by Andy Marlow
revenge, he imagined the monster before him was Mr Simkin, sparring with him for fun and for education. He saw the stern yet caring eyes of his former master baring down upon him from his nemesis’ face and felt a calm descending over him as he entered a mood of battle-readiness.
The blade swung round again, and he dodged it again. Technically his martial arts training had been strictly for self-defence; he had been taught not to kill, only to disarm- but that was not his aim here. He wanted his family’s killer to suffer, to bleed, to die before him in the same pain to which he had subjected so many innocents before him. So with a swift stroke of the air with the blade of his knife, Mo cut a deep gash through his opponent’s sleeve and left his forearm bloodied; what’s more, he had specifically aimed for the tendons in his wrist, so as Jacob screamed out in pain the machete fell involuntarily from his grasp.
He tried in vain to move his hand, but not luck: the snapped tendons could no longer support the movement of his fingers, or his wrist. His right hand had become useless.
Fear flashed across his face now, tangible and unhidden. Mo even felt a little pity for him. Just 27 years old, he had been a mere boy of 18 when he had dropped the bomb on Mo’s wife and child. He probably couldn’t even remember it. Probably never gave a thought to the lives he destroyed in his movement of “heroism”. He remained every bit a boy even now, though 27 years old: his mind remained as unthinkingly devoted to his ideological cause and the ideas of David Weinberger as ever before. He had never grown up, never learnt to think for himself.
So Mo pitied him. Part of him wanted to kill him, but part of him felt revulsion at the very act and wanted to teach the boy the error of his ways. Pure, bloody necessity intervened to prevent that: for a show of compassion by Mo now would inevitably lead to his slaughter at Jacob’s hands, so killing was the only way. It was the only way to get proper justice.
He swung his knife round once more, this time on an unarmed opponent, and left a deep gash in Klein’s mole-ridden face. His enemy began to moan now; to wail in torture and pain, and Mo could see the image of his wife and child, his Aikido instructor too. He had expected them to be applauding him, to be thanking him for taking revenge- but they were not. In his mind’s eye, Graham Simkin was slowly shaking his head, tearing up his belts and the certificate which had given him his first Dan; his son was looking away, while his wife was looking on horrified.
This was the moment he had spent his whole life waiting for. The past nine years had been geared up to this: revenge on his family’s killer. But he knew his family, he knew his friends, and he knew his conscience- and they were all disapproving when the moment came round. And he could see why, too; he could feel it: his soul becoming clouded by the very poison which must have taken over his enemy’s soul, turning him into the very monster he sought to destroy.
He had not killed before; this was his first battle. Despite being in the Army for several years, he had, up till now, always occupied desk jobs or work behind the scenes. He had mainly been occupied by work as an Army mechanic. It was only when times had become so desperate, when their control over the city was being diminished and every hand was needed to defend against the Communitarian scum, that he and his fellow back-benchers had been brought to the front line. In his group of six, two had been medics before now, one a researcher and three mechanics; none of them were front-line fighters, and none of them were killers.
Now he was to become one. The whimpering form of Jacob Klein lay before him, face cut and wrist bleeding, defenceless. Utterly defenceless.
Mo bit his lip. He understood now that he would be betraying his family’s memory, not avenging it, by becoming their murderer’s murderer; yet he could not in all conscience leave this man to run free, killing again and again. Something had to be done to stop him.
So he lifted his blade into the air, aimed it well and plunged it into the man’s spine so as to paralyse him. It may sound cruel, but this was a kindness: for the other option would be to deprive him of life entirely, and Mo could not do that in all good conscience. This way, Jacob would live, but he would never again be able to fly a helicopter or kill an innocent again. This way, justice could be served.
Except it didn’t quite work like that. Mo had been a mechanic, not a medic; his knowledge of the human body was based solely on television hospital dramas and the like. As such, he had no idea where to position his blade and, quite accidentally, punctured a major blood vessel in Jacob’s back.
The man screamed, of course- for being stabbed is one of the single most painful things one can experience ever in the course of your life. But as Mo watched, his moans of pain quickly died down and the life began to leave his eyes. He was dying.
“No, no, no, no!” screamed Mo, leaping down to help his dying victim. He knew he could not live with the death of another man on his conscience; not even the death of his family’s killer, for he could not allow himself to become like Jacob. He could not become the very thing he hated. Even though they were dead, he knew that if Jacob died here today, his wife and son would never have seen him in the same light again, had they been alive; they would never see him the same again, if they were now spirits.
But given his complete lack of medical knowledge, his efforts were in vain. Jacob Klein died in the arms of Mohammed Amjid at eleven o’clock on the morning of 9th November 2011, precisely nine years since he had committed the murder of his killer’s family.