The History Book

by Humphrey Hawksley

  “Does that mean Cranley?”

  “I can’t imagine it.”

  “Cranley was with Tappler at Tappler’s house. Just the two of them. I put in every damn electronic safeguard I have, yet I was still intercepted.”

  Luxton touches her face and runs his fingertips against hers. He takes her by surprise. But it’s raw. She needs it. She’s not stopping him.

  “What does that mean?” she says.

  “Let’s work Tappler out later,” he says. “I’ll watch Dane. Go and be with your father.”

  John Polinski’s breathing evenly, his battered body resting, eyes closing and opening, as if waking up. She wants to talk to him, to protect him, to learn from him. His sleeping frustrates her. Fatigue brings mad voices to her head.

  If you’re alive, why not Suzy? Why not Mom?

  “Dad . . . ,” she begins, before realizing his eyes are looking at nothing, that it’s just his unsettled nerves. She rearranges a blanket to protect her father’s neck from the chill of the air-conditioning. John Polinski shifts in his seat, and the blanket falls. Kat pulls it up again.

  Kat lets John Polinski sleep. In the galley, she opens compartments, reads instructions, and soon surrounds herself with the smells of cooking food. When he stirs, she carries two trays through to the cockpit, then rests one next to her father’s seat and taps his shoulder.

  “You hungry, Dad?” she says. He opens his eyes slowly, blinks, taking in where he is, who Kat is. As if sleep has cured all, his face becomes electric. “Now, according to the menu, you have shellfish bisque soup,” she says, mimicking a flight attendant. “Followed by corn-fed chicken with vegetable broth accompanied by crisp pancetta bacon. And there’s apple brûlée for dessert, with a selection of fresh fruit and chocolates.”

  Her eyes are wet. She’s not sure she can hold the tears; not sure she wants to. She takes his hand, scabbed with unhealed sores, so frail, but strong enough to curl around hers.

  Reality draws sharply across Polinski’s face. He pushes himself up in his seat, looks around, head jerking in panic.

  “The man . . . I mean, who else . . . Suzy? Is she here?”

  “She couldn’t make it.”

  He blinks. “You know. Do you know? Did Suzy send you? She said someone was coming.”

  Clumsily, she leans across to him. “Here, eat. Get strong again,” she says. She lifts the soup bowl to him, spilling some on his tray. She finds a spoon and hurriedly collects the packets of pepper and salt.

  John Polinski quietly accepts his daughter’s care, lets her set up the tray, unfurl the napkin, and pour water from a bottle. His left eye twitching, making the loose skin flex, he tears off a chunk of bread, dips it in the soup, and eats. He touches her cheek and says, “They moved me a week ago and put me in that cell. A man was shot just outside. They put his body in with me and tied my hands up, so I was hanging. Until then, I had a bigger room. I got used to it. A bed, a desk—”

  “I know,” interrupts Kat, when she should have let him talk.

  He falters, a fracture of indecision in his eyes. “It’s not the way it looked,” he says.

  “It’s okay.”

  “No.” His hand goes to her wrist. “I want you to understand. Those pictures on the wall—”

  “I know,” says Kat. “I know. I found this.” She holds up the family picture from Lancaster.

  “They were the conditions of my life,” he says, his bony fingers taking a corner of the photograph, crow’s-feet splaying out from his eyes as he squints to see it.

  “Grandma? Is she still alive?”

  “Yes. She’s fine,” says Kat.

  “Still grumpy?”

  “Still grumpy.”

  “We have to go see her. You, me, Suzy, Mom, we’ll go down for Thanksgiving.” Pausing, brow creased, he peers at Kat like a child. “Mom’s passed away, hasn’t she?”

  A silent cry floats in the back of Kat’s throat. He doesn’t know. She’ll have to start from scratch.

  “Suzy, Mom . . .” she begins, and stops herself.

  His bloodshot eyes contract into themselves, and he looks out the window.

  He turns back, pushes himself up in his seat, and swallows. “Okay, Kat. Tell me. Start from the beginning.”

