The Fail Safe

by Jack Heath

  He felt as though he was going to throw up. Was he completely mad? Could he actually do this?

  A shout behind him made it clear that he didn’t have a choice. The airman from the guardhouse had spotted him. The distant maintenance crew turned around, saw him, and started running in his direction as well.

  With enemies closing in on all sides, Fero dashed towards the catapult just as the beam came down again. There were no gunshots. He guessed it was too dangerous to fire so close to unexploded bombs. As he ran he pulled the straps of the parachute pack on over his shoulders and tightened the buckles across his chest.

  He reached the giant ladle in time to stop the next napalm barrel from rolling in. He didn’t even have to push back that hard. The rolling action was designed to be very gentle.

  But this next part wouldn’t be.

  Fero clambered into the ladle and curled into a ball. He had never been so terrified. Nothing in his training had prepared him for this. He was about to be launched with insane force over an incredible distance, with nothing to break his fall except—

  WHAM!

  Although he had known it was coming, the launch caught him by surprise. Suddenly he was rushing upwards, the air crushing him into the ladle, his ears popping and muscles straining. It was as if he was standing behind a jet engine, the slipstream threatening to blast off his face. It felt like the fastest drop of a rollercoaster, except somehow he was travelling up instead of down. The pressure was so incredible he couldn’t open his eyes.

  There was a thud as the beam hit the top of its arc and Fero left the ladle behind. He hurtled almost horizontally, like a bullet out of a gun. He shielded his face with one arm so he could open his eyes a crack. The Dead Zone whizzed past below so fast that the craters and dunes were a blur. He was weightless and shapeless. It felt like his skeleton had melted.

  Soon he realised he was slowing down. He had more surface area than a bomb. More wind resistance. He was starting to fall.

  He fumbled with his parachute until he found the plastic tag at the end of the ripcord. He yanked it. With a thunderous whump the parachute burst into shape behind him. The straps dug into Fero’s chest so hard and so suddenly that it was like being hit by a car. He screamed as the force jerked him backwards, and a second later he found himself hanging beneath the huge grey canvas that bloomed like a hot air balloon over his head.

  He was still falling, but not quite as fast. The wall that separated Kamau from the Dead Zone – the Anti-Terrorist Protection Rampart – was coming up. It seemed even bigger than Fero remembered. He shouldn’t have opened his parachute so soon. Too late now. Was he going to make it over?

  He drifted closer and closer to the wall. At the last second he lifted his legs and swept over, scraping the soles of his shoes on the top. Then he was in Kamau, drifting over a quiet street filled with wrecked buildings, burned-out cars and no people. Smoke rose from black stains on the road.

  Fero hit the ground harder than he wanted to, but at least he avoided breaking any bones. The parachute draped over him like a bridal veil. He fumbled with the clips until they came free, then shrugged off the pack and fought his way out from under the chute. He stood dizzily, looking around in shock. He was alive – for now.

  The silence was eerie. Suddenly he wondered if Besmar had a spare set of launch codes. Maybe they had fired their nuclear weapons already. Perhaps this whole country was dead. Even now Fero could be absorbing a lethal dose of radiation.

  He shook the thought away. He would have seen the flash, and heard the bombs go off.

  By his estimation, there was still an hour left before he was supposed to meet Cormanenko. He ran past the bombed buildings, past the torn protest posters, past the apartment blocks with shuttered windows and cameras watching over the doorways. He was struggling to recall which country he was in, let alone which city. In his mind, Kamau and Besmar had merged into one ruined, frightened metropolis.

  A car swept past at a reckless speed, bouncing over the potholes. Fero hoped the driver hadn’t looked at his face. He was still Kamau’s most wanted terrorist.

  A police patrol car was parked on the next street corner. Fero ducked quickly into an alley. He didn’t hear any sirens or voices. Either they hadn’t been looking his way or they were planning to sneak up on him.

  ‘Hey.’

  Fero froze. The voice had come from a shadowed doorway. A straight-backed man with a woollen cap was taking shelter from the wind.

