by Jamie Smith
In his peripheral he saw Sarah Chang standing there, her eyes wide with horror. It was then he realised it wasn’t water trickling down his face, but blood. It distracted him for just a millisecond too long as he felt Brishnov’s fist power into his belly, driving the wind out of him. He tried to draw breath but couldn’t and looked desperately up at Brishnov.
“A girlfriend, Nikita?” he continued in Russian, shaking his head and tutting gleefully.
Sensing the danger, Nikita fixed his face into a look of ambivalence. “Just a pleasant distraction, although unlike you I don’t play with my food quite so violently,” he said, choking through shallow, rasping breaths. He tried to block the look of intense sorrow that fell across Sarah’s face.
Brishnov laughed harshly, then launched himself suddenly at Nikita once more. Unable to stand, Nikita did the only thing he was able to do and fell backwards, grabbing Brishnov on his way and performing a tomoe-nage by pushing his foot into Brishnov’s chest and using Brishnov’s own momentum to thrust him outwards and out onto the concrete beside the fountain.
Standing as quickly as he was able, he drew a sharp breath, his lungs gratefully drawing it in despite the pain still in his chest. Before he could turn, he heard a scream and closed his eyes in pain before looking to the skies.
Turning around, he saw that Brishnov had his arm around Sarah’s throat and a gun to her temple.
There were further screams as the smattering of people around fled, trying to escape the crazed gunman. The police, now on the scene, held back at the edge of the park, unsure what to do.
Nikita stepped out of the fountain, a stream of water flowing off him, his wet clothes weighing him down heavily. “Let her go, Brishnov, she has nothing to do with this,” he said calmly.
“Rule number one, comrade, never get attached; you know that,” Brishnov said blandly.
“There is no leverage here, Taras, she means nothing to me.”
Brishnov said nothing, only smiling as he began to drag Sarah to the end of the park.
“Jacob… please,” she pleaded to him. Her already puffy and red eyes were full of pain, tears streaming down her face as she looked with such hurt at Nikita. The sight tore at his heart and he felt utterly helpless. This was all his fault.
Brishnov and Sarah reached the edge of the park, people clearing a path as he waved the gun in their direction. He heard a police sergeant barking, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”
As Brishnov dragged Sarah across the road, Nikita took a deep breath and began to furiously weigh the odds. He picked up his gun from the ground and began to chase after them, still trying to formulate a plan, immune to the cries of the people around him and the shouts from the police. A police helicopter was overhead now and he knew it wouldn’t be long before the TV helicopters appeared too. This needed to be ended quickly.
Brishnov let off a shot in Nikita’s direction before smashing the window of a red Ford Escort parked next to him and throwing Sarah inside. Nikita was only yards away when Brishnov got the engine running and pulled away in a screech of tyres.
Nikita ran into the road and waved his arms frantically in front of the oncoming traffic. Two cars back he saw a motorbike, and running to it, flashed his CIA badge and shoved the man off it, his cries muffled through the black helmet.
Nikita caught the bike before it fell to the floor, threw his leg over the seat and was on the move without a second glance. The bike roared beneath him as he worked the throttle and he was nearly thrown backwards by the power of the forward thrust. He held on tightly and moved quickly through the gears, weaving between cars with his eyes fixed firmly on the red Ford two hundred yards ahead. It turned onto South Capitol Street SW and Nikita swung onto the highway in pursuit, narrowly avoiding a bus which beeped its horn loudly as he powered past. Brishnov’s driving was masterful, selecting the narrowest of gaps to power through, causing confusion and leaving dense traffic for Nikita to make his way around. Nikita, head low over the handlebars, wound his way through the traffic, finding slim holes between cars to snake through. The superior mobility of the bike had him closing on Brishnov fast.
Glancing at the speedometer, Nikita saw he was passing a hundred and ten miles per hour and the bike was beginning to shake, protesting against the speeds it was being pushed to maintain.