  As she speaks, Kat peels apart inside. Wall after inner wall disintegrates. Her story flows like water on arid land. Her father’s attention nourishes her, the harsh black-and-white edges of her life bloom into color again, and she feels like she’s on his lap in his study, secure and at home. Her eyes film over, and she talks blindly, missing nothing that needs to be said—regret, remorse, anger, the natural feelings of a daughter’s human heart to her father.

  When she tells him about finding her mother, then when she says she was murdered, John Polinski moves his head, acknowledgment in his eyes, but does not interrupt her flow. His face is worn, but it’s soft and strengthening, drawing sustenance from her.

  She tells him about the Kazakh embassy, about Suzy, the e-mail, the marshes, about Max Grachev, Tiina, and RingSet. When she mentions Bill Cage, there is a flicker of approval in Polinski’s expression. With Cranley, he nods, and his lips move. And when she describes the photograph of the execution, he speaks for the first time. “Yulya,” he says. “Yulya Ivanova Gracheva.”

  He brushes his fingers through his hair and looks around him as if, for a moment, Kat isn’t there, and he’s expecting someone else. He pulls his attention back. “Yulya is a terrible person,” he says. “She spreads evil like . . .” He falters.

  His jaw is trembling. “Suzy, you say. Now. Just last week.”

  “Friday night.”

  Drained of strength, his head drops. “Take the tray, will you?” Kat shifts the tray. “Friday night was when they moved me.” His hands cover his face.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Friday, 2:06 p.m., BST

  Kat finds fresh fruit in the galley fridge and takes a plate of it into the cockpit.

  “We’re over Germany,” says Dane.

  Luxton’s stretched back, hands behind his head. The way he looks at her makes Kat feel warm, like she doesn’t have to prove herself anymore. They’ve followed daylight, and the sun’s as it was when they left. But instead of the meshing colors of the steppe, it’s shining yellow at them behind a line of white clouds. In between, 30,000 feet below, it’s so clear that Kat can see the outlines of houses clustered amid the summer green of mountains and fields.

  “Above Holland, we’ll cut an engine,” says Dane, “and ask for an emergency landing at Schiphol in Amsterdam. We’ll work out where to go from there.”

  Kat heads back into the cabin, tells her father, peels an orange, and hands a bit to him. He winces as his mouth, red with sores, reacts painfully to the fruit’s acid.

  “Sorry,” she says. He chews and shakes his head, waves his hand that it doesn’t matter. The sleep has energized him, rid him of the tiredness in his eyes.

  “The St. Petersburg summit,” says Kat. “How did you find out about it when no one else did?”

  “Nate stumbled onto it,” says Polinski.

  “Nate?”

  “Nate dug up all sorts of things. But he’s not political. He didn’t see what it meant.”

  Luxton comes out of the cockpit, leans between Kat and Polinski. “We’re cutting the engine in a couple of minutes,” he whispers. “There’ll be a jolt and a lurch, and we’ll lose a bit of—”

  He doesn’t finish.

  Two windows next to Polinski’s seat shatter. Freezing air sucks him from his seat and smashes him against the bulkhead. Kat grips her armrest, hooking her arm underneath, locking her foot into the side of the footrest, resisting the vortex of lost pressure.

  She can’t get to her father.

  The airliner’s nose dips sharply; flames leap out from the port engine through shafts of sunlight.

  Through the open cockpit door, she sees a jagged hole in the side of the aircraft. Dane falls heavily onto the control panel. Luxton reaches for
an oxygen mask dropped from the ceiling and puts it on Dane. He slaps his face, looking for vital signs. Dane comes around and wipes blood from his eyes.

  Orange masks hang down all over the cabin ceiling. Kat puts one on. As she breathes, her senses come back. John Polinski is on the floor in front of his seat. A sucking, freezing gale sweeps away cups, trays, all roaring around her.

  The plane wobbles and jolts, twisting in the air. Kat tugs at an oxygen mask, but it doesn’t reach her father and snaps off. She braces herself against the back of a seat and heaves him up enough so that another mask can reach.

  But he’s unconscious, his breathing erratic, pupils dilated. She shouts, but all sounds are lost.

  Slowly, fuselage shaking, Luxton helps Dane pull up the nose, but they’re losing altitude. The starboard wing dips erratically, a fuel leak spraying out of it, and land rears up underneath them.

