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Just Another Kill


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#1 Jim

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Posted 04 October 2009 - 07:42 AM

Just Another Kill

A Fan Fiction

By Jacques I. M. Stewart

This is a not for profit enterprise and is nothing more than a simple entertainment by way of fan fiction. All non-original characters and situations are copyright Ian Fleming Publications Limited and there is no intention asserted to the contrary. All original characters and situations are copyright the author.



Part 2: The One-Eyed Man is King

9. Archives of Pain



When the snow melts, you see the bodies.

This is how it is at Baikonur.


The favourite expression of the Colonel.

Some, Grigor example enough, still chose to take it as a metaphor stretched web-thin: that the work of Baikonur was a beautiful thing, yet underneath it, all had to acknowledge the effort to make it so. For “bodies” one chose to read “strength” or “will”.

In the days when he had cared to listen to the Colonel’s bleat, Yuri had considered this interpretation plausible, if not convincing. Those had been the days when all of them had been promised greatness, all promised that the world would change, be changed, the days when every engineer, every scientist, every filing clerk and every soldier, from the guard at Tyuratam station to the Colonel, and beyond even he, had been to a man in such frenzy that they would have been easy prey to this ravenous delusion.

Grigor still believed it. Grigor was a fool.

Grigor did not take this journey.

Only from this train, the tracks running through the blast pads, was the view over the Colonel’s words a clear, uninterrupted and thrillingly horrific one. Even under the lukewarm, unenthusiastic, weak April sun the winter snows receded and, in retreating like bad gums from rotting teeth, they exposed decay.

When the snow melts, you see the bodies.

Hundreds.

And day upon day, as the snow cowered away in shame at its secret, a hundred more.

What would the Colonel call it? A noble sacrifice for the greater good? The ground too hard to bury them over the winter, the bodies had been laid out by the railway track as – as what? A reminder? A celebration? An incentive?

All three. Of this, Yuri bore no doubt.

But what incentive could it be, to be on this train each day, to pass such a sight and to know that tomorrow, the carriage would be emptier? Three years previously, one would have been fortunate to find a place to sit anywhere along the fifteen cars. Now, the train was overcrowded with ghosts; the struggle for a seat was to fight the fog of half-remembered faces. Even the new workers the Colonel had drafted in from the Crimea only the previous October, tall and tanned and vigorous, they had all gone – they would be out there somewhere, stunted, pale, frozen.

That day when the most vocal of them, a sinewy, hound-faced man named Hristo, that day when the carriage had not been filled with his rasped laugh and his wild tales of beatings he had drunkenly administered to Odessa whores, that had been the day when it had struck Yuri savagely: how was it that he could survive, and yet they could not? Even at his strongest he could only have been half a man to them, and now – what? A tenth? And yet, here he remained, skull staring out, skulls staring back.

He envied them.

Grigor had been sympathetic and had done his best to be encouraging. “There, you see, it is true Yuri Ivanovich. Men of these lands, we are much stronger than those spoiled by the sun. You survive, my friend, because of where you were born as much as who you are now.”

There may once have been some truth in that.

Truer still was Yuri’s belief that Grigor’s sadistic optimism wounded him as much as his illness. Truest yet was that Yuri could not tell Grigor the real reason he stayed alive.

It had nothing to do with who he was.

It had nothing to do with his persisting with life being what Anna would have wanted – another of Grigor’s theories.

It was the African.

It was the African and what he had promised.

Breathing deep, his body hurting him further in clamping his withering lungs around him, Yuri reconciled himself to having to live the day. But just the day. If the African had been right about the consequences, then it would be foolhardy to want to wake into another.

As the train slowed into Tyuratam, he wondered again, as he had wondered all the week’s nights, whether he ought to warn Grigor. If he chose not to, then would Grigor suffer? The African had explained matters, consequences, in such detail; it was probable that he would. But choosing to alert Grigor was in itself to alert the authorities – an unwise route towards success.

Yet it felt right to tell Grigor something, to warn him somehow. If not right, then better.

As he clambered down from the carriage onto the crumbling platform, he wondered whether this urge actually came from a desire to hurt Grigor, to wipe his eyes clear of their optimistic glint, to wrench that hopeful, encouraging smile from his face and to have him stare into the black reality of what was going to happen.

Perhaps that was it. Perhaps that was why he had to tell Grigor; not out of any love for the man, nor desire to save him as Anna’s brother. It was Grigor’s being a policeman, someone charged to stop damage to the project, and Yuri wanted to see the policeman’s face as he realised that his effort – his life, too – would be wasted, knowing that there was no way to prevent it.

It was going to happen. He believed it now.

Yesterday’s decision was unshakeable. Planning for communication from the African; fruitless. Regardless of what happened in that stain of a country of his, regardless of whether the man lived or died, Yuri had told himself that he had to proceed. That had to be the only way, the only way now that Anna had gone and there was nothing and nobody left for him. Nobody, just bodies.

He handed his ticket to the officer at the station door. The man, in greeting Yuri with a bored smile, did not evidently notice that it had been a single fare rather than the usual return.

First hurdle overcome.

He walked slowly down the dark, unfurnished concrete corridor towards the engineering department and his briefing with Korolev, his limp, failing legs as reluctant as spoilt children dragging themselves along. Tiring, despite the short distance, Yuri leant against the rough breeze-blocked wall to snatch spiked, brutal breaths, each one stabbing him deeper. Doing him good, hurting him more; chastising an infant.

Collecting the pieces left of himself, he stared up and ahead, across the corridor and through the narrow slit cut at head height into the wall to provide light. Across the sparse, flat field, he could see it; sleek, gleaming. Pure. In the late afternoon sun of this last day, the rocket was more beautiful than everything and anything and – he had to admit – anybody he had ever seen.

Then it had to be right, did it not, that it all had to end? If nothing could be more perfect, why prolong the world in trying to find its equal, or its better?

Beyond the rocket, in the ice-blue sky, movement: a jet liner, flying south. So high it had to be going very far – far into Asia or Africa perhaps. What he could tell the passengers, how he wished to tell them: that when they landed, the world onto which they stepped back, would have changed, changed forever.

Unshakeable.

His clawed hands scrabbling crab-like behind him, he pressed himself away from the wall and continued along the corridor.

***

Two hours, and still the buildings were no nearer.

When they had reached a crest on the mountainside after only thirty minutes’ walking, and Charles had pointed into the valley, to the handful of tin huts scattered around a thin, almost straight airstrip, it had seemed to Bond that another hour would have been enough.

He had to accept now that he had made a mistake.

Sending the man back to Sengee had probably been another error, each thornscratch confirming it. Whilst the buildings remained in view at all times, at all times they became no larger. It reminded him of swimming at sea, and the target – a boat, a girl, a fish, whatever it may have been – being in the same current ahead of him, always out of grasp, always the same distance from his tiring grip. He assumed that although he had taken what he thought would have been the direct route – and the route he had believed he had understood from Charles’ fractured English – there was a very good chance that the man would have known a better way.

Yet, if he had insisted on Charles staying with him, also walking alongside Bond would have been that sight, captured on each glance back at Sengee, the sight of a progressively smaller Tempest, sitting on the steps of the clinic, her hands covering her face. Just before they had dipped down below the crest, blocking their view of the little town, Bond had taken a long look back, and it confirmed his order to Charles. Even though the clinic seemed matchbox sized, even though he knew that in any real sense he would not have been able to see the girl, he felt her, felt that she was still there, still crying, and still exposed by his decision to leave. After all, he reasoned, if I have this good a view of her sitting alone, who else is watching? Who else can see that I have abandoned her?

I have abandoned her.

Charles, who had been a morose, silent companion, had showed no reluctance to leave him, and seemed to understand Bond’s direction to look after the girl. A direction with which he had not been able to comply.

Taking the opportunity for a rest in the spittled shade of a tall thorn bush, Bond had watched Charles stumble his way back down amongst the rocks, the dust he threw into the air masking both the view of the clinic and Bond’s disheartened feeling. The feeling returned when, on reaching this new valley’s floor, Bond gave into his brain hammering at him to turn around and, fatigue descending and strength sapped from carrying the gun across his shoulders, crucifixed, he looked back at where he had walked and saw nothing but the scorched landscape he had been stumbling through. He knew at that point that he had turned his back on Sengee, and forever.

Very probably on the girl, too.

There had been women in danger before, hardly the problem. He had kissed them, he had left them, but left them rescued from whatever had been their lives…

That cannot, he reasoned, have been why his mind felt disgusted; why had it not punished him before? But those he had abandoned previously he had abandoned once safe. Whether on reflection that was any better than leaving them at any other time…

Stuff it.

The girl remained in danger and he had walked away.

No; the girl remained in danger and he had been ordered away.

Hm.

That satisfied his conscience a little, a little. The persistent metronome of tangible gutguilt paused to take stock; confronted by this argument, withdrawing its waves to regroup, then doubtless try to force a way around it, to erode him some more.

