The First Chapter of something I've been working on for a long time

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.