  John Polinski coughs. His breathing rasps, then stops. His chest doesn’t move. Kat puts her fingers to his neck and feels a weak pulse from the carotid artery. She lifts an eyelid; no reaction.

  Her father’s alive, but it might only be for a few seconds, unless she can get oxygen to his blood and then to his brain.

  She breathes deeply, straining to fill her own lungs, and puts her mouth over his, tasting the sores, the dried saltiness of the sweat on his lips. She pinches his nose, shifts back his head, pumps her own breath into him. The chest rises, but drops again. He tries to breathe, but something’s catching in his throat.

  Hands under his shoulders, she heaves him onto the cabin floor and lays him on his side with his legs up. Seconds more, and his oxygen-starved brain will cease to function. She can’t even use the oxygen mask, or he might suffocate.

  Two fingers crossed together, she probes into his mouth, pulling out mucus and food that he’s vomited up and is getting caught in his windpipe.

  Her mouth is back on his, forcing her breath into him, again and again. Feeling a quiver of reaction from his lungs, she places both hands on his chest and pushes down to get the heart pumping more strongly. Breathing pumping, breathing pumping, breathing pumping, until her father coughs, spewing out more food.

  His breathing stabilizes, and Kat straps on an oxygen mask.

  In the cockpit, she sees Luxton tightening Dane’s mask. The pilot has blood trickling from a head wound, his white tunic torn at the shoulder, the frayed edges blown about by wind.

  Dane’s hands are on the controls, struggling to keep the wounded aircraft airborne. His head lolls, eyes rolling, staying conscious.

  Outside, a green mass of land lurches up toward them.

  Dane speaks automatically into the PA system: “Six thousand feet and going down.”

  The airliner bounces on turbulence and throws Kat against the window. The sky darkens as they enter a cloud. The cabin fills with cold, misty air, curtains swing forward, showing the sharpening descent.

  Dane increases throttle to the left engine, which whines, tipping up the wing. But when he tries the same with the right engine, the fuselage shudders. Flames, fed by leaking fuel, are streaking back from the cowling.

  “Cut engine,” mutters Dane, as if he’s talking to himself. “Fire out. Put the goddamn fire out. Wind direction variation. Headwind component. Left engine, no retardation of thrust levers. Rate of descent?”

  Lights surge with erratic electrical power, fade, and go off.

  “Emergency power,” says Dane. He seems oblivious to everything around him, hands weak from blood loss, moving back and forth, testing the panel, as the aircraft, section by section, dies around him.

  “Both engines dead,” he says, his voice softening with reality. “We’re gliding.

  “Both of you, life vests on, up front next to the emergency exit. I’m going to have to bring her down on water.”

  Kat pulls a life jacket over her head, puts one on her father, buckles herself into a seat next to him, and takes his hand.

  “I’m here, Dad,” says Kat. “Right beside you.” He doesn’t respond. Luxton’s in the copilot’s seat, hand on the controls, giving his strength to Dane.

  Dane’s faltering voice comes through the system. “Going down,” he says. “Two hundred and ten knots. Thirty-two hundred feet.”

  The surface of the water underneath them ripples with tiny white, choppy waves. The air is cold, metallic, smelling of the sea. They hit low air turbulence.

  “Allow for loss of headwind component,” says Dane. “One hundred seventy knots. Nineteen hundred feet. Retain descent. Get her down to one hundred twenty knots.”

  Sunlight glazes over gray blue water. Wind noise becomes a high-pitched roar. The sea rushes toward them in flashes of sunlight, yellow, white, deep green, and slate gray, made darker and darker by the airliner, whose shadow encroaches above it like a lumbering, prehistoric bird.

  She sees the green English coastline, then it disappears, and all Kat can see is water. Her chest tightens. Sweat runs into her mouth. Hands clasped, she grips the coarse fabric of the seat belt.

  The first touch is gentle. The big, empty plane skims the surface, and the nose stays up. Water splashes through a gash in the fuselage onto Kat.

  A crash vibrates right through the aircraft, knocking her back in the seat. The right wingtip slices the water, jarring the plane. The wing bounces up again, then dips, and the force of the water peels off its aluminum skin, creating a horrible, spine-chilling sound like a child’s scream.

  From the back of the plane comes a rumble like an earthquake, ripping at everything in its path. The fuselage twists, and the rear section breaks off.

