Russian Roulette

МЕХАНИК – THE MECHANIC

I barely slept that night. Every time I closed my eyes, my thoughts turned to guns, to kitchen knives, to the forks and spades that were used in the garden, to hammers and fire axes. The truth was that I was surrounded by weapons. Sharkovsky was used to having me around. I could reach him and have my revenge for Estrov before anyone knew what had happened.

But what good would it do? Josef and Karl – of course I knew which was which by now – were always nearby and even assuming I could get to Sharkovsky before they stopped me, they would deal with me immediately afterwards. Lying in my simple wooden bed, in my empty room, looking at the cold light of day, I saw that any action on my part would only lead to my own death. There had to be another way.

I felt sick and unhappy. I remembered Fagin with his leather notebook, reading out the different names and addresses in Moscow. Why had I made this choice?

Once again, and for the first time in a very long while, I thought about escape. I knew what the stakes were. If I tried and failed, I would die. But one way or another, this had to end.

I had just one advantage. By now I knew everything about the dacha and that included all the security arrangements. I took out one of the exercise books that Nigel Brown had given me – it was full of English vocabulary – and turned to an empty page at the back. Then, using a pencil, I drew a sketch of the compound and, resting it on my knees, I began to consider the best way out.

There wasn’t one.

CCTV cameras covered every inch of the gardens. Climbing the wall was impossible. Quite apart from the razor wire, there were sensors buried under the lawn and they would register my footfall before I got close. Could I approach one of the guards? No. They were all far too afraid of Sharkovsky. What about his wife, Maya? Could I somehow persuade her to take me on one of her shopping trips to Moscow? It was a ridiculous idea. She had no reason to help me.

Even if I did miraculously make it to the other side, what was I to do next? I was surrounded by countryside – the Silver Forest – with no idea of how near I was to the nearest bus stop or station. If I made it to Moscow, I could go back to Tverskaya Street. I had no doubt that Dima would hide me… assuming he was still there. But Sharkovsky would use all his police and underworld contacts to hunt me down. It wouldn’t bother him that he had been keeping me a prisoner for three years and he had treated me in a way that was certainly illegal. It was just that we had made a deal and he would make sure I kept it. I worked for him or I was dead.

For the next few weeks, everything went on as before. I cleaned, I washed, I bowed, I scraped. But for me, nothing was the same. I could hardly bear to be in the same room as Sharkovsky. Tasting his food made me physically sick. This was the man responsible for what had happened to Estrov, the unnamed investor my parents had been complaining about the night before they died. If I couldn’t escape from him, I would go mad. I would kill him or I would kill myself. I simply couldn’t stay here any more.

I had hidden the exercise book under my mattress and every night I took it out and jotted down my thoughts. Slowly, I realized that I had been right from the very start. There was only one way out of this place – and that was the Bell JetRanger helicopter. I turned to a new page and wrote down the name of the pilot, Arkady Zelin, then underlined it twice. What did I know about him? How could I persuade him to take me out of here? Did he have any weaknesses, anything I could exploit?

We had known each other for three years but I wouldn’t say we were friends. Zelin was a very solitary person, often preferring to eat alone. Even so, it was impossible to live in such close confinement without giving things away and the fact was that we did talk to each other, particularly when we were playing cards. Zelin liked the fact that I was interested in helicopters. He’d even let me examine the workings of the engine once or twice, when he was stripping it down for general maintenance, although he had drawn the line at allowing me to sit in the cockpit. The security guards wouldn’t have been happy about that. And then there was Nigel Brown. He knew a bit about Zelin too and when he’d had a few drinks he would share it with me.

Arkady Zelin

Soviet Air Force. Gambling?

Saratov.

Wife? Son.

Skiing… France/Switzerland. Retire?

This was about the total knowledge that I had of the man who might fly me out of the dacha. I wrote it down in my exercise book and stared at the useless words, sitting there on the empty page.

What did they add up to?

Zelin had been in the Soviet Air Force but he’d been caught stealing money from a friend. There had been a court martial and he had been forced to leave. He was still bitter about the whole thing and claimed that he was innocent, that he had been set up, but the truth was he was always broke. It was possible that he was addicted to gambling. I often saw him looking at the racing pages in the newspapers and once or twice I heard him making bets over the phone.