  ‘Can I use your phone?’ he said. ‘I’m waiting for my brother. I don’t want to lock the fallout shelter until I know he’s safe.’

  Fero didn’t have a phone. He was about to say so when the man’s expression changed.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘It’s you!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Fero said, backing away. ‘I can’t help you.’

  The man lunged at him, trying to tackle him. Fero darted out of reach and the man sprawled on the ground. ‘It’s the terrorist!’ he yelled as Fero sprinted further up the alley. ‘He’s getting away! Somebody stop him!’

  Fero’s disguise might have been good enough to fool people in Besmar, but not here, where his picture had been all over the news for three days. He turned another corner. A chain-link fence blocked a laneway. He climbed onto a skip bin, jumped over the fence and kept running.

  Cormanenko had said he was her fail safe. He guessed that meant she had a plan to save Besmar from nuclear war. But she hadn’t said anything about keeping them both alive afterwards. Where could Fero hide now that everyone in Kamau knew his face?

  He headed towards the nearest highway, which ran all the way to Melzen via Coralsk and Towzhik. He jogged up the exit ramp and started running along the shoulder, waiting for a suitable vehicle to pass.

  A sedan: no. A motorcycle: definitely not. There – a big truck with a supermarket logo on the side. It was likely to be going at least as far as Coralsk.

  As it passed, Fero dived after it and grabbed the handle of the roller door at the back. Suddenly he was speeding along the highway on his wheeled shoes, fighting to stay upright.

  Hold on, Cormanenko, he thought. I’m coming.

  MUTINY

  CORALSK – THIS EXIT. Fero saw the sign and hoped the truck would take the turnoff, or at least slow down. It didn’t. At the last second Fero let go, twisted his feet, and hurtled down the exit ramp at a frightening speed. His arms flailed with the effort of balancing on the wheels in his shoes. Soon the road levelled out and he skittered to a stop, breathing heavily. He wasn’t far from the river. He had about ten minutes left before he was supposed to meet Cormanenko.

  He could see Wilt and Zuri’s apartment building up ahead. After everything he had gone through, he was right back where he started. He had achieved nothing, and lost so much – his mother, his sister, his faith in his country and himself. His feet and legs ached. So did his hands, from clinging desperately to the truck. Other than a few hours spent unconscious in a pile of garbage, he hadn’t slept in two days. He hadn’t eaten a proper meal in just as long. Even if none of his many, many enemies killed him, he might die of exhaustion.

  But he couldn’t stop. He was almost there. It was nearly over.

  He ran past the entrance to Coralsk station, where he’d caught the train to school so many times. It was a place he’d never thought he would see again. He dashed past the front doors of the apartment building—

  And crashed into Zuri.

  Zuri kept her balance. Fero didn’t. He put his weight on his heels, forgetting that there were wheels underneath them, and slipped over backwards. He sprawled on the concrete, helpless, Zuri standing over him.

  In the collision, she had dropped a box of her belongings. Some electronics, cleaning supplies. Fero guessed she had been ordered to scrub the apartment and remove all traces of their presence.

  She stood in a fighting stance, one fist close to her chest, one hand open in front of her chin, ready to parry an oncoming blow. She looked nothing like the woman who h
ad pretended to be his mother. Her gaze, her posture – it was pure Librarian. She was a killing machine.

  Then her eyes widened. ‘Fero?’

  Fero scrambled backwards across the footpath. He was unarmed and exhausted. He couldn’t fight her – he would have to flee.

  ‘Troy,’ Zuri said, as though just remembering who he really was. A strange expression crossed her face – like relief and pain at the same time. But the expression was gone before Fero could decode it. Like Tellers, Librarians were taught to keep their feelings buried under layers of calculation.

  ‘Go,’ Zuri said finally.

  Fero stared at her.

  ‘Quick.’ Zuri looked around at the deserted street. ‘Before someone comes. Avoid the next alley. They installed a new camera yesterday.’

  Fero stood up. Was she really letting him leave? That was treason. They would execute her for this.