Suddenly Brishnov veered into the opposite lane of traffic, escaping the onrushing cars by a hair’s breadth before careering down a slip road in the wrong direction. Nikita had no choice but to follow, the bike leaping over the tarmac and forcing the on comers to slam on the brakes, one clipping Nikitaalmost sending him from the seat. He skidded, put a foot down and pushed himself off once more. Seeing Brishnov putting more distance between them and fully opening the throttle, Nikita aimed the bike up the slip road and followed Brishnov down a side street which was lined by metal fencing on one side and a building site on the other. Beyond it he could just see the glistening waters of a river. The tarmac was cracked and buckled, sending bone shaking tremors through Nikita’s body as he was forced to slow to keep control of the bike. Taking advantage of a brief smooth patch of road, he drew his gun and aimed a shot at the car’s wheels. He hit his target first time, the rear left tyre exploding.
The car was sent into a wild skid as Brishnov worked to regain control of it. Sliding sideways, Nikita briefly saw Sarah’s terrified face looking pleadingly at him before it spun, and with sparks flying from the bare rear wheel, gained some purchase and pulled off again.
Realising that he could no longer outrun Nikita, Brishnov accelerated across the road and into the building site. Nikita roared after him as the car disappeared behind some stacked shipping containers next to a tall orange crane.
Slowing as he approached the containers, Nikita cautiously edged around the corner but a bullet pinged off the metal crate next to him and he threw himself off the bike and back around the corner.
Peering around, he saw Brishnov forcing Sarah up the crane at gunpoint as he followed on. She was begging him to let her go.
“Use your training, Sarah,” Nikita said to himself, hoping that her limited field training would kick in and give her a fighting chance. But even as he said it he knew it would be fruitless for her to try and take on someone with Brishnov’s skill and experience.
What didn’t make sense was Brishnov’s decision to climb the crane; it was backing himself up an alley and Nikita knew he had been trained better than that. He also knew that Brishnov never did anything without thinking.
Nikita looked to take a shot at Brishnov but he’d positioned himself cleverly, making a clear shot difficult without risking hitting Sarah too.
He realised that Brishnov couldn’t get a shot at him either while climbing and Nikita dashed from his hiding place and leapt onto the crane, climbing after them as quickly as he could. Brishnov and Sarah were working their way along the arm of the crane now, and past the driver’s cabin, which was hanging over the cold blue waters of the Washington Channel. Looking along the channel, Nikita could see its meeting point with the much larger Anacostia and Potomac Rivers, all three waterways diverging into one single, vast, muddy brown river.
The arm of another crane was positioned close to the end of the one Brishnov and Sarah were currently edging their way along. As they reached the end, Brishnov began shouting at Sarah, who was paralysed with fear at the hundred foot drop below them to nothing but the concrete waters of the Channel. He was urging her to make the jump to the second crane and she was shaking her head frantically.
Eventually Brishnov made the decision for her, giving her an almighty shove, propelling her off the end of the crane. She screamed and for one horrible moment Nikita didn’t think she would make it, his breath catching in his throat.
But then her hands closed on the wrought iron metalwork just half a metre away and she scrambled on, lying flat against the crane and hugging it tightly, beyond tears now. Brishnov jumped lightly across, seemingly unconcerned by the huge drop below them.
Nikita moved along the arm of the crane as swiftly as he could, the metal cold and rough under his hands. The crane felt like it was swaying in the wind, giving him moments of vertigo, and he clung on tight, his knuckles white. Firing a shot felt impossible when he could barely even look at anything other than the metal. How had Brishnov known that heights were his one remaining weakness? The answer came to him like a thunderbolt. Yerin.
He heard another scream and opened his eyes to see Brishnov treading on one of Sarah’s hands. Despite the increasing wind, the KGB agent stood with perfect balance, knees slightly bent, in total control as he pushed harder on the hand, while staring at Nikita with that same one-sided smirk he seemed to save just for him.
With an extra push of downward force Sarah screamed again as she was forced to let go, and losing her balance, slipped to one side. She was hugging the side of the arm of the crane with her arms, and although she looked after herself well, spending a lot of time in the gym, even her strong arms would not be able to hold that position for long.
