by Simon Logan
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Technically, he’s a serial killer now.
Nikolai, standing over the body of yet another victim, another person he’s killed. He supposes that, to be pedantic, this is the first one that he has actually killed himself but it was because of him that Katja had to smash Kohl over the head so at the very least he’s an accomplice.
Clyde to her Bonnie.
Sid to her Nancy.
But Januscz was dead before he even met Katja and Szerynski so that’s hardly his fault either.
Yet it seems like on this night he can’t go anywhere without someone dying because of him or at his hands.
And this one, this one was definitely his fault.
Dracyev, there at his feet.
There was no disputing that he shot the man. His kill. His victim.
And there was no doubt it was Dracyev — Nikolai knew of him as well as any of the dealers.
In the matter of a few hours, he has stood over the smoking, bleeding corpses of two of the island’s most powerful chemical lords — so if he hadn’t needed to get to the mainland before, he certainly did now.
On some distant, numbed level of consciousness, he is aware of the sound of a door slamming shut, perhaps the same one he escaped through to avoid the man now lying dead at his feet, or perhaps the one on the opposite side of the storage area. He’d heard the voices and panicked when he saw them all standing there, hadn’t even meant to pull the trigger but somehow he had.
Or maybe it had just gone off, fired itself without any input from him, the events unrolling around him as quick and uncontrollable as the debris flung around by a typhoon. He doesn’t know what it was he interrupted and doesn’t particularly care, but that doesn’t mean those he interrupted won’t care. Add two more to the list of people out to get their revenge on him.
If Katja were here with him, what would she do?
Hide the body. And get out of there.
Yes.
He stuffs the gun into his pocket, hesitates, then takes Dracyev’s weapon too, cringing as he has to pry the dead hand open. Then he pulls the body toward a crate with one of its sides partially crow-barred open and it’s only partially filled with sacks and boxes of strong-smelling food, a few pieces of polystyrene, and a weight in each corner. He struggles to get the corpse inside, the growing pool of blood appearing upon Dracyev’s chest making it difficult for Nikolai to get a decent grip, and several times he drops the man to the ground with an ugly, echoing thud.
Sweat is rolling from his brow as he maneuvers the body toward the back of the crate, shoving some of the sacks up against it in a vague effort at camouflage, then closes the side of the crate back up again as best he can. The nails have been bent by whomever opened it so it won’t seal properly, but it’ll have to do.
Now to find Katja.
He’s just taken the first step onto the stairs that lead up toward the door and the outer deck when he hears the blast of the boat’s horn signalling the final approach to the mainland.
Shit, have to find Katja, have to find her now or there’s no fucking way I’m getting off this boat.
He charges out into the freezing winds, vaguely realizing how comfortable it feels wielding two guns now.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
And her wrist like bone china, this wrist that he has put his mouth to and dreamt of being twinned with his own, it’s all that’s stopping her from dropping into the vicious ocean below, waves snapping at her heeled feet like the jaws of a pack of dogs.
Her mouth is open in a scream but he can’t hear her over the monstrous crash of the water and she’s so white, so fucking white, against the blackness below her.
Aleksakhina manages to lean farther forward and snatches at Ylena with his free hand, but he becomes unbalanced as the boat lurches and he grabs the rail instead, and her momentum shifts, she swings away from the hull then crashes back into it, and this time he hears her, a short sharp cry of pain.
He pulls himself farther up onto the ledge, freezing water kicked up across his face and she’s just hanging there, doll-like, her cocaine-white hair having burst free of the pin she had it in, and it’s like a freeze-frame explosion, like a beautiful shotgun suicide.
She’s beginning to slip through his hand but he can’t let go of the rail. She’s sliding away from him, he shouts her name; this can’t be everything they’ve fought for, everything they’ve risked, can it?
The mainland is in sight, the lights glitter for them, only for them, and he can see it in her eyes, can see how it’s all going to end.
“Ylena!” he shouts at her, and he lets go of the rail, taking both his own and her body weight against his thighs, crushing them against the rail and it’s all that’s stopping him from tumbling over.
He snatches her wrist, drags her upward and grabs again, this time getting a hold of her other arm, and the boat lurches again and she is thrown around beneath him.
“Hold on!” he yells, and all he can think of is their secretive kisses, their stolen conversations, the thought of them spending a night together. Just one night.
All of these things they never had.
He looks around for a rope or anything he can throw to her but she’s just limp in his arms, not even trying.
“Ylena, look at me!”
And she looks up at him, her eyes deep and black like bullet holes in her head, and he is jerked forward as the boat lurches again, pain shooting through his thighs and across his hips.
It’s getting too much for him but there’s nothing left to do but hold onto her, to be with her.
He’s being moved closer and closer to the edge, his legs drawn across the rail and there’s less and less to take his weight but he can’t let go, he can’t. He has to be with her.
That is the only way things can be.
He’s pulled forward enough that it’s just his kneecaps now locked against the rail but the pain has subsided or gone somewhere else, the wind, the noise, the icy winter-splatters of the ocean and he’s looking into those bullethole eyes, their fate sparkling across them.