Zelin owned a crummy flat in the city of Saratov, on the Volga River, but he hardly ever went there. He had three weeks’ holiday a year – he often complained it wasn’t enough – and he liked to travel abroad, to Switzerland or France in the winter. He loved skiing. He once told me that he would like to work in a ski resort and had talked briefly about heli-skiing – flying rich people to the top of glaciers and watching them ski down. He had been married and he carried a photograph in his wallet… a boy who was about eleven or twelve years old, presumably his son. I remembered the day when I had come into the recreation room with a huge bruise on my face. I’d made a bad job of polishing the silver and Josef had lost control and almost knocked me out. Zelin had seen me and although he had said nothing, I could tell he was shocked. Perhaps I could appeal to him as a father? On the other hand, he never spoke about his son… or his wife, for that matter. He never saw either of them; perhaps they had cut him out of their life. He was quite lonely. He was the sort of person who looks after number one simply because there is nobody else.

I could have scribbled until I had filled the entire exercise book but it wasn’t going to help very much. Sharkovsky had a number of trips abroad that summer and each time he left in the helicopter, I would stop whatever I was doing and watch the machine rise from the launch pad and hover over the trees before disappearing into the sky. I had nothing I could offer – no money, no bribe. I knew that there was no way Zelin was going to fall out with his employer. In the end I forgot about him and began to think of other plans.

We came to the end of another summer and I swore to myself that it would be my last at the dacha, that by Christmas I would be gone. And yet August bled into September and nothing changed. I was feeling sick and angry with myself. No only had I not escaped, I hadn’t even tried. Worse still, Ivan Sharkovsky had returned. He had left Harrow by now and was on his way to Oxford University. Presumably his father had offered to pay for a new library or a swimming pool because I’m not sure there was any other way he’d have got in.

I was in the garden when I first saw him, pushing a wheelbarrow full of leaves, taking it down to the compost heap. Suddenly he was standing there in front of me, blocking my path. Age had not improved him. He was still overweight. We were both about the same height but he was much heavier than me. I stopped at once and bowed my head.

“Yassen!” he said, spitting out the two syllables in a sing-song voice. “Are you glad to see me?”

“Yes, sir,” I lied.

“Still slaving for my dad?”

“Yes, sir.”

He smirked at me. Then he reached down and picked up a handful of filthy leaves from the wheelbarrow. I was wearing a tracksuit and, very deliberately, he shoved the leaves down the front of my chest. Then he laughed and walked away.

From that moment on, there was a new, very disturbing edge to his behaviour. His attacks on me became more physical. If he was angry with me, he would slap me or punch me, which was something he had never done before. Once, at the dinner table, I spilt some of his wine and he picked up a fork and jabbed it into my thigh. His father saw this but said nothing. In a way, the two of them were equally mad. I was afraid that Ivan wouldn’t be satisfied until I was dead.

That was the month that Nigel Brown was fired. He wasn’t particularly surprised. He was no longer tutoring Ivan, and his sister, Svetlana, had been accepted into Cheltenham Ladies’ College in England so there was nothing left for him to do. Mr Brown was sixty by now and his teaching days were over. He talked about going back to Norfolk but he didn’t seem to have any fondness for the place. It’s often interested me how some people can follow a single path through life that takes them to somewhere they don’t want to be. It was hard to believe that this crumpled old man with his vodka and his tweed jacket had once been a child, full of hopes and dreams. Was this what he had been born to be?

I was having dinner with him one evening, shortly before he left. Arkady Zelin had joined us. He had returned from Moscow that morning with Sharkovsky, who had flown in from the United States. Mr Brown hadn’t begun drinking yet – at least he’d only had a couple of glasses – and he was in a reflective mood.

“You’re going to have to keep up your languages, Yassen, once I’m gone,” he was saying. “Maybe they’ll let me send you books. There are very good tapes these days.”

He was being kind but I knew he didn’t really mean what he was saying. Once he was gone, I would never hear from him again.

“What about you, Arkady?” he went on. “Are you going to stay working here?”

“I have no reason to leave,” Zelin said.

“No. I can see you’re doing well for yourself. Nice new watch!”

It was typical of my teacher to notice a detail like that. When we were doing exercises together, he could instantly spot a single misspelt word in the middle of a whole page. I glanced at Zelin’s wrist just in time to see him draw it away, covering it with his sleeve.

