by Chris Ward
Patricia was fiddling with one of the computer screens he had activated, pressing random buttons with excessive ferocity. She had no clue what she was doing; he didn’t need her frowns to tell him that. He had been in the process of setting up a communications scrambler that covered a thirty-mile radius, as well as a proxy firewall so it wasn’t obvious to any hackers that the scrambler’s origin was nearby, keeping him off the radar for any further drone strikes.
Such was the nature of warfare these days. He felt almost nostalgic for the days of swords and spears.
‘Stupid thing.’
Kurou said nothing. He turned his head slightly so that Patricia would think he was staring off into space. His monochrome eyes had fooled many a potential victim, but he was watching every move she made, analysing every motion and shift of her hands and body, reading her like some might read a book, picking out information.
In years gone by, he could have picked a hiding rabbit out of a field of grass at five hundred metres, and although these days his vision was a fraction of what it used to be, he could still see the rise and fall of her pulse in her neck, see how her heart rate was rising as she became increasingly frustrated. He actually felt more concern for the computer terminal than for himself, because unlike a complex mainframe, he was relatively easy to fix.
‘How does this fucking work…?’
He said nothing. Patricia tapped a couple of buttons and frowned. An image appeared on a screen of a dating site profile, a muscular man in his mid-twenties pouting at the camera. Kurou felt his cheeks redden as he read the profile’s name: Mark Crowe.
Patricia turned to him with a look of disgust on her face. ‘What the hell were you doing?’
Had it not been for the ropes binding him so tight, Kurou would have shrugged. ‘Oh, I was just seeing if I’d had any views since last time I logged in … it’s been several years, you know….’
‘What are you?’
‘They say I was born a man….’
‘You’re not anything. You’re like a worm under my foot.’
Kurou was happy enough just to get her talking. Insults really didn’t hurt in the same way that fire, electricity, and thrown metal tools did.
‘I’m a worm who’s rather useful with computers….’
Patricia glared at him a moment longer, then turned back to the computer. She peered around the back of the screen, then looked under the desk. With a sigh of frustration, she stood up.
‘I guess if it doesn’t move I have no choice but to move you,’ she said.
‘I don’t bite!’ Kurou pined.
Patricia, taking no chances, looped a metal hook into Kurou’s bonds and dragged him across the floor to the computer terminal. Then she hauled him upright and pushed him into the chair.
‘That’s much better,’ Kurou said. ‘I was getting terrible double vision lying down there.’
‘I want you to open the back gate,’ she said. ‘I know there is one, because I found it on a map.’
‘Most observant of you. Um, I’ll need the use of my hands.’
Patricia shook her head. ‘Tell me which buttons to press.’
The girl wasn’t to be bested—at least not yet. The entrance that Victor had found was only secondary to a larger set far more well hidden in the forest, but opening them via the computer was a long, arduous process that drove Kurou near out of his mind. Command by command he instructed Patricia how to open up the mainframe and then access the computer program that controlled the base’s systems.
‘Okay, there you have it,’ Kurou said, as the command tab for REAR ENTRANCE flashed up as OPEN. ‘Best not leave it like that too long, lest a draft gets in. I’m rather susceptible to a little grippe these days, especially with the long winters that we have.’
‘Get up,’ Patricia said.
Kurou did as she indicated, walking ahead of her towards the door, the rifle barrel pressed into his back.
‘Pray tell me where we’re going?’ Kurou said. ‘I do love a family outing.’
‘We’re going back to Brevik. I’m going to offer them a murderer and kidnapper in exchange for my father’s life.’
‘Oh, how delightful. Did you pack some sandwiches?’
He was sure the girl gave a little chuckle, but the net result was a harder prod with the gun barrel.
‘Goddamn it if I’m not going to cut out your tongue before I hand you over,’ the girl said. ‘I hope you’re enjoying it because it’s not staying in that mouth of yours for too much longer.’
