Katja from the Punk Band (16 page)

Nikolai stumbles in after her and slams the door shut, finally grabs her.

“Wait! What if . . . ?”

Her eyebrow arches, lip curls and the trach tube trembles in her throat.

“What if?” she responds, raising the gun.

Trying to get them both killed. She was trying to get them both killed, surely.

Actively fucking seeking it out.

She sweeps the guitar around so it sits against her spine, climbs the stairs with a trepidation Nikolai is grateful for. He keeps looking back over his shoulder at the door, ready for Misha to walk through.

“Careful,” he whispers.

She gives him an annoyed look and keeps going.

They reach the upper landing and are presented with a series of doors. Katja leans against the first, listens into the wood. Nikolai steps up beside her, and as he does so, presses his weight onto a floorboard that creaks in protest.

They both freeze.

Nothing.

Nikolai thinks he hears something from one of the other rooms, but when he listens again for it, only silence.

Katja grips the handle of the door, ready to turn it.

Glass smashes.

They both jump back and the gun is raised, pointed at the door, she shoots instinctively and the force of the blast kicks the door open and reveals Kohl’s workshop, scattered with junk and metal gaming parts.

Dark. Empty.

More noise and it’s coming from another room, one farther up the corridor.

Katja pushes past him, runs by the other doors and kicks in one near the end. Her hand is shaking as she holds the gun up, ready to fire again. Then disappears inside.

At the same moment Nikolai hears the door at the foot of the stairs being swung open and glimpses the oiled, muscled arm of Misha, he runs after Katja, ducks through the open doorway. She’s at the back of the room, a bedroom, standing by a window that has been smashed open, staring out.

“We’ve got to go!” he shouts at her and she barely hesitates before swinging the guitar at what remains of the window, splintering the rest of the glass and frame. Outside is an iron catwalk that plunges down the side of the building, and she thinks she hears footsteps echoing in the distance.

Another gunshot, but this time it’s not Katja firing, Misha in the doorway with a semi-automatic pointed straight at them and Katja is through the window, then Nikolai, closely followed by another of the bodyguard’s bullets and another, another.

They stumble out onto the catwalk and it creaks with the sudden weight, the bolts that hold it in place puffing out powder dust from the soft walls they have been pounded into, charge down the steps four at a time and another shot rings out.

The catwalk doubles back on itself and Katja jumps over from one railing to another, her guitar clattering against the ironwork, almost tipping her over the edge, Nikolai tries the same but catches his foot, falls headfirst into the railings. Picks himself up just in time to see Misha, leaning out of the bedroom window, her gun trained on him.

He closes his eyes, fuck it, why bother, and then there’s a cracking sound and he is thrown to one side then tumbles down a short set of steps and the catwalk is coming loose from the side of the building, tearing away just beneath the window. Misha fires but the shot ricochets off the metal work and Nikolai lets himself fall the rest of the way, finally hits the wet street below and Katja is there, grabs him, pulls him away.

Then there’s a pop, a crack, and the entire metal skeleton of the catwalk peels away from the brickwork and is heading straight for Nikolai. He scrambles across the sodden concrete and it slams down just behind him, sounding like a bomb dropping, and perhaps beneath that noise is Misha shouting at them but he can’t tell — he’s already on his feet and away.

Chasing after Katja, yet again.

They only stop running about three blocks away from The Digital Drive-by when Katja collapses to the ground.

Nikolai drops down beside her and she spits blood out and there’s blood coming from her trach tube too. Her guitar crashes to the ground and a string snaps, lashes him across the back of the hand.

Katja coughs up more blood, wipes her mouth. Her chest is heaving, her skin drained of colour.

Nikolai puts his slashed hand on her back. “Are you okay?”

She nods distractedly, looks behind them to check that nobody is coming after them. The ground beneath them is wet and stinks of gasoline.

“We should get you to a hospital,” Nikolai tells her.

