Jack Womack, page 8
“But did he say where he went?” I asked, nearly pleading. “Where’ve we gone?”
“Not often he spoke in riddles, but when I asked he told riddle. Said none should go. If anyone did they would find frightening beast easily tamed, he said. After beast was tamed, he added, it would shed its skin without expectation and show new form of dragon—”
“Luther!” Jake shouted, interrupting. “Sustained contact.”
Upon recockpitting I eyed the unwinking fuel readout. “We’ve landing time?”
“Nearly just.” Having answered, he switched on his mike. “Landing permission request directive prime op Dryco priority. List proximates for vertical craft descent pad guidance setup. Directives required regarding incoming pattern. Over.”
“Holmes Field here,” hollered a nasal voice whose clarity surprised. Such a field’s name was unfamiliared; I wondered if it was one of Long Island’s rogue strips. “Please identify yourself and your airplane. Over.”
“Uncoded flight, origin Moscow. Priority Dryco. Over.”
“Moscow, Idaho? Over.”
A thin pink glow silhouetted the earth’s long line; the city of New York. No lights evidenced Newark International’s site.
“Negative. Moscow, Russia. Fuel availability crisis at hand approaching mayday state. Advise approach, entering incoming pattern prior to descent. Over.”
“Russia?” asked the voice. “What are you flying in? Over.”
“Teterboro Field here,” another voice said, breaking in. “Identify yourself and your aeroplane. Over.”
Jake drew deep breath. “Advise suitable approach immediately. Pilot name nonessentialled sans plan filed pro forma. Instrument GBL97 sweepwing, VTOL model A741—”
“What?” asked our first contact. “Speak English, man.”
“Flight destination Moscow, Russia?” the second inquired. “This Wrong Way Corrigan? You’re way off course, buddy—”
“We’re unfueled,” Jake said, overloud. “Drytanked. Emergency top leading to mayday situation. Advise suitable approach. Over!”
A sharper, gruffer third cut in. “Floyd Bennett Field here. Hey, who the hell is this?”
Jake palmed his forehead, shutting eyes. “Priority Dryco!” he screamed, as if to rain down law. “Online, Newark, understood? Respond, Newark, respond—”
“How’d you get onto this line?” asked our newest correspondent. “This is an army channel, you son of a bitch, get off the air. Over and out.” He clicked off. Jake fisted the board, sending up a harmless bouquet of sparks as the radio shattered. I reached across, held his shoulders.
“I’m losing control, Luther,” he said; he felt strychnined, his muscles tightened so. “I despise to lose control—”
“Eye the radar and the locator. When we sight the stadia, descend into the parking lot. If Newark’s seen—”
“No signs show,” he said, his color red as the fuel readout. “I’ll hold this altitude until centered and then lower slow.”
“We’ll make?”
“Maybe,” said Jake. “Your friend’s secure? Interrupt his solitude. Idle minds stir boiling pots.”
“I’ll have to untie him in case of problem landing in any event.”
“Keep him cuffed.”
“How long’s left?” Separate towers distinguished themselves amidst the cityline. How short, I should have said.
“Three minutes. Two,” he said. “Uncertain.”
Oktobriana settled seatways besides him, anxious to calm and comfort, to lighten his face’s dark. As I aisled myself towards Skuratov he looked at me, rich with smiles. His look was so bloated with craft and mischief gone wasted that I couldn’t keep back a desire to knifetwist.
“Prep for landing, Mal,” I said, kneeling near him, unknotting ropes securing ankle and knee. “Could be rough and tough. I could retie you into crash position—”
“Your superiors shall receive improper-treatment complaints,” he said. “Standard violations of human rights. Where are we now? Switzerland? Czechoslovakia, perhaps, if I am lucky. Such good time we make in the dark.”
“We’re entering New York approach,” I said, watching his eyebrows lift above his glistening eyes. As I ungirdled his stomach he gasped, gaining free breath.
“Such romance,” he said. “Is such quick travel possible?”
“Must have hit a good tailwind,” I said.
“Then machine worked very well. You must feel proud of great mission’s success.”
“Very,” I said, unbinding his chest; only two knots holding his neck remained placed. “Your failure certainly adds to our success.”
He shrugged free shoulders. “So we land and you ship me to one of many American Lubiankas. I am but dilettante in these matters and have nothing of interest to tell. I have no worry. America is not nation that often tortures to death.”
