Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End

by Manel Loureiro

  Prit parked the van alongside a wrecked Beetle, leaving no way to get through, not even on foot. That makeshift barrier wouldn’t hold them for long, but it would give us time to carry out our plan. Let the dance begin.

  ENTRY 74

  April 12, 1:07 p.m.

  * * *

  As the Zodiac approached the Zaren Kibish, adrenaline roared through my veins. The salt spray soaked my hair as the freighter’s hull loomed ahead. With my right hand on the rudder, I clutched the black steel Samsonite briefcase with my left. A familiar bearded figure was leaning over the railing, staring through binoculars. Ushakov.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The salty air, the familiar scent of algae and burning fuel, took me back to better times. I opened my eyes, with the childish hope it had all been a nightmare. Instead I saw the ladder hanging over the side.

  Gripping the briefcase, I started up the ladder to the Zaren’s deck. When I got to the rail, an eager Filipino hand reached for the case. I slapped the hand away and hit another sailor in the chest with the briefcase as I stepped on deck. I didn’t plan to let go of that briefcase. Not yet.

  Ushakov pushed through a group of sailors and planted himself in front of me, his hands on his hips. There was a deathly silence on the deck.

  On one side was Ushakov, surrounded by half a dozen burly sailors aiming Kalashnikovs at my chest. On the other side, there I was, dirty, unshaven, covered in cuts and bruises, wearing VNT overalls two sizes too big, bone tired, clutching a shiny black steel Samsonite briefcase. A real duel of Titans.

  “Well, well, Mr. Lawyer!” Ushakov boomed. “You look awful! Where’s the rest of group?

  “They’re not here,” I answered laconically.

  “Kritzinev?”

  “Dead.”

  “My crew?”

  “Dead.”

  “Pritchenko?”

  “He’s dead, too.” My voice cracked. “I’m the only one left, Comrade Captain.”

  Ushakov’s face turned gray. I guess he hadn’t expected me to return. His greedy gaze was fixed on the case.

  “Is that it?” he asked in a trembling voice. “Is that the briefcase?”

  “That’s it, Ushakov,” I said quietly. “Check the label.”

  I carefully placed the briefcase on the ground, the label clearly visible, and took a couple of steps back. Ushakov stared at the label and muttered something in Russian as he grabbed the Samsonite with both hands.

  “I’ve fulfilled my part of the deal, Ushakov. Now it’s your turn. Give me my cat and let me go.”

  Ushakov was mesmerized by the case. For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me. I was about to repeat myself when Ushakov snapped out of his trance. Glancing briefly at me, he turned to one of the sailors armed with an AK-47.

  “Kill him,” he said matter-of-factly.

  The Filipino cocked the rifle and aimed it at my chest. I had a split second to get out of that mess. It was now or never.

  “I wouldn’t do that, Captain,” I said in a trembling voice. When I’d planned that, it seemed much easier. That was because I hadn’t had the barrel of a gun pointed at my chest.

  “No? Why not, Mr. Lawyer?” Ushakov said with a wicked gleam in his eyes. “I have what I wanted, thanks to you. And I’ve decided I don’t want a lot of people to know about it. I don’t know if I can trust you to keep your mouth shut, so I’ll shut it for you. So...bye-bye!” He smiled.

  “Can you be sure you have the right case, Ushakov? Don’t be in such a hurry.”

  Ushakov’s face froze in a grimace as he looked from the case to me and vice versa. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not lying, Ushakov. Take a look.”

  I walked over to the side of the Zaren Kibish and waved toward the shore. Prit’s familiar silhouette appeared from around the corner. The bastard was smiling from ear to ear. He lifted a shiny black steel Samsonite briefcase over his head so it was clearly visible from the boat.

  Ushakov’s face was quite a sight. The crew looked confused. Nobody knew what was happening.

  “That briefcase you’re holding is full of old newspapers, Ushakov. You don’t have shit, you fucking maniac.”

  “But...” he stammered. “How?”

  “Oh, come on! Vigo’s a big city. It has several luggage stores. It wasn’t hard to find a case like that one, Ushakov.” I smiled.

  “But the label...”