Katja, still clearing clotted blood from her mouth and tube, says, “We don’t stop until we find Kohl and get the vial.”

“But if he isn’t at The Drive-by . . .”

“He
was
in The Drive-by. He must have gone through the window.”

“Then he could be anywhere by now.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid, where do you think he’ll go? He’s obviously fucked Szerynski over — he’s only got one option now.”

“What option? I don’t . . . ?”

“Tell me, Nikolai, were you this dumb before that blow to the head?”

“I . . .”

“The docks, man. He’s got the vial, he’s probably in some deep shit now. His only choice is to go to the docks and get off the island. Same as us.”

“Are you sure?”

“What other option do we have? Sit around here waiting for Szerynski’s goons to find us and this gun? It’s twenty to midnight, the boat will probably be docked there right now. We
have
to go.”

“But even if we do get the vial and onto the boat, you know as well as I do that’s the easy part. People smuggle themselves onto the supply ships all the time but I’ve heard, I’ve heard they almost never reach the mainland. The Policie wait for you on the other side and search the boats from top to bottom before anyone is allowed off, and if you aren’t allowed to be there . . .”

“Then you’re thrown into the water or, if you’re lucky, chained to the side of the boat and dragged back to the island. I know the stories, Nikolai. They’re just scare stories to make sure we don’t want to escape.”

“But . . . what if they’re not? Have you ever heard of anyone escaping successfully?”

She gets to her feet, wiping a congealing trail of blood from her chin and shirt, swinging the guitar back over her shoulder.

“What the fuck else am I going to do? When they discover Januscz’s body, Aleksakhina will have me back inside quicker than I can restring this guitar, never mind what Szerynski or Dracyev’s men might do. You stay here if you want to but there is no way I’m going to stick around here any longer than I have to.”

“But you said you needed me. That they were expecting Januscz, that I should . . .”

“If I have to do this by myself, then fine,” she says as she walks away from him. “You come if you want to, Nikolai — but if you don’t, then you’re on your own. And don’t think that whatever they might do to us if they find us on that boat will be any worse than what will be done if Szerynski or Dracyev’s men find you.”

And she’s off and he realizes he’s spent most of the last few hours watching her storm off into the distance, an unstoppable force, like a bullet fired from a pistol.

He’s tired, sore, and the fire in his stomach is building again. He’s thinking of another hit, of vanishing into a chemical ocean like those who haven’t made it to the mainland. But she’s right, the shit will be hitting the fan and whatever trouble he was in before, it’s ten times worse now.

They have to get off the island.

Crates that measure eight feet by twelve feet, stacked atop one another at the edge of the concrete and a short drop into the black waters below. Men in baggy orange and black jumpsuits and oxygen masks rushing around, operating the cranes and winches, barking instructions into walkie-talkies and megaphones. Forklifts trundling along beneath the glare of the floodlights overhead like steel-fascist dinosaurs.

The bay glitters violently and as the rest of the island dies off, this place spills into life like a virus bursting out of host cells.

Kohl is covered in a thin layer of cooled sweat, hunched beside a portable generator, glad for the thick warmth of his coat, the feel of the gun resting against his leg.

So far there is no sign of any of Szerynski’s men, but then he might not even recognize them if they were there. There are a couple of Policie but mostly they’re just chatting with the loading crews. He’s watching a tall, angular man with a thick beard that lingers by the loading ramp, nodding as each crate passes and is lowered into the belly of the boat.

The vial is in Kohl’s hand.

Is he the contact? Just walk up to him and give him the vial?

They’ll know. They’ll know.

And what if the man isn’t the contact?

He’ll need to sneak on board, then figure out the rest. Even if they find him, he’ll have the vial to bargain his way off. Threaten them with it, just crush it between his fingers and it’s gone. Pour it over the edge.

Drink it.

He walks away from the relative security of the generator, heading down, makes it as far as one of the crates waiting to be loaded and hides again.