  Everything stops and settles. They are floating. Her father doesn’t move.

  Smoke from burning gasoline catches in Kat’s throat.

  As she unclips her seat belt, the cockpit door breaks away, and cascading water gushes in. It gathers her up, bumps her over her father, turns her, and pushes her against the gaping window. Her shirt rips on an edge of metal, and she’s flung through, until suddenly, lungs bursting, she’s floating in shallow water, the muddy sea bottom blooming clouds of silt around her.

  She kicks to break the surface, takes a mouthful of water, spits it, and opens her eyes to see the huge white curve of the aircraft towering above her. It’s only half submerged. They must be near shore. A tidal surge knocks her back. She grasps hold of a seat cushion, then two life vests. Gray waves smack loudly against the fuselage.

  “Dad!” she screams.

  The airliner’s nose rocks. The windows are above sea level, but that means there’s no way she can climb back up inside. She shouts out for Luxton. They’ve come down within sight of a coastline of mud and tufts of vegetation.

  She has to get back to her father. Her hands flail against sodden human hair. Dane’s face brushes her cheek, eyes bulging at her, his dead flesh still warm against the chill of the water.

  She swims through the murk, knocking debris out of the way. Water laps into an enormous hole in the fuselage, and she sees Luxton, hands under John Polinski’s armpits, keeping him on his feet, standing at the door on the edge of the cabin floor as if it were a cliff top.

  He has a smile of survival on his face.

  For a moment, it’s as quiet as a cemetery, the sun casting a long afternoon shadow from the wreckage across the water.

  Then seagulls start up, and their cries are drowned by a helicopter engine. A curve of machine gun bullets penetrates the fuselage skin just above Kat’s head with such precision it’s as though they were meant to warn rather than hit her.

  Rotor blades whip up the water. The helicopter’s side door is open, a gun pointing out. Treading water, Kat raises her hands to show she’s not armed.

  A military green launch, its propeller churning up brown mud and breaking the film of gasoline on the water’s surface, appears in the gap where the tail has broken away from the fuselage.

  Kat recognizes the Marine Corps emblem on the forearm of the man standing behind the mounted machine gun on the foredeck.<
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  Even though it’s broad daylight, the searchlight is on and in her eyes. Lamps underneath the launch cut through the smoky gray water to show the broken plane and its strewn contents resting on the water’s bed.

  She shifts her gaze toward her father and Luxton, who’s examining the helicopter and the launch—the two separate guns leveled at them.

  The launch turns sharply through the gap between the broken tail and the fuselage. Sergeant Mason’s on the gun, with another marine at the helm. And Mason doesn’t go anywhere without Sayer.

  As the helicopter hovers, framed through the cockpit window, Kat sees Max Grachev, headset on, no uniform, but in a dark jacket and open-neck shirt, staring straight ahead toward nothing except the open sea and the horizon.

  Kat takes in these faces with a new chill coursing through her. She realizes that the site of the downing of the plane must have been planned ahead by the entire group, waiting for their return.

  Behind Grachev, in the chopper’s open door, a tall, narrow-faced woman appears, booted feet pushed into safety sockets, both hands on a machine gun, blond hair kept back with a bandanna, unafraid to show the world her face.

  Kat wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and stares up at Yulya Gracheva.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Friday, 3:29 p.m., BST

  A single-lane road with high grass banks and a potholed turning point leads back from the water’s edge. It curves around, across two cattle guards, and through yellow fields of corn. A shower cools the air, creates a rainbow in the distance, then leaves.

  Dane’s body, wrapped in a black plastic bag and taped like a mummy, feet and shoulders roped down, bounces on a trailer behind a U.S. military jeep driven by Mason.

  Kat is with Luxton in the back of an unmarked sedan driven by the marine who was at the helm of the launch. His uniform names him as Roth. Polinski is with Sayer in a second car, driven by Mason. Yulya and Grachev follow overhead in the helicopter.

  Kat’s eyes feel bloodshot, her body shattered by fatigue. She tries for a sense of emptiness, of relief, a sense that the job is mostly done and that she can’t push it any further. Her quest has turned out to be for nothing much more than the truth and, pretty much, she’s found it.