Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

Her taxi stopped at the first-class departures lounge, and my driver maneuvered past and drew up at the cattle-class sign. I knew it would take a couple of moments for Natasha to organize a trolley, get her luggage on and find a flunkey to push it toward check-in. I threw the fifty onto the front passenger seat, got out and bustled into the main departure area of the airport. As I’d expected, it was possible to reach the first class check-in from there, just in case your chauffeur misheard where to stop the limousine. I gripped my gun in my pocket as I took a collision course toward Natasha. I didn’t think she’d be packing, having to go through airport security, but then I hadn’t thought she’d shoot me in the back a couple of hours earlier.

Focused on heading to the check-in desk, Natasha didn’t see me coming. And I didn’t see the slender figure in black approaching from another angle, a hardly visible tiny sub-compact Beretta by her side. Saltanat Umarova.

I saw Saltanat reach Natasha first, tap her on the shoulder, and when Natasha turned round, shock blazing on her face, Saltanat pulled her close. To anyone manning the CCTV, it would look like two friends embracing, but I glimpsed the gun pointed toward Natasha’s thighs.

Saltanat muttered something, pointed to a coffee bar. Natasha shook her head and tapped her watch, telling any casual observer that she had to go, worried about being late for her flight, but Saltanat put her arm around the other woman’s shoulder and led her toward the bar’s seating area.

As I watched, Saltanat turned, beckoned to me to join them, so I followed. In somewhere this public, Natasha had an advantage, and I didn’t have a plan, so it was strictly play it by ear.

“You know how I like my coffee, Akyl,” Saltanat said, her gun pointing at Natasha under the table.

“Something for you, Natasha?” I said, getting ready to play the useful idiot. Natasha’s eyes opened wide when she saw me. I was supposed to be lying dead in a hotel room, not deciding between Colombian and Kenyan. But she was calm enough not to scream or faint or make a run for it.

“I shouldn’t really,” she said and pointedly stared at her watch. “Espresso, then I have to catch my flight.”

“Sit there,” Saltanat said, her tone light, conversational, “other-wise I’ll give your money maker an extra hole.”

“Charming,” Natasha said and turned to me. “You go along with this shit?”

“My back looks like a map of the Moscow Metro,” I said, “so I’m not feeling particularly protective toward you right now.”

“You’re going to kidnap me, carry me out kicking and screaming, and no one will notice?”

“Maybe I’ll just kill you, spare Akyl the guilt,” Saltanat suggested.

I reached over, opened Natasha’s bag, took out her ticket. “First class. Rio. What’s the weather like this time of year?”

“I’m not planning on staying there long,” Natasha said. I didn’t know whether she was telling the truth. I suspected she wanted the trail cold before I got back to Tynaliev. Either way, it didn’t matter.

“Let’s take a walk outside,” I said. “I need a cigarette.”

We finished our coffees, stood up, and I pushed Natasha’s luggage trolley back toward the entrance. We walked into the brutal night heat, found a quiet spot away from the door, lit cigarettes, inhaled hot smoke and the hotter air. The humidity sparkled in the night air as if the stars had melted and run down the sky.

“And now?” Natasha asked, defiant to the last.

I felt a stab of envy, regret even, as I looked at her and thought of all the young girls I used to watch parading their immortality up and down Chui Prospekt, the sound of their high voices musical and sweet. They sit over coffees outside Sierra next to the Russian embassy, lingering for hours as they catch up on boys, music, gossip, and watch the envious world go by. They never realize how quickly the world slaps them across the mouth, demands that they do the bidding of their fathers, their husbands. And that’s when their immortality ends.

Saltanat turned to me, raised an eyebrow.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said to both of them. “Saltanat, you achieved what you came for. Boris and his gang aren’t going to cause any more trouble, right? So you can go back to Tashkent, report mission accomplished. And as a bonus you can tell your superiors that the influence of Kyrgyz Minister of State Security Mikhail Tynaliev has been greatly reduced.”

For once Saltanat looked less than completely composed. She stared at me, obviously wondering if I meant she should leave. I gave an almost imperceptible shake of my head.

I turned to Natasha. “I’m supposed to bring the money back, with you as an added extra. Tynaliev was quite explicit on that point.”

“And I don’t suppose he’s planning that we kiss and make up.”

“No,” I agreed, remembering how my old boss had been dragged out of his office by Tynaliev’s thugs, begging for mercy, never to be seen again. I didn’t want to think what he would have suffered for orchestrating the murder of Tynaliev’s daughter. A bullet to the head would have been a merciful release.

“But you don’t care about that,” Natasha said, her voice expressionless, her eyes revealing her anger and fear.

I stubbed out my cigarette, lit another, wondered how much I should say.

“For my entire working life I’ve wanted to bring justice to those people who can no longer demand it for themselves. I don’t believe the dead rest until they’ve been avenged. And at the very least, you stop their killers from doing it again.”

The fresh cigarette tasted vile, my mouth full of ashes and phlegm. I threw it away, spat into the road. A passing taxi honked a rebuke, and I barely resisted the temptation to raise a finger. In Dubai that can get you arrested.

I wouldn’t tell her about the voices in the cold hours of the night, the sobbing, the screams, the silence. That is my burden, and one I carry alone, sharing it with no one. But I knew I couldn’t condemn Natasha to torture, rape and finally death, Tynaliev watching, not out of enjoyment but to see his revenge complete, his power absolute.

I pushed the luggage trolley back into the building, the two women following me. I turned to face them, jerked my thumb over my shoulder.

“You’d better hurry if you want to sunbathe on Copacabana beach tomorrow,” I said, my face empty of any expression.

Natasha looked at me, paused, then took the handles of the trolley and started forward. I had wondered if she would thank me, maybe even give me a peck on the cheek, but she did neither of those things. Instead, she glanced back at my face, trying to read the motives I was determined to keep hidden, then nodded and turned away, heading toward the check-in desk and a new life. She didn’t look back again.

I watched her for a couple of moments, saying nothing. Then I turned to Saltanat, who was regarding me with her traditional raised eyebrow.

“One day, that white knight act of yours is going to put you in your grave,” she said.

“Those photos Natasha showed you—” I began.

“I don’t care,” Saltanat interrupted. “You’re an adult, so’s she. You do anything you want.”

“They were faked,” I said. “Well, not faked exactly, but she drugged me, posed me when I was unconscious so that she could use them to blackmail me with Tynaliev.”

I could hear the lameness of my excuse and knew how it must sound.

“I don’t care,” Saltanat repeated, with more emphasis this time, and those three words were like knife thrusts under my ribs. We would get close to each other, and then our flaws, our insecurities, our obsessions, would push us apart. Perhaps it was simply fucking as far as Saltanat was concerned. But for me she was one of the possible paths back to a life that didn’t center around blood and decay.