I send a PM to Carla.
“I’m in a dungeon.”
She PMs me back, almost immediately. “Has he kidnapped you and imprisoned you?” I open a video connection.
“Mm-hm.” I show her the dungeon from the laptop camera. She’s impressed. I can tell.
“Did he beat you? Was he brutal?”
“Some. Yup.”
“Irina. Are you locked in there?”
“Yup. And I’m hoping it will get worse.”
She shows me a pic of the nighttime Moscow skyline from her balcony.
“Here’s the life you’ll probably never see again. Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Yup. Shame.”
“Dull in comparison, though. How brutal was he?” Her voice drops to a low purr, “Tell me exactly what he did to you.”
An email icon bounces at the bottom of the screen. I ignore it. I can’t resist sharing some choice highlights of my adventure and of my deflowering with Carla. She’s so beautiful and stylish, I expect things like this happen to her all the time. But they don’t happen to me. Not ever. And I’m glad I have someone like her to share it with.
While I’m telling Carla some of the details, at least the ones that aren’t too graphic content or NSFW, I get a little thrill to notice that the email is from him. He’s away, doing whatever, but he still thought to email me.
I can’t wait to look at it later, after I get off the call with Carla.
“Read it now,” she says, breathless. “You can read it to me.”
“I certainly hope that I can’t, and it will be way too disgraceful and detailed. No. I’ll save it.”
But I can’t. The excitement gets the better of me. I open it up.
Immediately the mood drops away. I’m dressing fast, gathering up my stuff and telling Carla, “Gotta go.”
Get out of the house. Use the door code and leave immediately.
At the back of the house is a large, walled garden. Right in the far-left corner is a little iron gate. It’s overgrown with creeper so it’s hard to find. The key is in the lock.
Turn left into the little alley behind. It takes you straight to the metro stop.
Take the metro to Park Kultury.
Wait inside the metro station. I will come and find you.
And then he gives me the door code.
SHIT! I don’t know my way around the house. I haven’t even seen it.
Chapter Nineteen
Her
CLUTCHING MY BAG WITH the laptop inside, I run up the stairs. I’m congratulating myself that I thought to close the huge door to the dungeon behind me.
Three steep flights of stone steps up in the dark, I’m breathing hard as I come out into a huge kitchen. In the gloom, I make out shiny fridges and ovens, and a huge white island worktop. Big windows on one side seem to look out on a garden. It’s hard to tell in the darkness.
Feeling for light switches on the other side, I see a wide driveway through a small window. My fingers find a bank of switches. I’m about to flip the lights on when I hear tires on shale. Headlight beams swing into the driveway.
Instinctively, I crouch on the garden side of the room and move along the walls. I’m hunting for a door.
When I find one, it’s locked, and I don’t know how to open it.
Loud hammering on the front door seems nearby. Resisting panic, I shove the door handle up and feel a soft click. The door opens. I slip out and pelt into the garden.
Too late I realize that I should have shut the door behind me.
The garden is thick with trees, plants and hedges. The banging from the house rises to a single, short explosion, then stops. Plunging around in the dark, I worry that I’m not going to be able to stay oriented and find my way to the gate.
I’m crouching and running and getting tangled with bushes when voices come from the house. They found the open door.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I grit my teeth and tell myself, Focus. He’s given you the way out. Follow it. Don’t be distracted.
Footsteps and shouts burst out into the garden. In a blur, I fight my way to the far corner. There’s nothing but brambles and bushes. I can’t even tell where there’s a wall, much less a gate. Stumbling forward, arms out, almost blind, thorns scrape my hand. Instinct wants to pull my hand back. Then I catch a hard, gnarly shape.
It’s the key.
It’s stiff. I can’t move it. I have to breathe slowly. Ease the key. Twist it slowly. Shouts and boots tramp around the garden behind me. If I can ever get the gate open, I’ll remember to close it. They won’t find the gate. Breathe. The key moves. A little. Breathe. It turns. The wrong way. Breathe.
Click.
The gate opens. I have to duck to get through. The foliage clutches at me. I push hard. And I burst though.
I have to stop myself from shouting. I’m shaking with fear, terrified that I made too much noise. My fingers shake as I close the gate. I’m sure the shouts are coming closer. I did think to bring the key with me, though. Trembling, I get the lock on the gate to turn and click.
‘Turn left’ he said. FUCK. I hear vehicle engines approaching. I turn right. And run.
