Vessel (28 page)

'Sean!'

Two men sprang from the white outdoor light, one brandishing a pistol in a two-handed grip. Bales had levelled his own gun right back at them.

'Sean, are you ok
ay?' one of the men said. Sean recognised the voice, and as the men edged further into the barn, he realised it was Aleks.

'I'm ok
ay,' Sean croaked. 'You shouldn't have come for me.'

'Has he hurt you?'

'I'm fine.'

'Who are you?' Bales
said, moving his gun from Aleks to the other man and back again. 'This is US Department of Defence business.'

'Detective Banin, Moscow City Police,'
the man with the gun replied, his aim staying fixed on Bales.

'Aleks,' Bales said, 'what have you done? What did you tell him?'

'You went too far, Bales.' Aleks said, folding his arms.

'I need you to come with me,' Banin said. 'We need to have a talk.'

'Talk? Talk about what? We've got nothing to talk about.'

'Do as he says, Bales,' Sean said, lifting himself to his feet. At first he was a little unsteady, but his injuries weren't as bad he thought. 'Aleks, Bales means to kill us both. Probably you as well, detective, now you're here.'

'Can I ask what the problem is?' Bales said, his composure absolute.

'You're a suspect in the murder of Lev Ryumin. Like I said, you need to come with me.'

'He kidnapped me as well,' Sean said.

Keeping his eyes on Bales, Banin said,
'I'm afraid that's nothing to do with me. What US Government does to US citizens is outside of my jurisdiction. I'm no fed.'

Bales was chuckling.

'Something funny?' Banin asked him.

Bales lowered his pistol. 'As it so happens, yes there is.
You see, I had nothing do with the death of Lev Ryumin. I can understand how it might look that way, and his death benefitted me greatly, but I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.'

'Liar!
You set me up!' Aleks yelled, and Banin had to stick an arm out to hold him back.

'Yes
, Aleks, I did set you up,' Bales said. 'But I didn't kill Lev. That's god's honest truth.' He seemed to be enjoying Aleks' anguish.

'Can you prove it?' Banin said, his weapon still trained on Bales' head.

'As a matter of fact, I can. Give the US Embassy a call and check my roster with them. You'll see I'd left the country after my little chat with Ryumin. I tried to reason with him, make him see sense, but he wasn't interested; what he did after that is his own damn fault.'

Banin, his toneless expression showing some surprise, looked at Aleks. 'Do you know about this?'

'I —' Aleks began, but Bales interrupted him.

'Of course he doesn't know. He's too busy putting his nose where it doesn't belong to take the time to come up with the facts.'

Banin considered Bales for a moment, narrow unblinking eyes weighing up the validity of the man's statement. 'Okay,' he said, 'I'll call them. But if you're lying to me —'

'I assure you, I'm not.'

'We'll see.'

Ba
nin dialled, then held the phone to his ear, other hand still aiming his pistol. Time stood still for a long while before he said anything. Sean looked at Bales, who didn't seem at all nervous. Sean expected him to have the jitter a man has when he knows his game is up, but Bales was steady as a rock. Steadier. It was unnerving.

'Hello, is that the US embassy? Hi. Detective Banin here, from the Moscow City Police Department.
I need some information on a Mr John Bales.'

The conversation rolled on, and the more Banin spoke, the bigger the lead weight in Sean's stomach became.

'Uh huh,' Banin said. 'Okay. Thank you for your help. Yes, thank you. Goodbye.' He hung up, then cautiously holstered his pistol. 'You were right.'

Bales smiled, bowing his head a little. 'Thank you.'

'But what about kidnapping me?' Sean blurted. The whole scenario was slipping away before his eyes; he could see Banin walking away and leaving him and Aleks for Bales to do with as he pleased before it even happened.

'Sorry, kid,' Banin said. 'Nothing I can do.'

Sean's frustration was turning into anger. 'And Sally? I suppose there's nothing you can do for her, either?'

'Look,' Banin said. '
I don't know who Sally is, but I'm here to investigate the death of Lev Ryumin. I'm sorry about all this, I really am, but I'm as much use here as you are. I'm leaving.'

Banin held up his hands, and turned to leave. Bales
raised his pistol, cocked it and Banin stopped.

'Where do you think you're going?'

Banin turned back in slow steps to face Bales. 'What are you doing?' he said, sounding almost peeved. It didn't seem like the first time he'd had a gun pointed at him.

'I told you,' Sean said. 'He means to kill all of us.'

Bales whipped the gun round at Sean, the cracks of madness shining through his polished exterior once again. 'Don't play innocent,' he said. 'This is all — your — fault.'

An itch in
the back of Sean's mind urged him not to give in. Looking between the pistol's barrel and Bales' face, he chose the words he wanted to say, picking each one with care as if they had a direct connection with the trigger. 'You were right,' he said, saying it slow and clear. 'And I was wrong. There's something else going on here that I
don't
know about.'