“It was given to me,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

“A Rolex?”

“Why do you interest yourself in things that don’t concern you? Why don’t you mind your own business?”

For the rest of the meal, Zelin barely spoke – and when he had finished eating he left the room, even though we’d agreed to play cards. I did an hour’s German with Mr Brown but my heart wasn’t in it and in the end he gave up, dragged the bottle off the table and plonked himself in an armchair in the corner. I was left on my own, thinking. It was a small detail. A new Rolex. But it was strange the way Zelin had tried to conceal it, and why had it made him so angry?

I might have forgotten all about it but the next day something else happened which brought it back to my mind. Sharkovsky was leaving for Leningrad at the end of the week. It was an important visit and he much preferred to fly than go by road. During the course of the morning, I saw Zelin working on the helicopter, carrying out a routine inspection. There was nothing unusual about that. But just before lunch, he presented himself at the house. I happened to be close by, cleaning the ground-floor windows, and I heard every word that was said.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” he said. “We can’t use the helicopter.”

Sharkovsky had come to the front door, dressed in riding gear. He had taken up riding the year before and had bought two horses – one for himself, one for his wife. He’d also built a stable close to the tennis court and employed one of the gardeners as a groom. Zelin was standing in his overalls, wiping his hands on a white handkerchief that was smeared with oil.

“What’s wrong with it?” Sharkovsky snapped. He had been very short-tempered recently. There was a rumour that things hadn’t been going too well with his business. Maybe that was why he had been travelling so much.

“There’s been a servo actuator malfunction, sir,” Zelin said. “One of the piston rods shows signs of cracking. It’s going to have to be replaced.”

“Can you do it?”

“No, sir. Not really. Anyway, we have to order the part…”

Sharkovsky was in a hurry. “Well, why don’t you call in the mechanic… what’s his name… Borodin?”

“I called his office just now. It’s annoying but he’s ill.” He paused. “They can send someone else.”

“Reliable?”

“Yes, sir. His name is Rykov. I’ve worked with him.”

“All right. See to it.”

Maya was waiting for him. He stormed off without saying another word.

I didn’t know for certain that Zelin was lying but I had a feeling that something was wrong. Every day at the dacha was the same. When I say that life went like clockwork, I mean it had that same dull, mechanical quality. But now there were three coincidences and they had all happened at the same time. The helicopter had been fine the day before but suddenly it was broken. The usual mechanic – a brisk, talkative man who turned up every couple of months – was mysteriously ill. And then there was that new watch, and the strange way that Zelin had behaved.

There was something else. It occurred to me that it really wasn’t so difficult to replace a piston rod. I had been reading helicopter magazines all my life and knew almost as much as if I’d actually been flying myself. I was sure that Zelin would have a spare and should have been able to fix it himself.

So what was he up to? I said nothing, but for the rest of the day I kept my eye on him and when the new mechanic arrived that same afternoon, I made sure I was there.

He came in a green van marked MVZ Helicopters and I saw him step out to have his passport and employment papers checked by the guards. He was a short, plump man with a mop of grey hair that sprawled over his head and several folds of fat around his chin. He was dressed in green overalls with the same initials, MVZ, on the top pocket. He had to wait while the guards searched his van – for once, their metal detectors weren’t going to help them. The back was jammed with spare parts. He didn’t seem to mind though. He stood there smoking a cigarette and when they finally let him through he gave them a friendly wave and drove straight across to the helicopter pad. Arkady Zelin was waiting for him there and they spent the rest of the day working together, stripping down the engine and doing whatever it was they had to do.

It was a warm afternoon, and at four o’clock one of the housekeepers sent me over to the helicopter with a tray of lemonade and sandwiches. The mechanic – Rykov – came strutting towards me with a smile on his face.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“My name is Yassen, sir.”

“And what’s in these sandwiches?” He prised one open with a grimy thumb. “Ham and cheese. Thanks, Yassen. That’s very nice of you.” He was already eating, talking with his mouth full. Then he signalled to Zelin and the two of them went back to work.