Sending Charles back meant that the girl at least had some sort of protection and may be in less danger – that had been Bond’s idea - and Bond had a job to do – that had been someone else’s idea.

Yes, that was it: let someone else’s conscience burn in Hell if things go wrong. Move along, 007.

He walked on, pressing forward, heart set on the huts ahead.

After twenty minutes’ chasing, his mind caught up with him. After all, what would have happened if he had stayed? A court martial and dismissal from the service, very probably prison if not convenient disappearance. And those consequences assumed survival and getting away from this hellish country in the first place. Death or disgrace. Not very attractive options.

Stupid bitch; she should have come along with him.

No: she had a job to do, and was doing it. So was he. That was all it came to. Deprived of a goodbye of his own making, that was all. Deprived of the kiss. Stupid, selfish bastard.

And this is just pills and heat and frustration and boredom. Move along, 007.

***

Yuri did not wait to be invited to sit.

Korolev dropped the receiver. “The Colonel Veruschkov.”

“This is an honour.”

An unbelieved “Yes”. Korolev pinched his top lip between thumb and forefinger and breathed deeply, a hollow, wet lungclick telling Yuri that his superior would shortly follow his own fate. “He will be pleased to know that you have arrived.”

“He is coming here?”

Korolev did not appear to register the rush of pained anxiety in Yuri’s voice. “Indeed so. He will shut Baikonur to the outside.” The Chief Engineer turned his face away from Yuri and stared up at the letterbox slit stabbed out of the wall of his office, a poor impersonation of a window. “Even more so than it already is. In one hour’s time, no-one will be permitted to leave until after the launch has proved a success; and no-one will enter. It is just as well,” he continued, “that you caught your train this afternoon, Comrade.”

“Good fortune indeed.”

An unenthusiastic “Da.

Korolev returned his gaze to the yellowing papers upon his desk. Yuri swallowed as silently and as painlessly as he could bear: if he succeeded, there would now be no way to escape.

And no way to collect the money.

Well, perhaps he had known that. He had bought a single ticket, not a return.

As he struggled to relax into the bone-hard chair, there was…something; he felt changed. It was like walking from winter to warmth. That sensation? How odd, but how right. That feeling he had thought gone, gone with her.

Happiness.

How gratifying. Released from having to decide.

Freed of whether it would happen, it was time to ensure that it did.

Unshakeable.

Unshaken.

***

The ‘plane appeared to be in an acceptable condition, much inaccurate respraying aside. The cowl was still warm from the day’s mail delivery and, slowly lifting its panels and praying against telltale squealing, Bond was gratified to note that the engine block looked well maintained and adequately oiled. He considered that told a story of there being damn all else to do. That suggested few if any other people than the pilot, which counted against being outnumbered, outgunned.

Two of the three huts had been deserted; unsurprising, as to have considered them habitable was excessively generous. They amounted to no more than sheets of corrugated iron leaning against or lying upon – and apparently unfixed to - rough wooden frames. The third hut was considerably more substantial in appearance, boasting the luxury of a window, and considerably more encouraging; the telegraph wire running down its side and then into the ground was promising. Could he contact London?

The wire spoke danger, too; if he simply took the aeroplane, help would be summoned.

Crouching behind the fuselage, he watched the hut for five minutes; nothing. Nothing, always reassuring. Despite the ‘plane being twenty yards distant, and no cover in between if fired upon, Bond decided crawling to the hut to be time-consuming and dangerous; it was always more difficult to change direction when pressed against the ground. He had seen nothing in the window that suggested he had been seen or, having been seen, was being observed. He slid one round into the rifle and rose from his hiding point, walking corridor-briskly towards the hut, the gun raised and ready to fire.

Nothing.

Damn fool pantomime.

He pressed himself gently against the tin wall, remembering the fragility of the other structures. Inching to the window, he took a rapid step beyond, glancing through as he went. Enough to tell him that there was one desk, one chair, one radio, one camp-bed, one fully clothed man asleep upon it and no gun.

The door was little more than a blistering plank casually discarded against the wall, and it was easier to lift it out of the way than to swing it open. Padding across the hard earth floor towards the sleeping figure, Bond took in more of the room: a handful of waxy flightplans nailed into the surface of the rotting desk, the corner beyond the still bed piled with mailbags, the radio set disturbingly quiet and the man disturbingly quieter, his left hand on view but the right buried under his chest. An uncomfortable place to hide a gun; an ideal one for a knife. Bond halted at the regulation four feet distance; near enough to get off a shot if necessary, far enough to avoid a blade or to react to one being thrown.

“Get up.”

No movement; but at least the man was breathing, very softly. Deep sleep; lucky bastard.

Bond glanced around him, trying hard not to drink in too much of the hot, dank air, damp with the smell of the man.

“Get up.” Louder.

The man stirred, grunted and rolled on the bed so that he now exposed his front to Bond. His liberated right hand lolled free, revealing itself empty. Sniffing and wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, the man opened heavy eyelids, the eyebrows struggling to haul them up. Bloodshot eyes stared up at Bond, insufficiently awake to show panic.

Bond, still keeping his distance, aimed at the man’s head. “Please.”

Even though the man’s words were unknown to him, Bond recognised the tone when he heard it. Letting him stand slowly, hands above his head, Bond wondered to what advantage he could put the man’s fear of him.

“Do you speak English?”

The man stared.

Bond said it more slowly. “English?”

Hard blinking.

Bond drew the gun up as if to fire, and stared down the barrel. “The flightplans on your desk are in English. Those mailbags behind you are printed in English. The dials on your radio are in English and you shouldn’t leave the Mombassa Herald lying around, even if you do only use it for cleaning yourself. I’m tired, I’m tired of this walking and of this country and until now I have asked as nicely as you deserve but if you want me to find out whether, even if you can’t speak in English, you can scream in it, you carry on. Otherwise, talk. Talk now.”

The man breathed heavily. “I speak. Not good.”

“Good enough for me. I want help, not a conversation.” Bond lowered the gun, but kept it aimed at the man’s stomach. “The radio,” emphasising it by pointing with his forehead, “does it work?”

“It work. Not good.”

Bond wondered how soon he would tire of this repertoire. “Get it working. Here, put your hands down. Hands? Hm. Down? Good. Now, get something, get me a voice.”

As the man crouched to the radio set, the gun pointed at the back of his head, Bond afforded himself a longer look around the room. Now that he studied them, it was evident that the flight charts were twenty years old, more. With just discouraging soft static coming from the radio, he let his mind speculate as to what this place was: it had to be a survey station, the sort of building mapmakers had used as a base when charting and photographing the continent between the wars; he had seen the plates when at school, vast monochrome vistas populated sparsely by undoubtedly noble peoples; they always were. No, perhaps it had been nothing like that, perhaps there had never been such a place, anywhere: this was rough country, dirty and dangerous. Perhaps that whole colonial image had been a misrepresentation; there was no Happy Valley. There was, as with everywhere else, brutality, hardship, death. This place, this airfield, nothing, a speck on their own maps. But it would explain the presence and vintage of the ‘plane, which thankfully appeared to work, and the radio, proving substantially less reliable.

Nothing but a low serpent’s hiss however hard or gently the man turned the dial this way, then that. Bond breathed hard: he had not conceived a plan as such, or a message, had he been able to get through, but getting through would have been something, a start. Dead end.

The man, his eyes wide with trepidation, as if believing Bond would shoot him for failing to achieve a response, stood up and turned to Bond, his open hands palm upwards, his entire body a shrug of sorry, of begged forgiveness, of apprehension. The serpent voice of the radio lisped on, rearing for a strike that never would come.

Risking it, Bond pointed the gun away from the man for the first time, and towards the mail bags. “How do those get here? How do they arrive? You have no radio but you deliver mail. How?”

Clearly straining to follow the questions, the man stuttered “I go. Walk. To border. Hours, many hours. I collect, fly. Not allow fly to border. Border shut. No landing.”

Bond sniffed. Probably another half-day’s walk to whatever was at the border. In this heat? And then what? Would he be believed? Was there any chance from there of getting through to London in time? And, even then, what could he tell them? Every step to the border, the closer the Cremmer woman would be getting to DeveronTown, to Sycorax, to… to make Bond’s contacting London futile.

He could feel the pain in his side starting to dig in again. Sighing, he realised that even if he should go to the border, if his injuries took hold of him he doubted that he could. Before the gnawing devoured him entirely, he knew that he had to try something but equally knew that it only left him with the one, the swiftest, solution.

“What’s your name?”

“Name Rupert.”

“Rupert, my name is Bond. I want your ‘plane. You are going to fly me to DeveronTown.”

The man shook his head. “No.”

