by Adam Hall
I listened.
Silence.
The light became stronger as the retinae accommodated, and I watched it. I could have been alone here in the mountain, in the stillness, a single creature isolated and without movement; but I knew he was close.
Tidal breathing.
Heart-beat.
Nothing more.
He was waiting, and so was I.
“Rashidov!”
Explosion of light and sound and I flung myself down with my hands going out and as the echoes rang around the walls I went forward, pitching across the open space I’d seen when he’d fired, hands and knees and then running until my shoulder hit the rock and I bounced, spinning and going down and kicking upright as the dark burst into light again and the mountain boomed.
There was more room here and I rolled sideways and found rubble and lay there while he ran past me with his boots scattering stones and the sixth shot crashing somewhere ahead of me and numbing the ears. It was the cocaine: he was overwhelmingly confident and functioning without recourse to reason, hurling himself into the confines with the certainty I was there.
“Rashidov!”
Christ how he hated me… it was in his voice.
Stones scattered again and I lay with my face to the rock because my clothes were dark and he wouldn’t see me here unless he came back and I didn’t think he would do that because his mental process was unidirectional: he thought I was somewhere in front of him and therefore I would always be in front of him until he found me and killed me.
I could still see the faint area of light and the silhouette that was now moving across it, until suddenly his clear figure was standing there at the bottom of what must be a shaft open to the sky. He stood with his head cocked and his nose jutting, his feet spread apart and the gun moving in a slow arc as he looked for me.
“Rashidov! Where are you?”
The echoes ran from cave to cave and died away.
I couldn’t tell how much he was still capable of reasoning. Cocaine doesn’t dull the brain: it stimulates it, but to the point where confidence takes over from reason. He was standing there with a monumental arrogance expressed in his stance and the set of his head: he was omnipotent, lord of the mountain, and his question to me had been meant as a command I must come out of hiding and show myself, so that he could shoot and this time kill.
“Rashidov!”
He was getting impatient.
When he moved next I would know by how much he was capable of reasoning. If he moved away it would mean that he still thought I was somewhere in front of him; if he came back it would mean that his brain could still follow logic: the logic that if I had gone ahead of him he would have seen me passing through the light where he was standing now.
He called my name again and swung round, circling the gun, his black boots kicking at the stones under the snow. He was twenty feet away and I could see the light in his eyes, manic and obsessed, as he looked for the thing he was here to kill. I don’t think he’d meant to shoot again before he saw me, but the gun jerked and the shot glanced off the rock and whined across the shaft in a ricochet as the smoke rose in the light, clouding against him.
Seven.
Perhaps he thought he’d seen me, or heard me.
Lie still.
“Rashidov! Come out!”
He was enraged, as I had been in London; but he was losing control to a chain reaction he couldn’t stop: the set of his head, his shoulders and his legs expressed total determination he would hurl himself bodily at the mountain and bring it down if he had to, in order to find me.
“Come out!”
He swung his head away from me and took a step, swinging the gun and then pausing, to turn and listen. Watching him, I could see the return of reason to his mind: he was looking slowly around him to find the tunnel that had led him there, and when he was facing me he began coming back.
Decision.
I had to make a decision because if he came too close to the rock he’d trip on me and he had at least one shot left in his magazine and I wouldn’t have a chance but if I got to my feet and began running clear he’d hear me and fire blind.
“Rashidov!”
Enraged.
He was coming out of the light and walking faster now, his boots leaving the patch of snow and grating across the stones towards me as his dark figure grew in size and I heard his breathing. He was coming close to the rock where I was lying and I believed he’d trip against my feet so I took a breath and rolled face down and drove my hands and feet against the rubble and flung myself forward into a lurching run as the tunnel exploded with the gun’s sound and its light flashed, throwing my shadow in front of me as I ran headlong between the jutting buttresses.
“Rashidov!”
Darkness again and the risk of smashing into the rock face but if I stopped he’d be on me and I wouldn’t be ready.
His boots crashed over the stones behind me.
It was unlikely that he had more than nine shots in the magazine and he’d fired eight and I had to let him stay close so that I could stop him reloading if he had to but if I stayed close he would fire again if there was a ninth shot left and it couldn’t fail to kill if it caught me now.
Feet thudding and the stones scattering, the echoes running ahead of us into the dark. This was where it was going to be: I could hear the sawing of his breath and knew how close he was and knew that if he had one shot left he’d fire it as soon as there was light behind the target and that if the magazine was empty he’d drop the gun and use his hands and demolish me, destroy me with that demoniacal strength of his before I could do anything against him. So this was where it was going to be.
Stones flew upwards from our feet.
“Rashidov!”
Light came ahead of us and the ninth shot crashed and spun me round by the shoulder and I went down and reached for his legs and trapped them and felt his body swinging across my back before it hit the ground and the gun rattled against the stones get it get the gun and my hands groped, sweeping over the ground left and right left and right get it get it before he got it and flung it as far as I could because he might have a spare dip and I wouldn’t survive another nine, get up and run with the light spreading ahead of me and the first white flash of the snow as I reached the cave mouth and saw the gun and picked it up and threw it across the ledge, a whirling of bright metal as it disappeared.