  “Ripped off the other case. Consider it a show of good faith, proof that the other case is the real thing, Captain. As soon as you give me what I want, Pritchenko will leave the bag on the shore and we can all go our merry way. Now, don’t fuck with me. Let’s talk this over like good little boys, right?”

  “What do you want?” Ushakov muttered, as he approached menacingly. Sparks of anger shot from his eyes.

  “Very simple,” I said quietly. “My cat, my boat, and Mr. Pritchenko’s package. One of those AK-47s, and food for a week,” I ticked the items off on my fingers, as Ushakov’s face got redder and redder. “Oh! And a carton of Chesterfields.”

  Ushakov yelled something unintelligible as he squeezed his fists tight. He stared at the shore for several seconds that seemed to go on forever. “What’s stopping me from killing you and going after your friend onshore and killing him too? Tell me.”

  “Simple,” I replied, acting more relaxed than I felt. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, alone, Prit will run like hell with the briefcase and hide in some corner of that godforsaken city. You won’t find him in a million years, Ushakov. Think it over.”

  Ushakov thought for a moment. Suddenly he turned to a sailor and began barking orders in Russian. After that, he strode toward me menacingly.

  “All right, Mr. Lawyer. I’ll give you what you want, but you’ll regret this. I swear.”

  Some people say lawyers are sons of bitches. I won’t argue with that. But when it comes time to negotiate, it’s great to be a lawyer.

  ENTRY 75

  April 13, 11:57 a.m.

  * * *

  Sometimes the craziest memories hit when you least expect them. A strange image kept coming to mind as I stood on the deck of Zaren, waiting for them to bring me my stuff.

  I was six or seven, and my parents had taken me to the circus. I was watching the knife thrower. I remember I was impressed that the girl standing in front of the target was so brave that she let a man hurl knives at her. My mother always told me knives are very dangerous and they can cut you. The smiling, relaxed face of the surprisingly calm girl was etched in my mind at that tender age.

  At that moment, I wished I had the same presence of mind. The truth is, I was scared shitless. One false step, a wrong word, a miscalculation, no matter how small, and someone might get nervous and shoot me between the eyes. I knew Prit would be all right on his own, but I didn’t want to die that morning.

  Ushakov was pacing like a caged bear, shooting me murderous glances. I had to be careful. The bastard must have had an ace up his sleeve to fuck me over with.

  A furry blur appeared through the ship’s hatch, attracted by the noise on deck. My heart raced. Lucullus! Instinctively I stepped forward but stopped short when I realized my mistake. It wasn’t Lucullus but a brown female cat, with a bell around her neck and wicked green eyes. She slithered sinuously between the sailors’ legs, then sat on a roll of cable to groom herself, giving everyone the withering look only a cat can.

  This cat brought to mind Lucullus with a painful intensity. Suddenly, bouncing out of the same hatch, a couple of steps behind, came another ball of fur, this one a familiar shade of bright orange. Lucullus!

  He must’ve sweet-talked the ship’s cook while I was gone, because he was fatter and his hair was glossy. He smugly approached the brown cat, purring, doing what my sister called “the Lucullus move,” twitching his tail seductively and roguishly wiggling his ears.

  Typical. I dragged my ass through an abandoned city full of monsters, dying of hunger and thirst, risking my life at every turn,
while he spent the whole time stuffing his face and romancing that green-eyed doll.

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I cleared my throat. The noise was enough. Lucullus looked up. As soon as he saw me, he forgot all about the gorgeous feline at his side and rushed to me, meowing so pitifully you could’ve heard him all over the city. Before I knew it, he’d planted himself in my lap and was purring with delight, rubbing against my neck.

  I grabbed my cat and felt a strong sense of relief. Not only had they not killed him, he was great shape. I’d been afraid I’d never see him again.

  I looked up to find Ushakov watching, with contempt tinged with anger. I didn’t give a rat’s ass what he thought of me. I just wanted out of there. Who cared if the bastard was furious? But he was calm—too calm, when you consider I’d just fucked him over royally, showing him up in front of his own men. No, the guy was planning something, and I didn’t know what it was.