“It’s not a request. Help me and I won’t hurt you. I promise.” Bond swung the gun around, to point it at the man’s chest. “I don’t know how to fly it. You do. You don’t have a gun. I do.” To emphasise the last point, Bond raised it to the man’s head. He hoped that his expression betrayed a reluctance to do this, even if the man would be staring at the gun and not at him.

“It difficult.”

Bond jabbed the barrel under the man’s chin, forcing him onto tiptoe. “Try.”

***

Grigor tap-tapped, tap-tapped the spoon against the lip of his grey enamel mug. Without breaking his tune, he inhaled lengthily from his cigarette and shrugged. “So did I, my friend. But the Colonel explained. He said that when we are shut down, we will have little to do. I too thought I would be too busy to take coffee with you but here I am, so…” He trailed off. Tap-tap, tap-tap.

Yuri studied the unpleasant, gritty stormclouds of powdered milk tumbling in his own mug; the show matched his mood. He had not wanted to see Grigor yet; he had not wanted to see him until those few seconds after the event, when Baikonur realised what had happened to its machine, those few seconds to see hope evaporate from their faces and rage emerge, those few seconds when he, Yuri, would have their attention, those few seconds when they realised it had been him. Those few seconds they would let him live.

In those few seconds before death, never more alive: a few seconds to achieve what so few do; hold the world, the world paused as he spun it to his own benefit.

Would that be how it would happen? That they would gun him down – perhaps it would be Grigor ordered to administer the final shots? Tap-tap, tap-tap? Perhaps there was a small poetry to it. But to even get that far, however satisfying a resolution, he still had matters to attend to.

Accordingly, he had not wanted to see Grigor yet.

He sipped his lukewarm drink; that he could not taste it beyond a thin metallic bitterness only served to remind him that he had to fight to stay alive, to fight to stay alive to die. Curious sentiment. It was better to have another pull the trigger, rather than his own body do it to him. He had to stay alive; to weaken at this final push would be everything undone.

Feigning idle shuffling of the charts on his drawing board, he sighed. “I suppose you cannot tell me who has been chosen?”

Grigor knew the game. With equally false seriousness, he grimaced. “You know that I cannot, my brother. It is a matter of state security.”

“Not even a rumour? Rumours are not state security.”

Grigor smiled. Taking off his cap and brushing back his thinning blond hair, he stubbed his cigarette out on the corner of the metal desk. “You have said this before, and always I resist. Today it is no different.”

“Ah, but today we are shut down. Locked to the world. To where can any rumour leak, Grigor Mikaelovich? Even the birds, the air itself, will not escape beyond the boundaries of the seventh sector; this is the Colonel’s order. So how can words?”

Grigor frowned. “This is true. I suppose that this must be true.”

“I do not have the energy to tell a living soul. Do not frown so, do not be sad for me; we both know my time comes soon. I accept it. And think! Once Baikonur is opened again, the world will then know the man’s name, surely?”

Grigor sipped his drink. “This is truly disgusting. What do they make it from?”

Grigor’s familiar tactic; diversion. Avoidance. Avoiding acknowledging Yuri’s health. No matter. Forgiven. Avoiding acknowledging Anna’s health, until it had been too late and the disease was screaming out of her. That, that had mattered. Unforgiven. Yuri, angering, pressed both fists hard into his desk and pushed himself upright. Still holding tight, and painfully refusing Grigor’s attempt to support him, he pushed himself along until, the desk ending, he scrabblelunged for his waist-high filing cabinet. Staring down absently at the mechanical detritus littering its top – several hinges, three small motors, a variety of differing valves and wires – Yuri hoped that this had been signal enough to Grigor: leave, you fool, just tell me and leave. I have work to do.

Grigor did not make to leave. Instead, he lit another cigarette. Avoidance.

Yuri barked himself a bloodied sigh. He raised his head to stare at his pinboard jumbled with old directives, each one seeming to contradict its immediate neighbours; and yet, even with that, even with the absurdity of the Colonel and the stagnation of Korolev’s thinking, they had done it. He had done it. When the rocket fired, it would be the greatest moment of his life and death.

Grigor coughed; Yuri envied him his healthy lungs. “They say… yes, it is right, perhaps it does not matter now. They say it is Gagarin. You know Gagarin?”

Yuri’s body permitted him a painless smile, and he thanked it. Gagarin, the Colonel’s favourite. Gagarin the adventurer, Gagarin the boor. Attributes to attract him to the Colonel. Technically incompetent but fiercely brave; not the scientist Nemkin, not even the doctor Bevd; Nemkin, concerned for Yuri’s health, who had discussed the detail of the fuel injector system with him over several evenings of welcome friendship and understanding; Bevd who had helped him to treat Anna, and when that failed, to bury her. Whilst Yuri had to acknowledge that Gagarin was physically the strongest and by far the most able pilot of the three, he knew that he could die unmoved by the man’s destruction. When Grigor said it was a rumour, it was not. Grigor was too straightforward, too unimaginative to dissemble. It was becoming easier. Except for Grigor being there.

He turned to face his friend. “That is interesting, as a rumour. But you do not surprise me. Perhaps it will be so. Now, friend, brother, now I must work.”

“What more is there to do?”

“Ah! But you say you must protect state secrets!” Yuri managed a weak smile. “Then so must I. And I have no rumours to tell you. I can only deal in fact.”

Grigor rose, brushing the ash ever-present in the air from his cap and uniform. “I understand. But perhaps we will see the launch together? It would make me proud. It would… I mean… she…”

Nods between them acknowledged the third person sitting in Yuri’s clutter.

Yuri leant against his cabinet. “The launch will be the second proudest moment of my life. It is my life’s work. It has been my life. To share that with you will be the proudest moment, my friend. Call for me one quarter hour before the launch; if not here, you will find me. When you see what I have done, what I am capable of, you will be amazed.”

“I know it.”

***

Bond sucked in sharply through his teeth; that had been more than a twinge.
His hand went to his pocket, but his mind stopped it. Save it, save it until later when it gets really bad. Ration the pills. Few enough left. Find the truck, find the pills. Find the girl, stop her. Find Sycorax, stop him, obey your orders. Find a way out of this hell-hole. A list betraying his priorities, he knew it. But then, why not put it in that order; what if he could not find the truck? No pills. No pills and he saw himself curled dead into a ball on a DeveronTown street, a dried fly on a window sill. No stopping the girl or Sycorax and no way out, save to be left to rot.

Assessing Rupert as no physical threat, Bond went gentler with the gun, only using it to prompt the man as a reminder. A century earlier, it would have been a whip, he thought. Spare the rod… Still, to give him credit, the man was becoming more willing to co-operate, even rolling Bond an unpleasant but unrefused cigarette and shrugging with ambivalence at Bond’s conclusion; “You won’t be able to land.”

“Is no matter.” The man had rummaged in the mail bags and withdrawn a khaki package that Bond recognised as a standard RAF issue parachute, the bindings still strong, the silk whole; probably late war, given the markings. Now, as Rupert filled the fuel tank of the little ‘plane, Bond examined the bundle more thoroughly, and was gratified to establish that it had patently never been used and was still complete and tight. He felt it better not to ask from where, or from whom, the man had acquired it, the ‘plane or any of the rest of the furniture in the shabby outpost as he considered that this would sour a necessary little friendship.

The arthritic creaking of the wing as Bond scrambled through the tines of the biplane to reach the co-pilot’s foreseat was not encouraging; even less so the absence of something upon which to sit, making the foreseat a deep well. Bond presumed that the removal of the basic comfort was for the practical value of storing parcels; it was evident that Rupert was not in the habit of accommodating pleasure flights. Using the parachute bundle as a rest, Bond discovered that jettisoning the seat had another advantage; he could face backwards to where Rupert would be sitting. To emphasise this bonus to the man, once Rupert had thrown the propeller into life, rupturing the engine awake as enthusiastically as he himself had woken, and had climbed into his seat, Bond aimed the gun back along the fuselage and wagged an admonishing finger: I’m here, my friend. No funny business.

The thrashing of the engine into the back of his head, hammering his eyes forward to bursting, Bond crouched down to expose nothing of himself to the onrush of the wind, and he felt in his stomach the thrill of both the excitement and the force of flying as the little red ‘plane picked up speed. The other boon in facing backwards was that he preferred not to know if they were heading straight and uncontrollably for the valley wall. Death would be better as a surprise.

But, no, there it was, that gutstretching sensation as one is pulled suddenly from the Earth like a cork from a bottle and dragged upwards, outflying the birds and never quite believing that it is a natural thing to do. Facing back and down the fuselage, Bond watched the dirty world shrinking away behind Rupert’s head, a peculiarity of falling straight upwards and away from the ground and not towards it.

He ran his left palm over his scalp. He knew that he would regret it but it gave him something immediate and tangible and brief upon which to waste that carcinogen of an emotion rather than repeat-feeding its harsh masochistic pleasures with speculation. A mixture of a developing nettle-stubble, dirt and sweat pricked through his flesh; on staring at his open hand, it was as if he had pushed it onto a bed of nails. Raising it, he stuck it palm upwards to the roaring wind and watched, absorbed, the air dragsnatching the pinpricks from him, drawing, leeching the blood in drops upwards and away into the sky. How easy, how easy to wash the blood away.