'Ok
ay, Bales,' Banin said, reaching for his holster, but Bales' sights were on him with vicious precision and speed.
Not yet, Banin, not yet
, Sean thought. He needed to get Bales back on him.

'I don't think you want to do that,' Bales said. 'Why don't you put that on the ground and kick it over here.'

Banin hesitated, then did as he was told.
And then there were three
, Sean thought.

'You're damn right there's something else going on here,' Bales said, pistol pointing back at Sean. '
And you nearly wrecked all of it. Decades of hard work and preparation, and I wasn't going to let what happened last time happen again.'

'And th
at's why you want to destroy UV One, isn't it?' Sean said.

Bales'
pistol wavered, then steadied. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

At that, t
he mental picture Sean had built up over the past few weeks of investigation shattered, falling to the ground in a thousand pieces. He stared at Bales, and Bales at him, his grey eyes revealing the truth: he really did have no idea what Sean was talking about.

Chapter 28

'Pitch twelve degrees, alignment with target c
onfirmed,' said Taylor, concentrating hard. 'MRM Two is in visual range.'

'Copy, Soyuz,'
replied CAPCOM. 'Looking good our end. Ten metres, one zero.'

'Pitch two degrees, yaw one degree. Forward thrusters fire, one second burst.'

'Forward thrusters fire, one second,' Wilson confirmed, executing the command. The deceleration made both their helmets bob forwards.

CAPCOM
: 'Eight metres.'

'Eight metres, copy. Roll one degree. Pitch one degree.'

'Target aligned,' Wilson confirmed.

'Seven metres. Holding course.'

'Soyuz, looking good.'

'Copy, TsUP. Wilson, fire
forward thrusters, one second, on my mark,'

'Copy,
forward thrusters, one second on your mark.'

'
Five metres, Soyuz.'

'Five metres, copy. Mark.'

'Firing forward thrusters, one second.'

The last few metres
went by without issue, the elongated probe of Soyuz sliding straight into the docking port. The two met, and the self-locking clamps hit home without so much as a jolt.

'TsUP, we're on dry land, thank you,' Taylor said, relaxing. His brow prickled with sweat.

'No problem, Soyuz. Good docking. Much better than the simulator.'

'What
? Not this crap again!'

CAPCOM
laughed. 'Radio in when you're ready for departure.'

'Copy, TsUP. Oh, and bite me.
'

'Copy, Soyuz, bite you.'

Taylor snorted. 'That was easy. I don't know why they have these automated systems. More to go wrong than a good old-fashioned human being.'

'It was a nice approach, I have to say,'
Wilson said.

'Thanks. Now
, let's get to work.'

* * *

'But —' Sean said, 'what are the explosives for?'

Realisation flooded into Bales' face, and he chuckled it back, as though Sean had told him an amusing pun. 'Oh, that,' he said. 'A small explosive,
to disable Progress and keep Fisher up there with UV One. Nothing more. I know what you think of me, Sean, but you're wrong. You're all wrong. But it doesn’t matter, because soon you'll all be dead, so you wont be able to damage my life's work any further.'

'Wait,' Sean said as Bales took a step towards him. Bales waited, but Sean hadn't really thought anything beyond telling Bales to wait. He looked at Aleks, whose wide eyes held no salvation, then at Banin, who jerked his shoulders in a tiny shrug.

'I'm waiting,' Bales said, 'and I'm running out of patience.'

Think, Sean, think.

'There are three of us and one of you,' Sean said finally.

'I have a gun, Sean.'

'Yes, but you can’t shoot all three of us. Two, maybe — but three? Chances are one of us will escape.'

'Exactly,' Banin said, and Bales re-aimed at him. 'All it takes is one of us to escape and you're done.'

'I'd shoot you as you ran,' Bales said. 'There are open fields in every direction for at least a mile.'

'You might miss,' Banin said.

'I'm a good shot.'

'That's what, a nine millimetre? Good accuracy close up, but with some distance? Even good shooting won't make up for that.'

Banin was stalling well, but Sean couldn't see it working for long. They needed to do something else to last more than a few minutes.

'And if one of us is going to get away,' Sean said, and Bales swung back to him, '
your little secret will be out. Everyone will know about UV One and Sally Fisher, every last little detail. And you won't have the chance to do anything about it, because when more police come for you, I expect they'll be shooting to kill.'

Bales shifted his stance
, looking anxious. 'Get on the ground, all of you.'

Aleks started to bend down, but
Banin held up his hand to stop him. 'Stay where you are,' he said. 'Bales—you've lost. Aleks is right there in the doorway. If you shoot me or Sean, he'll get out and you won't be able to catch him. If you shoot Aleks, I'll be on top of you before you know it. One of us is leaving whether you like it or not, so you might as well let us all go and call it a day. I promise you'll never hear from us again, and we won't ever speak of this to anyone.'

