Howard Linskey - The Dead

‘You will return to Russia where you will stand trial.’ Vasnetsov was pressing himself back against the chair, as if he could somehow disappear into it. ‘You will go to prison for the rest of your life. This has already been decided,’ then he said, ‘one last thing, my president says hello.’

‘I will give you twenty… thirty million dollars…’ Vasnetsov’s panicked eyes were darting round the room, looking for signs of weakness, seeking out corrupt men who, like everybody else he had ever done business with, would be willing to take his money, ‘Each… every one of you… thirty million dollars!’ He was pleading now. Nobody moved, nobody even flinched.

‘You!’ he shouted at the man who had his gun trained on me, ‘Kill your Major and let me go and I will give you fifty million dollars… the same for your two friends… just one bullet… I’ll pay every man outside… how many of them are there … tell me…?’ He was nodding like a lunatic, ‘tell them there has been a mistake… tell them I am already dead… I will pay each of them five million dollars and you three will get fifty million each. Think about it!’ he implored them.

If the Major was alarmed by this offer, he didn’t show it. He just let Yaroslav Vasnetsov carry on making a fool of himself.

‘You are going on a helicopter now Vasnetsov,’ the Major told him, ‘the journey won’t be comfortable but it will seem like luxury compared to the cell we have waiting for you. Your billions of American dollars will buy you nothing there. It is very small and very cold and you will rot and die in it.’

The colour had gone from Vasnetsov’s face. He already looked like death.

The Major then turned towards Mikhail, who had been cowering silently in a corner while a commando held a gun on him. He walked up to him and, astonishingly, shook Mikhail’s hand. ‘Mikhail Datsik, you are a hero of the motherland. My president salutes you. You will be rewarded for your services to the state.’

Mikhail just blinked at him but Vasnetsov immediately understood, ‘ Mikhail! You bastard! You fucking traitor! I’ll rip out your guts!’ and he launched himself forwards but one of the commandos grabbed him by the shoulder and punched him back down. Despite the blow, Vasnetsov carried on ranting, ‘You fucking Judas, Mikhail. It doesn’t matter where they put me, I’ll kill you. I’ll put one hundred million dollars on your worthless head. They’ll kill you, they’ll kill your wife, they’ll kill your fucking children!’

‘What do we do with him?’ asked one of the men and he jerked his head towards me.

‘This piece of shit?’ answered the Major. ‘He is a drug dealer. Take him into the woods and shoot him.’ Then he eyed Mikhail keenly, ‘Take the banker outside with you,’ Mikhail went pale, ‘to wait for the second helicopter.’

Two men held Vasnetsov while the Major opened a small case and advanced with a new weapon in his hand; a hypodermic needle. When Vasnetsov saw it, his eyes widened in terror and he tried one last desperate time to free himself from the grasp of the two soldiers, but they held him firm. I witnessed the needle go into his arm and watched Vasnetsov’s terrified face until his eyes rolled back into his head and he slipped into unconsciousness. When he awoke again, he would be back in Russia.

I was forced from the room along with the banker. One of the soldiers pushed us out through the front door and made us walk across the courtyard. Mikhail was talking to himself manically, praying perhaps, or just muttering in a panic, despite what the Major had told him about being a hero of the motherland. There were many more soldiers standing guard, hefting machineguns or quickly and efficiently preparing to leave on the first helicopter which had landed a hundred or so yards away. Vasnetsov’s bodyguards still lay on the ground where they had fallen. The location was so far from civilisation that Vasnetsov’s attackers could have brought heavy artillery and the authorities would still never have heard a thing.

We left the building behind us and trudged across the snow just as a second helicopter landed in the courtyard. I turned to look behind me and there were three soldiers following us, all armed.

‘Keep moving,’ one told me. There was no sign of the Major.

Christ they were really going to do this. They were going to shoot us both and leave our bodies in the woods.

‘Keep walking and shut up,’ the soldier was addressing Mikhail but he was beyond reason now. His voice just went higher as his panicked rambling continued in earnest. He began to sob between the words. Me? I stayed silent, waiting for a miracle.

We walked on until we reached the edge of the wood and both turned to face our killers. The first soldier took a pistol from his holster and gestured with it for us to go on. Mikhail shook his head and the commando smacked him round it with the gun, drawing blood. The banker howled in protest and the other two soldiers hauled him into the trees. They gestured for me to walk and I followed dumbly. What choice did I have?

The cold air was biting and my breath was coming out in white plumes, my feet made the snow beneath my boots crunch with every step. I’d done this before, marched on ahead while a killer held a gun to me and forced me to walk to my grave. That time I’d been saved by Palmer but he wouldn’t be coming to my rescue now. Nobody would. I was twelve hundred miles from home, in a foreign land. There was no way back now and the men behind me couldn’t be bought. Vasnetsov had already tried that.

We reached a clearing, an open space in the woods where the leaves of the overhanging trees parted above our heads, creating a space in the canopy that allowed us to look up and watch as the helicopter flew over our heads with its precious cargo; Russia’s most wanted man. Everyone watched the helicopter disappear and, along with it, went my last chance of salvation. I turned towards the men who were about to kill us.

‘We do it here,’ said the soldier, with no trace of emotion.

Burly hands rested on my shoulders and I was pushed down on to my knees. Beside me the sobbing Mikhail was forced into the same position. I don’t think he’d shut up once since we’d left the house but he finally fell silent now. I watched as the soldier went round behind Mikhail. In one swift and simple movement he raised the gun, aimed and fired. The bullet went straight into the back of Mikhail head and came out the other side, obliterating his face. His body pitched forward until it slumped lifelessly onto the ground. The snow around him was spattered with fresh blood.

‘Jesus Christ,’ I gasped.

The soldier frowned. ‘You are a Christian?’

I tried to say something but I couldn’t because I knew I was next and it would soon be my blood splashed all over the snow.

‘You can stand up now,’ the soldier told me and when he saw the confused look on my face, he actually laughed, ‘you thought we were really going to do it?’ And his men laughed too. ‘That was just for him, and for Vasnetsov. You needed them to think we killed you too.’ There was no disputing that but I couldn’t believe they had taken the trouble to march me all the way out here just to fake an execution. I took a deep breath and my knees gave way. I stumbled to my feet and had to put a hand out in front of me to stop myself from pitching forwards face first into the snow.

‘Do you think we don’t keep a promise, English?’ the soldier asked me, ‘that we have no honour? You helped us take a man we have been trying to capture for ten years. You think we would kill you for that? No, you are our friend now, a hero of Russia,’ he told me, ‘but I think it is better for you if no one knows that.’ I managed to nod. I was fighting back the bile in my stomach, trying not to puke at the sight of Mikhail’s brains in the snow.