When they had reached a cruising altitude of what Bond assumed to be around one thousand feet, high enough to make the journey a short one, low enough to prevent the wings dropping off, Bond turned to his right to watch the sun, just on the mid-afternoon ambered turn from gold. Had he craned his neck out further beyond the lip of his foreseat, he knew he would have been able to see Sengee. He decided not to. He hoped that she would be alright. He hoped that she would forgive him.

He caught that thought. It had crept up on him and he had not been prepared; now it was assaulting him viciously, lead pipe smashing into his mind as brutally as the thrash of the engine behind him. Why even contemplate it? Perhaps it was here, racing and outpacing to the heavens the clashing prayers of the thousands, that some were hitching a ride with him to their own advantage and, whatever futile exhortations and claims to hope they were, trying to corrupt him. He shook his head, freeing his mind to his task.

Satisfied, by the position of the sun, that Rupert was behaving himself and was indeed flying him to the city, he drew the gun back into the hole and leant into the parachute, ignored the rust perforations in the fuselage beneath him and instead stared at the sun and the sky and the one star emerging, considering his next move. No, it wasn’t a star; no, it was the sun beaming from the belly of an airliner flying north, back up to Europe. Just has he had done, those people had hitched a ride off the world. The world would revolve, there would be changes without them down below, and when they walked back on, they would all have to catch up; for him, finding the Cremmer woman, deciding what to do with Sycorax, which itself presumed he would have the luxury of a decision. For those people… if Sycorax had spoken the truth, then it may prove better to stay in the sky rather than come back down to Earth. At that height, it would be several hours yet before they landed, enough time for all Hell to break loose in their absence. And if it did, they would find themselves blasted back into the skies, albeit without a choice of chicken or beef.

The whine of the engine as they banked to the left brought him back into the present, and the nagging problem of how to leave the aeroplane. His last experience of landing at DeveronTown having gone poorly, the airport would not be an option. Before they had set off, he had underenjoyed a fragmented discussion with Rupert about the best – or if not best, possible - places to land. North of the city? “No. Mountain.” Yes, Mount Selina. Not an option. East? “Swamp. It difficult”. Sounded bloody impossible, and dangerous. Fine thing to land in one piece but to get stuck in the marsh and have Fajeur and his men enjoying shooting them down for sport; an unappealing lifestyle choice. West of the city was the ruined airport and marsh beyond it, and south presented the lake. The conclusion that it had to be a jump swiftly arrived at, with Rupert finding the parachute a means to that end, the issue then became the best place to drop.

The other problem was that they were nowhere near high enough.

Bond glanced up at the top wing; it was vibrating crazily, even at their low altitude. If he jumped from this height, he feared that the parachute would barely break his fall. Even over the lake, landing would be like smashing into concrete. The standard issue RAF canopy had not been designed for short drops, he knew that. They had to go up, another two thousand feet at least. The gamble was whether he would have a chance to fall of his own volition, or whether the ‘plane breaking up in mid air would force his hand.

He gave a swift, encouraging thumbs up to Rupert, who reciprocated. Poor soul, thought Bond. You don’t understand, do you? You’ve never used this parachute, so you don’t know that we must go higher. If I have to aim this gun at you to get you up, by Christ I will.

When this ‘plane falls apart, there’s only one parachute.

I’m sitting on it.

***

Drawing his finger along the blueprint, Yuri carved out a smile of satisfaction. He had wondered when that would come; that despite what would now happen to it, he could be proud of his creation, as proud as he would have been in the days when he truly believed, the days before hope had withered.

There had been happiness, huge happiness: that summer in Moscow with Anna, that summer with its invitation to meet Korolev and the Chairman himself and hear both men praise Yuri for Minsk, how significant a development that was to the peace of the World against Western aggression. Yuri had been impressed that neither had pretended to understand the guidance system of each missile, and more impressed that they had been open about it – it showed trust, undeniable trust, devotion, and -most importantly - wage security for him and for his Anna. Perhaps a child soon? Two maybe? She had smiled too. She had smiled and she had kissed him; she, Anna Golev Letvonova, that unattainable girl from the third row forwards at the Institution of the People, that girl who had attracted the swimmers, the athletes, not the scientists or the artists, that girl he had met by chance after ten further years, that girl he had loved and that girl to whom he had made love and that girl he had watch die; that girl he had buried.

His finger deviated from the straight lines of the diagram; now it drew the outline of her smile. He let it, happy that every part of him still wanted her, missed her.

Yes, their undeniable message – irreplaceability of ability. Unique. Needed.

That was still true, after all. Even after the lost week of drunken rage when he had put her into the hard ground of Baikonur, even after his own diagnosis, still they had kept him, let him work, let him work without question, so important in these last few weeks. Trust, undeniable trust.

Fools.

He lifted his finger from the plan; despite Korolev’s instruction, there was nothing to check. Korolev would have known that; in his orders he too would simply be killing time, the hours of empty trepidation until the launch. Dangerous hours; hours when there would be nothing left to do to ensure that things went well, but too much time for it all to turn sour.

Or be turned.

The clock on the wall gave Yuri five such hours. He shook the numbness from his fingers, shook what little energy and blood he had back into them, and pushed himself upwards from his desk. On opening his door, he felt the dark, empty corridor down to the superstructure swallowing him; he let it.

***

The wind had caught the blood from his hands and had woven it through the sky; the only explanation for this dusk’s vicious scarlet.

Or that DeveronTown was coming.

Bond breathed deep; in the evening air, even in its rush away from him, he caught the smell. They would be near now. How long it had seemed in the truck, how long ago that now seemed, and they had been – what – two hours at most in the ‘plane.

Bewick and the Featherstonehaughs, lifetimes gone, lifetimes away. Tempest…

Stop thinking. Thinking suffocates action.

Act. Smother thoughts.

A rapid knocking on the fuselage; a spasm of panic that this was the prelude to disintegration, a scrabbling for the parachute. But no; as he drew the canvas armlets over his shoulders, Bond saw that it was Rupert hammering the metal with his bare fist, smashing into it so hard that he was drawing blood.

Although reassured, Bond continued to pull on the parachute regardless.

Over the thrash of the engine and the whip of the wind, there was nothing to say and little point in saying it. Rupert’s insistent pointing downwards had been enough for Bond to raise his head and glance over the side of the foreseat. Below him he recognised the cursed mountain, the mountain down which he had driven, on which Bewick had died and on which Fajeur had failed to…

As they flew over it, Bond noted the blackened, charred acres of smoulder burned into its side; had he really caused that? He had to assume so. So burned that even the flamebeams of the setting sun did not decorate it; it burned black, steam fingers hissing up at the ‘plane, clutching and clawing up at him, seeking revenge. The mountain’s welcome only the overture to the city’s, he felt.

Bond turned to Rupert. Insistently, he pointed upwards; more so when the man shook his head. Again, point. Again, shake. Point, shake. Point, shake. Point gun. A pause but…

Coming out in solidarity with the pilot, three screws in the length of fuselage between Rupert and Bond started to tremble yet more vigorously; the one nearest to Bond, within arm’s stretch, working itself loose. Before he could lean forwards and capture it, it claimed its freedom, skipping happily back and whipping like a bullet beyond Rupert, and then into unwise oblivion.

Bond raised himself some more, now in a hunchback crouch, the wind snatching at his shirt whilst he cradled the rifle with both hands. A stolen glance to his right and he could see the buildings below him, the fires appearing reignited in the twilight. They were far too low. Any fool could see it.

Any fool could see them.

Expecting the air to carry his words back, his scream hopefully more urgent than the engine’s, Bond raised the rifle and, the rushing wind trying to struggle it from him, shouted “Climb! Climb damn you!”

The creaking and horrifyingly gentle splintering of the top wing spoke Rupert’s objection.

Both men raised their eyes to look at it, then to each other.

Then to the fuselage’s second screw, chattering loose.

Rupert kept them steady, level.

“Up! Up!” Bond pushed himself further out of his hole; his thighs screamed, the wind screamed, the engine screamed; he screamed “Damn you! Up! Or I’ll fire!”

Rupert shook his head once more.

Risking losing the fight for the gun, Bond lowered his head to the sight. In a voice he could not recognise as his own, he howled “Do it!”

