Бесплатный фрагмент - Killer Wings

Prologue

Today was an unusually lucky day for Lev, and it wasn’t even because of the summer weather with the bright and warm sun, or his possible reward in the near future, but cause today he would catch the long-wanted hitman he had been tracking for six months. An hour ago he received information about the exact location of the killer.

Abandoning all his business and leaving a freshly poured cup of coffee unfinished on the table, Baghov grabbed a light blue jacket on a hanger, quickly closed the office and ran towards the car. At the same time, he was looking for a number in his phone that he could call for a capture group.

«Yes, he’s there, we need everyone who’s here in an hour, that bastard is probably armed!» he declared in a loud voice, after which he quickly dictated the address and ran out of the department.

The asphalt in the parking lot was so hot that you could smell its strong synthetic smell, and there was an incredible heat from below. Having walked to his car, Lev jerked the driver’s door and climbed inside, immediately turning the air conditioner to maximum with the lever. When he found himself in the car, it seemed that he had landed in the Sahara, no other way, but the cool air quickly began to fill the room, pleasantly refreshing.

Without waiting for a confirmation call, the man shifted into gear and floored the gas, taking off. The car quickly jumped out onto the highway and sped toward the city, overtaking oncoming traffic, jumping between lanes as if playing checkers. He concentrated on gripping the steering wheel with a death grip, squeezing his knuckles until they hurt, and a bead of sweat ran down his forehead. He was constantly honked at from behind, but he didn’t care. The streets changed in a constant kaleidoscope, pedestrians rushed past, jumping back from unexpected misfortune, and ahead he could see pleasant green landscapes of trees swaying in the wind in the reflections of the sun.

Lev finally reached the desired ten-story building — «Brezhnevka» with a disgusting red-yellow color of peeling paint, stopped abruptly, blocking the passage to the yard, jumped out of the car and ran towards the entrance. All this time he had not received a call from the capture group, and the standard black minivan in which she usually hid was nowhere to be seen in the area. However, Baghov did not care at all. He took a pistol out of his holster, preparing for the expected fight and, grabbing the door of the entrance that was closing after the previous person, went inside.

The man found himself in complete darkness. The smell of dampness and stench from careless tenants hit his nose. Wincing in disgust, he moved on, opening the wooden door with a cloudy glass insert and starting to climb the stairs. A thin man in a gray duffle coat, which, to his surprise, did not sweat in such heat, with two full bags from the grocery store was already walking along it, but he was walking so slowly that Lev had no choice but to push him against the wall.

«Move aside!» he shouted, continuing to climb.

«What’s wrong? Can you be more careful?» the resident of this house was indignant, shaking off the whitewash from his right sleeve, but the investigative operative had already run far ahead.

Baghov reached the elevator, and it was conveniently standing below, significantly saving precious time. The man ran inside and pressed the button for the tenth floor with all the force of his finger, pushing it inward. The doors closed with an incredible creak, and the cabin, blinking a yellowish light inside, creating a frightening atmosphere, like in horror films, began to rise upward.

Suddenly the elevator began to rock violently from side to side, forcing Lev to grab the handrail. It was as if he was caught in a powerful storm at sea, forcing him to move around the deck with great difficulty and patience. With each passing second the vibration became stronger and stronger until the cabin suddenly stopped, forcing the man to fall to the floor in surprise. From above he heard the sound of a circular saw, and then it suddenly stopped and a voice came: «Bon «voyage, comrade Sidorenko,» after which the elevator began to fall down with a roar.

Chapter 1. The road to the airport

9:00 PM

The lights of the evening streets of Moscow flashed outside the window of a car moving in a dense stream. Despite the evening time and the summer period, the roads were still clogged, creating great inconvenience for city residents and an endless hum of drivers honking at each other until late at night due to dissatisfaction with the slow reaction to the traffic jam moving forward. Unlike the rest of the hot summer with its scorching sun, today it suddenly started to rain heavily, which only began to end closer to the night, drizzling a little on the already wet asphalt.

Looking ahead once more at the practically motionless column of cars, Vitaly pulled back the sleeve of his grey checkered jacket with his right hand and looked at his watch. Exactly 9:00 p.m., a little over an hour before the plane.

A cheerful song started playing on the radio, and the pleasant voice of the host was heard: «Good evening, it’s 9:00 PM in the capital. Let’s discuss the main events of the day. The mayor of Moscow opened a new metro station on the „Kalininsko-Solntsevskaya“ line. The joy of the city’s residents knows no bounds — after all, now they can leave for work fifteen minutes later.»

Starting to get a little nervous, the man began to beat out rhythmic music on his knee with his fingers. Noticing these movements out of the corner of his eye, the taxi driver smiled, saying: «Don’t worry so much, we’re already here, ten minutes left at most!» at the same time turning down the volume on the old double-DIN radio with the scrolling circle.

These words calmed Nosov down a little, but the worm of doubt in the depths of his soul continued to dig the earth, playing a complex musical composition on his nerves, making his heart start beating faster from the rolling excitement.

«Yes, there’s only a mile and a half left. Where are you flying to?» the interlocutor decided to ask, looking again at the address in his navigator «Vnukovo Airport», deciding to try to calm the worried passenger down a little.

«To Vladivostok,» Vitaly answered briefly, stuttering a little.

He had this speech disorder since childhood. His parents even took him to a psychologist and a speech therapist, but they couldn’t do anything — the problem was somewhere deep inside, and the child’s strong isolation did not allow him to share it and open up to doctors. Therefore, now, at the age of twenty-seven, Nosov continued to stutter. When everything was fine and calm, the defect was hidden and remained practically unnoticed, but as soon as his nerves broke free, everything immediately became visible.

«Wow, so far. Are you wanting to pick up a car from Japan?» the taxi driver asked, looking through the rearview mirror at the passenger’s face.

«No, it’s much more prosaic, the Far Eastern Forum,» Vitaly answered in a much more even voice, distracted by the conversation and beginning to calm down little by little.

At that moment on the highway, which resembled a clogged narrow pipe, it was as if a plug had been pulled out, and the flow of cars began to move, gradually accelerating. Nosov looked at his watch more measuredly: an hour before departure. «The main thing is to have time to check in,» he thought.

Since childhood the man, then still a boy, was interested in mathematics and riddles. He always managed to solve problems of any complexity much faster than his peers. Realizing that he had a gift for this, his parents sent him to study according to an individual program in order to further develop the necessary skills. In middle school, he managed to win the All-Russian Olympiad. Then came the international level. After graduating from school, he managed to enter the Academy of Cryptography on the first try. And then both of his passions combined. In his class, Vitaly continued to maintain the status of one of the most successful and promising specialists, so a job offer from the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information did not come as a big surprise to him. Tomorrow, he and his colleagues will have to present to the Government at a closed presentation a new computer program for decryption, which will send the «blockchain» technology back to the last century. The passenger was one of the authors of its algorithm, so success was something personal for him.

«If it’s not a secret, what are you planning to show?» the driver continued to ask, changing lanes to the right lane as the turn signal crackled.

«The future,» Nosov answered dryly, realizing that he couldn’t tell him more.

«And what, even he will be there?» the taxi driver asked, pointing his index finger at the ceiling.

«Everyone will be there,» Vitaly smiled.

At that moment, the car pulled up to the airport entrance with a bright blue sign illuminated in the night, then stopped abruptly, the driver turned on the hazard lights and opened the trunk. His interlocutor quickly walked out onto the street while the driver took out the suitcase he had packed an hour ago.

«Well, we made it, as I said, have a nice trip,» the taxi driver said, smiling happily.

«Thank you, and you too!» Nosov answered him and quickly rushed to the door.

Chapter 2. Airport

9:15 PM

With a flying gait, dragging a heavy suitcase behind him, its wheels creaking on the polished floor, Vitaly ran into the airport building. An unpleasant smell, typical of rooms with artificial ventilation, immediately hit his nose. At the entrance there was a standard inspection point, separating it from the cherished goal in the form of a check-in counter. The main task now was to print out tickets and check in luggage before such an opportunity closed, and there was not much time left for this — no more than ten to fifteen minutes.

With a heavy and bitter heart, Nosov accepted the rules of the game, loaded his suitcase onto the X-ray machine, took his phone and house keys out of his pocket onto the counter, and then walked through the metal detector. It beeped furiously, indicating the presence of metal objects.

«What do you have there?» the guard asked discontentedly, who had seen the same picture every day for ten years, and during this long period of time practically nothing in the technology and the habits of the passengers had changed.

«I don’t know,» Vitaly answered briefly, stopping abruptly.

«Please go out and come back again,» he said, getting up from his chair.

Following his instructions, Nosov performed this maneuver, but the metal detector frame continued to scream at full volume.

«Very timely,» flashed through the man’s head.

«Come here,» the guard said more insistently, taking out a rectangular device with the same functionality.

After making small movements over his body, he discovered that the source of the device’s disturbance was an ordinary metal waist belt.

«At the next inspection, please take off your belt,» he muttered under his breath, «you can pass.»

Nodding in agreement to the remark, Vitaly quickly grabbed the suitcase from the scanner and ran towards the check-in desks to the sound of disapproving sighs. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the departure board to find the windows he needed. There were no more than five to seven minutes left. Realizing that the only remaining number he needed was «eleven», Nosov reached it, dumping all his documents on the table, causing the woman sitting there to flinch in surprise.

«Hello,» the man whispered, a little out of breath.

«Good evening,» she answered, «Vladivostok?»

Vitaly just nodded, unable to answer anything.

«Okay, let’s see now,» she continued, starting to type something on the computer.

«Can you please hurry up? I’m late,» Nosov pleaded, stuttering loudly again.

«I’ll try to do everything in my power,» the woman replied, seeing such passengers every day.

Realizing that all he could do now was to wait and hope for the best, the man loaded his suitcase onto the scales, slowed down and caught his breath, hearing loud conversations behind him at the entrance. Turning around, he saw an old lady in high heels, a fashionable cap, a long skirt, a white blouse and a stylish scarf unable to pass through the metal detector, which was confidently signaling a problem.

«Honey, please let me through, check-in for the flight is ending, and I need to get to my grandson’s birthday party!» she said, lisping slightly because of her dentures.

«Sorry, but the rules are the rules,» the guard replied. «Take off everything metal and go through again.»

