vorontsyev first, and then and only then to Turgenev.

  Lock pointed with the pistol, unnerving Turgenev, alarming the Russian policeman. He essayed a smile, shook his head. He gestured Turgenev out of the cabin with fierce little shakes of the gun. Vorontsyev nodded and Dmitri took Turgenev into the rear cabin. The scientists in there were irrelevant, he had seen that very clearly; the files would be sufficient for their purposes.

  But not important, not like the obligation to ensure the survival of these people who had placed him in a position to kill Turgenev … and who, if he didn’t get rid of them now, would prevent him from achieving that last goal.

  Vorontsyev sat in the nearest seat, leaning forward. Marfa gave Lock a drink of tepid water, which he managed to swallow, fighting off the dangerous tickling it caused in his throat.

  He had to be made to understand … but Lock was afraid of squandering his remaining strength and consciousness. He blinked. It required shorthand, they had to attend very closely, understand him at once ‘Go,’ he announced, then pointed at the files on one of the seats. ‘All — you need, there.’ There was a bout of coughing after that huge effort, yet he hated more the girl’s sympathetic, anguished breathing beside his face and wished he had the redundant energy to push her away.

  Vorontsyev shook his head. Lock nodded vehemently.

  ‘All — you. Use — use the car …’ His breathing unnerved him, the long wet inhalations and exhalations like a tide, drowning him as he sat helpless.

  Again, Vorontsyev shook his head. Then he said:

  ‘If we leave, it’s with you. Hospital’

  Lock shook his head.

  ‘
No — good.’

  ‘Then we’d need to “take Turgenev, bargain our way out.’

  ‘No.’ Once more, the room was starkly clear to him. Dmitri stood behind his seat, the girl crouched beside him, Vorontsyev looked as lugubrious as any deathbed mourner. The pain seemed like light rather than heat. He saw their situation with the identical, fierce clarity that had been his wound’s first gift. ‘Mexican — standoff,’ he announced. ‘Only chance — go now.’

  Vorontsyev’s scheme had trapped them all. Turgenev was fated to survive. They’d get no pilot, there’d be no storming of the plane. Eventually, they would try, as Vorontsyev evidently planned, to exchange Turgenev for their freedom. Turgenev would have them eliminated as soon as he had been released.

  They all knew that. He had the power, the influence, the weight of numbers. They’d never be allowed to survive.

  ‘You — want to break him. The files,’ he said. ‘Storm will hide you — don’t wait.’

  Vorontsyev’s eyes admitted the bleak truth. The storm was the only thing on their side. Once it blew itself out, they’d be as exposed as tumours on an X-ray plate, to be surgically extinguished.

  They couldn’t take him — and he wouldn’t surrender Turgenev to them.

  Vorontsyev knew that Lock was offering them their lives — or some slight chance of their lives — in exchange for the murder of Turgenev. He maintained an expressionless look. Lock would ensure they had their best chance of escape by forcing himself lo remain conscious. He would wait until the very last flicker of consciousness, the final moment of his own life, before he shot Turgenev. Then, on the edge of the dark, he would execute his enemy.

  He glanced towards the files. If they got out, managed to make it to Moscow or some other city, maybe someone would listen; maybe the authorities would act. Regard Turgenev’s empire like rot in an old building — treat it; kill it … It seemed a romantic notion.

  Lock smiled at him. It was obvious the American knew he had made his decision.

  ‘See?’ he said- ‘You have to — uh?’

  Then he began an appalling fit of coughing, his whole frame heaving, blood staining his lips and chin and the front of his shirt. Eventually, he subsided further into the seat as Marfa, no longer resented, cleaned his face and inspected his wound with nimble, afraid fingers. Vorontsyev realised that Lock would be dead in minutes. He got up and went to the window.

  Beside the plane, the Mercedes was a white lump, something covered with a heavy sheet. He strained to see beyond the violence of the storm, but the scene was featureless, empty. They might already have the plane surrounded — they certainly would do before the blizzard subsided. He could feel the tension, the claustrophobia of the cabin.

  Then he turned to Lock.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, picking up the files. ‘Everything we need is in here.’ He looked at Marfa and Dmitri.

  ‘What about the others? The cabin crew, the six — ?’ Dmitri began.

  ‘They’ll be more interested in escape than anything else. Just like us,’ he added with a bitter smile. ‘Tell Lubin to bring Turgenev back in here, then talk to the steward. Tell him they’re all being released. As soon as we’ve left, they can leave.’ Dmitri nodded and retreated to the aft cabin.

  Turgenev was alertly suspicious as he re-entered, aware that some decision had been reached; concerned, but still confident, pleased at the evident decline of Lock.

  ‘Hi, Pete,’ Lock greeted him, his supineness suggesting relaxation rather than exhaustion.

  His tone startled Turgenev.

  ‘Well?’ he sneered. ‘What idiotic solution have you agreed on?’

  The — deal,’ Lock announced, ‘you for them … They — go, we … stay-‘ He swallowed noisily.

  Turgenev turned on Vorontsyev. ‘You’ll never get off the airfield!’ he snapped. ‘Not even under cover of this weather.’

  ‘We’ll see. Lubin — you drive. Dmitri, open the door-‘ He shuffled his own forgotten broken arm to greater comfort.

  They’d have to drop onto the snow-covered tarmac but that wouldn’t kill any of them. He glanced at Lock. ‘Do you want him tied in his seat?’ he asked. Lock slowly shook his head.

