C-17 TRANSPORT PLANE, ATLANTIC AIR
SPACE,
SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0615 GMT
From the sudden
popping of their ears they sensed that the plane was losing
altitude. Surely it was too soon for them to be beginning their
descent? They waited, listening. After a while a new noise began
above the drone of the engines but neither recognised it. Kristín
crawled cautiously through the wreckage of the Junkers’ fuselage to
the gap that Miller had cut in the sheeting. Inch by inch, her
chest hammering, she craned her head out to see the vast ramp which
formed the aft door of the plane slowly lowering. The night was
moonlit outside and in the blue-white radiance she saw the
silhouettes of figures standing by the opening. For a few seconds
she feared she would be sucked into the black void before she
realised that the cargo hold was not pressurised.
She squeezed through
the gap and down on to the floor of the hold, stealing along the
fuselage towards the men. There were three of them but trying to
hear a word they were saying was hopeless; a freezing wind blew in
violent gusts and the noise of the plane reached an ear-splitting
level as the view of the night sky grew larger. Her back pressed
against the struts of the fuselage, she crept along the left-hand
wall, hidden among the shadows. The men were standing only a few
feet in front of her. Now that she could make out their faces, she
realised they were strangers. She was certain neither Bateman nor
Ratoff was among them. She took care to keep at a safe distance,
and was about to return to Miller when she saw a pallet emerge from
deep within the dark bowels of the plane.
As it became more
distinct she realised that there was a figure lying on top of it.
He was flat on his back, lashed down, his arms splayed and his legs
bound together, as if he were being crucified. His eyes were fixed
on the opening which was slowly but inexorably drawing closer. It
was Ratoff. Kristín saw that he was stripped to the waist; his
torso smeared in blood, his face criss-crossed by lacerations. He
approached the void at a snail’s pace, struggling with all his
might to free himself, straining at the bonds that tied him down,
straining to sit up. But his cries of terror were drowned out by
the overwhelming din of the engines and the boiling turbulence of
the air, and his bucking, screaming progress was reduced to a
mesmerising dumb show.
The three men
completely ignored him, paying him no more attention than an item
of freight. As the aft door completed its slow yawning, Kristín
watched them take refuge at a point further inside the plane. She
gazed and gazed, watching Ratoff rolling closer to the lip of the
mechanised rollers, savouring the loathing which blazed up inside
her. She felt once again the ache in her side where her flesh had
been punctured, saw Elías in his clutches begging for mercy, saw
Steve collapsing with a bullet in his face.
As Ratoff drew near,
she rose up, forgetting herself so far as to step out of her hiding
place and walk to meet the pallet. She could not take her eyes off
the monster who had shot Steve without the slightest provocation;
she was drawn to him as if magnetised.
A bone-chilling gust
of wind battered and tore at her, the air frozen and thin, but she
did not hesitate as she made her way to Ratoff and looked down at
him while he writhed and struggled to free himself from his bonds.
With horrified fascination she took in the ingenious cruelties they
had inflicted on him: his fingers bloody at the ends where the
nails had been extracted, both thumbs missing, his nose broken and
black holes where several teeth had been kicked in, a patch of skin
flayed from his chest. She felt not a single twinge of compassion.
The rollers screeched relentlessly onwards.
Ratoff was staring at
the approaching void in agonised horror when Kristín reached him.
Seeming to sense her presence, he reluctantly tore his eyes from
the door. His face twisted in a grimace. Disbelief, confusion and
desperation could be read in his eyes. He jerked and winced as his
body was racked by a spasm of pain, then seemed almost to laugh,
before bursting into a trembling, shaking fit of
coughing.
‘Never cross Carr,’
Ratoff whispered when she bent over him. Blood bubbled through his
split lips. ‘Take it from me. Do I look convincing? Never cross
Carr.’
Kristín did not
speak. The pallet crawled on as she watched.
‘I
must . . . Kristín, isn’t that your name? I must
say, you’re . . .’
Kristín did not hear
how the sentence ended. The noise was deafening now and Ratoff
writhed in yet another hopeless attempt to break free.
‘Help me!’ he croaked
at her. ‘For Christ’s sake, untie me.’
She looked down at
him, followed him a little further, then stopped. She no longer
felt anger or hatred towards him. She felt nothing. She was drained
of all emotion. The pallet continued its measured progress, as a
coffin might pass through a curtain, and she watched it tilt,
pause, then fall as Ratoff vanished into the black void. When the
aft door began to close again, Kristín remained standing as if
rooted to the spot. Her strength had run out, she was on the point
of collapse, overwhelmed by the full weight of all the nights
without sleep, all the horrors she had witnessed. She no longer
cared about anything any more and she flirted briefly with the idea
of simply disappearing, of stepping into the black eternity while
the opportunity presented itself. It would be so easy to let
herself fall, to put an end to her ordeal, to the pain and
exhaustion and guilt over Steve, to silence the accusing voices in
her head, telling her over and over that it was her fault he had
died.
The feeling
passed.
A great stillness and
quiet fell again inside the hold once the aft door had closed.
Asking herself how much of this scene she should tell Miller,
Kristín turned, only to find herself face to face with a tall,
imposing, elderly man, wearing the uniform of a US general. Behind
him stood three other men, the same three that she had just seen
shepherd Ratoff out of the aft door. Miller too was standing beside
the tall man, who now held out his hand to her.
‘Kristín, I presume,’
Carr said.