  Time passed very slowly, as boxes of food were piled at my feet. One of the sailors brought me a package addressed in Cyrillic. I checked the part to make sure it matched the description Pritchenko had given to me. A Pakistani handed me a loaded AK-47 and a box of shells.

  All that stuff weighed a ton, but no one was helping me load it onto the Corinth. I raised an eyebrow at Ushakov. He replied with a half bow and barked some commands to two sailors, who carried the boxes to the sailboat. Shit. Too easy. I didn’t like that.

  Something vibrated in my pocket, accompanied by two short beeps. Before the astonished eyes of crew and captain, I pulled out a small blue walkie-talkie we’d taken from a blood-soaked patrol car, abandoned on a side street.

  That car was a real mystery. It was perfectly parked near a ransacked hardware store, between some smelly trash cans and a car with flat tires and broken mirrors. After more than a month and a half of neglect, all the vehicles in the street were covered a thick layer of dust and dirt, but that patrol car was nice and clean, as if it’d just come from a garage. That was what made us stop and take a look. Inside it was empty; the driver’s seat was covered with dried blood. There were no traces of blood on the sidewalk or tracks leading away from the car. The street was completely deserted. A ghostly wind whistled through the dirt and abandoned vehicles. The car was spotless, as if it had just been parked there. It was so unnatural and mysterious, my hair stood on end. Prit and I found a pair of police-issue walkietalkies in the car, as well as a high-powered flashlight. Not a single piece of paper or a weapon, not a clue, not a trace. Nothing. A complete mystery.

  Now one of those walkie-talkies crackled in my hand. I pressed the button, knowing Prit was on the other end.

  “Talk to me,” I said in Spanish, fairly certain no one else on board spoke Spanish.

  “How’s everything going?” The Ukrainian’s voice was staticky.

  “Well...too well,” I said, not taking my eye off the sailors. “They’re up to something.”

  “Don’t look, but we have problem on bridge,” Pritchenko said quietly in his Slavic accent. “A guy with RPG-7 is hidden behind top rail. I see him perfect.”

  A cold sweat rolled down my back. An RPG. A fucking rocket launcher. I should’ve guessed. Anyone with a TV has seen an RPG. The poor man’s artillery. Virtually all guerrillas and Third World armies had thousands of those things, mass produced in the former Soviet Union. The black market was rife with them. They are so simple and effective. You just insert the grenade at the end; a tube serves as a launcher. So easy to use, even a child-soldier from some remote African country can learn to shoot it in ten minutes. So lethal that when the Russians invaded the Chechen capital of Grozny in 1994, they lost dozens of tanks to Chechen guerrillas armed with those lethal tubes.

  Their plan was clear. Once we’d left the suitcase in the harbor, that bastard Ushakov would fire the grenade launcher at the Corinth, at Prit, Lucullus, and me. If one of those things could blow up a tank, imagine what it could do to a fiberglass sailboat like the Corinth.

  The sailors climbed back on board the Zaren after loading the Corinth. I swear they had a sadistic expression on their faces. They were looking forward to the fireworks.

  With a twinkle in his evil eyes, Ushakov approached me and stuck out me his hand. “I hope you keep your word, Lawyer. Leave the case on the dock. Then it’s every man for himself. No hard feelings.”

  “Of course. No hard feelings,” I said as I bowed my head, ignoring his outstretched hand.

  Ushakov slowly lowered his hand. “We live in difficult times, Mr. Lawyer. Things are changing fast; only the toughest will prevail. I don’t expect you to understand. I act the way I do for very powerful reasons.”

  I stopped, half my body hanging over the side, and looked hard at him. “You’d kill me over a fucking briefcase?” I snapped. “Tell me. What the hell’s in it?”

  Ushakov looked at me with a frightening grimace. “Good luck, Mr. Lawyer,” he said with a smirk. “You’re going to need it.”

  I climbed down the ladder to the Corinth’s deck, Ushakov’s laughter floating down around me. Once I’d set foot on the familiar teak deck, I untied the ropes, with everyone’s eyes on me.

  The Corinth’s engine roared to life, and I gradually pulled away from the huge bulk of the Zaren Kibish, headed for the port where Prit and the briefcase waited. The second part of the dance was about to begin.