And the boat kicks against the ocean and his knees come loose. He is flung overboard but their hands are locked. They are pinned together as they fall, as they explode into the water.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Katja tumbles to one side, thrown by the force of the blow, and crumples to her knees. Something tugs at her, sending a spike of pain up her spine but she’s too dazed to react.
Her eyes hurt as she opens them and she realizes it’s because a light is being shone directly at her face. She holds a hand up to shield herself but the light is still too strong.
“What a scrawny piece of shit,” a voice announces.
Her guitar lies beside her, still intact but with another few broken strings, and she thinks of the vial, fumbles through her pockets.
“Whatever you think entitles you to this, you’re wrong.”
And the light moves away from her to the vial, held in the hand of the man before her.
Kohl.
She becomes aware of a throbbing pain down one side of her face and gingerly explores the area with her finger tips. She touches flesh before she should, swollen to high hell, and wet. She feels where the skin has broken in a neat line across a cheek as cleanly fractured as her guitar neck.
“Fair’s fair,” Kohl says, and once again the light’s beam is redirected, this time at his bruised and bloodied face. He lets the bulb go and it swings back into place behind him, describing him in a dirty silhouette.
“So, are you fucking Nikolai or what? Did you talk him into this little scheme to fuck me over? Because I know him well enough to be sure he didn’t think of all this himself.”
“That depends,” she answers, wiping blood from her face. “Did you plan on fucking Szerynski over yourself?”
Even amidst the shadows, she can tell his expression hardens.
“What are the pair of you up to? This is about more than the vial, isn’t
it?”
“This is about whatever you want it to be about,” she snarls. Spits blood to the floor.
Kohl looks like he’s going to say something else, stops. “Doesn’t matter anyway,” he tells her. “Whatever it was, you’ve failed. I’ve got the vial. I’ll be cutting the deal.”
“You think so?” Katja warns.
“I do,” Kohl snaps, and then grabs her by a liberty spike, drags her across the floor. He smashes her once more in her broken cheekbone. He kicks open the door and pulls her across the deck to the edge of the boat, shoves her into the rail, still holding her spike, leans her over the ledge.
She fights against him as salty water sprays up toward her, and the crash of waves far below blasts through her ears, but the punch to her cheek has left her legs weak, her head glittering with nerve endings firing angrily.
Kohl presses against her, her back arching over the rail, and he’s trying to grab her legs to tip her the rest of the way over but she kicks out and he can’t get a hold of them both. Instead he slaps a hand over her mouth and nose, presses the forefinger of his other hand across her trach tube, shutting off the air supply.
Her eyes bulge and she’s flailing, doing everything she can, but he’s too strong, she rolls to one side and his hand slips and she manages to shout, “The deal won’t go down if I’m not there!” But he just laughs and pushes her farther and she tips backward, onto the ledge, her legs useless, kicking at thin air.
“Januscz told them I’d be with them!”
And Kohl stops.
His grip loosens.
He pulls her back onto the deck, holding onto her T-shirt to keep her upright.
“Januscz,” Kohl repeats. “How the . . . ?”
“He was going to leave me,” she tells him, another trickle of blood rolling across her chin. “I made him call his contact and tell him there would be two of us, that I would be there too. That fucker wasn’t going to get off the island without me.”
She coughs, splutters, spits more blood, and Kohl’s grip loosens further.
Two crewmen appear at the end of the deck, offering the struggling pair no more than a cursive glance and then move on, uninterested in becoming involved in trouble.
“The man in red won’t let the deal go down if I’m not there,” she tells him.
“What man in red?”
Katja smiles broadly, her teeth stained with blood. “You don’t even know who to make the drop to, do you? Or where? What the fuck did you think you were going to do with the vial once you threw me overboard?”
Kohl’s eyes are watery and bloodshot, the veins in his temples swollen and pulsing rhythmically.
“I’ll know if you tell me,” he says, without conviction.
“And it won’t matter one little bit if I’m not there. I’m telling you, man, if I’m not with you, this deal won’t go down. You let me go and we’ll put this thing through together, split it fifty-fifty and go our separate ways.”
“Seventy-thirty,” Kohl says, again without much conviction. He’s trying to figure her out, trying to judge if this is just another con or not.
“Fine, seventy-thirty, it is.”
“What about Nikolai? Where is he?”
“He split,” she tells him. “Couldn’t handle it. He freaked out and I left him back at the docks. Useless fucking junkie.”
Now Kohl smiles. He lets her go, straightens her T-shirt but remains pinned up against her and ready to grab her should she make a run for it.
“There’s a man in a red suit; he’s going to drop the deal,” she tells him. “He’s never met Januscz before — all he knows is that a mule and his girl will bring him a vial tonight and that in exchange he’s to let them onto the mainland.”
“You’ll tell them I’m Januscz?”
“It’s the only way.”
“What about you? How will they know you’re the girl?”
