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Skase
The Lear Jet taxied to a stop at the far end of the runway. No-one was allowed near it except the limousine and four police-cars, but if you squinted, you could see a single figure, probably male, emerging. He stood straight and tall, threw his head back and took a deep breath of air; obviously healthy, and in the prime of life. He appeared to be laughing loudly; then, as the police got out of their cars, he hunched over as if ill and threw a shawl around his shoulders. Two policemen helped him into the limo, then got back in their cars and drove off, leaving the long black vehicle alone on the runway. It drove slowly towards the exit gate, where a huge crowd had gathered to see his arrival. There were thousands, far too many to drive through or around; the limo slowed down and then stopped as the crowd swarmed around it. Sitting up on the balcony as I was, with the TV crew, I could only see a multitude of faraway dots, but Gary, the cameraman, zoomed in on the action and thoughtfully provided a monitor so I could follow what was happening. Members of the crowd were kicking the sides of the car; someone had brought along a golf club and was systematically bashing the windows in. People on either side of the car were rocking it back and forth furiously, making it difficult for the golfer to maintain his stance on the bonnet. The windscreen caved in and they dragged the driver out, passing him over the heads of the crowd like he was Ron Hitler-Barassi at a TISM concert, stage-diving. Once the driver was out, they really went to town. Some joker had brought along an oxy-torch and was cutting off the roof of the limousine; it wasn't long before the sole occupant had been dragged from the car over to the roadside, where someone had tossed a rope up over a street lamp. A loop on the other end went around the unfortunate man's ankles and they dragged him up until he was about a metre and a half off the ground. Someone brought up some metal drums, opened them and started passing around paint-brushes; about half a dozen of the more privileged in the mob began painting the suspended victim with tar. He obviously wasn't enjoying it, given that they had no objections to painting his face with the stuff, and they had three large drums of it to get through. Within minutes, he resembled one of those dried-up sides of beef that you see on a rotisserie in Greek sandwich shops, black, rotating and unappetising. Someone else had brought along some pillows; they were ripped open and the feathers slapped against the man's sticky body until the tar was completely obscured. He was only making token efforts to escape, now; the odd wriggle and jerk. That tar must have been pretty noxious. Flammable, too; the guy with the oxy torch set the fluffy white figure alight, which gave him a renewed interest in escaping, no matter how futile. The cheering, dancing crowd applauded as the burning figure was hauled up above them. I was staring avidly at the monitor, occasionally glancing over at the tape unit to make sure that it was all being recorded, when I sensed someone standing behind me. I smelled the aftershave first, remeniscent of cheap spanish sherry; I turned, and it was him. Despite the sunglasses and scarf, I knew it was him. He smiled at me and said companionably, "Quite a show, eh?" I nodded and tried to look innocent as Gary crept up behind the guy with the garbage bag we usually kept all of our audio cables in. He didn't see a thing; the bag went over his head and within seconds, Gary had him securely trussed up with our ever-handy gaffer tape. We looked about for a few minutes, wondering if we should inform the crowd that they'd got the wrong guy; then Gary got on his mobile phone and spoke to Jenny, the chopper pilot who'd brought us here. While he coordinated what was beginning to sound like a candidate for the latest Faces of Death video, I wrapped bundles of cables around our garbage- bagged guest, securing his arms and legs. I looked over the edge of the balcony; at the far corner, a flagpole reached out over the landing field. Further examination revealed heavy, utilitarian cables that looped over the far end of the pole, perfect for suspending ex-business tycoons wrapped in garbage bags from. I dragged him, stumbling, up to the end of the balcony, bent him over the rail, took off my belt and looped it around his waist, after threading the cable through it. Carefully, I lowered him over the rail and he fell about a metre before the slack in the cable caught him and he hung there, kicking his feet, his green-plastic swathed head jerking about in fear. I tugged on the cable and slowly strung him out until he was at the far end of the flagpole, almost three metres out from the balcony. Just then, the helicopter zoomed over the top of the building and drifted down below us. The noise was incredible; all the loose papers on the balcony blew off and my hair was whipping about as if in a hurricane. Gary pointed the camera at the bound figure dangling from a cable at the end of the flagpole, as Jenny slowly brought the chopper up, exercising her incredible skill, bringing the flashing rotors up slowly. You could see him being bent over forwards in the down-draft as the blades approached; he was swinging up and down wildly,and I think he began to suspect what was going on in the last few moments, because he began earnestly trying to swing to one side. The belt around his arms and waist didn't permit a great deal of latitude, so he never got much further than about forty degrees off the axis of the flagpole. It was on one of those desperate left-to-right arcs that the helicopter finally got close enough; the down-draft sucked the top half of his body downwards, his feet went up and the front of his head was sliced away with a paper-bag-caught-in-the-spokes-of-a-bicycle sound, spraying blood downwards to spatter on the runway. I could see Gary shouting into the mobile phone; the chopper backed away and we allowed a lingering, one-minute shot of the ragged, limp, green-plastic-wrapped dripping form. We didn't want to cut him down, and neither did the airport staff. Last time I was there, so was the body. I gather it's become something of a tourist attraction. |
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All work on this site is © Nikolai Kingsley unless otherwise stated. |