Flying the Storm

27.





Caught

The dust between Aiden’s knees was spotted brown with blood.

His face was numb. Once again he’d felt Elias Prosper’s stinging backhand, then an excruciating stab at his bullet wound with that little silver pistol. He hadn’t asked him anything. Vengeance was all it was. The way things went in Ashtarak, it was to be expected. No option but to take it, either.

The bandits had crowded around; laughing, shouting. Smoking their new cigarettes and counting their new money. Eyeing up each other’s loot. They were animals, just like everybody else. Didn’t seem too bothered by their casualties. The haul must have been worth it.

It was just a couple of mild slaps, really: Prosper was being careful not to kill him. No doubt there was a percentage riding on that back in Sevastopol. That, and a reputation. Reputation was everything to Prosper’s type. You didn’t get exclusive contracts like this without one.

Aiden’s lip and nose had stopped bleeding, not that he could feel it. He was only guessing that it had clotted since it had stopped dripping into the dust. His left arm itched where his dressing needed changed and his wrists burned against the rough hemp rope. And it was getting hot. The gaps between the planks of the dusty little shed didn’t seem to help at all.

He tried to focus on the pain in his wrists, to stop his mind drifting. If he could keep it right here and now, he wouldn’t have to think about…

It wasn’t working. He could feel himself slipping.

Malkasar, he thought. Ileana.

Both of them, dead. On his account. He fought back the wave of guilt as best he could, but it wasn’t enough. There was her face again.

Jura, she said. Jura.

They’d died for nothing. Prosper caught him anyway. Aiden’s hands balled into painful fists behind his back.

They had been killed because of him, and now he would die too. He probably deserved that. Maybe then they would let him be.

He’d be taken back to Sevastopol to be executed, in whatever way the Gilgamesh wanted. He had no delusions. He knew it would be public and humiliating. Pain was a certainty. Subjects cannot stand up to the marines. He would be the example. People would get the message.

And now, somehow, Prosper would drag him back there. Maybe not right away, though. Maybe he’d hold him here until he caught Fredrick too.

He couldn’t get Fredrick. Aiden couldn’t picture it. One of them had to get away, keep the Iolaire flying. That was what it was all about, at the end of the day. That was what mattered.

His mother had left him the money. Everything she’d had, she left it to him. Told him to use it well. He’d spent it on a share in a boat, first, then the Iolaire. Spent it on getting away. Making sure he had work.

I did my best, I promise.

Her face came to him vividly now, unbidden. Why, when sometimes he couldn’t even remember her eyes, would she be so clear to him right now? Her voice, her scent, the corner of her mouth as she smiled. Her eyes smiled too; he could see that so clearly.

But his mother couldn’t protect him now. He knew that, but he clung to the image of her as tightly as his dazed mind could. The tighter he squeezed, though, the faster it slipped away, blurring and shifting. He almost cried out when it finally faded into the darkness. It all went with her: the sound, the smell. He was alone again in the dusty shed.

Hours must have passed. The slices of sunlight had shifted from one side of the floor to the other. Aiden’s mind was lingering on faraway things, old things.

He was shaken from his reverie by the sound of raised voices, not very far from the shed. He noticed the shadow of his guard had disappeared. Probably headed off to join in the party a while ago. Couldn’t blame him.

The language the arguing men used didn’t matter: Aiden could tell they were drunk. A life spent orbiting one pub or another had instilled in him an acute sense of such things. The two men were drunk, and spoiling for a fight. At this stage the words didn’t matter to them either – violence was the only conclusion to this, and it was only a matter of time before the first punch was thrown.

Five seconds, Aiden counted. The wet slap of a punch to the face was clear even through the door of the shed. The shouting stopped, replaced by grunted curses and shuffling feet; more punches.

The fight was getting closer. It was directly ahead of him, in front of the shed now. Somebody was getting the upper hand. There was a pause – and then one, two, three hard impacts.