And then, the animal screeching of the overworked engine reaching a slaughterhouse pitch, they were rising. The creaking of the wings suddenly a cracking and Bond was thrown into the side of the foreseat, almost losing hold of the rifle, the thin rubber edge crunching into his wounds as viciously as if it had been razor wire. Despite the sudden abundance of air around him, Bond gasped for it, grasped for it as he felt the pain wash him through until he expected that he would pass out, a welcome death. They were climbing, not rapidly but definitely climbing. Tortured to do so, but equally not to, Bond turned his head to face the onrushing wind. Weakened under the pressure and the pain, he simply let his mouth drop as he gulped it in. Inevitably it tasted of cheap aviation fuel, and such of it as was fuel spattered his face with hot rain, but the air’s chill and insistence to fill him energised him, suppressing the agony enough to shift back to face Rupert.

Something had changed; what was it? Yes – the second fuselage screw had gone. Obvious enough its destination; one inch above Rupert’s right eye, a new one, a pretty silver one winking bloodshot the dusk, driven in and driving in further, turning into the man’s forehead by the constant press of wind, each further buried quarter-inch of thread another spasm of blood whipping thinly into the dusk. Bond winced; it must have hit the man like an express train.

The fuselage panel sprang up, a jack-in-the-box, to block the view. The metal bending backwards, only the one remaining screw held it in place and prevented it shooting back to Rupert. Bond expected the jagged sheet to take the man’s head clean off when that last rattling screw failed; a minute, not much more.

As it stood, the way Rupert had died had pushed him down into the pilot’s seat. Bond presumed that he had not had chance to let go of the controls; good thing too. Pressed back, Rupert was pulling the aeroplane upwards, aware of it or not, now with no need to fear the consequences. Seconds ago, a live man holding it steady, likely to result in two deaths. Now, the dead hand standing watch, the ‘plane was rising and giving Bond a chance. Noble sacrifice, Rupert, Bond thought. Thank you.

His sigh deafening the wind but barely significant against the splintering around him, Bond glanced over the side. Beyond the epilepsy of the rivets, the buildings of the burning city were further down; they must have climbed another thousand feet or more. Directly beneath him, the rusting cranes of the port, nut-brown in the twilight; yes, they would shortly be over the lake. From this height he guessed it would be a possible, survivable jump. Higher would be better. Come on, damn you, stick together, just a few hundred feet more.

He crouched down into the foreseat and checked the ties on the parachute. Although arguably more cumbersome to tie twice around his waist, especially if there was now a chance of landing in water and needing to tear himself free quickly whilst tumbling in any direction to the lake floor, the risk of the thing not staying on as he dropped through the air propelled him to caution. He drew the ties around his stomach as about, around and above him the feline shrieking matured into a bovine rumble: time to leave.

As he rose from the foreseat, noting that the single flap of metal, the impending guillotine of his unwilling pilot, still held fast, above him and above all the rattling and roaring horrors, there came a single noise that punctured his mind. Alone it would have sounded no more threatening than the sweet pang of a decent three-iron, but here it terrified him: the wires supporting the wings were snapping loose. Emphasising the immediacy of the threat, he felt the little ‘plane drop; not much, but more than enough.

Then, to his left, the top wing began to bend back, the air peeling it easily, like an overripe apple. The floor dropped again and around him pangpanpangpangpang…

Clutching the rifle close to him, Bond breathed deeply, sat up on the side of the foreseat and then, in the standard diving-lesson position, dropped backwards. For the first three seconds of falling he did not turn, the increasingly smaller aeroplane his vision and then, gritting his jaw until he felt it would snap, he twisted towards the ground, the wind screeching death into his ears Yuri stood on the gantry, his mouth clutching for air. Strange sensation: a regular enough journey for him but suddenly weaker, much weaker.

The guard examined his identification as minutely as if this had been the first time, not the hundredth. “Why are you here?”

Yuri resisted the temptation to tell the guard that the only reason he had the task of watching over the gantry, the superstructure, the rocket was because of he, Yuri. He was why they all were here. On another day, perhaps. Another day? With the atmosphere the Colonel had imposed on Baikonur, it would have been unwise, counterproductive, to comment. “Comrade Korolev wishes me to check one last time my work. My work is the guidance system. I believe it to be sound but I must follow Comrade Korolev’s instruction.”

“Hm. Does the Colonel know of this?”

Yuri did not know and said so. “But if you wish to check with him, do so Comrade. But it must be that I am let through whilst you check; I expect that the Colonel is busy and it may be hard to find him immediately. Unless you wish to put back the launch by your delay?”

The guard sniffed, nodded, returned the identification. “I shall check.” Yuri clasped his right claw around his pass. The guard continued, “It is a cold evening, Comrade, and you are not in health.” Looking beyond Yuri to the little office at the top of the lift, the guard whistled and waved his right hand. “Valentin! Hey, Valentin!”

On being summoned, a further guard emerged and, as cautiously as all had to, picked his way along the two-foot wide latticed walkway, the waist-height handrails either side the only barriers to falling one hundred feet to concrete, to death. Yuri turned and watched the man approaching: he had expected this. It would have been foolishness to anticipate being allowed near to the rocket on his own. His chill was no more than the wind; being accompanied was oddly warming, reassuring. It told him that they were behaving exactly as he would have expected.

The new guard leading the way, Yuri followed him, the hatch in the silver giant nearer with each trembling step, the gantry empathising with its own shivering. The hatch; stay focused on the hatch. Do not look down, do not look to the ground. As the man in Moscow had said; look up, look to the skies, look to the future.

Lunging for the hatch, feeling the skin of the rocket hum beneath his skeletal fingers, alive – more alive than he - Yuri sensed his future and clutched onto it. Allowing the guard to open it, Yuri twisted his body further and climbed inside. Slamming the hatch behind him, the adrenalin almost caused him to choke as Bond pulled the ripcord and he shot back up into the sky, passing searing meteorites of what had recently been aeroplane and hanging as firmly onto good chance as onto the gun that none would burn into the silk.

The meteor shower ceased as violently as it had begun.

He had not heard the ‘plane explode, the onrush of air whilst dropping preventing any other noise, even masking out his mind’s futile screaming, but now, drifting still perhaps too quickly – he tugged at the cords and slowed satisfyingly – he watched the comet burn itself down through the mahogany sunset into the indigo of the lake, easily two or three miles offshore, two or three miles from him and two or three miles of distraction. Fireballs in the night sky would be far more arresting to any watchers on the DeveronTown shore than one man and a parachute, he thought. He hoped.

Hoped?

He was indulging himself.

Not the neatest jump, certainly not Croydon training textbook in its single handed approach to steering, his left hand clutched tightly around the stock of the rifle. Still, it had to do, and now he had to land. The protection afforded to his approach by the lack of streetlighting contained a grim threat; he had no idea how far he was from the ground. Roughly calculating his dropping speed from his own guess at the height he fell from, he still expected himself to be a solid thousand feet from landing but he knew that relied on his own sporadically remembered drop-training and a belief that he had the altitude correct. Coming to ground even as little as fifteen feet earlier than expected he knew would shatter his spine and what good of that?

The fires on the streets were some illumination but he could not tell their size, even to help hazard a guess.

Tugging the cord to the right, he slowed still further and drifted away from the mass of buildings; it would hardly have done to have landed there anyway; may as well have sent an advance party of elephants to Sycorax to announce his arrival, and swept towards where he remembered the airport to be, struck out on a promontory spit into the lake, water either side…

The water.

Yes, there it was – how odd; the runway dark, but lit either side by the wavelet peaks of the lake shallows lazily bidding the sunlight farewell, beckoning the cold moonlight on. Still no call as to how close that runway was…

He swallowed, and accepted the thought his brain, his sense, was pressing into him. He would have to land in the water. He was slow enough now for it to cushion him, as long as he tried as acute an angle as possible. The risk of it being harder than granite was diminishing, but replaced with a new one: too close to the edge of the runway and the water would not cosset him enough as he ploughed one second later into the bottom; too far and he would probably drown, caught up in the parachute silk or strangled by the cord as he fought to free himself, all the while unsure in the darkness which way the surface lay and likely never to find out. But, he acknowledged, the ground was even more unattractive and regardless of how he judged the approach, he expected death. With the water, get it right, get out, get moving.

He loosed his grip on the right hand cord, and swooped to the left, away from the city, aiming for the far bank of the runway, putting it between him and Sycorax. Straightening, he pushed his knees up to his chest, bracing for impact as he dropped to the water, dropped to the water. He began to run in the air to reduce the angle of approach and so that he hit the surface with some purchase to leave the canopy behind…

He was back in the cab of the truck, the waterfall crushing in through the windscreen, floating him out of the world for a moment of silent threat, the calm before…

Loosing his grip on the rifle, letting it suspend, Bond scrabbled at the ties around his waist.. He knew that he had a bare three seconds or so before the silk, above him splayed across the surface, would become heavy with water and drag itself, and him, down. Time too short to untie them, he relied on such strength as was left to rip through the waist ties and then tear at each of those around his shoulders. The dark cloud starting to descend, its torn tendrils more lethal than those of any jellyfish, he forced himself away, knowing it would smother him. The grit in the water hurting his eyes, he lunged out, grasped the slowly sinking gun and exhaled sharply. A moment to float, a valuable moment to let the body’s natural buoyancy right itself and instinctively start to float upwards, and he pushed himself against the water, and up, smashing through the surface at such speed that he could have stood upon it; then down, under for a second and then afloat, onto his back, the gun grasped across his chest, greedily gulping in air.

