by Jamie Smith
Nikita was unable to stop his own trajectory and smashed straight into the Plexiglass of the cabin windows which had been weakened by the gunshots. He smashed straight through it, slamming into the far side of the small cabin.
The small metal box lurched and he felt the crane sway slightly, as it lurched to a stop, pointing upwards like an arm desperately reaching for the sun. For a moment Nikita thought the cabin itself would rip off the framework and began scrambling for the exit hatch. Mercifully, after a moment, the whining of the metal ceased and all was still, leaving Nikita alone, staring into the azure waters below which had claimed the bodies of Sarah and Brishnov. The height bothered him less now he was in the relative security of the cabin, alone only with his heartbreak.
His eyes scanning across the rippling water, he looked for any trace of either of them but could see none. His sombre thoughts were suddenly intruded upon by an amplified voice. “Come out with your hands up; you are surrounded.”
Peering through the shattered window, he saw that the building site was packed with police, and a SWAT team was carefully scaling both cranes, guns poised at the ready.
He groaned, with pain at his loss and with the thought of what would await him if his cover, now flimsy at best, was penetrated. So many years of work — would they be wasted now? As so often happened, the faces of his family floated before his eyes, and as so often happened, it steeled his heart and set his shoulders.
He poked his head out of the window and immediately saw around twenty paramilitary officers snap their assault rifles to focus on him. He immediately ducked back in. Seconds later he raised his hands and led with them, his body following after.
“Relinquish your weapon and lie face down on the crane with your hands behind your head.” The police captain’s voice echoed through the megaphone two hundred feet below. Nikita held up his gun by the nozzle and made a show of tossing it back inside the cabin before lowering himself slowly onto the crane arm, which was at a sixty-degree angle, leaving him still largely upright.
His phobia came rushing back to him as he pressed his face against the rough metal frame and the distance to the ground loomed before him. There was no way he could put his hands behind his head without losing his balance and toppling off.
He heard the SWAT officer clambering through the hole in the cabin behind him. To many it would probably be scarcely discernible above the swirling wind at altitude, but to a highly trained KGB agent it might as well have been an elephant climbing the ladder.
Bracing himself, his muscles were set when hands grabbed him roughly from behind and pushed his face heavily into the crane.
“Don’t move,” a gruff male voice grunted behind him, the voice muffled by his combat mask. “Do I have to make you climb down in handcuffs?”
“Don’t worry, I’m on your side,” Nikita replied with as much assurance as he could muster, his face drawn and tight. Climbing down a crane in handcuffs wasn’t how he wanted to go.
“Sure, you are,” grunted the officer. “Now take the lead and climb down slowly. No sudden movements or I have full authorisation to shoot.”
Nikita said nothing, but turned slowly, and cautiously entered the tiny cabin. Following a nod from the SWAT officer, he lowered himself gently through the hatch underneath. His feet struggled to find the ladder for a moment and his stomach lurched as he was forced to glance down. The gun pointed at his face didn’t help his frayed nerves, but as his foot found a solid metal rung. He looked skywards, for reasons he couldn’t explain, and began the long descent.
Now looking outwards, he gazed across the water for some sign of Brishnov. A fall from this height would surely have killed him, especially with a bicep torn by a bullet.
He allowed himself to get lost in his musings as a distraction from the precarious height he was at, his body going onto autopilot as the heavy footsteps of his captor moved steadily above him. He didn’t need to look down to know that there would be numerous weapons focused on him throughout his descent.
As he neared the bottom, with the ground close enough that his vision didn’t swim he could see police cars, police officers, SWAT vans, and standing directly beneath him, Sykes. Further back, pressed against a line of police tape were the press. They were being held back by a line of police officers, but long lens cameras with large flash attachments were working furiously, despite the remonstrations of the officers attempting to contain them.
He climbed off the ladder and was immediately thrown to the ground, a knee in his back from the SWAT officer who had descended with him. His arms were pulled behind his back and handcuffs clicked roughly into place, before he was hauled to his feet.
Facing him was Sykes, a grim expression on his face. How much did he know? How much had he surmised? Sykes nodded to the officer holding Nikita and walked away, his face unreadable. He climbed into a black limousine which drove off as soon as he closed the door, forcing some of the press to squeeze out of the way.
Nikita was bundled into a police car, his head pushed down and in, the locks on the door clicking into position as it closed behind him.
***
Nikita had been waiting in the interrogation room for what felt like hours, although it was hard to gauge in the windowless room, lit only by a dim fluorescent strip glowing above him. His hands were cuffed to a bar on the table, but he had seen no one since being deposited in the room and the door locked behind him.
While he had seen no one, he knew it didn’t mean that nobody had seen him. Aside from the camera pointed straight at him in the corner of the room, he was facing a large mirror. He had no doubt he was being watched through it by a room full of people on the other side.
His mouth was dry and sticky; a mere drop of water would provide instant relief. No matter, he had endured far worse than thirst. A classic interrogation technique — make him uncomfortable, make him desperate. He focused his mind back on the predicament at hand. What had happened to the Capitol? Suddenly Brishnov’s methods made a little more sense. Ever since he had run from the scene under the guise of John, Nikita had been struck by the oddity of it. At that point Brishnov’s disguise was still intact; running away only drew attention to him. “And drew eyes away from the Capitol,” Nikita muttered to himself, realisation kicking in.