  ENTRY 76

  April 14, 9:40 a.m.

  * * *

  Water lapped quietly between the side of the Corinth and the black stones of the dock. As I approached the shore, with Lucullus nestled against my chest, purring nonstop, I thought about our next move. With a slight pressure on the rudder, I maneuvered the Corinth alongside the pier, next to the bollards, and tied it up.

  I smiled, satisfied. I was relieved that the auxiliary motor, which I’d hardly used, responded perfectly. I would have been embarrassed to be stuck just a few hundred yards from shore, with sails furled and the crew of the Zaren Kibish looking on.

  I passed my hand lovingly along the teak beam. The Corinth was a superb boat. She had sheltered me and saved my life. Now I must abandon her forever.

  Before I jumped to the dock, I ran to the pulley wheel in the bow and grabbed the tip of the line. I kicked the sail locker open, jumped down in it, and waded through a lot of bunched-up fabric with the line in my hand. The locker smelled of Dacron, stagnant salt water, and rotting seaweed. The Zaren crew had carelessly gathered up the Corinth’s sails and piled them every which way.

  On a bottom shelf, I found what I needed—the spinnaker, the huge-bellied sail used on the bow. It was normally only unfurled at sea with the wind aft, but I was confident no one aboard the Russian freighter had a clue how to sail.

  I hooked one end of the upper ring of the spinnaker, then crawled on deck and turned the hand-cranked pulley wheel. With the familiar click of the winch, the spinnaker slowly ascended to the top of the mast, swelling slowly as the soft south wind brushed against its fabric. The huge sail spread open with a loud flutter. It didn’t stretch all the way, since I’d taken the precaution of leaving the bottom sheets loose.

  The huge sail hung along the length of the ship, slack like a gigantic curtain. Any sailor watching the Corinth would wonder what kind of freshwater rat had hoisted that sail in such a weird way. Had any strong gusts of wind blown through as I was putting up the spinnaker, it might’ve torn the sail and taken part of the rigging along with it.

  All that went through my mind as I hurriedly adjusted the lines. The sail would only have to stay in that position for a few minutes, long enough for Prit and me to carry out our plan. This was the last service the Corinth would provide me.

  The fluttering sail caused the hull to rock and bump against the dock. Each crack that scraped the fiberglass and chipped the wood pained my soul. It was a crime to treat the Corinth that way, but I had no time to put the side shields in place.

  I dived into the cabin and rushed around filling my backpack with everything I’d salvage
d off the dead soldier, my other wetsuit, which still dangled on the hanger, and one of the spearguns with a dozen spears. Some sailor from the Zaren Kibish with nothing better to do must’ve taken the other speargun as a souvenir.

  A familiar mustachioed face appeared at the cabin hatch. I started passing all the bundles to Prit, and he set them on the dock. We worked feverishly and quietly. We had to empty it all in three or four minutes, or they’d figure out what we were up to on the Zaren Kibish. The huge sail blocked the view of the sector of the dock where we set our supplies, and disguised Prit’s trips back and forth. All they could see was a sailboat next to the dock, swaying in the breeze.

  We were sweating like crazy as we hid our stuff behind the spinnaker, out of sight from the Zaren. Finally, I pulled on my wetsuit as Prit dragged a life-size male mannequin out of the back of the van, courtesy of a fashion boutique downtown. He dressed it in a yellow slicker, drawing up the hood as a finishing touch.

  Not three minutes had passed from the moment I unfolded the sail till we set up the dummy in the cockpit of the Corinth. While Prit slipped back around the corner, I cut the line that held the Corinth to the dock.

  In one smooth motion, the sailboat began to slide toward the harbor entrance. The rudder was locked in place so it would hold its course for a few minutes—more than enough time. Trying not to make noise, I let myself down into the water between the Corinth and the dock. The water was really cold, but I didn’t even notice. As the hull slid up against me, I took a few deep breaths and dived.

  Diving relaxed me completely. I could make out the black silhouette of the Corinth as it pulled away, and beyond that, through the rushing waters of the port, the Zaren Kibish’s waterline.