Someone crashed through the shed door, flinging it open to lie sprawled and unconscious at Aiden’s knees. Bright white light was cast over him, and he looked up as a dark figure resolved itself in the doorway. The victorious drunk. It was a bandit, he saw as his eyes adjusted: an ugly bandit, massive and panting and swaying a little.

Not rescue, then, thought Aiden. His faint hope died.

He watched as the big brute’s drunken eyes made him out in the shadows of the shed. A sloppy grin creased his bulbous features. He took a step towards him, clambering over his flattened opponent.

Aiden kept as still as he could, his head lowered slightly, not wanting to offer any provocation. There wasn’t anything he could do, with his hands tied to the post at his back.

The man was standing right in front of Aiden now, so close he could smell him. He towered over Aiden’s kneeling form, and Aiden could hear the noisy hiss of his breath through his nostrils. He risked a glance upwards. The man was still grinning down at him. He didn’t like the look in his eyes.

Still swaying slightly, the man reached down and started unbuttoning his fly.

No, that was too much for Aiden. He was going to piss on him, or worse.

The man muttered something and laughed to himself. Aiden only caught one word, “westerner”.

Aiden had to stop this in its tracks. He didn’t want whatever was going to come out of that fly. He took a deep breath, and did the only thing he could do.

He head-butted the bandit in the crotch.

A grunt, and the big man doubled over, his head just above Aiden’s. Quickly, he gathered his feet under himself. Then he thrust upwards as hard as he could, skull first, his bonds dragging painfully up the rough wooden post. Aiden’s head and the brute’s collided with force, and the big man toppled over backwards across the body of the already-unconscious bandit.

Aiden was standing now, looking down at the sprawled bodies for any movement. The top of his forehead throbbed.

None. He looked out of the shed door then, listening. Apart from the usual noise of the camp, there was nothing. The shed was on the edge of the place, and most of the celebration seemed to be happening a distance away.

It needed the most complicated and cramped footwork Aiden had ever performed, but somehow he managed it. He slipped a knife from the belt of the big bandit and passed it under himself to his grasping fingers. He couldn’t hold the handle and cut at the rope, he realised. He had to hold the blade itself.


Gingerly he sawed at the bundled rope from the bottom, pinching the flat of the blade between his fingers. Now his arms were threatening to cramp, but he didn’t dare stop in case he dropped the knife.

A minute or so passed. Aiden heard singing now, and footsteps coming closer. Drunken singing and shuffling steps. One man, he decided. Aiden froze and waited.

The single drunk bandit shambled slowly past the shed door, not five metres away, a pistol held shakily in the air as he sang loudly and tunelessly at nobody in particular.

He took no notice of the shed or its three occupants and kept wandering away out of the camp, his singing giving a good indication of his distance. Aiden let out the breath he’d been holding and kept sawing.

Another minute and several accidental stabbings later, the rope came loose. Aiden winced as the blood returned to his hands, flexed his fingers and examined the stinging cuts. Nothing too deep, thankfully. All of his fingers could move.

He got up into a crouch and moved to the two unconscious bandits. As fast as he could, he rifled through pockets and pouches, feeling for anything useful. Some copper coins, a couple of loose six-point-fives. Neither had guns – otherwise it might not have been just a fistfight. There was no uniform to speak of, either. Nothing Aiden could have worn to blend in. The most useful thing either of them had was the knife he’d already stolen.

He could sneak out of the camp on foot, probably. The shed was close to the edge already, and all he’d have to do would be to slip into the brush and run for it. He’d heard dogs barking in the camp, though. They’d have no problem tracking him. Where would he have gone, anyway? He was still a long way from Tbilisi. He didn’t even know exactly where the camp was, either: he’d come to it shut in the back of a truck.

No, going on foot would be as useful as not going at all. He needed a vehicle.

There were no vehicles by the shed, though. He knew they were near the entrance to the camp, maybe two hundred metres away. Not easy.

Holding the knife by his side, blade pointing backwards, he stepped out of the shed.

To his right was a long, low ruin of a cattle shed. To his left through a wrecked wooden fence was where the dry mountain brush and gnarled old trees started. Maybe he could use the cover of the bushes to skirt around the camp.