Pushing his legs down to tread water, he spun slowly around to survey his surroundings. Yes, there against the thinnest streak of the last burning-brown sunlight of the dusk, the looming cliff of the runway’s edge, higher than he anticipated but still gratifyingly close, probably no more than one hundred yards away; between them, although unseen, the gentle, welcoming whisper of reeds, indicating land within short reach. Glancing back once at the parachute canopy sinking into the ink, thankfully without him, Bond stretched himself towards the cliff-edge, the gun held ahead of him as a battering ram, his legs doing the work.

After thirty yards, he paused, caught his breath and, lowering his feet, felt the bed of the lake at tiptoe. A further ten yards, now standing and striding towards shore, the hushed subterfuges of the weeds breaking into silence, then restarting their whispers, told him that he was not alone in the water.

***

Alone in the cramped capsule, alone with the sickly smell of the fuel, alone with his memories, his archives of pleasure and pain, Yuri levered open the unmarked steel panel above the tiny, uncomfortable pilot’s seat. When the copper wires tumbled down, free of their insulation, he could not stop himself running his fingers through them as if they had been her hair. Lost in this reverie, clasping the strands, he tried to force a tear but none came. Sighing, he closed his eyes, still gently stroking the wires through.

He knew that he would have to let go or all would be lost.

On opening his eyes, satisfied that there had been at least some glazing of his vision, he released her and contemplated the tangled mane. A simple rerouting of the third gyrocircuit, all that would be necessary to both pump sufficient fuel to the forerockets and to ignite them, pressing the rocket down seconds after aft ignition, crushing the vehicle and its occupant. He had created it, and it was his to destroy.

The state had abandoned him, used him, betrayed Anna, crushed them: another metaphor for the Colonel, but unlikely to be one he would wish to repeat.

He raised both brittle claws to the wires, prising his hands open as much as his stamina to the pain would allow. Momentarily startled by a thin, metallic rattle, more startled yet when he realised it was his own breathing, he set to work, reweaving the bird’s nest of circuits. Externally, who would the Colonel blame? Let the Chairman lead, blame the Americans? Externally, that would be satisfying, let the consequences burn the world. Internally? A miscalculation, and a miscalculation by Yuri but what could they do? Kill him? Five years of ash, fuel, burning sulphur and oils had achieved that already.

They should have let him save her.

They should have let him take her back to Moscow, to her family. But no, Comrade, your work here cannot be interrupted. You have made yourself indispensable. Accordingly it is obviously your fault, Comrade, that we cannot let you leave Baikonur, you cannot go and if you cannot leave her, she cannot go either. Solution, Comrade, is to bring her family here: her brother has been ordered to transfer to the Cosmodrome Police; that she would be happy with, yes?

By the time Grigor had arrived, her eyesight had failed and she had failed to recognise him by touch, her fingertips numbing, retreating into a blankness.

It was his fault, it was their fault, it was her fault for breathing the damned air of Baikonur. It had coated her lungs and eaten her, consumed her ravenously. His air. The more advances he made, the more the atmosphere clouded with dust, oil, burning smoke, tar, filth.

His air.

The bodies lining the railway tracks, his victims too. It was mass murder, he was their killer, he knew it; ordered to improve their world, he had ended it. His own diagnosis had been inevitable and when it came, he felt joy, relief, that he would at least share the fate of the others. A lifting of the guilt, it had pressed him forwards, not set him back. He had embraced it as tightly as it now embraced him, squeezing his lungs hollow, withering his body.

It had been right to spare the girls, correct to send them to Moscow as soon as they had been born. Yuri and Anna had not expected twins, perhaps the poisons had made them, infected her womb, but they were away, well away. There had been no sight more wretched to him than Anna’s pained, blinded rejection of her daughters: she had not wanted to hold what she could not see, could not feel, they were nothing to her. He knew much of her meant it, but her blind eyes crying made each of her teardrops a dagger to him. When Anna had slept after the births, he had brought the little children to her, let their tiny fingers touch her cool skin, a ten-second family and then away, with Grigor, on leave back to Mama Golev: Grigor had returned, the girls did not.

They had not named them.

He had never asked Grigor what his family had called the girls and Grigor always chose to avoid the subject; another avoidance, a sensible one.

Yuri had for many months now abandoned thinking of them, now little children: he had only seen them as tiny pink bundles in grey towels – why imagine them with golden hair when they may have black? Why imagine them smiling when they may too be sad? Blue eyes when brown? Imagining the faces of strangers would have proved as fruitful, and in time he trained himself to forget, for to remember was to remember nothing. He would not recognise them, they would certainly not know him: there was little point regretting what he could not have, and what had never been.

Only on meeting the African had his mind turned to them once more; the African with his promise of money, of security: it had appealed to Yuri, even as the briefest of fathers. The African had spoken of himself as a father, how his country was for his son, how all would be for his son and the legacy that would push forwards; the African had understood a father’s desire to better the world for his children. The money…

It had only been on flying back from the goodwill visit that Yuri knew that what the African had promised to pay him would be impossible: the man’s country had been absurdly poor, there was no such money free to pay. You could see it in the city itself, Yuri thought. When the African had taken them up the mountain and they had seen the city spread before them, the tiny, baby’s fist of grand buildings at the centre and the rubble around them, an overdressed, ancient whore with a thousand feral bastards scrabbling at the hem of her rich clothing.

And, even should there have been money, even should the man have been sweating gold, bleeding rubies, what good would that money have done? Yuri may as well have given it to the first strangers he saw. Mama and Papa Golev had an apartment in a good suburb, they were good party members, the girls would be provided for. Such an increase in wealth would have raised suspicion, put them under threat: there would be enquiry. The state is the only mysterious benefactor; if the state had not provided this, then how had it come about? From another state?

It could not have worked.

It had worked.

It had worked to birth in Yuri an understanding of how he could avenge himself on those who had turned him into the murderer of Anna, the murderer of many mothers’ sons. The African had been calm, had understood him, had seen the pain, had suggested this. It had initially shocked Yuri – to destroy all that he had created? But, the African had said, you would destroy that which destroyed you?

Yes.

Then…

He snapped the panel back into place, tapping it once with his screwdriver, for luck. Such thought, such anticipation of the task and it had been this straightforward. An anticlimax.

No, but this was the overture. When the machine rose for its few seconds of flight then tumbled, crushed, burning all trace of Baikonur, the Colonel, back into Hell, that would be the moment…

He watched both his hands close slowly, blooms at twilight.

An instant, terrifying dawn – the hatch was wrenched open with a sickened squeal. Strong hands clasping him, shaking him, shaking the life from him. “What are you doing here?”

Grigor.

Don’t say a word. Don’t even breathe. Don’t breathe.

***

Swirling surface: was it there?

No; just the current.

Bond took another step, then let the surface still around him. Nothing, a gentle lapping against his waist. Another step.

Nothing.

He saw nothing.

He knew that did not mean there was nothing to see.

He knew that he had not imagined it, knew that if he went faster he would only draw attention to himself, expose the target. He had to rely on it being as blind as him.

A chill uncaused by the lukewarm shallows: the thing was probably thinking exactly the same way. It, however, had the advantage: it could wait to strike, could wait and watch and take its time, time Bond did not have.

He saw nothing but heard plenty: thundering pulsedrums, his heart pounding his head. He needed to be their only audience, otherwise he was lost.

Chance another step. Stretch out far; make ground, as much as possible, get to the shore.

Good: pockets now clear of the surface. If he had to make a run for it, the further he stood clear, the quicker it would be.

Christ, was he walking towards it?

To the left, barely five yards distant, the reeds parted: the wind? The current? Worse?

He swallowed hard and gently slid his left hand into his trouser pocket, picking at the oilskin in which he had wrapped the bullets and the pills to save them from the water. Slowly, slowly.

Slower! That had been something! That had been…!

Stand still. Dead still.

Don’t move. Don’t breathe.

Don’t breathe.

***

Don’t breathe.

***

Breathe.

Slowly.

Breathe slowly, breathe slowly and breathe deep: nothing, again.

He continued to feel for the bullet.

Risk it; risk a long stride: if that gets you to knee height, run, run for the reeds just beyond your touch, run for the shore, get moving, get moving…

Bullet.

Bring it up, nice and gently, that’s it.

Stop.

Don’t move a muscle.

That hadn’t been the water. That hadn’t been the wind.

It had b…

***

Yuri pressed himself back into the wire cage of the superstructure’s lift and smiled as the welded knots dug into him: he had been lucky.

Lucky that Grigor had not arrived a minute sooner.