Frowning a little, the grandmother did as asked, and then walked through the frame again, which rang again.

«It’s all just a bunch of slapstick!» she said indignantly, looking for the departure board.

After listening to her suggestion, the man again ran his stick along the entire body, and then lowered it to the shoe to the incredible ringing of the device.

«You see, I told you so,» the woman smiled with relief.

«You shouldn’t be wearing heels at your age, it’s time to something simpler and more modest,» he scolded her, coming closer to the bag that had come out of the scanner. «And what’s this? Show me please.»

The old woman calmly reached her things and unzipped the zipper with a light movement of her hand. A pile of personal items led inside — towels, a toothbrush, clothes, hygiene items, and also simple religious beads. Frowning, the guard poked around, then, feeling several bulky pieces of plastic, pulled them out.

«A construction set for my grandson, it’s his birthday, I have to give him something!» Grandma exclaimed, adjusting the cap on her head.

«He’s lucky with his grandmother, come on in,» the guard said after looking at them for another minute.

«Thank you,» she said, running towards the check-in desks.

At this point, Nosov’s paperwork was already in its final stages. He couldn’t wait for the young woman to return his passport. Now she printed out the necessary stickers and began to place them around the suitcase.

«Here you go, your tickets,» the airport employee said, handing over a document with a piece of paper tucked inside.

The luggage quickly went somewhere into the depths of the hall, disappearing behind a dark rubber door.

«Thank you,» Vitaly answered happily and, more calmly, went to undergo the remaining necessary procedures.

Chapter 3. SMS

9:20 PM

Gennady liked his job. Even if many people consider it unacceptable or even immoral, each task should be handled by a specialist.

Gromov liked killing even at the age of ten. At first these were bugs and small insects, but the inclination for such an activity captivated him more and more with each passing year. Moreover, unlike serial killers and maniacs, it did not bring him any psychological pleasure, it was not some kind of attraction that was impossible to overcome. Gennady admired the process itself and selected various methods for this, which later predetermined the scope of his future specialization.

He always did his job flawlessly, it was impossible to find fault with him and find even one flaw, except for one single time, which made him shake in convulsions at the mere mention. The man tried to throw this moment out of his head in every possible way, but the problem could not be solved in any way.

Realizing that he couldn’t console himself and that it was impossible to forget, after a long break he took up what he loved most — his work. Yesterday evening he received his first text message from a new client. However, unlike what usually happened, he had no details at all.

Gromov would not have taken on this case, but the playful interest in trying something new for himself and the tidy sum offered, one zero more than the standard, made him change his mind. Of course, at first it seemed to him that this was a scam, so the killer decided to request an advance payment, which was promptly received into the account, further dispelling doubts about the need to complete the task.

The message was incredibly short: «Moscow-Vladivostok, tomorrow, 9:40 PM, Vnukovo. Target — location 3E.» Usually the victim’s name was immediately known, and there was plenty of time to prepare, but now the mystery and speed frightened him. Along with the advance payment, the «Customer» had also sent a ticket, so he needed to figure out how to smuggle weapons onto the plane and carry out the mission in such limited conditions.

Now Gennady had checked in for his flight and was going through airport security. Considering it unrealistic to bring a gun, especially with a silencer, the man decided not to take any risks and do without this luxury, coming up with something quieter and more inconspicuous. To do this, he took an ordinary clothesline with him, rolled it into a ball and shoved it deep into his carry-on luggage between the clothes he had taken for the sake of appearance and personal hygiene items. The hope was that the airport employee, when examining its contents, would not attach any special importance to such an item and would let it through without any problems.

Everyone present stood in a long line, holding boxes with their belongings in their hands. The crowd moved quite slowly, making the man even more nervous, which was very inconvenient right now. Stress in his profession is the last feeling that should be experienced, because it interferes with concentration.

The cherished moment — the things pass the scanner. A second, two, three, they seemed like an eternity, and now they are already coming out the other side. Then the woman sitting at the monitor suddenly jumps up and heads towards him.

«Did you really notice? It can’t be, I foresaw everything!» Gromov exclaimed in his mind, turning pale with fear that his entire mission was falling apart before his eyes.

However, as it turned out later, the employee was not heading towards him at all, but towards the man in the grey checkered jacket behind him. She furiously opened the zipper on his bag, pulling out a bottle of water.

«Sorry, I forgot,» Vitaly answered, whose hand luggage had been handled accordingly.

The woman rolled her eyes to the sky, which was hidden somewhere far away behind dozens of sheets of metal stacked on top of each other in the ceiling, after which she threw the liquid into a nearby trash can, after which she allowed them to pass on.

With a heavy sigh of relief, Gennady picked up his bag and went further into the Duty-free department. A cacophony of smells from various perfumes immediately hit his nose, causing both a feeling of pleasant pleasure and a monstrous disgust from an incomprehensible tart-bitter mass hanging in the air, causing slight nausea. Passing by the bright signs and expensive goods, the man sat down in the waiting room and looked at the time on his wristwatch: «Exactly 9:30 PM.» Boarding had already been announced, but he was in no hurry to go inside, because the more people sat down in their seats, the higher the chance of spotting his target in advance and preparing a plan for its elimination by the time of takeoff.

After thinking about it for a few minutes, Gennady decided to get up and head for the exit, listening to a woman’s brisk announcement in several languages that boarding for the flight to Vladivostok was ending.

Chapter 4. Wife

«Hello, darling, how are you, are you awake?» Vitaly asked, deciding to have time to calmly talk to his wife while he was heading to board the plane.

He moved through a large crowd of people gathered in one place, shifting from foot to foot along the narrow tunnel of a special «sleeve» through which people usually like to get directly onto the plane, so as not to participate in traveling along the runway in a packed bus.

«Of course not, firstly, it’s half past four AM, and you would have woken me up if anything happened. But today I’m on duty,» Tatyana answered, crumpling the written draft into a ball and throwing it like a basketball into a nearby trash can, happy with the hit.

The woman worked in the security service and usually lived in Moscow with Nosov, but was currently on a short business trip to Vladivostok. By a lucky chance, they would meet in this city long before she returned home.

They met at one of the New Year’s concerts, where, by a lucky coincidence, civil servants from various fields were gathered, regardless of departments and regalia. However, this meeting was not something sublime from what Hollywood love movies like to abuse. Their acquaintance did not happen due to an accidental encounter on the street, when stacks of documents spilled on the floor, and the heroes frantically tried to collect them at the moment when their glances met. Everything was much simpler and more interesting: Vitaly spilled his juice on her.

It was already late evening, it was getting dark outside, and the dim light from the lamps overhead slightly outlined the huge space of the concert hall. People in sequined dresses and bright black tuxedos were scurrying around everywhere, holding glasses of champagne in their hands. Loud music was playing in the speakers, bursting your eardrums if you walked past. The guests were talking animatedly among themselves, actively gesturing and grimacing. Nosov was by no means a sociable person. He always had difficulty making new acquaintances, and even with the «old» ones there was nothing much to talk about. A man dressed, unlike the rest of the polished gentlemen, in an ordinary shirt and a shabby woolen vest. Greasy hair slicked sloppily to the side. Taking a glass of apple juice in his hand, trying to somehow match the high-ranking and sophisticated crowd, the man began to move around the room, proudly stamping each step, causing only laughter behind his back from the women whispering among themselves.

And then there was a power surge, the lights in the room flickered and then went out for a couple of seconds until the backup generator kicked in automatically, and Vitaly tripped over the carpet on the floor, spilling the contents of his glass somewhere to the side. As soon as he could see everything around him, he realized that he had spilled juice on a young woman in a chic bronze dress standing sideways to him. Her chestnut curly hair was neatly tucked behind her back, and her hands were frozen in a half-position, as if trying to figure out what had just happened.

«Excuse me please, I didn’t do it on purpose,» Vitaly muttered, starting to stutter loudly and trying to brush the wet yellowish drops off the fabric.

«What are you doing, stop it, you’ll rub it in now and it will be even worse!» she exclaimed, abruptly moving away.

«Sorry, I really didn’t mean to, what can I do for you?» the man asked, being put in an even more awkward position.

«Never mind, never meet me, never get to know me, and never show up here again,» she muttered under her breath, grabbing a dry napkin from the nearest table and starting to blot her soaked dress with it.

«Come with me, we definitely need to wash it off, otherwise you’ll be walking around with a stain all evening,» Nosov babbled, gesturing for her to follow him to the toilet.

«Where, in the female toilet?» she growled discontentedly, throwing her clutch bag on the table with a bang.

«Not at all, it’s common here, I checked, you can believe me,» Vitaly answered, finally beginning to calm down a little and stopping stuttering.

«Well, let’s go, what can we do with you?» the young woman switched to the informal «you» and, to the whispers of her friends, she walked proudly after her offender.

Together they reached the toilet, and the man, like a true gentleman, opened the door for the lady making a face. It turned out to be incredibly spacious inside: a huge area for washing and drying, as well as ten stalls standing in a row and at an angle. Now it was completely empty, and the semi-darkness reigning inside with dark tiles shimmering in the light and artificial flowers standing in pots, as well as small sculptures, did not make the atmosphere any more cheerful. As soon as the air freshener sensed that someone had entered the room, it immediately sprayed a stream of pleasant lavender scent overhead.

The young woman went to the sink, looked at the large yellowish spot on the right half of her chest, and then tried to spray her dress by opening the tap, which was turned on by a motion sensor with gusts of water every other time, but nothing good came of it. Realizing that nothing was working, she loudly clicked her heel on the floor tiles and turned to Vitaly.

«So what are we going to do now?» she asked mockingly, turning up her nose and resting her hands on her waist.

«I think it would be better to take it off and wash it properly with soap under running water, and then dry it with that fan,» the man suggested, pointing with his palms at the proposed objects.

«And strip naked in front of a strange man in a public toilet, where someone can enter at any moment? No thanks,» Tatyana hissed, heading for the exit.

«Stop,» Nosov stopped her, grabbing her by the shoulder.

«What are you doing, let me go, otherwise I’ll scream,» she said, trying to break free.

«We’ve already switched to „you“, haven’t we? You take off your dress and wash it calmly, and I’ll turn away and hold the door so it doesn’t open.»

He immediately let go of her hand, and after thinking for a second, the young woman turned around and went to the mirror again, leaning both hands on the sink, thinking about something. Tatyana understood perfectly well that she couldn’t spend the entire gala evening with such a huge stain, but everything that was happening now was clearly not what she had dreamed of all her life.