It seemed as good a plan as any.

He started towards the fence, when somebody emerged from behind the cattle shed.

It was Prosper’s man. The one Aiden had recognised from Kakavaberd. The slaver.

Both men froze, only fifteen metres apart. The slaver’s puffy face was immobile, but Aiden saw the dark eyes dart to Aiden’s hands, looking for a weapon. Aiden’s eyes did the same. The man was unarmed. He’d just come to check on the prisoner.

The slaver took a careful step backwards. Aiden knew he couldn’t catch him before he made it around the barn, and by then it’d be too late. The man sucked in breath to shout.

Aiden instinctively threw the knife at him. But he had never thrown a knife before. It tumbled as it flew, thumping into the flinching slaver handle-first. The slaver’s shout turned into a pathetic yelp of terror.

His moment’s hesitation was all Aiden needed. He charged the man and tackled him before he’d even stood up straight again, knocking him to the ground and throwing a hand over his mouth. Aiden felt hot breath as the man tried to yell against his palm.

He cast around for the knife, seeing it about a metre away. He stretched for it, but one of the man’s hands grabbed his elbow, pulling him short. Angry, Aiden wrenched free and punched him hard in the side of the head. He got a hold of the knife.

The slaver’s hands grasped feebly at Aiden’s shirt and face, but he held the knife clear, and then brought it down as fast and as hard as he could. The blade punched easily between the man’s ribs. Just left of the breastbone, into the heart. The slaver gave a last, muffled cry against Aiden’s hand, before his eyes rolled and he went limp.

Aiden didn’t pause for a second. He scrambled to his feet, wiping the blade on the dead man’s shirt before leaping the fence and ducking into the bushes.

He’d already made his way some distance before he realised how cold-blooded he had just been. An unarmed man, weaker than him, killed without a second thought. There was no option, he knew. The man had to die for Aiden to have any chance of escape.

His own ruthlessness frightened him.

It was easy to follow the edge of the camp. It had been a farm at some point, maybe pre-war, so the fence clearly marked its perimeter. With no one caring to tend it, the surrounding brush had become overgrown, hiding him perfectly. He didn’t even have to crouch.

A glance through a gap in the foliage told him he was near the entrance to the compound. He could see the smoke and huddles of celebrating bandits a hundred metres or so into the compound, too busy drinking and playing with the camp whores to bother looking in his direction. Even if they had, all they’d have seen would be bushes and trees. He doubted they even had sentries.

And there, as if put there just for him, was the Armenian’s car. It was sitting in the open, next to the dirt road, maybe thirty metres back into the compound. He’d have to cross into the open to reach it, but this end of camp seemed to be deserted. He could make it. He had to make it.

Aiden pushed through the bushes to the fence and climbed it, stepping over into the long grass of a disused paddock. He crossed it at a walk, reasoning that a walking man would be less likely to catch someone’s eye than a running one. It felt like the longest thirty metres of his life. He kept his gaze on the car, not even daring to look towards the bandits.

No sudden shouts of alarm, no gunshots. He was at the car, sitting in the driver’s seat. Looking behind him he saw a tank of fuel had been wedged between the front and rear seats, probably by Malkasar’s scouts. That was good. Another addition was a radio bolted to the dashboard. Amazingly, there seemed to be no damage to the vehicle. No bullet holes or shrapnel scars. No visible ones, anyway. Aiden felt for the starting switch behind the steering wheel and flipped it.

The car started first time, and Aiden felt a sudden swell of affection for the battered little vehicle. He thanked the Armenian silently, and crunched it into reverse to turn it around.

He’d made it past the perimeter fence before he heard the first shot ring out. At him or in celebration, he couldn’t tell. He didn’t hang around to find out, either. He put his foot to the floor and roared down the hill, following the rough little road wherever it would take him.

Away, was all he thought. Take me away.

It was afternoon, he guessed. Late afternoon. That meant the sun was in the west. The bandits had attacked the caravan from the east. It was fair to assume that their base was on the east side of the highway, then. The little road, thankfully, was heading towards the sun. If it kept going like that, he’d surely reach the highway.