‘Hold him still.’
The two men lifted Robert Mortin upright. The big man winced as his splinted leg was straightened, sweat breaking out on his brow despite the cold. With one arm in a makeshift sling and his face bloody and blackened from minor cuts and burns, he looked beat up enough already, but Sergei owed him one.
‘You lied to me,’ he said, slamming a fist into Mortin’s face. ‘You dirty Mongolian. You lied and you left me to die.’
Mortin barely flinched. His cold eyes continued to stare into Sergei’s, who was struggling to contain his composure. Mortin was like granite. Sergei was sure he had broken a knuckle, but he couldn’t let Mortin see his weakness. When it came time for the mayor to take his turn, Sergei would use a weapon.
Mortin’s big head swung towards the nearest guards. ‘How much is this idiot paying you?’ he asked. ‘I’m guessing not much. I’ll double it.’
‘Silence! Take him out to the gallows,’ Sergei shouted. After a short pause during which a few uncertain glances were passed around, the guards turned Mortin back towards the door and headed out.
Pavel Andrev now stood alone in his former office, his hands bound behind him. The head councillor looked untouched by the train disaster that had left some two hundred townsfolk dead.
‘You made a mistake abandoning us,’ Sergei said. ‘I run this town now.’
Pavel smiled. ‘You’re nothing but a petty thief,’ he said. ‘The people won’t follow you.’
‘Rather me than the man they trusted to protect them who left them behind.’
Pavel looked sheepish. ‘You’d have done the same in my situation.’
Sergei gave him a light slap across the cheek—with his good hand. ‘Oh, quite possibly. But I wouldn’t have got caught.’
If surrounded by idiots is how I have to die, then so be it.
The huge floodlights, beaming down from the roof of City Hall on to the square where crude gallows made of metal scaffolding poles had been set up, were like a dinner invitation for more drone strikes. The suddenness of Sergei Papanov’s ascension to power was disturbing, but Robert had seen enough doubt in the guards’ eyes to know the gangster had a tenuous grip at best. Whether they would overthrow him before the gallows did their work on the captured exiles was another matter.
Robert wasn’t the only one being made an example of under Sergei’s new regime. A couple of dozen other prominent figures had also been handpicked to be strung up from the wire nooses hanging in the air fifteen feet above him. The rest of the survivors had been rounded up and either detained or allowed limited medical treatment. All had been promised that punishment was imminent, that their possessions were no longer their own, and that death would likely be a mercy.
It wasn’t quite the homecoming Robert had hoped for.
‘It’s time,’ boomed a voice above him, fading in and out of the microphone. Sergei clearly wasn’t used to public addresses. ‘Let’s get these traitors in the ground.’ He paused for dramatic effect, but the response from the sparse crowd was muted. ‘Guards, you know what to do!’
A few of the mayor’s less reliable guards who had been left behind and a handful of small-time crooks and unsavoury civilians now dressed up in guard clothing began to move the captives up the metal steps towards the gallows platform.
‘The mayor will begin the proceedings,’ Sergei boomed.
Pavel started to protest, but hatred for him was greater than for anyone else. He struggled as a guard l
ooped a noose made from electricity cable over his head, then gave a muted scream as two more guards hoisted him up into the air.
Robert winced as a trickle of blood dribbled down on to the platform, the crude noose cutting into Pavel’s neck. For a few seconds the mayor’s feet kicked, then his body slumped forward.
‘Next!’
There seemed to be no set order, although Robert expected he might be saved for a final coup de grace. Around him the scaffolding shuddered as a second man—one of Pavel’s council aides—was strung up beside his old boss. Rather than bay for blood like Medieval crowds of old, the assembled people looked more disgusted than anything else, but no one made a move to challenge the new order. Near the outermost fringes of where the floodlights could reach, several small groups were slinking away. It was possible Robert would die in front of a deserted square.