Come on. Come on.

How long until it leaves? Not long. Not long.

He ducks around the corner but the loading ramp is the only visible way onto the boat, with two Policie officers lingering nearby and the bearded man at the top. No way past.

But there must be . . .

He walks away from the shore, along the concrete path that lines the dock so he can see farther along the boat. Looking for an anchor line, a rope, anything.

And then he sees someone amongst the crowd and his heart jumps and he dives behind another crate before he even realizes what he’s doing.

What the fuck is he doing here?

There’s a mechanical noise and the crate begins to move; one of the forklift trucks has it in its grasp, and so he tries his best to walk calmly away until he gets to the next crate. Peers around the corner and it is him.

Nikolai.

The fucker is just standing there, hands in his pockets, scanning the crowd. Looking for what? Kohl?

What is that bastard really up to? He is responsible for all this, somehow. Has Kohl been set up? Are they waiting for him to board the boat, to get the vial back? Is that what’s going on?

Motherfucker
.

Nikolai is walking away now, stepping around the loading crews, and Kohl reaches into his pocket, feels the gun. The little bastard will not be getting away with this.

They’re still loading. He has time.

He’ll
make
time.

He slides along the side of the crate, slipping the gun from his pocket, momentarily ducking to one side as a jumpsuited worker walks past him, then two quick strides and he’s right behind the junkie.

“Hey.”

Nikolai, he turns quickly and it’s like he’s already been shot, the way he freezes and the colour drains from him. And he’s stuck, cornered, helpless.

“Are you looking for someone, Nikolai?”

Nowhere to go. The moonlight drifts across the metal of the gun.

“Because I think it’s rather fortuitous us meeting here like this, don’t you?”

The stupid little fucker can’t even get a word out. His eyes search for help.

“You think you can fuck me over, Nikolai?”

The gun raised. Aimed.

“You. Useless. Fucking. Junkie . . .”

Katja, out of nowhere she just grabs Nikolai and presses him up against the wall, shoves her hand into his crotch and her tongue into his mouth with such abruptness that he almost chokes. Before what she is doing really sinks in, she’s already pulled back, watching the Policie officer that just walked past continue on toward the bustling activity of the docks.

Nikolai tastes the remnants of her blood in his mouth as she says, “Come on.”

The area is bleached with the illumination of the floodlights but they manage to wander up toward the loading crews without being stopped or questioned. There are small handfuls of people scattered amongst the workers, some nothing more than bored insomniacs or the homeless or lonely just wanting companionship — but there are others lurking around just as Katja and Nikolai must be doing.

They see one person make a sudden dash for the docked boat but they’re tripped up by one of the loading crew, and within seconds two Policie officers are on top of him, dragging him away.

There are stories of people jumping off the dock with crampon-style hooks in their hands that they try to snag onto the side of the boat; of people building coffins and drugging themselves, hoping they will awaken and find themselves on the mainland; of the things done when someone is caught.

But even for those who manage to get onto the boats, they have the knowledge that the hard part is still to come.

You might make it onto the boat, but the only way you’re going to get off at the other side in one piece is if you have had a route bought for you by one of the smugglers, or if you have something to bargain with.

And right now Kohl has their something.

But these are just stories.

“I don’t see him,” Nikolai says. “He could already have boarded.”

“Maybe. But if we get on the boat and then find out he isn’t there, we’re fucked.”

“We’re fucked anyway,” Nikolai points out.

“
Less
fucked, then,” she hisses back. “They’re still loading, we’ve got time.”

But there’s so much activity, it’s hard to keep track, like trying to count the number of birds in a flock that keeps changing direction.

“We need to split up,” she says.

“No!”

“What, you don’t trust me or something?”

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“You think I’m trying to fuck you over?”

“No, of course not.”

“Because if I were, I could have done it before now. I might have asked for your help but . . .”

“That wasn’t what I meant. What if we split up then I can’t find you again?”