«Okay, but I think that since you came here, you understand what kind of people surround us, so if something happens, it will be very easy to find you,» she proudly declared, turning to her interlocutor.

«Okay,» he answered briefly, smiling. «Shake on it.»

Having fulfilled his part of the deal, the man immediately turned to the exit and pressed the door with his shoulder and foot, securely blocking the door in this position from any penetration from the outside. He liked her very much, and seeing that there was no wedding ring on her finger, he decided to begin more active courtship. Having waited and carefully watching his actions, the young woman began to unzip the zipper, being ready to zip it up again at any moment. Realizing that the guy was waiting patiently and did not even move, she finally took off her outerwear and went to the sink, immersing the dirty fabric in water and pouring laundry soap over it.

«By the way, my name is Vitaly,» the man suddenly broke the silence, continuing to do his job, which scared her quite a bit.

«Tatyana,» she answered, having calmed down a little, turning in his direction and realizing that she was not being watched.

«Nice to meet you, what an evening indeed.»

«It would be better if it didn’t exist,» the young woman muttered having finished washing the dress.

«Well, why not? Then we wouldn’t have met,» Nosov objected, trying with all his might to resist the desire to even slightly peek at what was deliberately hidden from view.

«Don’t worry, as soon as we leave this room, we won’t see each other again,» Tatyana answered, walking up to the fan and starting to dry.

«I’m afraid you’re wrong, I, as a practical mathematician, can tell you about the law of universal connection and mutual conditioning, so that accidents are not accidental,» Vitaly proudly declared, deciding to show off his intellect.

«Isn’t that the theory of determinism from philosophy?» the young woman teased him, slightly offended by his decision to pose.

«And you, I see, are not only beautiful, but also smart,» said Nosov, beginning to smile more and more and become imbued with his unexpected acquaintance.

«Where do you work, sycophant?» she practically ignored the compliment, finishing the procedures and starting to get dressed again. Surprisingly, the stain was completely gone, as if it had never happened.

«In encryption, but I still haven’t solved the riddle of your heart, have you?» he answered, not understanding what had suddenly come over him.

«And I’ll come to you if your skills are needed,» Tatyana stated briefly, deciding not to reveal all her cards.

«Or maybe not only, say tomorrow, at about six PM on „Okhotny Ryad“?» Vitaly suggested, hearing the sound of a zipper being fastened, as a sign that he could turn around.

«Maybe I’ll think about it, just put on something more decent,» she replied, pointing her finger at the life-worn vest, after which she grabbed the handle of the door the man had let go of.

«Wait, what’s your phone number?» Nosov asked, jumping out of the toilet, shouting this after the young woman as she walked away.

«You don’t need him yet, if I come, you’ll see me yourself!» she declared, quickly walking back to her friends.

Three years have passed since then, and the romance that had begun had engulfed them with such speed and passion that they had not had time to come to their senses. Surprisingly, both were perfectly suited to each other and understood each other at a glance, and the connection was somehow unearthly. Vitaly, speaking about the theory of interrelation, was not mistaken.

«Okay, go ahead, have a good shift, I’m already boarding the plane, can you imagine, I was almost late,» he said, walking past the smiling and greeting flight attendants at the entrance.

«For some reason I’m not surprised. If you had left ten minutes earlier, as usual, then you would have definitely arrived on time,» the young woman quipped.

«Very funny, I’ll be there in about eight and a half hours, we can meet for lunch somewhere.»

«Okay, go ahead, have a nice trip,» Tatyana replied, kissing the phone’s microphone.

«Kiss you,» he said, hanging up the phone and holding out his hand with the ticket, trying to match the combination of letters on the piece of paper and the luggage racks.

Chapter 5. Takeoff

9:40 PM

Gennady continued to move through the crowd heading towards the plane. Deep down, he was still a little nervous, because he had never had to carry out a task on board. Of course, working in confined spaces was nothing new: elevators, buses, trains, but now the level of training and complexity increased incredibly while simultaneously decreasing the chances of a possible error, because in case of failure, he would be trapped at an altitude of six thousand miles with no way to get out and hide from pursuit. With these thoughts, he went inside the cabin.

«Hello!» the stewardess, wearing bright red lipstick, immediately greeted him.

«Good evening,» Gromov answered dryly, starting to move towards his seat.

At the same time he naturally glanced at seat «3E» — his goal for the day, but it was not yet occupied. Cursing to himself that, even after waiting for the plane to be almost fully boarded, he could not identify the victim, Gennady moved on to his seat «28E», squeezing through passengers who were putting suitcases on the overhead luggage racks. A strong, specific smell of ventilated air hit his nose, causing his head to immediately begin to swell from discomfort.

Having finally reached the right spot, the killer unzipped the bag, rummaged around in it for a minute and pulled out the desired coil of clothesline and the pills needed for the job from the very bottom, after which he closed the zipper and threw the bag away from himself, starting to squeeze his way to his seat in the very middle of the entire plane. Looking around, he immediately realized that he was «lucky» — on both sides there were heavyset men, occupying both armrests with their thick arms. Smiling slightly at them and cursing the man who booked his ticket, Gromov fastened his seat belt and stared forward, waiting for the plane to take off; anyway, it would be a long time before he could move freely around the cabin. The flight was eight and a half hours long, so it was necessary to choose the exact time of the murder, and also figure out how to close the toilet from the outside.

Gennady’s plan wasn’t perfect, but there was no other. Taking a laxative with him, he would somehow lure the victim into the toilet closer to the middle of the flight, and then carry out his plan, barricading it afterwards. But how to pull off the first part? There was no answer to that question.

The passengers slowly began to take their seats, and the flight attendants began to close the open luggage racks. «Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking, our plane is preparing for takeoff, on behalf of the entire crew and the airline, I welcome you on board the Boeing 747. Travel time will be approximately eight hours and thirty minutes, have a nice flight!» a hoarse male voice came over the speakers. Then he repeated the same thing in Russian.

Two flight attendants stood in the aisles to give safety instructions on using life jackets and masks, while others walked up and down the aisles, checking that seat belts were fastened. One of the fat men coughed sharply, causing Gennady to wince at the stench coming from his mouth.

«Well, the flight will be incredibly comfortable,» flashed through his head as soon as he stretched his legs forward, resting his knees on the next seat.

A few minutes later, he felt the plane move and taxi down the runway, preparing for takeoff. The overhead lights suddenly went out, plunging everyone around him into pitch darkness, punctuated by small lights indicating no smoking and seatbelt signs overhead. The loud whine of the engines on the wings became audible.

A few more moments, and the ship began to accelerate sharply, until it reached a monstrous speed and smoothly lifted off the ground, lifting its nose upward. The body immediately felt as if it were in zero gravity, and then a contradictory feeling of attraction to the ground while moving towards the sky. Almost immediately, a slight congestion appeared in the ears due to the difference in pressure, and somewhere in the distance, experiencing this for the first time, a child screamed.

«Well, here we go. Bonne chance avec ton travail,» Gennady whispered, smiling contentedly.

Chapter 6. Investigative operative

11:00 PM. One hour and twenty minutes after the start of the flight

Boris still couldn’t control himself. His hands shook slightly, and the trembling in his knees made him beat out some rhythmic music, similar to rock and roll, on the floor of the plane. Out of the corner of his ear, sitting by the window, he heard the sound of the right engine, spinning its blades faster and faster, cutting through the oncoming wind, enveloping the metal wing of the transport, glittering in the rays of the bright moon, with softer molecules.

Taynitsky was terribly afraid of flying. Since childhood, when his boarding school for orphans went to a charity concert in another city, the plane caused an incredible feeling of fear in him, which was already difficult to overcome with anything. He did not even understand what exactly became the very push and turning point in his worldview, but the fact remained a fact and aerophobia was not planning to go away.

The concentrated filtered air from the fan blew into his face, but it did not help the situation at all. Closing his eyes and imagining himself in the center of the meadow, where he usually liked to go on weekends in the summer, his breathing began to settle down, and his heartbeat calmed down. That impossible pulsation of blood through the arteries, forcing him to shudder from discomfort, gradually decreased. In his nose, in his imagination, he felt the smell of freshly cut grass, it seemed that butterflies were flying around, softly fluttering their wings and grasshoppers were jumping. In the distance, he could see smoke from the chimneys, which the owners decided to light in order to warm the house from the sudden cold, and he could also hear the barking of dogs, invariably arguing with each other about something or seeing a suspicious stranger passing by their kennel. On the other side, in the water of a small river, fish were splashing, their scales shimmering in the sun. Everything went on in a measured and orderly manner, in a quiet and established order, as fate and nature had decreed in its pristine splendor.

Feeling himself a participant in what was happening in his imagination, Boris even smiled, but suddenly the plane finished taking off, a bright light came on overhead, after which several unpleasant sound signals were heard, and one of the icons on top went out. This meant only one thing — you can unfasten your seat belts and move freely around the cabin, which the other passengers happily did, starting to search hard for something in their suitcases and bags, which they had so zealously parted with about half an hour ago. Taynitsky cursed to himself and covered his face with his hands, trying to concentrate and return to his idyll, but nothing worked. At the same time, the fear of flying was not going to go away at all, but on the contrary, it was rolling in with renewed vigor.

Realizing that this couldn’t go on any longer, and he knew the only way that worked for him in such a situation, he took an ordinary ballpoint pen out of his sweatshirt pocket, pressed the button so that its tip jumped out of the closed position into the writing position, after which he swung and hit himself in the leg with the sharp end with all his might. A sharp pain pierced his thigh, forcing him to grab it, but his aerophobia vanished as if by magic, all his thoughts were concentrated on the suddenly emerging source of discomfort.

«That’s better,» the man whispered, putting the pen back in his pocket and stroking the limb.

Taynitsky would never have boarded this flight on his own, especially to Vladivostok. Usually, he could barely cope with flights of two or three hours, but more than eight was a real test for a mentally healthy person, and even more so for those who experienced severe fear. But you can’t choose your work assignments. The man served in a law enforcement agency, and for the state, the possibility of hostage-taking on board was one of the biggest fears in the case of the increased number of flights throughout the country and abroad. That is why employees of well-known agencies in civilian clothes were usually sent on most flights to prevent possible terrorist attacks. Their task was to carry out invisible control over everything that was happening on board, disguised as ordinary passengers, report this to headquarters, and in case of urgent need, take the required measures if possible. Today, to his unspeakable «joy» such an honor fell to Boris, in the context of the rotation of personnel carried out with the aim of monitoring the quality of the work being performed and increasing the attentiveness to what is happening among those whose eyes have not yet been clouded by the monotony of the same type of work.