Lucky that it had been Grigor. Yuri doubted that any more capable man, and there were several at Baikonur, would have believed the final check story. Grigor had nodded, apologised for the rough handling, overapologised even, and had telephoned ahead to the canteen to have something hot and something worth drinking ready for them. The other guard, Valentin, Yuri had not been able to read but had appeared to accept Grigor’s word that he, Captain Golev of the Cosmodrome Force, knew Yuri well and that he would only have been obeying Comrade Korolev’s instruction to the letter.

The cage passed into the ground, down a short concrete shaft until it clanged to a halt and, Grigor taking Yuri’s arm despite protestation, they turned left to the mess hall. Behind them Yuri heard Valentin padlocking the gate to the lift, and then the machine crunching into life once more, the cage squealing painfully as it ascended.

No way back. Unshaken.

***

Christ, that thing had almost taken him.

Bond, breathless, ploughed through the reeds, forcing them apart with the gun and his spare hand, barely keeping upright as the mud tried to slide him back to the water, back to where the thing had…

One step forward, it felt like three back: was that why it was not following, simply waiting at the water’s edge, its satanic jaws wide open, coolly anticipating Bond’s exhaustion, watching him thrash a hopeless path? Or had he been lucky choosing the right moment to dive when the razor-jaws had roarburst upwards two yards to his right, the right moment to dive and in diving, turning to swing the rifle hard, the butt cracking into the creature’s right eye.

He could not look up from his feet, nor look back; he had to keep moving now, make all the movement he could: the game of stealth abandoned, Bond and the predator knew where they stood, hard enough though standing was proving. He knew that his own splashing masked the sound of any pursuit: but at least his own splashing proved that it had not caught him. Yet.

Clutching at the reeds to drag him forwards, their sharp stems cutting into his palms the least of the immediate threats, Bond could feel his heart bursting into his throat, choking every snatched gasp of air. Much more of this and he would cramp, and then what? He had been pursued often enough, but this was a foe beyond negotiation, beyond any compromise, nor was it a situation that he could see turning to his advantage: this was the alligator’s territory and it was going to kill him; no debate. Admirably simple. It probably did not want him dead: that would have been a human desire, one out of which Bond had talked many. No, death was simply the by-product to getting what it did want: food; just another kill.

His mouth filling with the harsh metallic sourness of imminent exhaustion, Bond lunged his left hand forwards and when it cracked into stone, he welcomed the pain. Pulling himself up, he realised that he had reached the concrete base of the side of the runway. Surer of his footing, he dared to look up and noted that it presented a platform of approximately four feet in width running the length of the runway and out of sight in both directions. He threw the gun up, then the rest of him.

Still wary, he pressed himself against the cliff edge on top of which lay the runway itself, keeping as far from the reeds and the mud and the water as he could. He paused, listening, trying to make out above the booming of his exhausted lungs the sounds of the creature scrabbling after him onto the ledge: nothing.

But there had been nothing before. Nothing, so often an ally, had betrayed him. He had to press on, upwards, away.

He turned, looking back into the lake: even in the darkness, his trail was an obvious one, cut reeds littered along a crazed, haphazard path. Hardly the most stealthy arrival but, he had to acknowledge, he had been damned scared for his life. He trusted the lake to cover his tracks before dawn; any further progress would have to be far more quietly achieved.

Above him, a climb of perhaps no more than fifteen feet, at a manageable enough angle for him to manage it at a crouch rather than mountaineering. Propelled by the imminent reward of a pill on reaching the summit, he found himself racing up it, slowing just before the top to scan the area for signs of life. Whilst the usual nothing had become a new warning, here there was nowhere for a predator to hide: the runway was clear.

Bond rolled onto the surface, avoiding a jagged clump of twisted metal that only later did he acknowledge to himself as having come from the Eyelight ‘plane. Two ‘planes down; the statistics on flying being the safest way to travel were patently absurd.

Lying on his back, staring up at the sky, he reached for the pill. A bitter punch of despair, one which would have put him on his back had he not already been there: he had not had time to close the oilskin before diving, the pills were grit between his fingers. Weakly, he drew his fingers up to his mouth and licked them clean; saltwater, oil, blood. He swallowed, nonetheless.

Knowing that it would be too easy to simply lie there, to give in, he sat up. The adrenalin of being hunted having diluted, the pain was unmasked. Wincing, he struggled to his feet. Shaking from his boots as much mud as he could free, shaking from his gun and his ammunition as much water as would leave them operable, he started walking towards the threatening orange glow of the city.

***

“It is good to see you smile, Yuri Ivanovich. Are you content?”

“Yes. Yes, I am content, brother.”

Grigor refilled the shot glasses, and contemplated the label on the bottle. “You would think the Colonel would have provided something better for tonight, hm?”

Yuri did not let his smile drop. “Perhaps tomorrow. After all, there is still work to be done before dawn.”

“So I see. But Yuri, you should not go up there, not alone. It is risky. You may fall. Also, some may not understand why you are there. Risky both ways.”

Yuri picked up his glass, with difficulty, holding it between his two closed fists. “I am done now. There is nothing more I can do. I can rest, I should rest I know, but I fear that if I close my eyes they close forever. I must see the rocket at dawn, I must see it.”

Grigor nodded. “You shall. But to make it so, you must stop with the vodka and try to eat something. Here,” he pushed the soup bowl nearer to Yuri, “and some bread, perhaps, yes? Some bread. Hm! I will find that.” Grigor rose and made for the small serving hatch. Yuri recognised it as yet another expression of futile optimism, there would be no bread, there never was, but did not let his smile drop. He found that he could not. However much he wanted to press it down, to drown his thoughts, his face rebounded. Still, if it contented Grigor, then it was not so dangerous.

He stared at the soup spoon and then at his solid fists and knew he could not open them, could not feed himself.

And still he smiled.

***

Death, in every corner. The city burned with it, perversely proud in its display. Bodies, just litter. As Bond, alone, apparently the last man alive, picked his way along the unlit streets, the fires of the day dying, tomorrow’s waiting to be lit, he wondered what Sycorax would claim this to be: progress? Sacrifice for the greater achievement? Streets filled with people, not one of them talking. It was to wander through a single snapshot, the figures silent and frozen. Only the drains gorging themselves and the rats chattering and snivelling spoiled the tourist postcard.

The streets in permanent shadow, Bond felt no compulsion to hide in the doorways. If he was seen, he was seen and if that meant a further audience with Sycorax then that had to be; but as he walked, he felt no sense of being watched and no desire to look back. Even if there were live eyes left in the city, taking too much notice was probably now an extremely dangerous occupation.

He turned a corner into a street he recognised; yes, there was the garage and there the hotel, Chateau Sycorax, temple of the great Praetor and the focus of his superiors’ attention. Instinctively, he drew back. That would come soon enough. First, he needed to find her. Having her roaming free would be too unpredictable.

By his calculation, the Cremmer woman had knocked them cold at Sengee for two hours, half an hour either way. Assuming that she had driven away as soon as possible, by the time they had awoken he had to assume her forty, perhaps fifty miles south. Whilst she would have to have taken the alternative route, that was some head start. Three hours to poor old Rupert, another two in the air and she would have covered the best part of one hundred and fifty miles by the time Bond landed in the lake. Whilst he did not know the state of the alternative route, it was unlikely that she would have been held up in traffic nor, if she was what Bewick had said, that she would have stopped. That meant that, his guesswork the result of unwelcome experience being as good a barometer as any, she would be likely to arrive in DeveronTown within a couple of hours.

That did not leave much time if he was to stop Sycorax as ordered. But, equally, it did not leave her much time to take things out of Bond’s control. The dull ache swung it; he would find her, find out what the hell she was up to, stop her, perhaps kill her if necessary although he anticipated that he would rather not, and then deal with Sycorax, Fajeur the whole damn lot of them and their squalid little country. Then get out.

Then rescue Tempest?

First things first. Grown-up girl, she’ll cope.

He entered a wide, tree-lined square, hemmed in on each side by high buildings of a white stone Bond did not immediately recognise, but which was evidently not native. As he picked his way around the permanent sleeping, it dawned on him: he could have been in Regent Street, perhaps Oxford Circus, the Portland facades a definite – and unexpectedly welcome – echo of home. He stopped to catch himself, intrigued by his new surroundings. He expected that it had once been extremely agreeable, the clichéd mind’s-eye expectation of colonial life. Now, the windows blackened by fire and the pavement showered in death, the black bodies lit grey by an unwilling moon, it reminded him of the training pictures the Ordnance had sent to him in some long-overruled, long-shredded docket: what Central London will look like when the bomb drops.

Pushing on, he recognised that, however it came, death was the great leveller: a great man in London, a great unknown in DeveronTown, the skull beneath the skin is the same and will have its day. Life’s only certainty, and not to be cheated. But, whilst he still had the will, not to let it cheat him.