“Not to death,” I agreed, slipping undone his final knot. “Dream Team’s but boys at play if you’re a prime example, Mal—”
“Prime?” he said. “The best.” Pulling his left hand from behind his back, he flashed a wrist ragged with bloody skin, and a hand whose thumb bent awkwardly inward; he’d broken his thumb, somehow, to free his paw and loosed it before it swole. He swung with his right, cuffs dangling from the still-secured wrist, knocking me full faceways, over the seats opposite. Red washed my sight; I heard him scramble, and blinked blood away in time to see him land atop me as I struggled upward, throwing his cuffs downward, towards my eyes. By jerking my head away I took no more than a glancer.
“Jake!” I shouted. “Help!”
He hauled himself away; feeling warmth comfort my forehead, I saw him make for the Shrogin, which I’d pitched at cabin’s far end, cockpit-near. To slow him I fell forward, falling close, snaring a trouser leg, tossing him aisleways. His twotones heeled me underchin while I gripped. He kicked repeatedly, never catching me full. “Jake!” Skuratov’s fingers, stretching for handhold, brushed the gunstock closer, into seizure distance. Shouldering it quick, kicking loose, he rolled, raised and aimed my way. I dived into the trench between two rows of seats. Whether in moment’s heat he forgot rapid depressurization’s effects, or whether he cared no longer, I never knew; the latter, I suspect, for he showed no amateur’s touch to my mind. Before he could fire more than a single burst he was felled by Jake’s foot as it landed at skull’s base.
“Fool!” Jake shouted; Skuratov fell forward as the plane hissed, its breath blown; his barrage had punctured the plane wall. I brushed back the oxygen hoses tumbling forth as I rose, seeing no need for them at our low altitude. Depressurization’s effect, however, only sent us down with less control toward the grand slam sooner.
“What happens?” Oktobriana screamed as our angle declined; the engine song ascended five octaves. Jake threw Skuratov’s Shrogin into the antechamber; dragged our friend from the floor and shouted instruction to our aviatrix.
“Engage stabiles,” he shouted. “Glide us. Cut the engine and drop the tank if there’s time. Settle us between buildings if able.”
Jake then walloped Skuratov twiceover as if to barefist his skull ashatter. As my head itched with fluid’s trickle I looked onward with stranger’s eyes, calmed by the sight of newflooding blood, watching as if seeing a film preview. The plane settled into horizontal drop; Jake pulled Skuratov’s limpness rearward. In still engine’s fearful silence I heard the sound of his cuffs scraping the floor. Jake opened the side exit. With pressure’s equalization there came no further outrush when the world beyond appeared. Jake, keeping inside, lifted Skuratov onehand, clutching a frame support so as not to overbalance. “Out!” he wailed, pitching. “Flyaway!”
“Don’t—” my voice cried. Even had I pleaded, there could have been no change; Skuratov entered an unclaimed airspace. Jake pounded the walls as if regretful. We struck, bouncing airways once more. So many structures stood quadrant-wide through here that I bore no doubt that one would surely slow us down too quickly. Hitting seemed like tumbling from a height onto a haystack; the impact was not nearly so great as that for which I’d readied, but it was great enough to sail Jake frontways as I headed to the floor. Coming ultimately earthward, spinning as if on a carnival ride, the plane skidded along something much more than soft. As thought slipped free I heard the recognizable sound of splash, the liquid hug, the kiss of water.
Consciousness crawled back minutes later; I vizzed Jake stumbling downaisle, Oktobriana slung across his shoulder, his left arm adangle. Emergency lights cut cabin haze; ozone’s scent sweetened the smoke like lobby fragrance. The plane tipped downward thirtyodd degrees. No fire evidenced; the smoke was obviously electrical, and no danger showed from asphyxiating fume arising from the safety padding.
“Luther,” he said, eyeing my rise; I shook my head, jarring sense into correct place. “You movable?”
“Sure,” I said, my legs buckling when I stumbled aisleways. My vertebrae seemed supplanted by roughened bricks held fast by layers of stone.
“Gather and grab. It’s not prime to blow but I’ve no will to chance.” With delicate motions, he seated Oktobriana, taking her from his shoulder with onehanded care. His left arm kept its hang. She murmured soft Georgian phrases. Retrieving suitcases nearest, he stroked her head, smoothed her hair.
“How bad?” I asked, feeling my balance return.