I saw him a second time when I came back to pick up the tray. Once again he was pleased to see me but I thought that Zelin was more restrained. He was quieter than I had ever known him and this was a man I knew fairly well. You cannot play cards with someone and not get a sense of the way they think. I would have said he was nervous. I wondered why he wasn’t wearing his new watch today. By now, the helicopter was almost completely reassembled. I lingered with the two men, waiting to take back the tray. And it seemed only natural to chat.

“Do you fly these?” I asked the mechanic.

“Not me,” he said. “I just take them apart and put them back together.”

“Is it difficult?”

“You have to know what you’re doing.”

“Wouldn’t you like to fly?”

He shook his head. “Not really.” He took out a cigarette and lit it. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a joystick between my legs. I prefer to keep my feet safely on the ground.”

“That’s enough, Yassen,” Zelin growled. “Don’t you have work to do? Go and do it.”

“Yes, Mr Zelin.”

I picked up the tray with the dirty glasses and carried it back to the house. But I’d already discovered everything I needed to know. The mechanic knew nothing about helicopters. Even I could have told him that a Bell helicopter doesn’t have a joystick. It has a cyclic control which transmits instructions to the rotor blades. And it’s not in front of you. It’s to one side. Zelin had lied about the malfunction just as he had lied about the usual mechanic, Borodin, being sick. I was sure of it.

From that moment, I didn’t let them out of my sight. I knew I would get into trouble. There were ten pairs of shoes I was meant to polish and a whole pile of crates to be broken up in the cellar. But there was no way I was going to disappear inside. Zelin was planning something. If Rykov wasn’t a helicopter mechanic, what was he? A thief? A spy? It didn’t matter. Zelin had brought him into the compound and had to be part of it. This was the opportunity I’d been waiting for. I could blackmail him. Suddenly I saw him with his hand on the cyclic. He could fly me out.

My biggest worry was that Ivan would return to the dacha. He’d gone into Moscow for the day, driving the new Mercedes sports car that his father had bought him for his birthday, but if he came back and saw me, the chances were that he would find some task for me to do. At five o’clock there was still no sign of him but Sharkovsky and his wife returned from a ride and I helped them down from the saddle and walked the horses back to the stable. All the gardeners had gone. There were just the usual guards, walking in pairs, unaware that anything unusual was going on.

As I got back to the house, I heard the helicopter start up, the whine of the engine rising as the rotors picked up speed. There was no sign of Rykov but the van with the MVZ logo was still parked close by so I knew he couldn’t have left. I pretended to walk into the house but at the last minute I hurried forward and ducked behind one of the cars. It was actually the Lexus that had first brought me here. If anyone found me there, I would pretend I was cleaning it.

I could see Arkady Zelin inside the cockpit, checking the controls, and suddenly the mechanic emerged from the other side of the helicopter and began to walk towards me, towards the house, carrying a sheaf of papers. If the guards had seen him, it would have looked completely natural. He had finished the job and he needed someone to sign the documentation. But he was being careful. He kept to the shadows. Nobody except me saw him go in through the side door.

I followed. I didn’t know what I was going to do because I still hadn’t worked out what was happening. All I knew was, it wasn’t what it seemed.

I crept down the corridor past the service rooms – the laundry and the boot room, where I had spent so many hundreds of hours, day and night, in mindless drudgery. There was nobody around and that was very unusual. The mechanic couldn’t have just walked into the house. One of the housekeepers would have challenged him and then made him wait while she went to fetch Josef or Karl. Rykov had only entered a few seconds ahead of me. He should have been here now. I felt the silence all around me. None of the lights were on. I glanced into the kitchen. There was a pot of soup or stew bubbling away on top of the stove but no sign of Pavel.

I was tempted to call out but something told me to stay quiet. I continued past the pantry. The door was ajar and that too was strange, as it was always kept locked in case the dog went in. I pushed it open and at that moment everything made sense. It should have been obvious from the start. How could I have been so slow not to see it?

The housekeeper was there, lying on the floor. I had lost count of the number of times that Nina had snapped at me, scolding me for being too slow or too clumsy, hitting me on the head whenever she got the chance. I could see the wooden spoon still tucked into her apron but she wasn’t going to be using it. She had been shot at close range, obviously with a silencer because I hadn’t heard the sound of the gun. She was on her back with her hands spread out, as if in surprise. There was a pool of blood around her shoulders.