“The man, his name is Ghul,” she lies, grabbing the first name that comes to mind, one of her band’s many ex-drummers. “We have some history.”
“What do you . . . ?”
And Katja raises an eyebrow, answering his question before he’s finished asking it.
“Sure get around, don’t you?”
“Luckily for you,” she replies coldly.
Kohl studies her for a few moments. The boat’s horn goes once more, signalling five minutes to disembark. The sounds of the loading machinery from the mainland now become clear.
“Okay,” he says finally. “But if you try anything and I mean anything, I won’t hesitate to — ”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she cuts him off, slipping out from between him and the railing. “You won’t hesitate.”
Kohl takes her arm and pulls her toward him. “You stay this close to me until the deal is done, you understand? This close.”
“I got it,” Katja complies. “Now let’s get this shit over with.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The horn sounds one final time, the boat now bathed in the bleach-glow of the mainland’s loading crews stacked up against the shore in their orange-and-black jumpsuits like restless rioters ready to attack a Policie meat-wagon.
The urgent tides are pressed up against the dock as the boat squeezes into its berth, a deep grinding sound echoing through its metal body as it comes to rest. Ropes are thrown from both the boat and the dock, a symbiotic exchange as the two industrial bodies become entwined with one another.
Two trucks move forward toward loading ramps driven into place, the wheels of the vehicles mere inches from the edge of the dock. On the boat, a couple of workers secure the ramps at their end, then wave to the drivers who put the trucks into reverse. The ramps slide across the roofs of the vehicles and finally crash to the ground in front of them, nestling neatly into indentations gouged in the concrete over time.
Forklifts emerge from the warehouses looming over the scene like ancient monster-gods and manoeuvre themselves around the cranes whose motorized engines flare to life. The whole place is like a battlefield.
Amidst these rusted beasts and the drone of their machinery, a man steps out of a battered old car, a cigarillo perched between thin, dark lips. He locks the car door, adjusts the collar on the high-neck black shirt he wears, straightens his jacket. As he walks into the light, he checks the suit more fully, brushes some flecks of dirt from it.
Under the glare, the suit’s red wine tone looks more like fresh blood.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Katja, she feels her eye closing up, the fractured cheek now swelling enough to block her vision, and she’s doing her best to ignore the pain in the hope that not acknowledging it will mean not being subject to its effects.
She sees the loading crews over the edge of the boat, but there’re too many thoughts running through her head for her to understand that she is practically on the mainland, that she is almost there. Almost there, but still so far away. Still with Kohl between her and whatever might come next.
Where the fuck is Nikolai?
She hasn’t seen him since they were split up by Dracyev; he could be anywhere. He could be watching them now, perhaps ready to make a move, and she doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Does she want him to make a move?
She tries to look over her shoulder on the chance that she might spot him or even Dracyev, whatever the fuck he was up to, but Kohl drags her along.
A few loaders are now on the deck, opening up the hatches that lead into the storage bays, barking instructions to one another. The mighty arm of one of the cranes sweeps overhead and more floodlights are turned on. Kohl flinches away from them, tightens his grip on Katja’s arm, and her instinct is to resist, to throw him off, but then she thinks of the vial and the deal and the mainland.
“Where is he? Do you see him?”
“Not yet.”
“Where are we supposed to go?”
“Januscz didn’t say,” she tells him.
“Perfect. We’re going to fucking miss him!”
“Calm down,” Katja snaps, smiles as some workers look at them. “He’ll be around somewhere, just be patient. We should probably just head to the loading ramps.”
Kohl seems hesitant, perhaps overly suspicious of her, but doesn’t let her get more than an arm’s length away from him before he is next to her once more.
“You want this as much as I do,” Kohl reminds her out of the corner of his mouth. “You try anything and all you’ll be doing is fucking yourself over.”
“I know that, you idiot.”
Kohl licks his upper lip to clear beads of sweat that have formed there, too anxious to notice the insult.
“Do you see him?”
They look down the ramps, past a steady flow of workers and out to the docks beyond. There are armed Policie officers stationed at regular intervals along the waterfront, automatic weapons slung over their Kevlar-coated shoulders.
“We can’t go down there,” Katja says. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves until we’ve found the man in red.”
“Well where the fuck is he?!” Kohl shouts, then immediately cringes like a dog that’s just barked and knows it will get in trouble. The workers glance at them, at their bloodied faces, then move on. Then, whispered this time, “Where is he? What if we should have made the drop on the boat? What if he was on board and now he’s gone?”
Katja chews her lip, looks back along the upper deck.
Goes cold.
Only six feet away, standing right there amidst the glare of the floodlights.
Kohl feels her go rigid and turns too, the lights sending spikes of pain into his eyes but he squints through it, sees the figure ahead of them.
“Is that him?” he asks.
The figure comes forward, out from the main spray of illumination. There’s a patch of red on his ragged T-shirt.
“I believe you have something for me,” the man says.
Kohl shields his eyes with his free hand, still holding Katja with his other.