The sound of an engine made him look up. The crowd parted, many people running in fear, as a large military transport vehicle burst into the square and skidded to a halt in front of City Hall.
A hatch opened in the roof and a young woman climbed out, a gun clutched to her chest. Robert’s breath caught.
Patricia.
‘Who’s in charge here?’ his daughter shouted. ‘Show yourself, you sorry dog.’
A flame of pride ignited in Robert’s heart. If the boy and the stupid one were dead, it no longer mattered because Patricia was alive.
A torch swung up towards the balcony where Sergei had appeared. He’d found some of Pavel’s old ceremonial robes from somewhere, although even at this distance it was obvious he had arranged them wrong and looked more like court jester than a mayor incumbent.
‘I am,’ he shouted down, his voice still amplified by the microphone held in one hand.
Patricia scoffed. ‘You? Are you serious?’
‘Guards, arrest her. I’ll let her warm my bed tonight, although it’ll be for far less coin than she’s used to.’
Robert strained at his bonds, sending shudders of intense pain through his legs and arms. If intent could kill he’d be a mass murderer.
‘Wait!’ Patricia shouted. ‘I brought you something.’
She turned and pointed her gun inside the hatch, barking orders at someone inside. A spotlight swung across to train on her as a monster unlike anything Robert had ever seen climbed up into the light.
Gasps came from the nearest members of the crowd and some people tried to shrink away.
‘I found you a demon,’ Patricia said, poking the man in the back until he stood up on the front of the vehicle. He was dressed in rags, trussed up like a swine ready for the spit. There was something wrong with his face, but the shadows caused by the shaking floodlight made it difficult to tell.
‘This is the man responsible for the murders in the Lenin District,’ she said. ‘He’s a monster who eats human flesh. I offer him in exchange for my father’s release.’
A ripple of excitement spread out among the people left in the square. Many of those who had come were close to the murders: the town’s unemployed, downtrodden underbelly. If Sergei knew what was good for him he would take the exchange.
‘I appreciate your offer, young lady,’ Sergei boomed, after a pause for consideration, ‘But I will not be bowed by the weight of bribes. Unlike my predecessor, I am a man of honour and integrity. You will hang like the common whore you are with your father and this murderer on either side of you. Seize them!’
As guards rushed for the military transport, Patricia opened fire. Two floodlights immediately burst, showering the crowd with glass and plunging the square into near darkness. Chaos ensued as people rushed back and forth, away from the gunfire, away from the rushing guards, away from the falling glass. Patricia and her prisoner were lost in the melee as more shots rang out, one taking a chunk of masonry out of the balcony ledge just inches below where Sergei stood.
From the platform on the makeshift gallows, Robert had the best view of anyone. A riot had kicked off between the guards and the crowd, but within a few minutes the guards—fighting for their lives rather than their assumed new leader—had brought it back under control.
Patricia, held by three guards, was dragged up on to the platform. At the sight of Robert, she started to cry, sinking to her knees in defeat. He screamed at her to get up, but she just shook her head.
‘Those idiots!’ she screamed. ‘They let him get away!’
Robert frowned. It took a moment for him to realise that she was referring to the prisoner she had brought with her, the rather unusual looking man who was apparently a multiple murderer.
30
Politics and machinations
As his troops routed the city, the man who had gone under many guises and aliases throughout his long and eventful life looked up at the tall hotel on the other side of the square. An old Soviet monolith, forty storeys of bland functionality, it had remained untouched on his command while the rest of the city burned.
He felt uncharacteristically nervous as he took his first steps through the snow, churned up by hundreds of running feet. The building’s doorway loomed close, a black cavern like a giant’s mouth.
The elevator was still working. That was a surprise considering the power was off in most of the city. He took it up to the top floor, not needing to guess where his old friend might be; their thoughts were linked like two cups on a piece of string.