Of course, he resisted, asked to send someone else, but the decision of the authorities was unbending — this is an order, and they, as we know, are not discussed. And now the investigative operative was flying with everyone from Moscow to Vladivostok on a night flight. His general condition did not even allow him to function normally, let alone closely monitor what was happening, but he needed to somehow pull himself together and mobilize all the resources available in his body for the remaining time of the flight. To do this, the investigative operative took his phone out of his pocket and opened the closest dialogue with his best friend. The last message was a voice message, after listening to which he managed to concentrate and tune in to the task.

Having somewhat controlled his nerves, Taynitsky pressed the button on his chair, and a minute later a pretty young woman in a blue cap approached him.

«What happened?» she asked, leaning toward the passenger.

«Can I please have some water, I don’t feel well,» he answered her in a hoarse voice.

«Yes, of course, I’ll bring it right now,» the stewardess said and quickly walked somewhere deeper into the plane.

A few moments later, she returned with a glass of healing liquid. Boris drank the icy, refreshing substance in one gulp, immediately feeling a surge of strength, after which he wiped his mouth from the drops with the back of his hand and handed the empty container to the young woman.

«Thank you, I feel better already.»

«If anything happens, be sure to call me, I’ll be nearby,» she answered him politely, after which she immediately moved on to carry out her duties.

Boris sighed heavily, then unfastened the seat belt that had pinned him to the chair and stood up, asking his neighbors to let him out into the aisle.

«Excuse me, may I go through?» he said, while other passengers stood up discontentedly, giving up much-needed space in the confined space.

Having finally overcome the obstacle, Taynitsky climbed out onto one of the two narrow paths dividing the plane into three rows of seats, where he collided with another traveler.

Chapter 7. The Beginning

After talking on the phone with his wife, Vitaly calmly found his seat and took it. At first, he thought that he was lucky that he had fallen by the emergency exit, at least he could stretch his legs, otherwise flying to Vladivostok in a hunched position would be an adventure for those who like to test themselves, or rather torment themselves. However, as it turned out, the seat came out on the other side, the same as everyone else’s, which upset him quite a bit.

Having settled himself as comfortably as it was possible in principle, Nosov took a deep breath, trying to come to terms with his fate, after which he closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep as quickly as possible in order to minimize the time spent on this uncomfortable flight. He quickly managed to do this, plunging him into pleasant dreams.

The man found himself in his parents’ house. Outside the window, the trees swayed in the wind, rustling their falling yellow leaves, their branches hitting the glass. The building smelled of history and old wooden furniture. When moving around the room, the parquet invariably creaked loudly, allowing you to hear who was going where even from the other end of the room. Yawning widely, Vitaly, still very small, throws his hand aside in anger, scratching the back of his head with his whole hand.

«A stupid task,» he growled, tearing out an entire page from the notebook in anger, after which he furiously crumpled it up and threw it into the nearest trash can.

«Maybe it’s not about her?» suddenly a pleasant female voice was heard from behind, and a young woman with light hair and a pleasant appearance in a light blue dress with flowers entered the room. Her hair was combed to one side and braided.

«Well, Mom, it’s not working, I’ve tried everything!» Vitaly exclaimed, almost crying from frustration.

«Everything, but not everything, if there is a problem, then there must be a solution. Remember how we always said?» she asked the boy.

«Every riddle has its own answer,» Nosov whispered discontentedly.

«Well, of course, you just need to find it. Even if you’ve tried all the wrong ways, there has to be one that’s right,» she replied.

«You’re probably right,» Vitaly muttered under his breath.

«Not probably, but definitely,» she laughed out loud. «Come on, think carefully and decide! The code is not easy to decipher, but when you do, everything will fall into place.»

«The code? What are you talking about?» the boy asked, confused, trying to figure out the question.

«You’ll find out everything a little later,» she replied, after which the entire image dissolved into a gray fog.

He jerked his head and hit his forehead on the seat in front of him, immediately waking up and clutching the sore spot.

«What was all that?» Nosov whispered in surprise, looking around.

Passengers were already wandering around the plane’s cabin, rummaging through the luggage compartment. This could only mean one thing — the plane had taken off while he was sleeping.

Unbuckling his seatbelt, Vitaly jumped up from his seat, deciding to take a walk to the toilet to wash up, in order to at least perk up a little. Jumping out of his nook, the man headed along the corridor until he accidentally bumped into another careless traveler.

«Please forgive me, I didn’t do it on purpose,» Boris said, clutching his head, «this whole flight is killing me.»

«It’s okay,» Nosov answered calmly. «You don’t like airplanes.»

«I hate them and I’m very afraid of them, but there’s nothing to be done, work is work,» Taynitsky said, exhaling heavily.

«Yes, to be honest, I don’t like them either, I would gladly go by train, it’s a pity that in that case I’ll have to shake in a carriage for almost seven days to get to Vladivostok,» Vitaly supported him.

«Yes, if I had a choice, I would gladly listen to the sound of wheels for a week, but fate has other plans,» Boris answered with a heavy heart.

All this time they walked one after another towards the toilet, constantly passing by the passengers scurrying back and forth.

«If it’s not a secret, what do you do for a living?» Nosov decided to ask.

«Usually, this is not something that is spread, to put it simply, to the state,» Taynitsky answered, thinking for a moment, calculating in his head how best to present this information. «You?»

«The same,» he replied, smiling and extending his hand in greeting. «Vitaly.»

«Boris, let’s get acquainted,» he said, firmly shaking his interlocutor’s hand.

So they finally got to the toilet, when the investigative operative asked them to go there first, since he was not feeling well, luckily the stall was open.

«Yes, please, I don’t mind,» Nosov replied, after which Boris grabbed the handle, trying to push the special «accordion» to the side, but it seemed to be stuck.

«What is it?» he asked, puzzled, and then pulled harder.

This time the door gave way, revealing the room, but imagine their surprise when they saw a lifeless body sitting on the toilet with a bullet hole between the eyes, over which an unknown man was leaning.

Chapter 8. The Find

Gennady looked more relaxed with each passing minute. As soon as the plane gained altitude, the realization of the hopelessness of the situation seemed to suddenly stop pressing on him. Eventually, he was limited in his actions, even if time and the possibility of being exposed in conditions of complete isolation from the outside world were playing against him, but that was the essence of the task, and if the «Customer» demanded its implementation and paid a quite substantial fee for it, twice the usual amount for similar services, then there was a clear need for it with a slight complication.

As soon as the plane reached the required altitude, Gromov, who has been waiting for about half an hour, unfastened his belt, deciding to take a walk to the toilet in order to determine how and where he would lure his victim. He decided to identify the target a little later, when he had sorted out the murder scene, and the best time to add the poison would be just the first meal, and even more practical — the second, so that there would be less time to detect traces of his work during the flight itself. What would happen next, the man was of little interest, he would immediately board the first flight back, having first taken a taxi to a neighboring city where there was an airport, and hide from the investigation, confusing the tracks of his movements.

Having forced the fat man sitting next to him to give up his seat, Gennady, hearing his disgruntled groans and heavy breathing in his ear, squeezed out and moved to the toilet closest to his goal. People actively poured out onto the tracks, preventing him from moving calmly around the cabin, forcing him to slow down near the seats of other passengers, involuntarily becoming a silent witness to their dialogue.

«Yes, I will definitely call you back when I get to the hotel. I know it will be night, but I have a meeting with contractors all day, I won’t be able to answer anything else until the evening, well, that’s it, come on,» the man in the expensive suit declared loudly in a slightly squeaky voice, putting a laptop with open documents on his knees, apparently talking to one of his relatives on Wi-Fi.

«Please be patient, we’ll be at grandpa’s soon,» the young woman said to the child in the next row of seats.

«How much longer? I can’t hold anymore!» the little young woman cried non-stop, kicking her legs and banging her hands on the armrests.

«Soon, I promise you, there’s not much time left, let’s have some sleep, and the time will fly faster. Okay?» her mother tried with all her might to calm her down.

Realizing that it was most likely she who had been crying during takeoff, Gromov passed the mustachioed grandfather, who reeked of strong fumes, and whose mustache had turned from gray to a pale-yellow tint from constant smoking, after which he walked on until he stopped again, waiting for the passengers walking towards him to sit down in their seats.

«I’m telling you, I definitely saw them, they were aliens!» a young man exclaimed standing next to his friend with full of dark curly hair styled like an «Afro».

«Enough, are you crazy or something? What aliens!» his neighbor answered, being in the same excited state.

«Aliens, when I went out onto the balcony at night, I saw low lights in the form of a ball flying right above the house, but as soon as I took out my phone, they were gone!» the first one tried to convince him that he was right.

«Because you need to have less fun, then all sorts of things won’t seem like that,» the second one switched to a whisper, noticing that Gennady was watching them out of the corner of his eye.

«You told me the same thing when I told you that Ivan the Terrible’s library exists, and look, they found it last year, so there are aliens somewhere, one hundred percent,» the young man with curly hair snapped at him.

After listening to their dialogue and rolling his eyes to the sky, Gromov moved on until he ran into a well-groomed grandmother in a white blouse and fashionable cap walking towards him.

«Excuse me, I was lost in thought and didn’t notice you,» the man apologized, stepping aside.

«It’s okay, honey, be more careful next time,» she replied and walked quickly to her seat. Her heels were clicking on the floor, as if she was in a great hurry to get somewhere.

«An interesting woman, and she looks so good for her age,» Gennady thought, and then headed further towards the toilet.

There was still plenty of time, so he was in no particular hurry. Having finally reached his destination, the man saw a green light burning above the door, indicating that it was free, after which, smiling with pleasure, he opened the door, almost gasping in surprise: an unknown man with a hole in his forehead, clearly resembling a bullet hole, was sitting on the toilet in a lifeless pose. Realizing that he could be seen and then the whole plan would immediately collapse, Gromov jumped inside, slamming the door behind him, completely forgetting to close it in a panic, only putting his foot in the wrong place, preventing it from calmly folding the «accordion» to the side.