At that moment, the door opened and in walked a man with short dark hair brushed across his forehead, thick glasses and a faintly grey and jowly face. Tightly clipped under his nose was a salt-and-pepper moustache. It perched above a small, expressionless mouth that looked like it had been compressed. The small, watery eyes were magnified through the thick wire-rimmed glasses, more akin to goggles. They gazed placidly at Nikita as he sat down in the chair opposite him with his back to the mirror and undid the cuffs binding Nikita to the table. He pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes, offering them to Nikita who shook his head, before putting one into his own mouth, showing yellow nicotine-stained teeth. He lit the cigarette, blowing the smoke unapologetically into Nikita’s face before pressing the record button on the tape recorder next to him on the table.
“Mr Marshall, I’m Zach Burn of the CIA,” he said in a dry voice. Nikita’s head immediately snapped up. ZB.
“You won’t have heard of me,” he said, widening his eyes discreetly, “but suffice it to say I have heard of you. After your antics today, I daresay there are few who have not heard of you.” He tossed his black and white lighter onto the table and glared at him angrily.
“Can someone please tell me why I’m being held here? I just brought down the White Russian and did my job,” Nikita said angrily.
“Oh, we know that. The problem is, so does the world. Your job is to operate in the shadows, but now the world has seen you kill a Russian agent on American soil. When things like this happen, it makes it very hard to keep the Cold War cold. We need you to tell us everything you know. Like why was a desk analyst the one who took down the White Russian?”
“You need me to justify apprehending a terrorist?”
<
br /> “You call him a terrorist?” Burn replied quizzically.
“And I suppose you call him a freedom fighter?” Nikita replied flatly.
“Whatever we call him, I wouldn’t call what you did apprehending.”
“Oh? And what would you call it?”
Burn opened his mouth and said nothing, smiling subtly. He pulled out a small notebook and began writing in it, the smoke from the cigarette between his fingers snaking upwards towards the ceiling.
Nikita said nothing, sitting in silence, keeping in full control and trying to look for any hint or clue from Burn.
Burn closed his book and looked up at Nikita. “You’re being sent to Russia,” he said, eyeing Nikita closely to see any trace of his reaction. Nikita gave him none, saying nothing, offering only a small nod. “You have made yourself too visible here, but some feel that you have demonstrated hitherto unrealised abilities as a field agent.”
“But I’m an analyst,” Nikita protested gently.
Burn arched an eyebrow and smirked. “Indeed. Nonetheless it is believed you represent an ideal target for the KGB to turn you as an apparent double agent.”
Nikita nodded, as if weighing up the suggestion. “I see,” he said non-committedly before changing the subject. “What was the smoke from the Capitol? It sounded like a bomb.”
Burn’s face darkened momentarily. There was a haunted look on his face that put Nikita’s senses on edge. “That’s part of a separate investigation that you don’t need to concern yourself with.” He put a hand into his pocket and for a moment Nikita thought he was reaching for a gun, but he withdrew a small hipflask.
“I hear you’re a whiskey man, but I’m afraid I prefer vodka,” he said with the faintest hint of a wink, offering the flask to Nikita. Nikita didn’t move and Burn chuckled. “From what I hear it’s not like you to turn down a drink these days! Fear not, agent, it’s not poisoned,” he said, taking a sip himself before offering it once more to Nikita.
Nikita snatched it from his hand and took a long sip, feeling the cool liquid running down his dry throat. His body craved water but the vodka satisfied some other need. He felt calmer.
“You think the Russians will accept a black man into their ranks?” he asked softly, breaking the silence.
“Did you think the Americans would?”
“I’m not interested in getting into a conversation about who is the most racist; I’m interested in what results I’m expected to deliver in a country known to be the most hostile to my race. Right after I’ve very publicly killed their most prized asset.”
“You need to pay more attention, agent. You’re not being sent as an undercover agent, you’re being sent with the express instruction to let the Russians turn you into a double agent. We don’t imagine you’ll be long in Russia; they’ll want you to return to the US pretty quickly.”
“You think the Russians won’t consider this or be the least bit suspicious?”
Burn pushed his chair back and stood up. “That will all be part of your briefing, agent. Far be it from me to say whether I think there is any merit in the whole plan, but you have a difficult road ahead of you.”
“It can’t be any harder than the road behind me,” retorted Nikita.
“Indeed.” Burn held out his hand. “For tonight, you are free to go home. Get some sleep; tomorrow will be an even bigger day.”
“Have they found the bodies?” Nikita asked, trying to keep his voice even.
Burn looked him in the eye. “Nothing so far, agent, but those waters run fast and a dead body can get carried a long way. Don’t worry, we’ll find them.”
Nikita waited until Burn had left the room, this time leaving the door ajar, before collapsing back into his chair.