  ‘Go!’ Zuri said again.

  Fero ran. When he looked back, Zuri was putting her belongings back in the box as though nothing had happened. Maybe as soon as he was out of sight she would get on the phone and warn her colleagues. Perhaps the warning about the camera in the next alley was a trick. Or perhaps she had been a Teller all along, working undercover in the Library and not yet aware of Fero’s betrayal.

  Or maybe he had a mother who cared about him after all. There was no way to know.

  Five minutes left. He had to hurry, or he might miss Cormanenko. He avoided the next alley, dashed around a corner and then the river was in sight. The buildings cast long shadows across the water. Boats bobbed gently on the currents.

  Fero rolled down the hill at top speed towards the pier, hoping he had decoded Cormanenko’s instructions correctly. It was too late to go anywhere else.

  A polished limousine stood empty, doors open, blocking the entrance to the pier. Fero could smell the tyres and the engine. It had been driven fast, recently.

  As he approached, his wheels humming on the footpath, there was a thump from the boot, and a muffled groan. ‘Mmph!’

  Fero stopped. Uneasily, he reached for the latch to open the boot. It was unlocked. Inside he found a uniformed presidential bodyguard. The sort who travelled with Nina Grigieva at all times. His wrists were bound behind his back with duct tape, and his ankles were tied together. More tape covered his mouth.

  ‘Mmph!’ he said again. His eyes widened as he recognised Fero – the infamous Besmari bomber.

  Fero closed the boot again. What was going on?

  He scrambled over the bonnet of the limousine, feeling conspicuous. There was no one else on the street, but the pier was completely visible from the apartment building across the road. Hundreds of people could be watching from behind those darkened windows. There were no trees – nowhere to hide from drone and satellite surveillance. Why had Cormanenko picked this spot? And what was her plan?

  Once he was over the car, he saw two figures standing beside the monument at the end of the pier. One of them was Cormanenko, dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform. She looked haggard and pale. Even so, Fero almost cried with relief at the sight of her.

  Then he saw what she was doing. She was pointing a pistol at the other figure.

  It took Fero a couple of seconds to recognise the president. Nina Grigieva looked shorter in person, and slightly fatter than in the posters. The wind had ruffled her usually coiffed hair, and her lipstick had been chewed away. She was hollow-eyed and perfectly still, like a cornered rat.

  Cormanenko saw him. ‘Troy. I was worried you wouldn’t make it.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Fero asked. ‘Why is she here?’

  He saw the hope fade in Grigieva’s eyes when she realised who he was. She probably knew he hadn’t really been responsible for the bomb in the BOTANIC GARDENS, but she didn’t think he was here to rescue her.

  ‘I switched places with her driver and managed to outrun the rest of the motorcade,’ Cormanenko said. ‘But they’ll catch up to us at any minute.’

  ‘That’s how she got here,’ Fero said. ‘I asked why.’

  ‘She’s crazy,’ Grigieva said. ‘She thinks—’

  ‘Besmar is disarmed,’ Cormanenko interrupted, ‘but Kamau isn’t. There are six nuclear missiles aimed at major Besmari cities right now. And she’s the only one with the authority to launch them.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Grigieva insisted. Her hand hovered near her pocket, but it looked too tight to contain a weapon, and Cormanenko would have plenty of time to shoot if she moved.

  ‘So you’re going to do what, exactly?’ Fero demanded.

  Her face grim, Cormanenko raised the gun, as though that answered his question. Grigieva shrank away.

  Distant sirens wailed on the breeze. The black water of the river licked quietly at the poles under the pier.

  ‘You can’t kill her,’ Fero said.

  ‘I don’t have a choice,’ Cormanenko said.

  This wasn’t the brilliant plan that Fero had hoped for. He had thought they would be able to disarm the Kamauan warheads somehow, or disrupt the satellite targeting system, or something. Instead, Cormaneko’s ‘fail safe’ solution was horrifyingly simple.

  ‘We can’t let her start a nuclear war,’ Cormanenko said. ‘My boat will be here any minute. Once she’s dead, we can sail downriver into Ukraine, cross the Black Sea and escape into Turkey.’