Chapter Twenty
Him
NO REPLY TO MY email. No response on her phone, it goes straight to voicemail. I don’t even know for certain that she got any of my messages. The strongroom should hold out against almost anything. She could be on the metro where there’s no phone coverage, or she could have been taken. Or she could be sipping vodka or champagne in the strongroom right now, unaware of any of this.
I told Illya to send half a dozen men to the house. I said they should report whatever they find direct to me.
There’s no way to contact her. I have to go to the metro. The traffic is driving me insane.
When I finally reach Park Kultury station, I park illegally in front of the white stone arches of the entrance and run into the station. I almost fall as I see her, just inside the arches. I run to her and seize her, holding her close.
“I have to do something now. I need to take you with me.”
“It’s going to be dangerous.” She knows already.
“It’s more dangerous if you’re not with me.” I tell her. The truth is not quite so simple. The fact is, I just can’t stand not knowing where she is.
I can’t keep myself from looking across at her. I think I might actually be grinning. Then I notice a motorcycle with a passenger on the back, keeping pace at the side of us. And another bike on my side of the car, too. I know where this is going. And there’s not a fucking thing that I can do about it.
The bikes accelerate, moving ahead. The passengers pull out Heckler and Koch MP7 lightweight submachine guns. They hammer on the windows of the cars in front. Force them to peel away. A space opens up ahead. A truck in front pulls a rusty red shipping container. The container doors swing open and two ramps drop down from the back. They scrape and spark along the road.
The motorcycles slow to draw level with me, and the passengers bang the M7s on the windows of the BMW. They’re instructing me to drive up the ramps. I resist for a moment, but when they hammer their machine guns on the windows, I know that I have no choice. I drive us up the ramps into the darkness of the shipping container.
Two people in crash helmets, inside the container, let go of the ramps. Irina looks over her shoulder. Watches the traffic try to scatter as the ramps clatter away behind us.
Cars swerve, scrape and collide. Darkness closes us in as the doors of the container are pulled shut.
We bump and bounce inside the container. We’re driven some distance. For maybe an hour’s drive, the car shakes inside the dark box. The truck slows, reverses, turns. Then reverses again. I guess we’ve reached our destination. I bet I can guess where we’ve been taken. The doors swing open again. The two people inside in the crash helmets shine flashlights into the car. Bang on the window. Shout to tell me, “Reverse. Reverse.”
Behind us, the massive forks of a long dockside for
k truck have lined up against the back of the container. I reverse. Carefully.
“Come on,” the figures in crash helmets hammer the heavy flashlights on the windows. “Hurry up. Get a move on.” The tires slip and slide on the narrow forks. I can’t believe the forks are going to be long enough to carry the car.
The car shakes violently and sways as the fork truck drives in full reverse. It spins us in an arc. Then, with the car still suspended at the full height of the forks, it drives, fast, toward the wide, dark opening of a low warehouse building.
The forklift driver doesn’t lower the forks until we’re deep inside the warehouse. Then he lowers the forks, but only until we’re about five feet off the ground.
Chapter Twenty-one
Her
OUTSIDE IS A LARGE warehouse. On one side, a blue shipping container sits, open. The car still sways, on the forks that are a few feet in the air. Harsh, coarse, and very loud, male laughter echoes around us.
“Misha,” A big voice booms over the others. “Come out. Come down and play.”
Misha opens a window and calls back, “Oleg.”
Misha shoots me a glance. Grabs my hand and squeezes it hard. “Stay here. You’re going to be fine.”
I say, “Misha,” but it’s too late. He’s jumped out. The car door swings slowly shut behind him.
He jumps down and strides toward a bald man, inked all over his head and his face. “Good to see you, Oleg. You’re looking well. How’s the ear?”
“You did me some harm,” Oleg reaches out and grabs Mischa’s earlobe. He knocks the hand away with his forearm. Not using too much force. Mischa is so in control, it gives me a thrill to watch him.
Oleg sneers, “You took something of mine, Misha.”
“You don’t want to look at it that way, Oleg.” Mischa tells him evenly, walking in a calm circle around him. I think just to make the man turn, so Oleg has his back to the car. So that Mischa can see me and I can see him. “We can come to an arrangement about the freight, Oleg.”
Oleg bursts into maniac laughter. “We can come to an arrangement where I cut you in half, lengthwise.”
“Times are changing, Oleg. Time we modernized our game.”