Nikita cursed and let one arm go from the crane and with great caution drew his gun once more and aimed it at Brishnov.
“Sarah, hold on for me!”
“Jacob, please, don’t let me die,” she sobbed.
“Jacob?” Brishnov sneered, “Is that what he told you his name was?”
Nikita let off a shot, and his heart leapt into his mouth as he nearly lost his balance, his shot widely missing the mark.
“Come now, comrade, do you not think she deserves to die knowing the truth about her lover being a KGB agent?”
Nikita laughed. “You don’t know the truth even when it is staring you in the face. I’ve beaten you, Taras.”
He avoided Sarah’s gaze, knowing the look of confusion and betrayal that would be spread across her face.
Brishnov’s smile faltered. “There is no world in which you could beat me, Allochka. I am the best. I have undermined your identity, I have killed the vice president of the United States despite your efforts to prevent it, and now I have drawn you to a height, your greatest fear, where you will watch your girlfriend die. My homeland does not need sub-saharans to make it greater than ever before.”
Nikita laughed once more, adamantly not looking down but aware his legs seemed to have frozen into position. “Your arrogance has made you blind. You think you killed the vice president? It was all so obvious. Novichok powder in his whiskey? Come now, I’ve read your files; it’s the same old routine you’ve pulled three times before. You think I didn’t know that was how you would play it?”
Brishnov’s smile had now taken on a fixed position as Nikita continued.
“You have no imagination, comrade. Right under your nose I advised the vice president not to consume any food or drink given to him as I knew there was a plan to poison him. I even knew which nerve agent you’d use, which is why he agreed to that impressive display of acting on the steps of the Capitol there. It would get him great air time and he could claim to have worked towards bringing down the White Russian. I have to admit though, your disguise did fool me. I thought maybe you’d turned Ed Sheen.”
Now any trace of the smile was gone.
“I heard your entire conversation with Phillips; you gave him no such instruction.”
“I gave him a piece of paper outlining my plan. I was perhaps eighty per cent confident you had no intention of trying to take him down at the Capitol, so I gambled that you would have no interest in reading my suggestions for how to avoid being shot there. Of course, there was every chance I was wrong, and even more chance he would not go along with it, but I thank you for being so predictable.”
“Then why chase me?”
“Some of us still follow orders; some of us have not become traitors.”
Brishnov spat. “You would lecture me on Soviet loyalty?” He jumped, shaking the arm of the crane as he landed, causing Sarah to slip further. “We were great, and the likes of you and that fat oaf Petrenko are destroying sixty years of Soviet dominance. I only ever served my country faithfully,” he said, his face falling into sorrow before hardening once more and looking at Nikita with eyes full of hate. “What is more important to you, I wonder? Your kill order on me, or saving this Asian mongrel?” He shrugged and without blinking, swung his boot and kicked Sarah hard in the side. She whimpered but clung on as tightly as she could. Nikita fired another shot, but he felt dizzy from the height and it clipped off the crane behind Brishnov. He began sidling along as hastily as possible, trying to shift his leaden legs and block out the swaying of the crane and the rushing of water below. The noise of it felt like it was inside his head. Brishnov kicked her again and this time she screamed and slipped off.
She was hanging by one arm now and Nikita’s heart was pounding in his chest as Brishnov scampered lightly along the frame towards the crane’s cabin.
Nikita looked at him longingly, caught between two imperatives. The mission. His training. His nemesis. Or Sarah.
He reached the edge of the crane as Sarah’s screams became a wail, her strength beginning to fail. She was trying to reach with her other hand to even the burden on her arms but couldn’t lift herself enough to get a purchase.
Suddenly they were all distracted by the sound of a muted explosion in the distance, and despite his training to never look away from his target, Nikita couldn’t help but gaze into the distance as a plume of black smoke rose into the air, obscuring the Capitol Building. Or possibly what had once been the Capitol Building.