But the road didn’t seem to pay attention to Aiden’s plans. It started twisting and turning as it wove in and out of little valleys. Aiden hoped his general motion was still westwards. He couldn’t tell any more.

Eventually the hills and ridges all dropped away. There, at the bottom of a much wider valley, was the highway. The road to Tbilisi. Aiden shouted aloud and gunned the car down the hill.

He was full of hope. It welled up as he reached the highway. It was possible. He might just get away. He might just make it.

He couldn’t believe he’d slipped away so easily. He’d been tied to a fairly sturdy post in a locked outbuilding, in the midst of a camp full of armed men who knew what he looked like. No wonder Prosper had been complacent. If the guard hadn’t wandered away, Aiden would never have had the chance to run.


A wild thought struck him then. He could try the radio; see if anyone could hear him. Maybe the Iolaire was nearby. Maybe Fredrick would hear him and pick him up. It was a slim chance, but he had to try.

Anything is possible.

Still driving, he reached across to the radio and lifted the headset. It was an open-topped car: Malkasar’s men knew a hand-mic and loudspeaker wouldn’t have cut it. He pulled the headphones on and adjusted the mic. Fiddling with the settings on the receiver and keeping one eye on the road, he managed to set it to a multi-channel broadcast. All the likely frequencies.

“Aircraft Iolaire, come in, over,” he said. “Iolaire, come in, over. Fred, you there?”

He shifted the band slightly. “Iolaire, Fred, come in, over.”

Nothing but static hissed through the headphones.

“Fred, it’s Aiden. If you can hear me, I’m on the highway heading north to Tbilisi. Meet me there, or find me on route.”

Aiden waited for a little while this time, not wanting to miss a reply. He was just about to speak again when a voice cut through the static, loud and high.

It was a woman’s voice. A girl’s voice.

“Jura!” it cried in his ears. “Jura!”

No. He was imagining it. It couldn’t be her. She was dead.

“Jura! Aiden, please!” cried Ileana. “Please, help me! Jura!”

“Ileana, where are you?” Aiden shouted. “Ileana! Tell me where you are!”

A different voice replied. A man’s voice. A voice Aiden knew.

“Bring me your friend, Aiden,” said Elias Prosper, his fury barely concealed even over the radio. “Bring me Fredrick, or I will feed her to the dogs.”

*

The hilly ground gave way to flat fields and patches of forest, here and there dotted with villages and towns. The towns here were rebuilt, though the marks of the war were still hard to hide. The road was smoother.

But Aiden took little notice of the changing landscape around him. His entire attention was on the twists and turns ahead, because around one of them would be Tbilisi.

Eventually, after a time that was hard to judge, the road twisted to the left around the base of a grassy hill, and suddenly there was the city.

Tbilisi sat sprawled in the valley between two rows of tall hills. It was a long city, curling around with the valley until it was out of sight. There, a few klicks across the valley, was the airport. It was on the opposite side of a wide river, too far away for Aiden to recognise any of the aircraft that sat in neat rows on the tarmac. Above the airport several aircraft circled and hovered, guided down by the commands of the traffic control.

Civilisation. Safety.

Aiden took the first right turning he could and followed the road across a bridge. It shortly took him to the gates of the airport, which were open wide. A guard tower stood by the gate, though the guards ignored Aiden. He approached what appeared to be the main building, and ditched the car amongst the other vehicles there.

With the cool breeze stopped, the heat assailed him. It felt like stepping into an oven as he climbed out of the car onto the tarmac.

It was busy inside. Aiden searched every face he passed for Fredrick. He wove his way deeper into the building, across the wide tiled floor, towards a tall glass wall that looked out over the airport. He pressed himself against the glass, searching the many aircraft for the Iolaire.

He couldn’t see it. Most of the aircraft were the same military grey as the Iolaire was, and there were a lot of aircraft. As far as Aiden could see, there were no Skuas. He stood for a while, checking and rechecking every aircraft he could see.

It had to be here. If it wasn’t, Ileana would die.