“Concussion’s guessed.” He swaddled her within blankets seized aboveseat. “A miracle she’s preserved. I shot her full with Extamyl. That’ll sedate.” His face shone as if flame-glazed. “Shock’s forestall essentialled. Hospitaling’s sole certification.”
“Her other case’s frontways?”
He nodded; eyed me updown. “You’ll need stitching, judging the flow.”
Moving upaisle I touched hand to head, and felt as if I’d drawn knife through brain; detected, still, that my wounds weren’t overlarge, and had ceased to bleed. “What’s with your arm?” I asked, finding her stray case.
“Shoulder’s dislocated,” he said; looking at his pale-lit features, tightdrawn as if embalmed, I saw how more bloodless than usual his face showed. “Let’s exit first. Assist me, popping it back once outside. What’s sought, Luther?”
“My cam,” I said. “It’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“While he was upright,” I said, “he must have plucked it. Kept it on him. After he slammed me the first time I heard him scrabbling.” I tossed aside debris and nonrecoverables, hoping for its reappearance.
“Then it went with him,” Jake said, eyeing the door. “We weren’t too high when I birded him. He swipe the tracker you held?”
“No.” Feeling it in my jacket pocket, I pulled it, switched it on. Two dots blinked thereon: hers and his. Underscreen the green winked bright.
“Survived?”
“Looks so. Whether cam and cassette did is another matter—”
“Will not matter,” Oktobriana said, shifting beneath blanket’s wrap, her face frost’s color.
“Why?” I asked.
“Sanya adjusted cassette I had,” she said. “In event of capture and abuse by unapproved.”
“Adjusted how?”
“Ours takes us over. Will not bring us back.” Jake and I stared at each other momentslong.
“Can you readjust?” I asked; if we had it still, I should have added.
“Don’t know,” she said. “Sanya was only one to work out final principle.” She blinked her eyes quickly, as if signaling. “Caused great rift between us, his paranoia—”
“Why didn’t you tell—”
“No other option at time of use,” she said, barely audible. “Correct? Your option. Mine. We live with unavoidable decisions—”
The Extamyl took; she nodded, and slept. For the moment there was much to do and naught that could yet be known. Jake pressed her hand as if to warm a fallen sparrow, so that it wouldn’t be cold when it died. “Sleep,” he said, winding her blanket closer about her. “Sleep now.” After a moment’s silence, Jake laughed.
“What?” I asked, wishing to be home; knowing we wouldn’t be soon.
“Your friend’s trick retricked,” he chuckled, his laugh slowing every few seconds, whenever shoulder pain overwhelmed. “Hoped to strand us and return to glory, undoubted.”
“We are stranded,” I reminded. Jake, excluding logic’s sobriety, ignored. Under circumstance his was surely the wiser reaction. “We’ve got to hospital ourselves. He’ll stay where he fell, surely. We’ll return for him. You’ve the Shrogin?” Freehanding, he flipped it from undercoat. “I’ll do the cases. Hoist her. Let’s exit.”
Cradling her onehanded beneath her hips, he downaisled towards the door; I trailed, heaving cases. Feeling greater warmth, I left my coat behind, estimating to later retrieve. Shallow water lapped entranceways; sauna’s air beaded us with sudden sweat. Jake peered outside, and deadstopped, his thinned smile gone.
“Fucking O’Malley—” he said, barely heard. I looked. To the horizon showed nothing but an ocean of grassy waves, in which our plane floated like a great stabbed whale. Night breeze rustled the cattails, sending forth modal notes; insects buzzed and chirped and peeped as in entomologist’s dream. Laying foot in ankle-deep water, we circled our sight. Southwestways deep orange evidenced Newark’s poison sky; eastways, beyond the ridge safeguarding Jersey’s ports from inland attack, rose the Empire State Building. South direct, kilometers distant, I discerned a trestle rising above the limitless marsh. A train rolled over its length, wailing its warning; the call split the darkness with long-whistling whine, echoing through the wet, still night. Northward, a few hundred meters away, was an ill-lit road; the whoosh of speeding cars rose from its body as breath. Overhead’s full moon cast shadow across the swamp. Tracing distance by the Empire State—something in its look was wrong, though I couldn’t say what—I estimated that our standing point should be occupied, so far as I knew by what now seemed but dream’s logic, by PriTel’s twenty-floor parking unistructure.
“Where’ve we come?” Jake finally asked.