«What’s going on here?» he whispered in confusion. «Am I really the only killer on board?»

At that moment, footsteps and the sound of conversation were heard from the passage.

«Do you mind if I go first, I don’t feel well,» a male voice asked.

«Yes, please, I don’t mind,» the other answered.

The door immediately jerked, hitting Gennady painfully on the leg, forcing him to jump back, after which it jerked open, and he saw two men in the passageway with their eyes bulging with horror.

«Not that,» flashed through Gromov’s head.

Chapter 9. First News

Vitaly and Boris froze with their eyes wide open. Right in front of them a man stood, bent over the body of an unknown man, locked in the toilet. There were no other explanations in their heads except to draw a straight line of cause and effect through this event without a single possible branching off in the other direction.

As if he had anticipated this idea, Gennady opened his mouth wide, intending to explain the situation, choosing the right words so as not to arouse even greater suspicion.

«Hello,» he began, smiling unobtrusively, «what you see is not what you think. Everything is not as scary as it looks.»

«Raise your hands so we can see them,» Nosov hissed, continuing to shift his gaze from the killer to the body and back. The puzzle fit together perfectly in his head, and even the parts that didn’t fit together didn’t require the necessary trimming.

«And come out here, but slowly, without any sudden movements,» Boris added, wanting to get his ID from his bosom, but he only felt his phone in the pocket.

«What are you talking about, it wasn’t me, look, I’m clean, if I had just shot from such a distance, I would have been covered in blood! And I don’t have a weapon!» Gennady exclaimed, trying with all his might to deny something he hadn’t done.

«Get out!» Vitaly repeated harshly, starting to stutter badly from nerves. «I won’t repeat it twice!»

With each passing second, his vision became more and more cloudy, his heart sank into his heels, one leg was cramped and the other was shaking from a nervous tic. Gromov, despite his outward calm, was even more worried. Not only had his plan gone down the drain due to the sluggish actions of his colleague, but now no one else but him would be accused of this murder. Of course, he suspected that he could get caught someday, but not on someone else’s mistake, which would be the greatest injustice.

«Please, listen to the voice of reason, there are bullet marks in his head, if so, then the shot was fired from a pistol. Considering that the body is in the booth, and no one saw anything, the murder took place there. Therefore, I would not have been able to remove the blood stains from my face so quickly when you entered, or I would have been wet. Especially since there is no weapon here,» Gennady built a logical chain.

At that moment, a stewardess began to pass by, but Gromov quickly closed the toilet door halfway with his foot, blocking her view of the body. Those present only smiled sweetly at her, and then turned their gaze back to the killer, who opened the accordion door with his foot again.

«Think for yourself, I simply couldn’t do this,» Gromov pleaded.

«And how are you so informed about what is supposed to happen during the murder?» Boris asked.

This question stunned the hired killer, because it revealed the main flaw in his performance. No normal person who has nothing to do with either side of the conflict between law enforcement and lawbreakers would ever, under stress and seeing a corpse for the first time in his life, put everything into place with such precision and thoughtfulness. This is a fiasco, and it is necessary to somehow get out of it.

«Yes, I’m just reasoning, it’s all very simple and obvious!» he exclaimed, but judging by the expressions on his interlocutors’ faces, it was clearly unconvincing.

«Come out, we’ll tie you up, and then we’ll think about what to do next,» Nosov hissed, clenching his fists in anger, trying with all his might to fight the attacks of stuttering.

«Guys, maybe we shouldn’t? Let’s calmly close the toilet to strangers so that no one except us finds out about what happened, and go our separate ways?» Gennady made his final suggestion.

Of course, this option was the easiest, and fortunately, no one else came to this booth, so the three of them were the only witnesses to what happened. Right now, they could return to the calm that reigned five minutes ago and forget about everything like a bad dream, but, unfortunately, this was completely unrealizable.

«No, that won’t happen, we’ll protect ourselves and other passengers, raise your hands and get out,» Boris answered after thinking about the offer.

«Okay, but while we’re talking, the real killer is walking around on board unpunished,» Gromov finally gave in, stretching his palms up and taking a step forward.

«That means we’ll catch him,» Taynitsky objected having decided to take his ID out of his pocket, showing it to the suspect, and opening the cover.

«Gennady Taynitsky, investigative operative, an interesting set, a killer and a servant of the law on the same plane, who will win?» the killer quipped, looking at the photo and text, smiling and coming closer.

«Don’t worry, I’ve already caught him, there are no others on board,» the interlocutor objected, after which, making a sign to Vitaly, he bent Gennady’s face to the floor, forcing him to put his hands behind his back, and then, taking out handcuffs from his pocket, hidden for such an emergency, he clasped his palms together.

«Big mistake,» the killer whispered, realizing that the real criminal was somewhere here and remained free.

«We’ll see,» Boris replied, closing the toilet door and starting to feel the hired killer for a weapon.

«If it’s not you, then why do you need this?» the investigative operative asked, fishing a coil of clothesline and poison for the victim out of his pockets, and then bending Gromov even further.

«I can explain,» he whispered, overcoming the pain rolling through his back and arms.

«It’s not worth it, you’ll tell everything during interrogation,» Taynitsky objected pushing the detainee toward the corridor.

Suddenly, somewhere in Gennady’s inside pocket, a phone rang, and Boris stopped, unzipped his sweatshirt and pulled out a smartphone. Turning on the screen, the investigative operative saw a message: «I see that I’ve already found the first message. You thought correctly, there is more than one killer on board. Play with me and then you’ll have time to guess who will kill you, the first clue: 46285.»

Chapter 10. Telephone

11:30 PM. One hour and 50 minutes after the start of the flight

This message made everyone fall into a stupor. Boris continued to hypnotize the phone with his gaze, trying to understand the essence of the SMS he saw. Vitaly, who was already barely able to stand, squatted down, trying to cope with his nerves, grabbing one hand with the other to stop the incessant tic and the endless trembling that tormented him. He tried with all his mental effort to stop all this, but he could not — it was like putting an opaque blindfold on his eyes, tying his hands, and then entering the ring with a professional boxer who was not burdened with any restrictions at all.

«What does this mean? Who is the message from?» Taynitsky roared, starting to poke the phone in Gennady’s face.

As soon as his palm was fixed and Gromov was able to read the SMS, everything became clear. It came from the same number from which the order to eliminate the target on the plane was placed.

«From my employer,» he whispered, trying with all his might to understand what was going on.

«What are you talking about? What does this mean?» the investigative operative continued to pester him, losing his temper with indignation.

«You were right, I am a hired killer, I was hired to eliminate the target on board,» Gennady whispered, trying not to attract the attention of the other passengers, who began to cautiously look out into the aisle from their seats, watching the squabble that had arisen.

Noticing this, Boris quickly opened the toilet door and kicked the killer in, blocking the passage with his body and asking Nosov to stand «on guard» in order to control the escalating situation.

«So you killed this man,» Taynitsky said confidently, nodding his head towards the corpse.

«No, I have an order for a completely different victim, I discovered this one, just like you, completely by accident!» Gromov objected, trying once again to reach the common sense of both interlocutors.

«Wait, you want to tell me that several killers boarded the plane, one of whom is you, and the other is walking around the cabin?» Boris tried to build a logical chain of several links, some of which were now firmly clinging to each other in a powerful metal chain.

«Exactly so,» Gennady exhaled, trying to collect his thoughts.

This phrase turned out to be akin to a knockout for Vitaly: his eyes darkened, his breath caught, he felt his strength leaving him. Right now, there are several killers on board with unknown motives, who know nothing about each other, and the flight still has a little more than six hours — madness!

The professional boxer predictably beat the helpless newbie in an unfair fight, immediately knocking him down with a powerful kick with his right, and now he was lying in the ring, not understanding what to do next. Having quickly calculated this situation in his head, as he was taught when solving any mathematical problem, Nosov realized that he needed to look for the simplest and most effective solution, and he found it. Taking a phone from his pocket, connected to the local Wi-Fi, the cryptographer typed a short SMS to his wife: «There has been a murder on board and there are several killers who do not know about each other, I need help.»

Having collected his thoughts, the man pressed the «send» button, thinking that he could not think of anything better.

«Wait, so there are at least two of you on the plane: one eliminated the target that we see, and the other is you,» Boris suggested.

«I’m afraid not,» Gennady answered him immediately, looking closely at the face of the dead eastern man with a black shaggy beard, or more precisely, at the drawing on his neck.

«What do you mean, more?» the investigative operative asked him in surprise.

«Exactly, the victim has a gun and a knife — typical tattoos of former contract killers. Of course, this is rare among Caucasians, but still. He obviously boarded the plane with the same purpose as me, and judging by the SMS from the „Customer“, I need to figure out what is going on here before I am killed,» Gennady tried to explain everything.

These words made Vitaly feel even worse. Forcing himself to get up from the floor, he went to the toilet stall, peering into the victim’s face. Indeed, Gromov’s story seemed to be true.

«Search him, if he is also a killer, then there must be a weapon,» Nosov said, stuttering.

«That’s a good idea,» Boris replied, starting to rummage through the pockets of his blue one-piece tracksuit until he pulled out a foil package rolled into a ball.

«What’s this?» the cryptographer asked in surprise.

«It looks like a way to fool a metal detector,» Gennady suggested. «But it is the same aluminum, although it does a good job of hiding the trace for the detectorist. So, it is doubtful that there is anything prohibited there.»

Not taking his idea at face value, Taynitsky began to unwrap the package until he saw the iron tip. Pulling it towards himself, he revealed a folding butterfly knife to those present, opening the latch and unscrewing the device in his palm, putting it into combat position. Fear immediately appeared in his eyes as soon as the mirror blade began to gleam brightly in the rays of the light bulb above his head.

«It worked for some reason,» Gennady whispered, not understanding how it happened.

«You were right, there are a lot more of you on the plane, and we need to find out what’s going on here,» Boris said, taking the keys out of his pocket and unfastening the detainee’s handcuffs.

Chapter 11. Another unusual passenger

Maxim had not planned, under the best of circumstances, to wake up before the end of the flight, or at least for a couple of hours, but circumstances forced him to do it.