  ‘Very well. Marfa?’ She nodded.

  The noise of the passenger door being opened and the bellowing entry of the storm drowned all sound, all thought.

  The curtain flared in the wind. Vorontsyev pushed Turgenev into his seat, paused for an instant beside Lock, who merely smiled, a boyish, unworried expression. He heard Lubin jump, then saw Marfa disappear through the door. Dmitri glanced back at Lock and Turgenev, then disappeared. Vorontsyev paused at the raging gap in the fuselage, blinded and disorientated, then jumped, collapsing at once into the new snow, his ankles shot though with pain.

  He was helped to his knees and looked back. The stewardess and her companion were standing in the doorway. He waved his pistol and their figures vanished. He heard the engine of the Mercedes fire. Dmitri was sweeping the snow from the windscreen with swinging movements of his arm. Marfa was beside him and he shook off her proffered hand. They reached the car as Lubin began revving the engine. Snow was flung out by the rear wheels and the car skidded slightly sideways.

  ‘Get in!’ he bellowed to Dmitri who was still clearing snow from the windows. ‘Lubin — straight down the runway, don’t stop until you reach the fence, then go through it! Understand?’ Then he heard distant, toylike detonations. The car seemed plucked at, assailed by small pebbles. Dmitri’s features flattened into caricature against the passenger window, then slid out of sight.

  ‘Dmitri-!’ he yelled, opening the door, looking down to inspect the dead features that stared up at him. Two shots passed above his head, shattering the window on the other side of the car.

  ‘Go, go!’ Marfa was screaming at Lubin.

  ‘No!’ Vorontsyev cried out, but the car lurched forward, leaving Dmitri as a shapeless lump in the snow, diminishing.

  More shots Lock heard the shooting, at first with great clarity, then more distantly as the steward slammed the passenger door shut.

  He heard the Mercedes accelerate, then that noise, too, was lost in the babble of panic from the aft cabin. He switched his attention — slowly, with a great effort of concentration — to Turgenev.

  And shook his head.

  ‘Don’t call — them, uh? Stupid ‘

  Turgenev sat back in his seat. Lock had no more than minutes now; his blinking the cabin into focus was a nervous tic, regular and compulsive. His face was ashen, there was blood on his chin which he had not bothered to wipe away. His breathing was irregular, less of a struggle but like a fading signal from a distant transmitter. Turgenev knew he had only to wait for five, ten minutes — gestured with his eyes to warn the steward, who had appeared behind Lock. The man nodded his understanding and retreated behind the curtain.

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ Lock said quietly.

  Lock listened to the subsiding babble from the other cabin.

  Soon, they’d open the door and bellow their identities into the storm, hoping not to get killed. Or they’d tell Bakunin or whoever was out there they had only one dying man to content themselves with … Soon.

  ‘You’ll never know if they made it,’ Turgenev offered.

  ‘Neither will you — Pete.’ He suppressed a threatened fit of coughing. He heard his lighter, slower breathing. It wouldn’t be long now, not long at all. ‘Beth. Why?’

  ‘What? Oh — that was handled badly, John. It shouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘It did, though …’

  ‘Yes, it did. Look, John, I can still save your life!’ It was talk, just talk. ‘I can get you to hospital, I can keep you alive, John!’

  ‘You — emptied my … life, Pete. It isn’t anything ~ any more.’

  He heard the steward move behind his seat and managed a louder voice: ‘Crazy to try!’ He smiled as he heard the man retreat to the aft cabin. There was the silence of a tense audience in the rest of the Learjet.


  ‘John, this is crazy. You’re crazy. This revenge thing. It isn’t how things work…’ His voice insinuated. There was a not unkindly authority in its tone. ‘Lock, you — people like you you’re just romantics … This doesn’t solve anything, even begin to. The world is shit. Lock. Everywhere, in every way. You used to think Afghanistan was a good war, that you had God on your side, that you were helping …’

  Lock watched Turgenev lean closer to him, as if confiding some important truth.

  ‘It was bad through and through, John, that war. It was the world in microcosm … Let me help you ‘

  Lock blinked with a furious, futile rapidity. He felt himself retreat from the cabin. The ringing of the telephone set in the arm of Turgenev’s seat was very distant and quiet.

  Turgenev’s hand moved to the phone. Lock struggled to attend to the movement, lurching more upright — to be doubled up in a blind, uncontrollable fit of coughing. Blood on his hands, on the gleaming barrel of the pistol … Then hands on him, a hand grabbing for his pistol -

  which fired. Lock saw nothing, heard the noise of the gun, twice, felt a weight fall crushingly onto his back … lost consciousness.

  The steward snatched up the receiver, gabbled into it. Turgenev’s body had toppled sideways into the narrow aisle. Lock’s had slid down in his seat so that his blind eyes stared up at the steward. His young, expressionless face saw blood dribbled down the dead man’s chin.

  ‘Yes, yes.-! Both dead! Both — we are all safe, yes, Colonel, we are all safe!’

  Relief coursed through the steward. He put down the receiver, then stepped over Turgenev’s sprawled body towards the door.

  He opened it, shivering in the icy cold.

  A moment after the impact of the projectile, the aircraft was engulfed in flame.

  POSTLUDE

  The superiority of the rich, being … unmercifully exercised, must inevitably expose them to reprisals.’

  William Godwin: Enquiry concerning Political Justice