  Fero longed for freedom, and he was desperate to prevent the launch of nuclear weapons. But was one more bullet really going to create peace?

  ‘There must be another way,’ he said.

  ‘Listen to him,’ Grigieva pleaded. ‘If I die, the defence secretary will launch the missiles. This is pointless.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Troy. She has perpetuated and escalated this war for years. She’s responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. If we let her live, she’ll kill millions.’

  A bird fluttered down onto the monument – a simple pyramid with a bronze plaque on each side. The names of the dead glimmered in the sun. Many were too high up to read.

  It was as if Fero was back in that cell, with Vartaniev ordering him to shoot the prisoner. Telling him it was the right thing to do. Explaining all the terrible things the prisoner might have done, or might yet do.

  Troy had made the wrong decision then. Fero hoped he wasn’t making the wrong one now.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘So what do you need me for?’

  As he spoke, he edged towards Cormanenko. He couldn’t talk her out of this, so his only hope was to get close enough to snatch the gun out of her hand. She was stronger than him, and had more training – but she trusted him.

  ‘The defence secretary,’ Cormanenko said. She didn’t look relieved. She must have assumed that Fero would eventually be convinced.

  ‘What about him?’ Fero took another slow, cautious step towards her. There was still no sign of the boat. The sirens were getting louder. He had to disarm Cormanenko and get out of here before they arrived.

  ‘I need you to – hey!’

  Cormanenko saw what he was doing and stepped out of his reach. She pointed the gun at him. ‘Stay back.’

  ‘You won’t shoot me,’ Fero said, telling himself it was the truth.

  ‘I did before,’ Cormanenko said.

  ‘To save a life,’ Fero said. ‘And I don’t think you missed my heart by accident.’

  ‘This will save millions of lives,’ Cormanenko snarled.

  ‘Vartaniev used to say things like that.’

  ‘Troy,’ Cormanenko said. ‘Do the right thing. Trust me.’ Her finger was on the trigger.

  Fero had trusted Cormanenko. She had let him down. But he wouldn’t let her turn him into a killer, like the Bank had tried to do. No matter what was at stake.

  It’s better to lose the fight than to become the thing you are fighting against. The words didn’t sound like Vartaniev, or anyone else he knew. Maybe he was finally hearing himself.

  He stepped in front of Nina Grigieva, blocking Cormanenko�
�s shot. ‘You do the right thing,’ he said.

  A strange expression crossed Cormanenko’s face. It looked almost like a smile, but it was gone too quickly for him to be sure. Would she shoot?

  ‘Goodbye, Fero,’ she said.

  Fero fought the urge to cover his face. He was done hiding. If he was about to die, he was going to do it bravely.

  Cormanenko pulled the trigger.

  Bang! Bang!

  Blood exploded out of the front of her chauffeur’s uniform, spattering the pier. She staggered backwards, and looked down at the bullet holes – one over her stomach, the other over her heart.

  ‘No!’ Fero cried. Troy Maschenov wouldn’t have mourned a woman who had been about to kill him. But Fero Dremovich couldn’t stop himself.

  Cormanenko looked back up at him. She swayed. Then, without saying anything, she pitched off the edge of the pier into the water.

  A shrieking siren split the air. It was so loud it overloaded all of Fero’s other senses – the smell of the river disappeared and his surroundings became a jumble of meaningless shapes. He clamped his hands over his ears, but it didn’t help. The wailing sent ripples through the fluid behind his eardrums, and the ground seemed suddenly crooked beneath his feet. He lost his balance and fell face down onto the pier.

  The president writhed around next to him, her fingers in her ears, the emergency siren abandoned by her side. If she had used it earlier, Cormanenko might still be alive.

  Fero could dimly make out shapes vaulting over the parked limousine and running up the pier towards them. The president’s bodyguards had caught up.

  The siren was so loud. The pain was too much.

  Darkness crawled in from the edges of his vision, and he blacked out.