We don't know that Mikhail would not have done it himself. He thanked Locke as he was being ...whatever was happening to him. Locke is going to have to prove that whatever happens to him in his flashback was worth killing him for.

__________________
" I push this button every 108 minutes, I don't get out much."

"Theres a time for living low down, theres a time for getting high. A time for peace, a time for fire. A time to live, a time to die."

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.