Arkady Zelin had been bribed. There was no other explanation. He never had any money but suddenly he had an expensive new watch. Rykov was an assassin who had come here to kill Sharkovsky. The safest way to smuggle a gun into the compound – perhaps the only way to get past the metal detectors and X-ray machines – was to bring it in a truck packed with metal equipment. It would have been easy enough to dismantle it and scatter the separate parts among the other machinery. And the fastest way out after he had done his work was the helicopter, which was waiting even now, with the rotors at full velocity.

My mouth was dry. My every instinct was to turn and run. If Rykov saw me, he would kill me without even thinking about it, just as he had killed Nina. But I didn’t leave. I couldn’t. This was the only chance I would ever get and I had to take it. There was a small axe hanging in the pantry. I had used it until there were blisters all over my hands, chopping kindling for the fire in Sharkovsky’s study. Making as little noise as possible and doing my best not to look at the dead woman, I unhooked it. An axe would be little use against a gun, but even so, I felt safer having some sort of weapon. I continued to the door that led into the main hall. It was half open. Hardly daring to breathe, I looked through.

I had arrived just in time for the endgame.

The hall was in shadow. The sun was setting behind the house and its last rays were too low to reach the windows. The lights were out. I could hear the shrill whine of the helicopter outside in the distance but a curtain of silence seemed to have fallen on the house. Josef was lying on the stairs, where he had been gunned down. Rykov was standing in front of me, edging forward, an automatic pistol with a silencer in his hand.

He was making his way towards the study, his feet making no sound on the thick carpet. But even as I watched, the door of the study opened and Vladimir Sharkovsky came out, dressed in a suit and tie but with his jacket off. He must have heard the disturbance, the body tumbling down the stairs, and had come out to see what was happening.

“What…?” he began.

Rykov didn’t say anything. He stepped forward and shot my employer three times, the bullets thudding into his chest and stomach so quietly that I barely heard them. The effect was catastrophic. Sharkovsky was thrown backwards… off his feet. His head hit the carpet first. If the bullets hadn’t killed him, he would surely have broken his neck. His legs jerked then became still.

What did I feel at that moment? Nothing. Of course I wasn’t going to waste any tears on Sharkovsky. I was glad he was dead. But I couldn’t find it in myself to celebrate the death of another human being. I was frightened. I was still wondering how I could turn this to my advantage. Everything was happening so quickly that I didn’t have time to work out my emotions. I suppose I was in a state of shock.

And then a voice came floating out of the darkness.

“Don’t turn round. Put the gun down!”

Rykov twisted his head but saw nothing. I was hiding behind the door, out of sight. It was Karl. He had come up from the cellar. Maybe he had been looking for me, wondering why I hadn’t broken up those crates. He was behind Rykov and over to one side, edging into the hall with a gun clasped in both hands, holding it at the same level as his head.

Rykov froze. He was still holding the gun he had used to kill Sharkovsky and I wondered if he’d had time to reload. He had fired at least five bullets. Rykov couldn’t see where the order had come from but he remained completely calm. “I will pay you one hundred thousand rubles to let me leave here,” he said. He sounded very different from the mechanic I had spoken to. His voice was younger, more cultivated.

“Who sent you?”

“Scorpia.”

The word meant nothing to me. Nor did it seem to have any significance for Karl. “Lower your gun very slowly,” he said. “Put it on the carpet where I can see it… in front of you.”

There was nothing Rykov could do. If he couldn’t see the bodyguard, he couldn’t kill him. He lowered the gun to the floor.

“Kick it away.”

“If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else,” Rykov said. “Do yourself a favour. You’re out of a job. Take the money and go.”

Silence. Rykov knew he had to do what he was told. He kicked the gun across the carpet. It came to a halt a few inches away from the dead man.

Karl stepped further into the hall, still holding his gun in both hands. It was aimed at the back of Rykov’s neck. He glanced to the right and saw Josef lying spreadeagled on the stairs. Something flickered across his face and I had no doubt that he was going to shoot down the man who had been responsible for the death of his brother. As he moved forward, his path took him in front of the door where I was standing and suddenly I was behind him.

“One hundred and fifty thousand rubles,” Rykov said. “More money than you will ever see in your life.”

“You have killed my brother.”

Rykov understood. There was no point in arguing. In Russia, blood ties, particularly between brothers, are strong.