Hearing a loud conversation right in front of him from the direction of the toilet, he exhaled heavily and threw off the blindfold that allowed him not to be afraid of the bright light when it was turned on during the entire flight. Listening closely, he realized that it was the conversation of three other passengers, one of whom stuttered badly.

«I see that you have already found the first message. You thought correctly, there is more than one killer on board. Play with me and then you will have time to guess who will kill you, the first clue: 46285,» one of them said with a slight tremor in his voice.

These words immediately cheered Maxim up, raising him from his half-asleep state. There was more than one hired killer on the plane, which was two parameters higher than he would like. Moreover, he himself was engaged in this craft, which meant that there were also his colleagues on board who wanted to eliminate each other. Not very pleasant, given the circumstances in which he found himself.

Sinitsyn, as you might have guessed, was far from an ordinary person. Or rather, he became one more than thirty years ago. When chaos and devastation began in the country, and brother turned on brother, former comrades could no longer or did not want to resolve their affairs in a civilized manner. They began to put together gangs, organize racketeering, crime crawled out of all the cracks, completely turning the way of life that had been established for years upside down. It can be said that you knocked the ground out from under the feet of a person firmly standing on the ground, forcing him to fall into a deep hole, in which a whirlpool immediately formed, sucking in the same random people, throwing up unexpected events in life. And this whole mass was constantly spinning in an endless series of troubles without a chance to swim to the surface or catch your breath.

It was in such an atmosphere that the former director of one of the factories needed such specifically useful skills of Maxim, who had been tested by a hot spot — to kill, and without a drop of doubt and sympathy, only a merciless animal instinct. Since Sinitsyn could not find another job with all the psychological trauma and the persecution mania that had played out, he considered the only reasonable way to earn money to be the destruction of those who interfered with the implementation of the selfish and illegal plans of his «Customer». Then a new task followed, and then another, and now Maxim found himself drawn into something that would make him look at himself in the mirror with hatred in the future, fully aware that his hands were elbow-deep in blood. It was already more difficult to stop, and the money even after the general atmosphere in the country was normalized was not small, so the work continued until one small and unexpected event happened that completely changed his life before and after — he met his love.

During one of the orders in Vladivostok, when the killer entered the hotel building where his victim was staying, he was met at the reception by a pretty young woman. She did not have any special unearthly beauty or pretentiousness that short-sighted men usually fall for, she was ordinary, maybe even mediocre, but at the same time that kind character and pure heart that Maxim felt from afar after communicating with dishonest and morally ugly people captivated him. That same day, he returned the advance payment and refused to carry out the task, inviting the stranger on a date. And, to his great surprise, she agreed. The whole week spent with her turned out to be like a fairy tale, the man completely forgot how he despised life and hated himself. Realizing that he couldn’t go on like this, the hired killer announced the end of his career that same day and wasn’t even going to make a «farewell tour,» finally deciding to settle down. A couple of years later, he got married, and recently had a child.

Right now Sinitsyn was flying from Moscow to Vladivostok, having previously sold his old apartment, deciding to move with his family to a large purchased plot of land on the ocean shore, to a neat little house. However, now an unexpectedly overheard conversation completely threw him off track.

«There are several killers on board? Maybe they know that he is one of them. Then what do they all want?» he asked himself questions in his head.

«What does this mean? Who is this message from?» the same voice roared.

«From my employer,» the second answered in a whisper.

«What are you talking about? What does this mean?» the first one continued to pester him.

Realizing that it was getting hot in there, Maxim unbuckled his seat belt, threw his blindfold aside and pricked up his ears as much as possible so as not to miss a single detail.

«You were right, I am a hired killer, I was hired to eliminate the target on board,» the second continued.

These words completely threw Sinitsyn off his stride. His worst fears were confirmed: there were several killers on the plane, one of whom was himself, and he was completely unaware of the others’ plan. At that moment, some of his neighbors jumped out of their seats, going out into the aisle to sneak a peek at what was happening near the toilet. They had obviously overheard this conversation, too.

«So, you killed this man,» the first voice stated even more confidently.

«No, I have an order for a completely different victim, I discovered this one, just like you, completely by accident!» the second one objected.

«A man died on board!» Maxim finally understood what had become the subject of their arguments. The passengers around him also began to whisper, trying not to attract attention, thinking that they had misheard or misunderstood the context.

«Wait, so there were at least two of you on the plane: one eliminated the target that we see, and the other was you,» the first one assumed.

«I’m afraid not,» the second one immediately answered.

Then they suddenly fell silent, as if they realized that they were talking too loudly, after which everything became too indistinct. Sinitsyn wanted to come closer, but decided to think first and calculate the possible consequences. People around him were whispering more and more, creating a din and cacophony of voices in the air, merging into a common incoherent flow, preventing the man from concentrating on the only source of information that interested him, but all this was already useless.

A heavyset man pressed a button behind him, and a minute later a flight attendant approached him from the tail of the plane.

«Did something happen?» she asked unobtrusively.

«Yes, those people near the toilet are making a lot of noise and for some reason they are constantly talking about murder!» he exclaimed, actively gesturing.

«They’re probably discussing some movie, I’ll come up and tell them to be quieter,» the young woman tried to calm him down because of her profession, but she made a note in her head that something might be wrong, because when she had passed them before, they seemed suspicious to her.

«Okay, I really want to sleep, and these chatterboxes are bothering me!» he continued to exclaim, as if this had greatly offended him.

«We’ll sort everything out, don’t worry,» the flight attendant tried to get rid of him, realizing that the passenger was clearly confrontational and it was better not to argue with him.

After this, raising her head up, she moved towards the toilet, deciding once and for all to remove all suspicions on the issue that was troubling her and others and to subsequently deal with her direct duties.

Chapter 12. New condition

This phrase of Boris made everyone present freeze. An unpleasant chill immediately ran down their spines. His words, of course, had a sound basis, but how he was going to catch other criminals on board the plane without a clear plan of action and an understanding of who they were and what their goal was, remained open.

Gennady, whose handcuffs were unfastened again, rubbed his numb wrists, then leaned his back against the wall, starting to think.

«Who is this „Customer“ and what does he want?» Vitaly asked, stuttering loudly, but hitting the floor with the toe of his shoe as hard as he could to distract himself from the nervousness of the situation.

«I don’t know, to be honest, it’s the first time I’ve worked with him, and I wouldn’t have agreed to such terms if it weren’t for the extremely tempting high price for the services rendered. So, it looks like he simply bought me, as well as the others, by driving us into a confined space, giving out orders to each other. However, two questions remain open. How many of us are there? And why all this?» Gromov began to reflect, accompanying the flow of thoughts with active gesticulation.

Suddenly Nosov heard the familiar sound of heels on the floor from behind him, immediately realizing that the stewardess was approaching them again.

«The door!» he hissed, realizing that he needed to think quickly.

Immediately understanding his idea, Boris quickly slammed the door shut, hiding the passenger’s corpse from public view just as the very young woman to whom the heavyset man had complained about the strange noise appeared on the horizon.

«Good evening, can I help you with anything?» she asked, deciding to carefully test the waters. It was clear that they wouldn’t tell her anything just like that, but it was worth trying to get them to open up.

«Hello, no, thank you, everything is fine,» Gennady replied, trying to smile unobtrusively.

«Any problems with the toilet?» she continued asking questions, nodding her head in his direction.

«No, we’re just waiting in line, don’t worry,» Vitaly said, trying his best to hold back his stutter.

«Don’t wait, there are more at the tail of the plane and over there, I see they are free,» said the stewardess, looking out into the aisle and then turning her eyes back to her interlocutors.

«No, it’s more convenient for us here. Maybe I can help with you and carry something? It’s not right for a young woman to carry heavy things,» Boris decided to try to change the subject in order to cause rejection from the company and quickly get rid of the uninvited guest.

«No, thanks, I can do it myself, that’s my job,» the young woman sighed heavily, turning around, tired of the same daily «pick-ups» from men she barely knew, who thought that their absolutely identical phrases were unique, and that she would melt right away.

Taynitsky’s cunning plan worked: the stewardess nodded and quickly walked into the aisle, leaving the comrades alone again.

«That’s a good idea,» Gromov encouraged the man, patting him on the shoulder.

«I know that myself, tell me what we’re going to do next,» the investigative operative replied, jerking sharply to throw off the palm.

«I have a wife,» Vitaly blurted out unexpectedly, causing considerable surprise among his colleagues.

«We are, of course, happy for you, but what does she have to do with it? It’s not the time to indulge in sentimentality,» Gennady immediately cut him off, looking at him disapprovingly.

«No, you’ve got it all wrong,» Nosov objected. «She’s a security officer and she probably knows or can contact someone who can help in this situation.»

«Hmm, maybe that will play a role,» Boris answered thoughtfully, putting his hands in his pockets.

«I’ve already written to her, she’ll answer any minute,» Vitaly continued his reasoning, stopping stuttering, being confident in his position.

Ten seconds later, Gromov’s phone vibrated again, and when he picked it up, his eyes widened.

«What is it?» Taynitsky asked, pulling his palms out from his bosom.

«A new message from the „Customer“,» the killer answered dryly, wiping beads of sweat from his face.

After that, he handed the smartphone to his interlocutor so that he could read the received SMS.

«If you start to deviate from the plan, I will be forced to take action,» Boris began. «Yes, I know that you are now next to the investigative operative and the cryptographer. I know everything about you. If Nosov wants to contact his wife again, I will give the order to kill her and blow up the plane. Yes, there is a bomb on board, and I will detonate it if I deem it necessary, so be so kind as to play by the rules with me, otherwise I will have to take countermeasures against the violators. You have until the end of the flight, do not waste it.»

These words struck Vitaly like a bolt from the blue. His strength left him again, forcing him to fall to the floor and cover his face with his hands. If he did not decipher the code right now, his wife would be killed on the orders of some mentally ill person who had gathered several killers on a plane and somehow smuggled explosives there. If he did not collect his thoughts now, hundreds of innocent people would suffer. Realizing that time was against them, Nosov stood up and quickly walked up to Boris.

«We have to talk to her, there is no other way to save people, she can contact anyone on earth,» he whispered, trying not to be heard.

«Did you see the message, this freak is somewhere here, sees and knows everything. He says that you are a cryptographer, is that true?» Taynitsky asked lowering his voice.

Vitaly just nodded so as not to attract unnecessary attention.

