Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting

I’ve heard some clever arguments for legalising drugs before, maybe even been half convinced by some of them. Personal freedom, the need to end organised crime, even the idea that a medicated country is a peaceful one. I’d heard the same arguments about vodka when I was a rookie officer out on the streets.

I’ve seen just how peaceful people are when they’ve finished a bottle of the good stuff, never mind the home-made samogon . I’ve taken some of them to the emergency unit at the hospital on Krivonosova, taken others to sober up in one of the cells in Sverdlovsky station. Then there were the ones I’d had sent over to the morgue, men killed with an unlucky punch, women beaten for refusing sex, children battered for crying too loudly or too long.

Let people have the stuff that stuns elephants and kills humans with a single grain? Not a chance.

Yusup stamped his feet, the cold clearly working its way into his shoes. Aliyev looked down at his own boots, then at Yusup.

‘You should have come prepared,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want you to catch cold. It’s amazing how quickly a cold can turn nasty. Even fatal.’

The threat was not lost on Yusup, judging by the way he narrowed his eyes, pulled his coat collar up.

‘I’m sure you have men beyond the treeline, guns trained on the back of my head.’

Aliyev shrugged, noncommittal.

‘And, of course, you know I have a couple of snipers with you in their sights.’

Aliyev showed no surprise.

‘I’d expect nothing less from you.’

‘So it’s stalemate?’ Yusup said.

‘Let’s call it a draw. Here’s the deal. You ship whatever you want to Russia. To pass through Kyrgyzstan, you pay the usual tariff. In dollars, not product. And not to a bank here. Somewhere secluded, peaceful and very, very private. Preferably warm as well.’

Even as Yusup nodded, Aliyev held up a forefinger in warning.

‘It arrives, it passes through in transit, it leaves. And not a gram of that shit falls out and lands here. Not in Osh, not in Bishkek, not on the road over the mountains. If it does, then our agreement is over.’

I watched Yusup’s face as he considered Aliyev’s words. He looked ahead, impassive. At that moment, if someone could have carved a series of giant faces into a mountaintop, like the ones in America at Mount Rushmore, Yusup would have been the ideal model. He ran the hand with the full complement of fingers through his hair, looking more than ever like an Asian version of Brezhnev.

Our breath gusted on the cold air as we stood in silence.

‘I’ll be in touch.’

And with that, Yusup strode away down the path, his bodyguards walking backwards, keeping us covered with their guns.

As they reached the cover of the trees, Yusup turned and shouted something, but the wind snatched his words away. And then he and his men were gone.

We waited until Aliyev’s men emerged, guns ready in case Yusup was considering a surprise attack. Before they reached us, I turned to Aliyev, saw implacable anger stamped across his face as if he’d been branded.

‘What did Yusup shout?’ I asked.

For a moment, Aliyev stared at the forest, his eyes black and unblinking. Then he turned to me.

‘Condolences, that’s what Yusup shouted,’ he said, his voice flat and unemotional. ‘Condolences.’

He didn’t explain why.

‘Where are we going now?’ I asked, the wind from the mountains gnawing at me. I could have sworn I felt the first snowflakes of winter tremble across my face. Aliyev ignored me, staring out towards where Yusup’s helicopter had landed. I repeated my question. Finally he turned to me, looked at me almost puzzled, as if wondering who I was, or from where I had appeared.

‘Back to the city, of course,’ he said. ‘No point in staying here any longer.’

I started to make my way towards the marshrutka , but Aliyev put his hand on my sleeve to stop me.

‘In a couple of moments,’ he said. ‘Indulge me, Inspector.’

As if hearing his words, the noise of the helicopter engine starting up filled the air, the whine of the rotors rising as they picked up speed. I returned to his side; he was the man with the guns, after all.

‘It looks like he’s leaving,’ I said, suspicious of our delay.

‘And if he’s waiting until we’re on a narrow, winding road with no turn-offs, where we can’t drive fast, and he decides to spray us with machine-gun fire from the air, you’ll be happy, Inspector?’

The possibility hadn’t occurred to me; once again I understood why Aliyev had become pakhan .

‘I anticipate scenarios, then neutralise them before they happen.’

I lit a cigarette, relishing the instant of warmth against my face, dragging the hot smoke deep into my lungs, pluming the smoke to dissolve in the air. The sun was setting, leaves on the trees falling faster now, as the wind picked up momentum. I had no reason to think of Chinara, but suddenly a memory of her grave overlooking the valley below and the mountains beyond came into my head. I hoped she was at peace; it’s all I’ve ever wanted for the dead, to lie quiet in their graves. And if they don’t? I may not believe in redemption, but I do believe in revenge.

I wiped my eyes dry, damp from the evening mist or the tobacco smoke blowing back into my face. Not tears; they’re wasted on the dead.

We could hear the rotor blades of the helicopter, and after a few seconds, it came into sight, moving slowly as the pilot gained cruising height. I guessed their plan was to skim the treetops, fly to their prearranged landing spot, transfer Yusup and his men to a less conspicuous form of transport to take them back across the mountains and over the border.

The pilot dipped the helicopter nose slightly, a mocking tribute to those left on the ground, turned away from the sanatorium towards the hills.

Then the air shimmered for a brief second as the helicopter was transformed by a spasm of fire.

It hovered in the air for a few seconds, as if uncertain it had been hit, the rotor blades stuttering and dancing erratically. I could see flames devouring the cockpit, saw a figure on fire plunge towards the ground, arms raised in a parody of flight. The body – I hoped it was a body – bounced across the tops of a couple of trees taller than their neighbours, then fell from sight.

The helicopter gave a couple of feeble half-turns, as if gravity and death were now its masters. I watched as it dragged a trail of black oily smoke behind it, then fell to the hillside, cutting branches aside as it fell. I waited for the big movie explosion, but nothing happened. Perhaps in real life it never does.

I turned and looked at Aliyev.

‘You set this up?’ I said, finding the courage to ask.

‘Not at all. If we’d reached an agreement, then he’d be on his way to home, warmth, in time to read a bedside story to his children. He didn’t know one of my men served in Afghanistan, did two tours and became an expert with plastic explosive. The Taliban weren’t the only ones who set traps, you know. Easy enough to plant a few grams when the pilot isn’t looking, even easier to detonate when the time is right.’

‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ I asked, throwing my cigarette to the earth. Aliyev ground it out with the toe of his boot, mashing it into the fallen leaves. I looked around. The smoke from the explosion was already thinning out into tendrils and strands drifting across the setting sun. I could smell petrol, fumes, the smell of autumn about to give up the ghost and transform into winter. The first few drops of rain began to fall.

‘Well, at least we know the people who bombed Derevyashka and blew our safe house cover won’t be bothering us any more,’ Aliyev said as he headed for the marshrutka . ‘And naturally I’ll send my condolences.’