He was coming for me when I turned round.
Shoulder burning from the shot but no paralysis.
He was coming fast with his head down and his hands reaching out for me and I went low and swung him down again but this time he caught at me and locked one arm and I twisted over and used the elbow in a curving strike against the side of his head and missed and hit the snow. His strength was appalling: if I left my arm in the lock he’d break it so I hooked back to the groin with one heel but didn’t connect because he was rolling over and heaving his body upwards, dragging me with him until I brought off a sword-hand against his knee and he screamed and came down again with his free hand clawing for my face.
Blood from somewhere: my shoulder perhaps. Spots on the snow.
He moved very fast and pain flared in my arm as the pressure came on — he was going to break it and I curved a thumb-shot for the eye and missed and struck again and missed and went on striking until his head rolled back and I felt the softness of the eye and struck again and dragged my arm free and went for the throat but he was strong in his rage and heaved himself up again with an animal sound, his big hands reaching to hold me while his boot crashed down on the snow beside my head, going to be no go because he wasn’t human, he was a crazed mind empowering muscle and motor nerves with the force of a monster and its intention was to kill and it would do it because it was programmed to do it.
I would need more than my own strength and my own skill if there were any hope of survival and I rolled over as he came for me again, trapping his right wrist and working on it and feeling him react
because I’d damaged it before in the Trabant yesterday and the joint was sensitive. He had to move with the strain and I took him half-way over and got dear and ran for the ledge because that was the tool I was going to use, the weapon that could arm me against the cocaine, against the rage, against the monstrous strength of the man as he kicked upright and followed me with his boots flinging the snow aside.
“Rashidov!”
His name for hate, for death.
The leaden light was deceptive and the ledge was in front of me before I saw it but I dug my feet in and spun sideways as he came headlong for me. I think he would have gone straight over but there were small rocks beneath the surface and he scattered them, breaking his run and pitching across me and dragging me with him as the edge gave under the weight and we went over together, the air freezing against our faces and a cloud of snow drifting over us from the ledge. The drop was less than fifty feet but there would be boulders below and we couldn’t choose where we hit ground.
Weightlessness.
The earth tilted, the ledge angling over and pushing at the sky until the horizon was vertical and I was falling head first with one leg hooked round Kirinski’s neck and my arm locked in a hold that worried me because if he were on top when we hit ground I’d be crushed and he’d finish me: I went for the eyes again and he began shaking his head from side to side as we clung together in the rushing of the air with my fingers darting again and again until the hold went slack and I dragged my arm free, kicking against him and watching him float clear in the instant before we bit snow and rolled, its crust absorbing the momentum.
He was staggering to his feet with a boulder in his hands and I spun clear as he brought it down with his shoulders forward and his neck exposed, and I used a vertical sword-hand and felt the spine flex under it but it wasn’t strong enough to snap the vertebrae: the force dropped him and I followed up and he rolled over and locked my left leg and reached for my face with a claw strike before I could stop him. We were close now, clinging together, and neither of us moved.
The snow half covered us, its blue-white crystals absorbing the crimson as it seeped from my shoulder, its colour spreading and diluting, blood-red, rose-red, paling to rust beside his face as he lay motionless, resisting my force isometrically as I brought pressure against his hold.
Then he jerked an arm free and hooked it across my throat and I whipped my head back but the snow stopped me and I stared at the sky, feeling the slow closing of the windpipe and the first throbbing as the breath was blocked.
“Rashidov — ” he said through his teeth, “Rashidov.”
The lungs dragged for air and found none: his arm was strong.
The sky was darkening.
“Rashidov — ” he said softly.
Darkening.
The snow numbing the nerves, chilling the blood.
It would save us the unpleasant task of later ensuring…
Parkis.
Pressure and the sky darkening and the last throbbing of life, and night coming.
“Rashidov — ” he whispered.
Not the way.
The death-bringing black of night
This is not the way.
Rashidov… faint on the wind, his arm round me like a lover.
This is not the way to survive.
To survive you’ve got to move but I can’t move he’s — you can move if you try but there’s nothing I can — voices somewhere, voices in an argument, is this what it’s like when -
Don’t think.
Move.
Strength, no strength, he -
Move.
A hand. My hand. Where. Feel.
His face.
Eyes.
Move before -
Yes.
Fingers at his face, scrambling blindly, live things, live weapons, move faster, digging, clawing in the night, in the dark, this is the way, feeling the soft flesh, hooking down, hooking down deep, his body shifting, yes, his arm lifting to — don’t let him — lifting to stop my fingers — yes this is the way — and a breath coming and the lungs bursting, imploding, dragging the air in as his whole body moved, the rage coming back, the pain in his eye scalding him and now work now do some work.