«You see, he knows who we are and he planned it this way, so that everyone would end up here for some unknown purpose. We are moving in circles, and he is always one step ahead, we can’t anger him and contact anyone outside the plane, otherwise you heard what the consequences could be,» the investigative operative continued, looking around.

«I’m ready to try, we can’t just leave everything like this,» Vitaly objected, taking the phone in his hand.

However, Taynitsky quickly snatched it and threw it into the toilet between the legs of the lifeless body, immediately pressing the flush button. The device scraped along the walls with a screeching sound, after which he was sucked somewhere deep.

«What are you doing!» Nosov roared, but it was too late.

«This man is capable of anything! If he suspects something is wrong, he will detonate a bomb and kill your wife. You understand perfectly well that if he hired several killers, how difficult will it be to find another one? The only option is to figure everything out here, together. You are a cipher clerk, which means you can solve his puzzle, and we will find the rest of the killers and try to figure out what is going on here. Time is running out, so we need to act quickly,» Boris pulled him up.

Now Vitaly didn’t want to hear anything. He wanted to escape from here as soon as possible, but there were simply no other options for resolving the problem except getting to the truth.

«Okay, go ahead, and in the meantime, I’ll try to break his code,» he said, taking out of his jacket pocket the notebook and pen he always carried with him.

Chapter 13. News from the husband

Tatyana sat at a dark desk, staring thoughtfully at the monitor and pressing an earphone to her ear. The room was in semi-darkness, and only the bright light from a small lamp standing to her right cut the darkness into several sections, casting frightening black shadows on the surrounding area. Outside the window, tightly closed with thick opaque curtains, night had long since come into its own. In Vladivostok the morning sun was just beginning to rise, only slightly touching the horizon with its crimson rays, returning pleasant outlines to the surrounding area, but the young woman did not see this, because she was completely absorbed in work and did not even plan to look out into the street. The bridge across the Golden Horn Bay was shrouded in a thick haze, through which it was difficult to discern its outline.

Nosova stopped listening to the recording and looked at her watch: 6:40 a.m., a couple more hours of duty, but her strength was leaving her. Rubbing her eyes, tired from the computer and sticking together from sleepiness, the whites of which were red from irritation, Tatyana turned her gaze to the furnishings of the room: a small room no larger than 108 square feet, lined on all sides with cabinets bursting with an abundance of mismatched folders and books. Right in the middle was a desk and a computer, at which the young woman was sitting, in the very corner, covered with papers, a miniature metal safe was hidden. Having put her phone there, as required by formal protocol, Nosova listened attentively to the audio recordings, which were marked «top secret», tapping out a rhythm on the table with a pencil in her hand and periodically writing down something important.

She hated this part of the job because of its monotony and the impossibility of breaking away to do something else until you finished, so as not to lose the thread of the narrative and then start over, but there was simply no other way.

Having paused and written down the minute and second of the recording on a piece of paper, the young woman yawned, opening her mouth wide, and, realizing that she was about to fall asleep, decided to take a break and go get herself some coffee in order to perk up a little.

Throwing her headphones on the table, she stood up from her seat and headed for the door, when suddenly, just as she was reaching for the handle, it swung open and the boss entered the room — a broad-shouldered, tall man of forty with a good-natured smile, but a strict disposition. He looked no more than thirty, but his tired look and small wrinkles still gave away his age upon closer inspection.

«Are you working?» he asked, looking at the papers lying on the table.

«Of course, mister Pisarev, I just decided to go out for coffee,» Tatyana said.

«No need, go home, it’s already late, you’ll finish tomorrow,» Pisarev answered her, smiling.

«But I’m on duty, there are still a few hours left before the end of my shift,» Nosova objected.

«You’ve been at work for two days now, I don’t want you to fall ill here with an attack, go home, that’s an order, it won’t run away from you. Moreover, I heard that your husband is flying in tomorrow, you probably want to see him,» Valentin said.

From the very beginning of her business trip, she won him over with her efficiency and desire to achieve results. Literally in a month, her indicators reached the same quarterly figures as other employees. But behind all this were monstrous lack of sleep and overwork. Of course, the boss was pleased to brag about the statistics to his superiors, but not at the cost of the employee’s health. That is why lately he tried to protect her and be more attentive to human needs.

«You know everything,» she smiled.

«Of course, that’s our job,» the boss laughed.

«Okay, I’ll just turn everything off and take my phone,» the young lady agreed, moving towards the computer.

«Come on, I’m keeping an eye on you so that it doesn’t happen like last time,» Pisarev said, putting his hands on his hips, standing in the aisle.

Realizing that he wouldn’t leave her alone, Tatyana ended the session and went to the safe, taking the keys from the table. Opening the vault, she took out a smartphone from there, pressing the power button. The screen lit up, brightly illuminating the entire room, forcing Nosova to close her eyes.

«Can I take tomorrow off?» she asked, waiting for the machine to turn on.

«Of course, I even insist that you take it,» the boss agreed with her.

«Thank you,» Tatyana answered briefly, looking at the message that had arrived in amazement and swaying a little in place.

«Did something happen?» Valentin asked, suspecting something was wrong.

«My husband sent a message,» Nosova said in a trembling voice, showing the contents on the screen. «There has been a murder on board and there are several killers who don’t know about each other, I need help.»

Chapter 14. Transcript

12:00 AM. Two hours and twenty minutes after the start of the flight

After the group decided to split up, starting a search for what they could do best, Gennady lent Vitaly a skein of thread he had saved for his task. The man understood that it was absolutely forbidden to leave the toilet open, because only thanks to their unknown luck no one had entered the stall yet. Perhaps it was a happy coincidence and good fortune, or maybe it was all about the fear of the passengers themselves, who heard fragments of conversation about murder, death and a bomb, and decided not to tempt fate by communicating with strange individuals, considering them crazy and mentally ill.

Having wrapped one end of the rope around the door latch handle from the inside, Nosov closed the «accordion», letting the rest of the skein hang down, after which he pulled hard towards himself, trying to switch the lock’s operating mode. Surprisingly, everything went as well as possible, and the sign above the door lit up, indicating that the toilet was occupied.

«Excellent,» Vitaly whispered, and then hid the rope, slipping it under the door of the booth, «now no one will definitely enter there, I hope.»

Realizing that the job was done, and that would definitely be enough for a couple of hours of flight, the man headed back to his seat to try to decipher the code in a calmer atmosphere. As soon as he went out into the corridor, those sitting next to him immediately began to whisper, obviously discussing what they had accidentally overheard from their conversation.

«I hope they thought it was a joke,» flashed through Nosov’s mind, and he immediately continued moving down the aisle.

In contrast to this point of view, everyone standing nearby immediately stepped aside, afraid of accidentally offending or angering the strange passenger. Of course, now was not the time for them, but it was still nice that they would not pester him, and he could calmly deal with all the problems alone. The phone flew into the toilet, as did all intentions to contact his wife, so he could only rely on himself. All that was left was to believe that the first message had reached her, and then come what may.

Outside the window it was still dark, only two red lights on the wings, visible from afar from any part of the cabin, cut through this empty and endless darkness. Even during the day in the plane it is impossible to navigate where exactly you are without using navigation systems, and at night, even more so. Ventilated air blew in your face, icons constantly blinked overhead and sound signals were periodically heard.

«Dear passengers, this is the captain of the ship speaking,» a voice with a lot of interference was heard. «Our plane is entering a zone of turbulence, please take your seats and fasten your seat belts».

Everyone immediately began to stir even more, starting to sit down in their chairs, and Vitaly finally made it to his seat. He plopped down with a thud, followed the pilot’s instructions, then took a notepad and pencil out of his pocket, deciding to completely write down the first phrase of the «Customer» of this strange event.

«I see that I have already found the first message. You thought correctly, there is more than one killer on board. Play with me and then you will have time to guess who will kill you, the first clue: 46285,» the man read the message that was received.

«Let’s try to count the number of letters to begin with,» Nosov decided, moving the tip along the written line.

«It turned out to be one hundred thirty-three, it is not divisible by two, nor by three, nor by five, it is meaningless, so, okay, then let’s try symbols,» he continued his reasoning, repeating the same operation, but already counting numbers, spaces and punctuation marks.

«One hundred and seventy-two, that’s better, but it’s still too many, no one would encrypt a message with that many variables, it’s just irrational,» Vitaly pulled himself up short. «So, this is definitely not a transposition cipher, when the letters are rearranged according to a predetermined rule, otherwise the message would have been impossible to read initially. And it’s not Morse code, there are few dots, no dashes at all. Then what?»

At that moment, the plane shook violently, causing Nosov to drop the pencil from his hands onto the floor in surprise. A child somewhere ahead screamed in sudden fear, and the transport continued to rock like a ship on the waves, the rattling increasing with each second. The plane had entered a zone of turbulence and right now, falling into the «holes», was trying to get out of it as quickly as possible.

Realizing that he couldn’t stop there, Vitaly reached down and managed to grab the writing object that had fallen, using one foot, and then continued solving the unexpectedly thrown problem.

«The Caesar cipher,» he continued. «Shift each symbol one position to the side, let’s try. GYZF. No, complete nonsense. So, maybe the square of the same Julius? No, there are one hundred thirty-three letters, not counting the numbers that cannot be combined with them, a total of one hundred seventy-two symbols. Not a single number of these can help extract the square root from itself. Sadness».

While he was thinking, he continued to line up tables and formulas in his notebook, but nothing came of it.

«And if you translate the numbers into letters: one hundred thirty-eight, no, definitely not Caesar’s square, then what?» Vitaly continued his thoughts. Then maybe a binary code? It would be logical if I saw the numbers, but full phrases with meaning, hardly.

Suddenly the rocking on board stopped and the plane began to fly straight and level again. The seat belt sign overhead went out and everyone immediately jumped up from their seats like crazy, heading towards the toilet.

«Just don’t break down the door there, I beg you,» Nosov pleaded and returned to his notebook. «Enigma? Definitely not, we need the source code from the ratio of the rotating wheels and the keyboard, it can’t be deciphered in such conditions. Mirror image? Definitely not. Vigenère cipher? Useless, it’s based on the method of our beloved Gaius Julius.»

Turning the page over to the original message, the man tried to reread the entire phrase carefully again, trying to grasp the meaning not mathematically, but linguistically.

«I’m definitely missing something, as if this is just an initial message, the meaning of which will only be revealed when we collect everything!» he suggested.