Karl was very close to him now and without really thinking about it, I made the decision – probably the most momentous of my life. I slipped through the door and, raising the axe, took three steps into the hall. The bodyguard heard me at the very last moment but it was too late. Using the blunt end, I brought the axe swinging down and hit him on the back of the head. He collapsed in front of me, his arms, his legs, his entire body suddenly limp. The mechanic moved incredibly fast. He didn’t know what had happened but he dived forward, reaching out for the gun he had just kicked away. But I was faster. Before he could grab it, I had dropped the axe and swept up Karl’s gun and already I was aiming it straight at him, doing my best to stop my hand shaking.

Rykov saw me and stared. He was unarmed. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. “You!” he exclaimed.

“Listen to me,” I said. “I could shoot you now. If I fire a single shot, everyone will come. You’ll never get away.”

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“I want to get out of here.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can. You have to help me!” I scrabbled for words. “I knew you weren’t really a mechanic. I knew you and Zelin were working together. But I didn’t say anything. It’s thanks to me that you managed to do what you came for.” I nodded at the body of Vladimir Sharkovsky.

“I will give you money…”

“I don’t want money. I want you to take me with you. I never chose to come here. I’m a prisoner. I’m their slave. All I’m asking is for you to take me as far away as you can and then to leave me. I don’t care about you or who you’re working for. I’m glad he’s dead. Do you understand? Is it a deal?”

He pretended to think… but only very briefly. The helicopter was still whining outside and very soon one of the guards might ask what was happening. Arkady Zelin might panic and take off without him. Rykov didn’t have any time. “Let me get my gun,” he said. He stretched out his hand.

“No!” I tightened my grip. “We’ll leave together. It’ll be better for you that way. The guards know me and they’re less likely to ask questions.” He still seemed to be hesitating, so I added, “You do it my way or you never leave.”

He nodded, once. “Very well. Let’s go.”

We left together, back down the corridor, past the room with the dead woman. I was terrified. I was with a man who had just killed three people without even blinking and I knew that he would make me the fourth if I gave him the slightest chance. I made sure I didn’t get too close to him. If he hit out at me or tried to grab me, I would fire the gun. This one wasn’t silenced. The sound of the explosion would act as a general alarm.

Rykov didn’t seem at all concerned. He didn’t speak as we left the house and walked through the half-darkness together, skirting the fountain and making our way across the lawn towards the helicopter. And it had been true, what I had told him. One of the guards saw us but did nothing. The fact that I was walking with him meant that everything had to be OK.

But Zelin was shocked when he saw the two of us together. “What is he doing?” he shouted.

I could barely hear a word he said but the meaning was obvious. I was struggling to keep the gun steady, feeling the wind from the rotors buffeting my arms. I knew that this was the most dangerous part. As we climbed in, the mechanic could wrench the gun away and kill me with it. He could probably kill me with his bare hands. I wasn’t sure if I should go in first or second. What if he had another gun hidden under one of the seats?

I made my decision. “I’m getting in first!” I shouted. “You follow!”

As I climbed into the back seat, I kept the gun pointed at Zelin, not the mechanic. I knew that he couldn’t fly. If he tried anything, I would shoot the pilot and we would both be stuck. I think he understood my strategy. There was actually something close to a smile as he climbed into the seat next to the pilot.

Zelin shouted something else. The mechanic leant forward and shouted back into his ear. Again, it was impossible to hear. For all I knew, he was sentencing me to death. I might have the advantage now but their moment would come while we were flying or perhaps when we landed. I wouldn’t be able to keep them both covered and one of them would get me.

An alarm went off in the house, even louder than the scream of the helicopter. At once, the arc lamps all exploded into life. Two of the guards started running towards us, lifting their weapons. At the same time, a jeep appeared from the gatehouse, its headlamps blazing, tearing across the grass. The mechanic slammed the door and Zelin hit the controls. The muzzles of the automatic machine guns were flashing in the darkness. Machine-gun bullets were strafing past. One of them hit the cockpit but ricocheted away uselessly and I realized that, of course, it must be armoured glass.

The helicopter rose. It turned. It rocked above the lawn as if anchored there, unable to lift off. Bullets filled the air like fireflies.

And then Zelin jerked the cyclic. The helicopter twisted round one last time and, carrying me with it, soared away, over the wall, over the forest and into the darkening sky.