“Home,” I said, wishing to hold further speculation until fully facted. “There’s New York. This must be Jersey. We’ve come down in the Flats Preserve”—that is, the old Jersey Flats acreage remaining, set aside by the government as a public park, where buried wastes made the tumorous foliage especially lush.
“I’ve been,” said Jake. “It’s not wide enough to spit across.”
“Road’s there. Let’s make for it. Get ourselves citied quick.”
Jake lay Oktobriana on the plane’s wing, leaned against the fuselage and sighed. “I need a fix,” he said. “Take my arm. Foot my side solid to lever proper. I motion, you pull.”
“You won’t stand.”
“I drew two hundred mils of Diodin from first aid early on. The pain’s settled. Prep and set, Luther, you’re experienced.”
Diodin or no, he slipped a bullet between his brittle teeth before we operated, quickly, as if I wouldn’t see. He signaled; I tugged. The grind heard loud assured our success. His lips kept still throughout the transaction.
“You’re AO?” I asked; he nodded. With good limb he touched the bad one.
“It’s happened before. After she’s hospitaled I’ll have it onceovered. Let’s move.” Checking Oktobriana for look, for respiration, for temp, he lifted her one-armed; I struggled with overloaded cases, slogging through the reeds, feet sliding in the mud. After thirty meters Jake’s whites were black from collar to cuffs. Mosquitoes grew fat on our flesh as we splashed through the chest-high growth.
“Estimate that Alekhine”—as ever, Jake mispronounced—“is in Russia. We seek?”
“Might have to. He’s implanted. Should be easy to track once we’re ranged near.”
“If we recover the one we had,” he said, “think she can reset?”
“Sounds as if her boss had the know in that instance,” I sighed. Something in my back felt rubbery. “Possibly, though. I think the one out here’s our quickest bet. Wish we could search tonight—”
“She might term,” Jake said. “I’ve no X-ray eyes to clear her innards.” I wondered if there were snakes about; wished I wore boots into which pants might be stuffed. “We weren’t over twenty meters high when I pitched him. Dropping onto this’d be like tumbling on a sponge if he landed right.” Jake shook his head free from mosquitoes’ pinch, if for but a second. “If I hadn’t allowed emotion to operate I wouldn’t have thrown—”
“Unavoidable, Jake,” I said. “What’s done’s done.”
“Always avoidable,” he said. That he had permitted feeling to enter his most sacrosanct action ripped him through, I saw, though such feeling only made his action more spectacular.
“If he’s still viable he’ll emerge in time. If not we’ll return and retrieve. For now—”
“We need repair.”
“Exactly. All we can do tonight is earplay.” Lifting his head, Jake examined the sky’s starry bowl. “This heat’s killing,” I said; where the swamp didn’t soak, sweat did. “What’s seeable?”
“Summer stars,” he said. “Orion’s missed. So’s Hydra and Gemini. There’s Scorpius, Libra and Hercules. Post-ides of June, I’d hazard—”
“It’s March—”
“Not here.”
We neared a nesting ground; a birdflock scattered airways before us, two meters near, shooting from the fen, throwing my heart into overdrive. Coming soon after to the highway’s dry embankment, we ascended. A rest essentialled topside under any circumstance; what we saw made us as statues.
“This isn’t,” said Jake, kneeling, propping Oktobriana with care against a post. “Can’t be, Luther—”
We faced a macadam road holding four narrow, empty lanes. The guardrail against which Oktobriana slept was nothing more than short wooden posts driven earthward, connected through their run by three steel cables. A waist-high divider separated roadways with concrete barrier. Along the roadedge, aligned rows of high wooden poles of two types stood. Long metal pipes attached at right angles to the shorter poles hung overroad; hooked on to the pipe ends were low-watt globes. At each taller pole’s peak two crossbeams were affixed; between the poles, attached to the beams by small glass caps, stretched dozens of wires. From their strands rose the hum of a million bugs in eveningsong. A pole-posted sign said ROUTE 3 Weehawken 7 Mi. New York 9 Mi. The Route 3 we knew carried twenty-two lanes of neverending traffic. Another sign bore an unworded symbol: an orange peacemaker and single stone, outlined in black, with directing arrow beneath. Beyond the far roadside the swamp continued on into darkness. On the road embankment facing east stood a high billboard, its wooden planks scraped paint-free, its advertisement new-posted. In the scene’s foreground was a headshot of an oddly familiar, historically unplaceable face; backgrounded was the White House, radiating as if it burned. EVERY MAN A KING, the sign’s legend read.
