Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting

‘We should be able to stand up in a minute,’ Aliyev said. ‘The tunnel widens into a chamber: look for the ladder against the far end.’

I reached above my head, sensed cold damp air on my face, slowly started to climb to my feet. In the torch’s dim glow, I could see the metal rungs of the ladder, welcome after an eternity since escaping the cellar. I reached for one of the rungs and slowly pulled myself upright. My knees, elbows and shoulders all shrieked at the effort, but I bit the inside of my mouth to ensure my silence. I didn’t know what was waiting for us up in the open.

Nor, I was certain, did Aliyev.

‘Any idea who attacked us?’ he whispered, his breath hot against my cheek.

‘Run through the list of your enemies, it must be long enough,’ I said. ‘Maybe the crew that bombed the bar?’

‘Or Tynaliev’s men looking to make you pay for what you did to their boss?’ he suggested. ‘But how would they know where to find us?’

I rubbed thumb and forefinger together. Money is the usual reason. There’s always someone who will sell you out if the price is right, no matter how much they protest their loyalty. It’s the ones who say they’ll die for you who are the ones happy to let you die first.

‘Here, take this.’

Aliyev reached into an alcove behind the ladder and handed me a Makarov. I checked it was loaded, a bullet in the chamber. Aliyev did the same with his gun, reached for the ladder.

‘I go left, you go right,’ he whispered. I nodded. No percentage in presenting a single target.

‘Try not to shoot anyone,’ he added. I hadn’t figured Aliyev as a pacifist, until I realised he was more concerned about giving away our location than sparing the lives of whoever might be above our heads.

‘I’ll go first,’ he said, starting to climb. The better cover must be to the left, that’s why he’d picked it. And going first, he had a better chance of surprising whoever might be up there. I’d be in the perfect place and time for someone to recover and target the tunnel exit as I emerged.

I thought about shooting Aliyev, persuading the people on the surface I’d arrested him, shot him while he was trying to escape. But I had no way of knowing if our attackers were police, or if they’d riddle us with bullets first, then interrogate our corpses. And, ministers apart, I don’t believe in shooting anyone in the back.

I followed Aliyev up the ladder, the bare metal greasy and damp, trying to ignore the dirt and dust falling onto my upturned face. It was an awkward climb, one-handed. Tucking the Makarov into my belt would make climbing easier but could prove a fatal delay once we were outside.

The flashlight showed a steel trapdoor, a single bolt smeared in grease so it could be opened with the minimum amount of noise. Aliyev looked down at me and raised a finger to his lips. From below, his face looked grotesque, distorted with hate or fear. He slid the bolt back, jaw tense with effort. The trapdoor swung down across from the ladder. Smart to have the trapdoor swing that way; less chance of being observed. Aliyev was more cautious, more dangerous, than I’d given him credit for. He moved quickly up the remaining rungs, swung himself over the edge, disappeared.

I took a deep breath, tried to move as swiftly and silently as he had, emerged like some clumsy mole into the light.

I’d lost track of time down in the cellar, and I was surprised to realise it was dusk, the light fading behind the trees. I rolled away from the hole until I came up against the rough edge of a tree trunk, hunted around for any sign of danger, tensed my finger on the Makarov’s trigger.

The escape tunnel’s exit had been carefully planned; we were in a small clearing surrounded by thick brush and mature trees. It was a good site from which to assess the threat that had made us use the tunnel in the first place; more smart planning by Aliyev.

The shadows were lengthening and I calculated we had about an hour to wait before it would probably be dark enough to move on. No moon, which was a bonus. The air was bitter, and I shivered, not sure whether from the cold or shock. Either way, I wasn’t happy about spending the night outside, surrounded by people who wanted to kill us.

Aliyev patted the air downwards; stay still, keep calm. We couldn’t have been more than a couple of hundred metres from the safe house but the silence seemed absolute. I thought I caught a whiff of cordite on the air, decided it was my imagination. The shooting over, I was certain everyone in the cellar would be dead. All we had to do was evade their killers. Child’s play to a tough guy like me.

We lay there for several minutes, until we heard a car start up in the distance, listened to the engine retreat until we could no longer hear it. If anyone had set a trap to flush out any survivors, this would be the time to spring it.

The night crept in on tiptoe, but we continued to lie still. My shoulder started to cramp, the muscles biting into my neck, and I struggled to hold back a cough. The need for a piss was growing urgent as well. I looked over at Aliyev, but the dark had camouflaged him so completely I couldn’t read his expression.

I was about to whisper to him, to try to catch his attention, when I heard it, so faint at first I wondered if my imagination was playing tricks. But no: someone was walking towards us, cautiously, placing each foot with care, waiting a few seconds between steps before carrying on.

Whoever had attacked us must have found the tunnel and was now hunting for the exit. I took a tighter grip on the Makarov and wished I had a hunting knife. To use the gun would bring twenty kinds of shit down on our heads, and I was pretty certain neither of us could outshoot a semi-automatic.

A torch beam stabbed out through the dark, pointing down, showing grass and the first of the autumn’s fallen leaves. I watched the light edge nearer to the tunnel exit. The footsteps stopped, and I could sense the man’s legs almost within my reach, the sour smell of his sweat mixed with cheap tobacco, rancid on the night air.

The beam flicked over to my right, as if suddenly alerted by a suspicious sound, found Aliyev’s face. I didn’t know if the man had been left alone to guard the site, but I knew we couldn’t risk him raising a warning. I grabbed at his ankles, grasped the thick leather of army boots and pulled backwards with all my strength.

As the man fell to his knees, Aliyev pulled him forward, slamming his head hard against the metal edge of the tunnel, once, twice. I heard the sullen crack of bone, felt the man’s feet jerk and convulse out of my hands, as if suddenly electrocuted, then lie motionless.

‘You’ve killed him,’ I whispered. It wasn’t a question.

Aliyev simply nodded, reached for the torch, its beam lighting up the nearby bushes.

‘You had a better solution? Help me turn him over.’

The dead man wore a mix of grey-green fatigues, the sort soldiers of fortune and wannabe mercenaries wear all over Central Asia. No name tag, no suggestion he was part of any military unit. Aliyev shone the light at the man’s face. Broken teeth from the fall, blood dark in the torchlight smearing his lips and smudging his face.

See enough bodies and they turn into pieces of some giant puzzle, where you rearrange them over and over in your mind, trying to find a pattern, a reason, the bigger picture. None of it makes any sense, but you keep trying. Not to find a god in charge of the universe, but simply to assure yourself lives have a significance that murder takes away.

Some people believe the dead look like they’re merely asleep. The body lies with all the energy that drove it evaporated, a lightning strike dissipated into the ground. Nothing left but empty flesh, hopes discarded, ambition washed away, love and anger, pain and joy no longer even memories.