There were two broad avenues leading from the square, both evidently well used as major thoroughfares. Doing his best to recall the geography, he took the right hand one to be the road he and Tempest had driven, by and large; the road through the graveyard marshes, the road through the valley to the Featherstonehaugh house, to the waterfall. This Cremmer would not be coming that way, he told himself. He had to believe that. He had to anticipate that she would do what he would do and get to DeveronTown as directly as possible, with little point trying to vary the route to shake off pursuers for they were all ahead, not behind. This meant the other road, and he turned into it.

The last house came very soon; turning, the grand square still seemed within a fingertip’s touch and yet, very definitely, this was the last building in the city. Beyond, and improbably achieving a yet greater darkness, thick, sickly-wet black-green palms and ferns smothered the road. There had been no turnings and, although it would have been damn near impossible that she had arrived, no sign of the truck, not an easy thing to hide in the silent streets. The black road meant that, even if not all the way into the city, she would have to use the truck’s lights and he would see her coming. Not so clever now, are we sweetheart?

Bond allowed himself a thin smile. The night becoming blacker, the fog of the situation was beginning to clear. Without bothering to knock, he pushed open what was left of the house’s front door, satisfied himself that wherever they now were, the occupants had long gone and padded up the mildewing stairs. Checking each upstairs room, he settled on the one that not only had the best view of the road but was the most elaborately furnished: a bed, with a mattress, and a chair. He did not have to open the window to poke the barrel of the rifle through; the glass had long since gone. Settling himself, he breathed deep to suppress the pain and invited her to hurry the damn Hell up.

***

Korolev did not wait to be invited to sit. Nor did he wait to be invited to share Grigor’s bread.

“You should eat some of that soup, Comrade. They tell me it is good.”

Yuri contemplated him. Another order, and if not the last then close to it. Another order, ostensibly for Yuri’s own good, just like the order to stay at Baikonur, the order to design the guidance system, the order to stay alive to see the project through, the order to breathe the air, or the lethal dust that passed for it.

Yet where there had been a germinating hate, it had blossomed now, surprisingly, into calm. Just as with the rocket, just as the filth of the work, the ugly sweat and burning steel had transformed into the sleek silver dart. The snow had melted, the bodies had been seen and now the snow was falling once more, thick, cosseting, pure.

“They tell me the same, Comrade. But I am happy. I have had enough.”

“Hm. It is important that you are well. It is important that you see our achievement, only a few hours now. You agree?”

“Yes. I agree.”

“There is no more work to be done. So many months.”

So many lives.

“Hm. Then what would you say, you too Comrade Captain, would be the thing we must prevent now in these last few hours?”

Grigor watched Korolev chewing the bread. Yuri wondered if Grigor was willing him to choke on it. Neither spoke.

“You do not know? Ah, perhaps so. It is error. That is what must be prevented.”

Yuri frowned. “Are you not happy with my work, Comrade?”

“I am happy. The Chairman has also expressed his satisfaction, this you know.”

“Yes. Then why talk of error, Comrade?”

Korolev swallowed, and not simply his food. “It is… that you are not a well man.”

The snow stopped falling.

Yuri felt the clamps taking hold. He let out a short, hurt breath. Grigor made to touch his arm but Yuri motioned him away, his claws shaking.

Korolev took another bite. “You are trusted, Yuri Ivanovich. Your work is a great work for the people, you will be remembered. But the Colonel has insisted that all is checked, checked until the last moment.”

Grigor nodded earnestly, encouragingly. “Perhaps that is right. Yuri, perhaps it should be so.”

His snow melting, Yuri’s smile followed.

“So,” Korolev continued, his mouth full. “So. The Colonel has brought a man from Leningrad, Mitalichev. He is not the only one; there are more, all brought in to check all systems. I have mine checked too.”

“But they have not worked here; they cannot know what it has taken to have done these things.”

“This is true, but they have the drawings. The have the blueprints. They have our plans, your plans. The Colonel, he believes that these men are valuable. They are not so tied to the work that in searching for the detail, they miss a mistake. That is why they are here.” Korolev scraped his spoon around his bowl; unable to make another mouthful, he abandoned it. His smile was treachery. “I allowed it. I allowed it even though I now have a man in my office reading my files. I have not been allowed to ask his name. I believe him to be – shall we say – a senior colleague of yours, Comrade Captain. But, what do I have to keep secret? Nothing. I am happy for him to be there: he can see my work. I am proud for him to see it; this should also be true of you, Yuri Ivanovich.”

For the first time since arriving in Baikonur with his wife and his hope, Yuri disobeyed Korolev’s order. A rebellion too late to enjoy. “And where is this Mitalichev, that I may talk with him?”

“He is there now.” Korolev looked at his watch. “Yes, he is up there now, checking your guidance system. I expect it will be straightforward, my friend. Perhaps another quarter-hour? You should prepare to receive his congratulations, Comrade.”

Yuri closed his eyes and beckoned death in. “I have just come from checking it myself.” He kept his eyes screwed shut.

“This is true.” Grigor’s voice. “I brought him down.”

Korolev, bland, without evident enquiry: “Then there is nothing to fear from this Mitalichev. Eat.”

Yuri slowly opened his eyes and pushed himself up from the uneven steel table. “Tell him that I will be in my office. Tell him that I will see him there. Please, brother, do not rise; I do not need your help. I wish to make my own way.”

Yuri half walked, half fell across the little room, the handful of other soldiers, policemen and engineers regarding him briefly then returning to their meals. On leaving the canteen, Yuri turned into the main arterial corridor. Left, the superstructure; right, the offices. He leant back into the wall and slid down its face as tears slid down his. Cursing his weakened body, screaming silently, he knew he had failed her.

He would now fail her twice: the sin she had not committed he saw in the revolver in the second drawer of his desk.

It was time to die.

***

Bond suspected that much of what he had swallowed had been the bed of the lake rather than medicine; the deadening of the pain had been slight. It was better to think that than to imagine that the pain was winning and regardless of how many he took, it would in due course crush him.

Come on, Nursey. Drive quickly. Come bring me my medicine, you bitch.

There – no. But, yes, surely that had been a light? Gone.

Back.

Headlights.

Got you.

Got you.

Bond gave the rifle a quick shake for luck – it appeared dry, it would have to do – and checked the sight. The thin approaching rumble, definitely a large engine. A day previously he could have identified the truck’s tune after a few notes but, the aeroplane’s screech still buzzing in his ears, he could not now be definite. Still, pretty sure was sure enough. The chances of it being a coach trip to see the sights were slim.

He walked calmly down the stairs, and checked the street both ways; nothing had fooled him, nearly killed him, but this time he had to trust it. Up the road, filtered through the ferns, the lights were approaching, the engine rumbling louder. If she had any sense she would dim them and let the engine coast, taking advantage of the slight gradient down into the city. But on it came, the light and the noise, until Bond realised that he had better take to the shadows once more if his highwayman act was going to pay off.

***

There was sick victory in the man’s smile.

Yuri swallowed, knowing that it would hurt, hoping that it would kill him.

“You won’t need this, Comrade.” The Colonel Veruschkov, holding his gun, Yuri’s gun. Not yet aiming it but the accusation in the man’s face threat enough. Insolent feet on Yuri’s desk, insolent eyes studying him. “I do not know whether the mistakes are mistakes or deliberate, but I declare this Yuri Ivanovich; you must leave Baikonur. I have called them; do you hear their feet in the corridor?”

He heard them.

“Perhaps we will investigate what happened here.” This evidently left the probability of perhaps not.

Yuri had not blinked since he had entered his office to find the Colonel and a tall, pale man unknown to him but suspected as this Mitalichev. He heard his door opening behind him, and awaited the heavy clamp of ignorant justice on his shoulder. When it came, it was gentle, apologetic.

When it came, it was Grigor.

***

Crouching behind a thick, sweating palm, Bond readied himself in a springing position. The truck had to pass him within a forearm’s reach; time it just right and he could clamber onto the driver’s side and get the gun into her face before she knew what had happened. A miscalculation to the late and he would at least hit the tarpaulin behind her, which would result in some enquiry. The consequences of a miscalculation to the early he ignored.

Yes, that was definitely the truck. Here it comes, here it…

Stops?

Just at the point at which the road emerged from the jungle, the stubbed snout of the truck peering out from the foliage, the vehicle stopped. The headlights dimmed, and then the merest step on the accelerator to achieve momentum, Bond heard the gearstick crunch through the failed synchromesh into neutral; the cab rolled forwards, slowly. Some movement but not enough; she would have to accelerate some more very shortly otherwise it would just roll to a halt.

Which it did, still several yards from where Bond crouched.

Nothing further. Just the ticking over of the engine.

Nothing.

Nothing?

Cold metal pressed against his right earlobe. Quietly, the voice, dangerously calm. “I saw you walking out of the house. Get up and turn around; drop the gun. Do it.”