Rage of my own as I went on hooking at his face but he was rolling sideways and when another breath went heaving into my lungs I used the oxygen and wrenched his arm away and brought a series of eye-darts against his face and felt him jerk and swung a wedge-hand across his throat: I suppose it was the sword-strike to the neck that had weakened him to this extent and I hadn’t realized it you should always be aware, you — a quicker movement from him but I paralysed the nerves in the bicep with a centre-knuckle and found leverage and got to one knee and drove the wedge-hand down with all the strength that was in me and felt the vertebrae snap and the head come forward, fell on him, fell across him, closing my eyes and letting the breath come, letting it ebb and flow, life-bringing, ebb and flow, this was the way.
He didn’t move.
After a time I raised my head and opened my eyes and looked down at him, Kirinski, the objective for Slingshot, a silence across the snow.
Chapter Nineteen: FLARE
Of similar threats in the past. The Soviet Union has been steadily increasing its collusion with the United States of America and its anti-China military deployment, intensifying its threats against the Chinese Republic.
In spite of protests from Peking there have been more than three hundred incidents along the Sinkiang border during the past year, all of them provoked by the Soviet garrisons in the area.
Moscow must learn that it can no longer continue to flout warnings issued repeatedly by the Chinese Republic, and that practical measures to normalize the situation will have to be undertaken in the immediate future.
I kicked the door open and it smashed back against the wall.
They swung round and stared at me, two lieutenants and a sergeant.
Meanwhile it is learned that a serious lack of vegetables in Soviet markets is causing nutritional problems among the people. Harvests have been -
“Switch that off!”
The sergeant moved so fast that he knocked the transistor off the bench and tried to catch it before it smashed open on the concrete floor.
“Leave it there!”
He straightened up.
“Get to attention!”
One of the lieutenants had gone pale. Everyone down here listened to the broadcasts in Russian from Peking but in the armed services you could be shot for it.
“Sergeant, write down these officers’ names and numbers.”
I went across the hut and kicked the red plastic transistor against the wall. “Who does this receiver belong to?”
None of them spoke.
“Answer me!”
“We don’t know, Colonel. We all share it.”
“Then you’ll all share the responsibility. Sergeant, add your name and number — come on, I’m in a hurry!”
The shoulder was stiffening. The wound had opened again and I couldn’t tell whether the blood had started seeping through the uniform. It wouldn’t look right: they’d call their headquarters.
I turned to the senior lieutenant with the ribbons and the pilot’s insignia. “I want an aircraft readied for flight — where is your crew?”
“On standby, Colonel.” His heels came together.
“Get them moving!”
He looked surprised so I said: “Listen to me. I’ve been ordered to the Mongolian border to lead an escort squadron: the Chinese have provoked a new incident there. This is an emergency, and if you can get me airborne in record time I might forget your receiver — you understand?”
“Yes, Colonel!”
He swung round and hit the klaxon on the wall as I snatched the list of names from the sergeant. “Get me a helmet and flying kit — come on, man, you can move faster than that!”
He broke for the door and I followed him out.
Half a dozen ground crew were tum
bling out of the hut near the dispersal bay. They didn’t need any orders: the klaxon was still going.
There was no actual hurry: I wanted to keep them busy so that they wouldn’t have time to ask any questions.
This was the nearest decoy field to the city, ten miles away to the south, according to the map. Kirinski had told me they flew two planes from each field, and these were both on the ground with their wing covers off and starter trolleys hooked up. They were MiG-28C’s, precursors to the Finback, their tail units higher and the missile racks bunched closer to the air intakes: there didn’t seem to be any major difference in configuration but I didn’t know how different they’d be to handle.
“Sergeant! Help me with this gear.”
One of the officers was trotting across to the tower and climbing the steps, and half a minute later the klaxon was shut off and all we could hear was the whine of the first engine as it started up. The second one came in almost immediately afterwards, and the stink of kerosene blew back to us across the tarmac.
My head kept bumping. I didn’t know quite what the trouble was: I’d had a couple of brief blackouts on the way here in the car and I didn’t want another one at the wrong time. It was probably the result of whiplash: we’d gone down into snow from the ledge but the impact had been awkward and the head is a dead weight during a fall.
I let them help me into the cockpit because it was standard procedure and I didn’t think I could have made it on my own: the shoulder was almost useless and giving a lot of pain and it wasn’t easy to move normally — I’d told the sergeant I’d sprained it in the gymnasium.
Blackout again and the instrument panel faded and got lost altogether because my head had dropped and I was looking at my knees when I came to.
“You can check your trim, sir!”
Did that.
We were on internal power and I checked instruments and looked at the ground crew; there wasn’t anything coming through on the headset and I didn’t know whether I was going to be operation-controlled: no one seemed to be in charge of anything in this bloody place.
I saw them before I looked back at the instruments. There were four of them, all of them military except the last one, which looked like police: it had got its emergency lights swivelling.