Sean watched as
Bales considered the idea for a moment, then lowered his gun. 'Okay,' he said. 'Then you leave me no other choice.'

As quick as the crack of a whip, he levelled
the gun and filled the room with almighty thunder. The thunder came again, and then silence. Sean had dropped to the floor. The smell of gunpowder was acrid in his nose, overpowering the damp wood smell of the barn.

'Is everyone alright?' Sean heard Aleks say. The sheer volume of the gunshots seemed to have jarred his vision and he blinked to try and bring it round again.

'Oh, god,' he heard Aleks say, closer this time. 'Oh my god …'

And then he felt it, a blooming ache with a bright centre of excruciating fire.
'Have I — have I been shot?'

Aleks ran over, and Banin too. Banin was
tucking a mini-pistol into a chest holster.
So that's what the second burst of thunder was
, Sean thought.

'It's in his shoulder,' Banin said, pulling off his jacket
and ripping a strip from the sleeve. 'He's losing blood. We need to get him to a hospital.'

'What about Bales?' Sean said. His voice sounded distant, pushed away by the growing flower of his suffering.

'He's dead.'

'Dead,' Sean whispered. Despite the pain, he was the happiest he'd felt in days.

* * *

'I think she's over there
— yeah, there she is.'

The voices sounded muffled, a blanket of semi-consciousness shrouding Sally's head.

'I think she's hurt.'

Black faded to colour, and the shadows of the voices fell on her.

'Are you okay?'

Sally felt a groan escape her lips, a groan that magnified the thumping behind her eyes.
'What's happening …?' she mumbled, the words an effort to speak.

'God, she's out of it,' one voice said to the other. 'We'
ve been sent to get you. I think you've had an accident.'

'There's a lot of blood,' the other voice said in a concerned tone.

Sally felt the back of her head, and sure enough her hand returned with a glossy red sheen. 'I'm fine,' she mumbled, colours twinkling in front of her eyes as she tried to right herself.

'Woah there, I don't
think you want to be doing that.'

A shadow loomed and a man appeared, crouching down in front of her. He pressed against her shoulders to stop her moving.

'Come on, Wilson, give me a hand here,' the man said, looking over his shoulder.

Sally felt herself being scooped up, steered through the
micro gravity by guiding hands. 'Where are we going?' she asked.

'We're ta
king you home.'

'Home?
'

'To Earth.'

A thought flashed in Sally's mind, freezing her ridged. 'Is Mikhail okay? Don't forget Mikhail.'

The guiding force stopped, and two faces appeared in front of her. They looked confused.

'Is there someone else up here with you?' one said to her.

'Yes.'

'There isn't supposed to be,' the other man — the man called Wilson — said to the first.

'Go and check,' the first replied.

Wilson darted away.

'He's here,' Sally called after him, 'and he's not well. You need to help him.'

After a while, Wilson came back. 'I looked everywhere, Taylor. This place is deserted. It's a ghost ship up here.'

'No,' Sally said. 'Look again. He's here. Mikhail's here. He needs your help.'

'Is she talking about Romanenko?'

'Sounds like it.
I thought he was dead?'

'
He is. Wow, she must have hit her head really hard.'

They were taking her away. Away from the station. Away from Mikhail. They were leaving him behind.
'No!' she shrieked, thrashing from their grip. They redoubled, trying to hold her still.

'Calm down!
' Taylor yelled as he tried to grab her flailing hands. 'You're going to hurt yourself!'

Tears pooled in Sally's eyes as she thrashed, turning her vision to mud. She kicked and she screamed, the agony in her heart a thousand times that in her head as she was forced away from the only thing that made her happy.
'Get off me!' she wailed, trying to rip her arms and legs from the strong grip of Taylor and Wilson. 'You can't do this to me!'

'Hold her still will you
—'

Sally ripped free, and took advantage of her freedom by swinging out hard. Her fist collided with a bony structure that collapsed under the weight of her swing.
Wilson, blurred through her tears, recoiled.

'Shit!' he
yelped.

'Are you ok
ay?' Taylor asked, forgetting to grab hold of Sally. She kicked herself away, extracting an
oof
as her foot sunk into soft flesh, and she tumbled backwards.
He's here,
she thought,
Mikhail's here and I have to find him.
She paddled through the air, not bothering to wipe her tears away, searching blind.

'Mikhail!
' she cried out, fire splitting her head in two. 'Where are you, Mikhail? We have to go now!'

Taylor and Wilson scrabbled after her, and she could hear their palms slapping hard on handholds as they dragged themselves along. She couldn't see them, but she knew they were coming.

'Have you got the first aid kit?' Taylor said.

'Yeah
— here it is.'

'Good.'

A hand clasped Sally's ankle, and she kicked about to wriggle free in time to see a needle thump down into her leg. She struggled, but the more she did, the more she seemed to push herself away from the room, away from the International Space Station, until it was all just a pin-prick of light in the darkness of space.