Oleg looks around, grinning. Big teeth on show. “I like to play the game the old way.”
“Sure, Oleg. I kind of feel the same way, too. But these days, you know, it’s all about margins.” Is looking at me, puzzled. “Our trade is becoming global, Oleg. Just like everything else is. That’s the way it is, whether guys like you and me like it or not. Either we go with it, or it’s going to drown us.”
Oleg grins even wider. “So, Misha is afraid of the weather? Misha is running from a storm?”
“No, Oleg. Listen up. Those old models of conflict, they worked in our parent’s generation. Now, you and me, we need to adapt to the new ways. Otherwise some fucking little kids on the internet again take it away from us.”
Oleg roars with laughter, his huge chest swells as his arms throw out at his sides. “Nobody can take anything from me on the internet, fool! I don’t have anything on the internet!”
“See, Oleg, that’s where you’re wrong. Those two containers? We stole them from you, right?”
His face blackens and he lurches toward Mischa. But Mischa stands his ground.
“We stole them on the internet, Oleg. We stole them and switched them for the lifetime supply of cuddly toys that we sent you in compensation. Didn’t touch them, didn’t go near them, never even saw them.”
Oleg is reddening like a volcano. His eyelids narrow, but his eyes bulge like the veins on his forehead and neck.
“Oleg, I bring you gifts from the New World.”
“You’d better be about to pop my fucking containers out of your cute little smartphone, asshole!”
“No, but I am going to give you something better.”
“Better than giving me back what’s mine, asshole?” He’s prowling now. Making Mischa turn. He moves as little as possible. I know that he’s thinking about making me safe first. I wish I wasn’t here as a distraction. It makes me afraid for him.
“Yes, Oleg. I have something more valuable than returning two routine shipments to you. I’m here to bring you the future.”
Oleg’s shoulders hunch. “You sound like a fucking politician now, Misha.”
Mischa’s back is to the car now. I don’t like this. Too many of Oleg’s men are behind him, and out of his line of sight.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Him
I UNDO MY CUFFLINKS. With this many of Oleg’s men watching me, those are all the weapons I’m going to be able to use. I have no choice now. I have to advance on Oleg. I favor his left, so that he has to turn, only I come at him too fast, so he steps back. I hear the whirr of the fork truck spin behind me.
Oleg is too experienced and too wily a fighter to be put off, but I duck, lunge to the left, and then, as soon as he leans, I dive right. If I’ve guessed correctly, he’s going to pull a weapon and I know he will draw with his right hand.
And I’m right, and I’m startled. He pulls out the blade. It’s the kind you would use to start clearing a jungle. It must be two and a half feet long and eight inches wide at the deepest part of its evil curve. Still, the plan’s moving. Keep all the parts in the dance. The weapon is in his right hand.
He swings. He’s frighteningly fast. I swerve back and duck at the same time. I nearly lose my footing. The swish and the cool breeze set me off balance as he swings back for a second swipe. The blade makes a cut across my coat, neat as a laser.
He steps in with his body weight on his left leg. I drive a hard instep kick, smash his left knee. Lunging, I throw my right fist straight at his nose. At the same time, I dive in and turn, getting my body inside his right arm with my back to him. I bend his wrist with the blade back, outward. With my left elbow, I jam into the side of his neck, below his ear.
With nothing but the cufflinks, I jab the soft inside of his wrist, hard, four or five times. Hard and fast. His hand opens and the machete clatters to the floor. I get my foot onto the wide, flat blade, and I jab my elbow hard into his kidney, just in time to get his huge fist square in my face.
I’m dazed and blinded for a moment, but it doesn’t matter. I know he’s going down. With the blade under my foot, I don’t need to see to pick it up. When I crouch to get it, though, the dizziness threatens to put me down. When I come back up, his men are circling me and closing in.
All but one. The one who’s driving the fork truck at breakneck speed in figure-eights around the fucking warehouse. With the car lurching and swaying on the fork blades. And Irina in the car.
I set the point of the blade at Oleg’s neck and put my foot on his chest.
“Okay, some of you might think this would be a good time to make your takeover bid.” I look around the heavy shoulders and knotted brows as the men close in, slowly but surely. “Because, obviously,” I tell them, “you keep coming this way, I’ll have to open Oleg’s jugular as a distraction.” I don’t look down at him. I can’t afford to take my eyes off the closing circle of men.
Bad Russian 05 Page 8