The door to the penthouse suite was closed, but not locked. He opened it and went inside, gasping a little in surprise at the wall to ceiling window that gave a panoramic view of the west side of the city. It was an effect he would have to remember if he one day had need to design an apartment of his own.
He closed his eyes, shutting down his thoughts, listening for his old friend’s breathing. It was there, near the window, but weak, the breathing of a dying man.
‘Alek, are you there?’
The old man was slumped in an armchair, wrapped in blankets. His weak breath turned to frost as it left his lips, and only when the newcomer put a hand on the old man’s arm did he open his eyes.
‘You’re still alive.’
The old man’s eyes flicked across the younger man’s face. ‘I waited for you. You took longer than I expected.’
A smile. ‘I was enjoying the scenery.’
‘It’s been a long time, Massi. Despite everything you’ve done, I always hoped I would see you again.’
‘Is now about the time you tell me I was the child you never had?’
The old man sighed and shook his head. ‘No. I would never have wanted a child like you.’
For some reason, the old man’s words cut deep. ‘You wronged me, Alek. From the moment you laid eyes on me you wronged me. Everything that I’ve done stands at your door.’
‘I don’t dispute that. But it’s never too late to stop. While you live you can end this.’
‘It can’t be stopped until I have what belongs to me returned. I will raze every tree, burn every field, kill every man, woman, and child until I have back what was taken from me.’
The old man sighed again. ‘Then you are already dead. Your heart wasn’t always black, Massi.’
‘Goddamn it, stop calling me that.’
‘Whatever monster you became, you were always that little boy with the curious eyes and the kind smile.’
‘That boy died the day he was stolen from his mother.’
The old man shifted his head in the blankets, finally allowing their eyes to meet. ‘Then I look on no one. Goodbye, Massi.’
The old man gave one last long, gradual sigh, then his eyes closed, and his head slumped forward on to the mound of blankets covering his chest.
The man he had called Massi stared for a moment, his mouth wrinkled in disgust. ‘No! Alek, you do not die unless I command it!’ Do you hear me?
But for the first time in more years than he could remember, there was no voice to reply to his thoughts.
The sudden confusion had been unexpected, but welcomed like a former lover
come back to warm his cold, empty bed. Sharpened bones hidden in folds of skin where the fingertips would be on a normal man had made short work of the bonds, but they had never been much concern. The girl’s rifle had been more so, but most deadly had been the look in the girl’s eyes. The ease with which she might end his life had made patience essential.
And now it had been rewarded.
No one cared what a skinny, ugly man was doing while bullets were flying and glass was showering the crowd. Within seconds he had rolled off the top of the armoured vehicle and away into the crowd. Within a minute he had found the shelter of an unguarded doorway, and within five he was safely out of harm’s way.
He surveyed his new abode with something like excitement. While getting back to his playground of new toys was his highest priority, he had landed on his feet with his choice of hiding place.
If there was anywhere he could turn to his advantage, it was the office of the town mayor.
It took some considerable time to secure the girl, but eventually she was captured and brought to the cells on the lower floor of City Hall. Sergei scowled as he followed his newly appointed head jailor down the freezing corridor towards the cells at the end.
In the gunfight and proceeding chaos, the gallows had been damaged, the frame collapsing under the weight of the two dead men. With the crowd all but dispersed it had made sense to hold the other prisoners until a second execution ceremony could be arranged in the morning. Impressing the remaining populace to get them on side was imperative.
What then, though? That idiot Yevgeny was dead, so was the mayor. Everyone else capable of opposing him was in the cells. Yet still his power was tenuous, on the verge of collapse. He had stood up in front of the people and assumed control, yet even his hired guns were barely loyal. His promises of rewards from the coffers he had yet to locate would only hold them so long. He had allowed them to take their pick of the townsfolk’s women for their bed partners, something which had temporarily appeased them, only to incite the rage of the wronged families in its place. The freezing temperatures had sent people back to their homes, but they would be rapping on the door of city hall come daybreak.