He felt numb, but not nearly numb enough. Sarah’s death kept playing over and over in his head. Her delicate face, the moments of warmth and vulnerability she would reveal underneath the tough and prickly exterior, the kisses they had shared. She just couldn’t be gone, it didn’t seem real. Guilt flooded through his entire body. He had thought killing Brishnov would alleviate the hatred, but somehow it had only exacerbated it. It ran cold like ice through his veins.
Finally, he thought of Elysia. It must be nearly time for them to meet in that Baltimore bar. He wanted nothing more than to hold her and get lost in her tenderness and kindness, to tell her all the things he longed to say.
But he knew he never could. Sarah was dead. She was dead and it was his fault. If he hadn’t got involved with her, she would never have been there today. She would still be alive.
He thought back to the KGB training camps. Every single tutor had warned them of the dangers of getting involved with people, not only when on assignment but at all. “You have given your love to Mother Russia, and cannot afford to share that love with another woman,” Denisov had told them all. “A woman will get you killed. Spare them and yourself.”
Killing machines, that is all they are, he thought to himself. Follow orders, kill, murder, spy and betray, and repeat until we are discovered or discarded. No matter how good he was, Nikita allowed himself to realise for the first time that he might never reach thirty, and if he did, he would have defied uncountable odds. There was no room for Elysia.
I’m lonely, Nikita thought to himself, with some surprise. But he was only able to observe it, not feel it. He stood and walked out of the interrogation room, and made his way through the building. It felt surreal after all he had just been through to walk out unchallenged. From outside it looked plain, with no indication of the CIA facility that lay inside. He recognised the area, and as there was no offer of a ride from his CIA colleagues and he wasn’t about to ask, he began walking into town, following his feet and trying not to think.
His feet led him back to his favourite bar and as he walked in, memories of the night Sarah and he had finally got together consumed him. Making his way to the bar, he could see Jess serving another customer. She glanced up at him, trying to finish with the customer, but he purposefully walked to the other end of the bar to where a scruffy-looking young barman was standing.
“Whiskey,” he croaked at the barman, who didn’t ask what kind, but pulled a bottle of Jim Beam from behind the bar. “Will this do?” he asked. Nikita nodded and the barman put a tumbler on the side. “Ice?” he asked, putting the bottle down as he reached quizzically for the ice bucket.
“No,” Nikita grunted, grabbing the bottle and glass in one hand and throwing down a handful of crumpled notes. “Keep the change,” he said as he made his way back to the booth he’d happily sat in so recently, and allowed himself to descend into bitter reminiscence and let the alcohol take him.
At one point, Jess came over to speak to him, but he responded coldly to her questions and poured himself another whiskey as she stalked away looking offended.
He caught sight of his reflection in a mirror near his table and gazed at the craggy face looking back. Was he twenty-two? Twenty-three? Twenty-four? He couldn’t recall, but the face looking back had deep puffy bags under the eyes and a hint of grey in the dark stubble lining his jawline. He took another sip of whiskey. At least his body was still in reasonable condition. Aside from the long scar on his thigh, still paining him in cold weather, his young body had recovered well from the many hardships it had been put through.
As he gazed wearily at his reflection, he began to see Elysia’s face. He shook his groggy head to put her from his mind, but the image remained. As it cleared, he realised it wasn’t Elysia, but Jess gazing at him from the end of the bar. He smiled uncertainly at her.
***
It was the toilet flushing that caused Nikita to wake. His head felt heavy and his mouth thick and fuzzy but he was instantly alert and reached cautiously under his bedside table for the revolver he kept there.
He held it under the cover, pointed in the direction of his en-suite bathroom door. He heard movement behind it and his body was coiled and tensed, ready to move.
The handle slowly pu
shed down and out stepped Jess, wearing nothing but a black bra. She looked at him and grinned. “Easy boy, I have to go,” she said, raising her eyebrows at the raised bump in the covers.
He exhaled and smiled back, turning onto his side and sliding the gun under his pillow. “Oh, come on, baby,” he said, his throat dry and raspy.
Nikita’s aching mind quickly began to piece the night together, cogs turning painfully. Much of it was a blur.
He pulled her down and kissed her as she giggled. Her dark brown body was young and firm under his hands; she felt warm and smelled of jasmine. He held her close and closed his eyes, enjoying the closeness before she pushed him away. “No seriously, I was due in for my shift at the bar ten minutes ago.”
“Call in sick,” he murmured, kissing her again.
“I can’t, I can’t,” she said, forcing herself off him and standing up. The moment the contact was broken he felt revulsion in himself. She looked so beautiful standing there, her hair all tousled, as she pulled on her t-shirt. But it did absolutely nothing for him; he just wanted her gone.
“No, I understand,” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position before a wave of nausea forced him back into a horizontal position.
Nikita closed his eyes and tried to transport himself away, but the faces of his family swam behind his eyelids, followed by Sarah before settling on Elysia. “Right, I’m outta here,” Jess said pointedly. When he failed to open his eyes, she spoke more loudly. “I’m going, Jake.” He opened his eyes reluctantly. She was standing next to him. With a groan, he swung his feet down and stood up, swaying slightly.
She caught him. “Show me to the door?”
He nodded silently, hating her, but hating himself more. Every part of him felt horrible.