The day darkened slowly as shadows
crept along the Irish coast, waves lapped at the rocky beach. A small,
weathered house sat just above the sand, soft light filtered out it's curtained
windows as a wisp of fragrant wood smoke escaped from the stone chimney.
The scene was one fit for a
postcard but what lay within belied that view.
The smell of copper and cordite
hung in the kitchen, the blood of the home's once and former inhabitants pooled
near the sink. The bodies of the couple unceremoniously strewn on the rough
hewn planks of the floor.
Blue-gray smoke from a cigarette
drifted past Yuri's tattooed and well-muscled arm and curled above his shaved
head before circling the bare bulb and gathering under the beams of the
ceiling. Yuri noticed the ash and flicked it onto the carpet that had seen
better days.
Boredom began to overtake him, the
adrenaline of breaking in and murdering the old couple had long ago worn off.
His eyes drooped. He wished that the woman had been young and strong enough to
entertain him before he put that bullet into her throat. Yuri was a man of
standards and he had seen the woman give up the will to fight as soon as she
saw his gun, she knew she was going to die, he caught a glimpse of expectation
in her eyes as she almost greedily accepted her fate. No fight equaled no fun
for Yuri.
The shot brought her husband
charging into the kitchen. On a different day Yuri would have beaten him to
death with his bare hands, the man had the spark of a killer in his eyes and
Yuri thought it would have been a fair fight, a fight he would have won in the
end.
Yuri placed the bullet almost
perfectly between the man's eyes. He shot the woman in the head for good
measure as she still gasped and gurgled thought the light had gone from her
eyes.
He slumped down in the
uncomfortable chair and put the headphones on. They blocked out all sound and
in the silence he slipped into the twilight of not being quite asleep or awake.
The image of the stripper he had been with in Moscow two days ago swam into his
mind's eye. Her young, supple body had felt so good beneath his fists, the
noises she made as the punches landed had turned him on. He was confident he
had burst one of her implants. He figured she would be released from the
hospital in a few weeks, they could fix the implants but she would forever bear
the scars of her night with Yuri.
His eyes jerked open and he sat up
as he heard the crackle through the headset. The transmitter was coming into
range, he smiled as he looked forward to his triumphant return to Moscow with a
fat wallet. After beating a girl as badly as he had the other night he would
have to avoid the nicer brothels for a while. He would be able to afford a week
of the nicest girls that Moscow had to offer, but he could stretch the money
out and live like a king for a couple of months. The madams he would be dealing
with for the foreseeable future wouldn't care what he did to the girls as long
as he paid for the privilege.
He adjusted the earphones and
dropped the butt of the cigarette onto the floor. He waited to see a few sparks
as the embers lit the tiny frayed fibers of the rug alight. The heel of his
boot ground the cigarette into the rug extinguishing it. The action made him
smile, his teeth exposed themselves in the most feral of grins.
The noise grew in volume, they
were not close enough for him to discern anything. A few more minutes and he
would be able to hear their voices.
He hit the record button to be on
the safe side.
He heard the voices, they were
clear now. He felt pride in the old KGB transmitter, Soviet pride, something
that had disappeared once the USSR had fallen. He would have liked a video
feed, Yuri enjoyed seeing people know they were going to die.
A woman mentioned turbulence to a
man. Yuri liked her voice, she sounded petulant and cranky. He thought she
would be feisty in bed after the beating had started, though he did not think
she could have handled his manhood for very long.
“The captain is making final
preparations for the descent and asks that you put your seat-belts on.”
He
heard the cockpit door click open. Yuri was shocked at the clarity of the
transmission and had hopes of a bonus once his handlers heard the recording.
“Captian?” The flight attendant
asked.
The pilot didn't answer. A shot
rang out, deafening Yuri. Had his ears not been ringing he would have heard the
sound of her body hitting the floor.
The woman screamed.
“What are you doing? Why would you
shoot her?” The man with the American accent yelled.
Another male voice with a slight
Russian accent, the pilot, answered in a voice filled with too much emotion,
“They have my daughter and son. I've got no choice.”
“I've got money and connections, I
can help you. Please don't do this.” The desperation plain in the woman's
voice.
“It's too late, I've already
dumped the fuel and we are no where near land.”
There was the sound of a scuffle
between the two men, grunting could heard over the sobs of the woman. Again
Yuri was disappointed that a woman had given up so quickly, he liked a fighter.
The previously constant hum of the
engines faded and there was silence from the passengers and pilot. Yuri had
known what was going to happen and that took some of the fun out of it for him,
the gun being the only thing he had now been aware of. With rapt attention he listened,
understanding for the first time his grandmother's hatred of television, she
loved her radio until she passed away.
An eerie and complete silence
filled the headset, he could hear the blood pumping through his ears it was so
perfect was the absence of sound.
“I'll kill you, you bastard!” The
American yelled as he charged the pilot.
A shot rang out and then another.
Yuri assumed, correctly, that the pilot had shot one of the passengers and then
himself. He shook his head to try and dislodge the ringing from the gunshots.
“Michael? Michael! Please don't
leave me!” She pleaded.
Her sobs were drowned out by the
wind rushing past the fuselage as the small jet plummeted to the sea. It really
did remind him of the cartoon sounds of his youth.
Beneath the whistle he heard the
man say the woman's name, he told her he loved her.
Yuri thought this guy was a pussy
and he was glad that there would be one less on the planet in a few minutes.
The plane hit the water with the
sound of a bomb going off.
Someone was grunting and he
wondered if they were trying to open the door in a last ditch effort to
survive. If the pilot had followed the plan the plane should sink like a stone,
he was to lower the landing gear prior to dumping the fuel. The rafts had also
been removed, there was no chance for them to survive.
The sound faded out with a crackle
and a hiss as seawater shorted out the transmitter's components.
Yuri gathered everything up, he
looked around the room and for a second his beaten and buried humanity poked
through as he gazed at the black and white photos of the couple on vacations
around Europe. He wondered how his life might have turned out if things had
been different. Before the childlike belief could root itself into his
consciousness he swiped it away and shut the door on it.
He carefully stepped around the
pool of still sticky blood and made his way out the kitchen door. He walked
twenty paces into the field and set the duffel down. Yuri made his way back to
the small porch. He lit the Molotov cocktail and kicked the door wide open
before he tossed it onto the table.
The vodka bottle broke and flaming
gasoline splashed across the weathered wood and the bodies of the couple.
Quickly he stepped back and the
door swung shut.
Calmly he walked back to his pack,
he made his way into the woods stopping to look back and admire his handiwork.
He liked a good fire and he was proud of how this one looked.
He turned away and entered the
treeline.