Brishnov was smiling. “Look how the American empire crumbles! I could not have done it without you, comrade,” he said, laughing openly. “The vice president was an order I was happy to carry out, but there is so much more happening than you know.”
Nikita’s vision swirled as he made the mistake of looking down at the gap between the two crane arms, and he nearly blacked out. His fingernails were drawing blood, so tightly were his broad hands fixed around the boxed end of the crane.
“Jake! Please help me!” cried Sarah as she looked with horror at him frozen in place, snapping his attention back to her. “If you let me die, I’ll kill you,” she said, coming back to herself for one brief moment, which brought him back to himself. Her eyes screwed up in pain. “I can’t hold on any longer.” She wept. “Please Jake, jump. Jump. JUMP!” she shouted as he roared and flung himself forward. But the impact of his landing shook the frame violently and with a scream Sarah lost her grip and fell.
Nikita’s hand caught nothing more than her fingers which immediately began to slide through his grip. He flattened his body against the crane and swung his other arm down, flailing blindly with his face buried in the lattice metalwork of the crane, only able to see patches of Sarah’s body. He felt his hand close on her wrist and with a sigh of relief began to pull her up.
As he felt her take some of her own weight, he pushed himself up. Sitting now, he hooked a hand under her armpit and helped pull her up.
They both lay panting on the arm of the crane, both holding on tight.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Sarah spluttered, pushing herself up while clinging on grimly to the crane. “But who the hell are you?” she asked, colour returning to her face and anger flitting across it.
At that moment the world seemed to grind into slow motion for Nikita as he heard the crack of the gun shot. Sarah’s face froze into a look of shock as blood immediately began to spread from her left breast. Her eyes closed, and she fell backwards onto the crane.
Nikita’s head snapped up and he saw Brishnov hanging from the doorway of the cabin, one arm and leg holding him in place while his right arm was extended from the fatal shot he had just aimed at Sarah.
Nikita cupped her face in his hands. “Sarah!” he cried.
Her eyes opened in terror. “Jake, please,” she gasped. “I’m afraid to die; please don’t let me die,” she sobbed, her slim body trembling. “Don’t let me die!”
Nikita didn’t need to check the wound to
know that it was fatal and he felt a cold pain clutch his heart. “Sarah, I’m so sorry; this is all my fault,” he said, choking on the words and working to keep hold of his American accent, living a lie right to the end.
She shook her head and with great effort put a hand gently to his cheek. “You have a good heart; I’ve seen it,” she said. They were the last words Sarah Chang ever said to him. The spark suddenly faded from her eyes and her hand fell down, as with a sigh the air left her lungs.
Nikita roared with agony as the pain split him down the middle, and with no longer any care for himself or his fears, leapt to his feet and began to charge towards the cabin. Brishnov swung back inside it and Nikita could see him manning the controls. The whole contraption began to hum and vibrate, sending pangs of vertigo shooting through Nikita’s head.
“Denisov would be disappointed in you, getting attached,” spat Brishnov.
“You had no need to kill her,” shouted Nikita. “She was an innocent.”
“There are no innocent Americans,” Brishnov shouted back, smiling broadly again at the sight of the dense black smoke climbing up to the sky from the heart of the American political landscape.
Before Nikita knew it the arm of the crane began to rise rapidly as Brishnov flung the joystick upwards. Nikita fell onto his back and began to slide down the arm of the crane, the metal scraping the skin from his back as he fell. Immune to the pain, he drew his gun and began to fire at the window of the cabin, which cracked but didn’t break. In the corner of his eye, he saw Sarah’s body falling towards the waters below. Brishnov ducked down and swung out of the cabin, making his escape.
The dead end of the cabin was rushing towards Nikita and he knew it was the end.
With one bullet left in the chamber he took one last shot at the departing Brishnov, who had nearly disappeared from view, just one arm left swinging him down onto the ladder.
The bullet carved straight through the bicep of the assassin. No sound escaped his lips as his arm went slack and he tumbled sideways, struggling to reach for a grip with his other flailing arm, before his body began to follow the limp form of Sarah towards the crushing blue of the Washington Channel below.