Looking at the last sentence, Vitaly almost jumped up from his seat, smiling from ear to ear with joy.

«Well, of course, the code is not the whole message, but only the last word!» he exclaimed, telling the news to his neighbor in the chair.

He only smiled unobtrusively, after which he turned in the other direction, propping his chin up with his hand, hoping that his strange fellow traveler would not speak to him again.

«So,» Nosov summed up, copying the numbers onto a separate sheet of paper once again. «„46285“. So, what we have is five symbols out of order, none of them are repeated. Let’s try to translate everything into letters according to the ordinal number, we get D, M or V, F, O or X, B, K or T, H, Q or Z, E, N or W. And now we need to assemble something digestible from this. MOBQE, DOKHE. And if you rearrange the letters: BEQOM, HEKOD, — the same nonsense. No, this is clearly not the entire cipher, something is definitely missing.»

Thinking about it, he rubbed his sleepy eyes and put the notebook aside, absolutely not understanding what to do next. Having tried to shift all the letters one to the side, as another sometimes effective method, nothing worked — the same unsolvable puzzle. Rearranging the numbers in places similarly did not give a result. Vitaly could not cope with the only thing he could do — what he did every day at work. Finally lowering his hands in disappointment, the man looked at the ceiling, hypnotizing with his gaze the skin of the plane cutting through the darkness. There were about six hours left until Vladivostok and the death of his wife. Time flowed inexorably, with each second there was less and less of it, and in this race with death he was mercilessly losing.

Chapter 15. Conversation with the boss

«Could this be some kind of mistake or a prank?» Valentin asked, clearly getting nervous, sitting down on a chair nearby.

«No, definitely not,» Tatyana objected. Her voice was shaking even more. «That’s not like him. Vitya would never write about something that didn’t really happen.»

She had been trying to call her husband for five minutes, but his phone was constantly unavailable, which led to even more terrible thoughts. The boss exhaled heavily, rubbed his tired and sleepy eyes with his fingers, and then looked at the young woman again. Tears began to flow down her cheeks, which she tried to hold back with all her might, but nothing worked. Her heart sank into her heels, where it pounded with double force. It seemed that it was easier to completely remove it from her body than to try to calm down. Her hands began to shake, so she had to knead them to bring them to their senses.

«So, let’s not get nervous and calm down. We need to keep our minds cool and cut off all unnecessary and interfering emotions,» Pisarev said.

«Yes, of course, I’m sorry,» Nosova said, trying to erase the traces of her momentary weakness as quickly as possible.

«Maybe his account was hacked?» Valentin suggested, trying to find a rational explanation.

«I doubt it, he sent the SMS via the Internet, it’s not a messenger, not a social network, I doubt that they can be „hacked“ in some way. Change and hide the number — yes, put on a false trail, hiding behind another subscriber — yes, but I can’t say that,» Tatyana objected to him.

«We’ll proceed from the fact that what was written is real and is actually happening. But if your husband was able to write to us, then everything is fine with him,» the boss suggested, scratching his stubble with his whole hand.

«But why doesn’t he answer then?» the young woman exclaimed, starting to walk around the room in circles due to her frayed nerves.

«Don’t forget, he’s on a plane, there are constant problems with communication, if there is any at all, then at the moment Vitaly simply cannot answer the call due to technical reasons, just try to get through to him,» Pisarev objected.

His voice sounded incredibly convincing and calming. Even being in such a precarious position, when any news separated Tatyana from falling into the abyss of a nervous breakdown, she believed him and gradually began to calm down.

«Listen,» he continued, getting up from his chair and, going up to Nosova, taking her by the shoulders with his hands. «Now we can’t do anything, your husband is somewhere out there, far away in the sky, and we are below. At the moment, our task is to contact the pilot and the employee who is on duty on this flight to find out all the circumstances and land the plane safely for all passengers. What time did it take off?»

«9:40 PM,» the young woman whispered.

«Okay, it flies to Vladivostok for about eight and a half hours, which means it arrives at about 6:10 am Moscow time or 1:10 pm our time. How long has it been in flight approximately?» the chief began to make calculations, raising his hands up and fingering them, making calculations in his head.

«A little over two hours,» Tatyana answered, becoming distracted by mathematics, forgetting about her nerves for a moment. Valentin’s trick of combining work and psychology worked.

«So, it means he has approximately overcome Samara,» Pisarev assumed, relying on his knowledge of geography, «he still has a long flight ahead of him, we have a lot of time.»

«That sounds encouraging,» Nosova said, taking a deep breath.

«Of course, then, don’t lose heart, your task is to try to get through to your husband, and I’ll deal with the pilot and the investigative operative on board, come on, chin up, let’s work,» Valentin encouraged her, slapping her hard on the shoulder, causing her to jerk and bend over in surprise, after which he quickly ran out into the corridor and headed for his office phone, leaving the young woman alone with herself and her thoughts. She understood perfectly well that, despite the large reserve of resources and flight time, all this could be in vain, because it was unknown whether Vitaly was still alive or already dead.

Chapter 16. The beginning of the search

Leaving Vitaly alone to deal with closing the toilet cubicle and giving him the necessary tool for this in the form of a clothesline brought by Gennady, he and Boris set off to search for the killer in the airplane cabin.

«You have no idea who it could be?» Taynitsky asked, pushing aside the curtain through which they had entered the passage.

«No, it’s quiet for now, I hope that when I see something, I’ll immediately understand what exactly we’re looking for,» Gromov objected, looking around.

Together they walked forward at a slow pace, gradually squeezing through the crowds of scurrying people, constantly looking closely in the hope of finding at least something that could lead them to think about some kind of connection and meaning to what was happening. The passengers were constantly chattering, and the loud sound of the engines, combined with the constant noise of the fan, made it even more irritating at those moments when you try to concentrate. Like at school, when you try to study your homework the night before an exam, the task doesn’t go, the solution doesn’t either, you’re incredibly sleepy, your eyes stick together so much that you have to «stick matches in them», and then suddenly the neighbors turn the music up to maximum, and after that you can’t go to bed.

After walking about 30 feet, Gennady stopped abruptly and turned to his interlocutor, making an unpleasant grimace of disappointment. The latter seemed to be considering the incredible annoyance in his partner’s eyes, but still decided to ask for the sake of decency. «Did you find anything?»

«No, we are looking for a needle in a haystack, this is definitely not the right path, we need to change the strategy,» Gromov hissed, gritting his teeth in displeasure.

«I agree, but what do you propose?» Boris retorted, his head lacking any better ideas.

Suddenly, there was a beeping sound overhead and a voice with a lot of interference came from the speakers: «Dear passengers, this is the captain of the ship, our plane is entering a zone of turbulence, please take your seats and fasten your seat belts.»

«Very timely,» the killer said, cursing under his breath.

«Let’s go back to our place until it’s over, and then we’ll continue, there’s still plenty of time,» Taynitsky suggested, but there was simply no other way out. Even if they don’t listen to reason now, the flight attendants will force them to do so, which will attract additional attention, which they definitely don’t need in this situation.

Pushing aside the other passengers rummaging through their belongings, the companions moved back to their seats, passing by the ill-fated toilet.

«Vitaly did a good job, well done,» flashed through the mind of the investigative operative, who glanced briefly at the stall, closed from the outside, with a red sign glowing, indicating that the restroom was occupied.

Once the crowd in the corridor thinned out and they were finally seated, the fellow sufferers managed to reach their desired destinations. They dropped into their seats with a thud, fastened their seat belts and stared at the plastic folding dining table right in front of them, trying to distract themselves for at least a minute. The squeaky signals continued to sound overhead, incredibly annoying to all the travelers, but it was all about safety, which they were able to verify almost immediately.

The plane seemed to have fallen into a hole, starting to rattle and frighten the passengers quite a bit. Somewhere ahead, a child started crying. «It’s him again,» flashed through Gennady’s mind. This went on for several minutes until it suddenly stopped and the pilot gave the signal that they could get up.

Quickly jumping up from his seat, the killer found Boris with his eyes and, going out into the passage, squeezing between the fat neighbors, decided to wait for him there. Not far away he noticed Vitaly, puffing heavily and with active sharp movements, as if with a knife, wanting to cut the notebook, chirping something there.

«He started deciphering, but apparently it’s not working,» flashed through Gromov’s head.

«So far without results?» Gennady asked the investigative operative who had caught up with him.

«I don’t know, I think he would report it when he finishes,» Taynitsky suggested.

«That’s true, well, let’s continue our difficult work in that case,» the hired killer summed up, and together they moved deeper into the salon.

«Have you received any more messages from the „Customer“?» Boris asked, thinking that something new had arrived.

«Not yet,» Gromov answered with sadness in his voice, taking his phone out of his pocket and staring at the empty and lifeless screen, devouring all the attention of the passengers around them, who were staring at their tablets, smartphones and laptops.

At that moment, Gennady, who was very engrossed in examining his camera, collided with a pretty pregnant young woman passing by.

«Excuse me, I was just distracted,» he wanted to immediately ask for forgiveness, smiling unobtrusively and stepping aside, making way for the lady.

«No, it’s okay, it’s my fault too,» she answered kindly.

Suddenly her attention switched to Boris, and her face immediately turned pale, and her eyes widened, as if she had seen a ghost or something paranormal. He also clearly tensed up, peering into the passenger’s eyes and stubbornly drilling her with his gaze.

«I think I’ll go, I won’t keep you,» the young woman whispered and quickly slipped forward, passing her random partners.

«Do you know her?» Gennady asked, watching her go, noticing the tension that had arisen between them.

«I saw her somewhere, but I can’t remember where exactly,» the investigative operative answered him dryly, turning away.

«You don’t remember or you don’t want to tell?» the killer decided to prick him to the quick, noticing something was wrong.

«I’ve already answered your question,» Taynitsky hissed discontentedly, continuing to move along the passage.

«Well, look, it’s not in your interests to hide anything, don’t forget that we’re in the same boat,» Gromov shouted to him, already running to catch up with his interlocutor.

«I remember it very well, and that makes it even more sickening,» Boris said, turning around and glaring at the person he should have detained by virtue of his profession half an hour ago, and certainly not working together.

«Believe me, I want this less than you,» Gennady whispered, moving behind the curtain towards the part of the plane located behind the ill-fated toilet cubicle.