I smile up at him, “She’s my family now, but we don’t have any legends about us descending from artists.”
He pulls me closer. He says, “I’m your family now,” and I snuggle closer, with a warm feeling inside. I wonder whether to let myself believe it.
“How long is the flight? How long until we get there?”
“Russia covers eleven time zones, and we’ll cross ten of them. We should be there in about eight hours. Are you excited to see Moscow?”
“I don’t know. Eight hours? Now you say that, I’m feeling hungry. Is there food on the plane?”
“No better than airline food, I’m afraid. I wish I could give you champagne, blinis and caviar with soured cream. When this is all done, I’ll take you to the best Russian restaurants.”
A thought occurs to me, “What about Igor? Where is he?”
“Oh,” he says, stiffening, “I’m glad you reminded me. I have to feed him later, but soon I’ll have to turn him.”
“Is he in an oven?”
“No. He’s in a large packing case. Probably still unconscious. But he’s securely bound, so if I don’t move or turn him every hour or two, he could develop thromboses.”
“That’s thoughtful of you.”
He shrugs. His hard abs flex as I feel him beginning to stir. I I never imagined being with such a powerful man. I can’t believe that he’s really so interested in me. I think I was just there, in place, and he took me to amuse himself on the flight.
God, it’s worth it, though. If he’s only using me, I want him to use me more and more until he’s used me up.
I can’t let myself think about the things he said, the way that he told me he feels. I feel those things, too. But I can’t let myself be fooled into believing in any of it. This is a wonderful, scary adventure, like a fantasy. Like a dream. But I know that I’ll wake up, either back where I started or somewhere way worse. Or dead. It will still be worth it, though. Damn. He may be bad, but he is fantastic.
He strokes my hair and I’m his. I feel owned and completely possessed. And I love it.
He kisses the top of my head. “Your hair smells wonderful.”
“You said you were going to turn Igor? What do you mean?”
He pulls me closer. Puts his lips close to my hair. I love the warm scent of him. And his strength. I nuzzle back into his embrace. I’m not really listening to what he tells me, just to the low rumble of his voice. “Transporting high-risk captives over long distances, it’s a regular problem. And, now that I’ve got him this far, it would be a shame to lose the bonus just because he died due to improper storage.”
I brush my cheek against his arm. “Don’t make me watch him die, okay? Don’t kill him in front of me.”
“I gave my word to you,” he brushes his lips through my hair again, “I won’t kill him at all. Not unless I absolutely have to.” Hugging me tighter, he says, “Don’t get attached to him, though.”
“The person you’re going to deliver him to — will he kill him?”
“Probably. He should have been more careful who he pissed off.”
“Is he a criminal, too, your boss?”
He holds my face in his hands and looks into my eyes. “When criminals run the government, everyone’s a criminal. Innocent men get jailed, the guilty go free. You can be charged with a crime and punished, and it makes no difference whether you’re guilty or not. Jail is just another form of revenge.” He strokes my face. “My client, Stanislav? He’s one of the worst.”
I lay my head on his chest. I don’t want to think about any of that. The truth is, I don’t really care. Not while I have Anatoly’s arms to lie in.
Anatoly is at the small galley heating food in microwaves for us. I ask him, “Will you feed Igor?”
“Yes. Will it upset you if I bring him out to eat? He’ll be in better condition of he can move around and stretch his legs. If it will bother you, I can feed and exercise him in the hold.”
“When you talk about him, like a dog like that, it makes me feel sorry for him.”
“Don’t.” He brings me a tray with little containers. There’s a bread roll, salad, hot fish pie, and some kind of a gooey looking cake on the tray.
Anatoly tells me, “Before he was a money launderer Igor was a snitch. A paid sneak. Before that he was a pimp. A very brutal pimp, going by his reputation. He doesn’t deserve any of your sympathy.” Then he asks what I’d like to drink. “There’s white wine, it will be disgusting. Red wine, disgusting. The beer will be miserable, sour fizzy water. Coffee…”
I cut him off. “Disgusting. I know. Tea?”
“Dishwater.”
I’m starting to wonder just how high this man’s standards are. I tell him, “Some water will be fine.”
As he pulls water bottles from a refrigerated compartment, he tells me, “Igor was a bagman for a big Moscow crime lord. Igor sold his boss out to the finance police, knowing that he’d go to jail and never come out.”
“The crime boss sounds like a bad man, though.”
“They’re all bad. My client is one of the worst. Putin has surrounded himself with crooks and thugs. They do his bidding, protect him, act as enforcers. Any time one is disloyal, they get a long jail sentence or a long drop out of a high window. Or a dose of some vicious poison.”
“But you work for them. The bad people.”
He shrugs. “I work for the people who hire me.”
Chapter 11
Him
IN THE TEMPERATURE-CONTROLLED part of the hold, I unlock the crate. I know that Igor is going to have regained consciousness by now. He will have awakened in darkness, bound at the ankles and with his hands tied behind his back. First, he will have kicked and lashed. Rolled to kick backward and forward at the sides of the case, then rolled onto his back to kick at the lid. Thrashed in the confined space like a panicking fish.
When that did him no good, then he will have turned to rest on his back. Rested up. Gathered his thoughts and recollections. Then spent his time making plans. It’s what I would do. Wait and be ready. And I think I know his training.
He blinks when I open the lid of the case. Just once. He shows impressive discipline, not blinking or squinting. He waits for his eyes to adjust from the darkness. So he does have Special Forces training, or something very like it. It’s a painful technique, but for a captive, it’s a way to focus your energy.
He doesn’t struggle. His face remains calm under the gag, and his eyes are steady.
I haul him up and over my shoulder.
I ignore the hollow feeling in the pit of my gut, carrying him into the cabin. Emma’s face softens as I drop Igor onto the seat in the back row. I’m worried about her, but I don’t want to speak to her right now. Not until I have the prisoner established and secured.
I zip a cable-tie around his left ankle, binding him to the leg of the seat. Then I cut the tie holding his ankles together and zip-tie his right ankle to the seat’s other leg.
I bend him forward, pulling his face between his knees to cut the tie around his wrists, then quickly jab my fingers into his throat, under the corner of his jaw.
“Hold still,” I warn him, “wait while I fasten your wrist to the arm of the seat.”
Bent over double, and while I have my fingers jabbed where he knows I can kill him in one move, he’s obedient while I strap his left wrist tight to the seat.
After I remove the gag, I lift his head.
“I’ve brought you out to eat.”
He looks hard into my eye. “Where are we going, Pushkin?”
I’m impressed that he recognizes me straight away. I don’t answer him, though. I know what he’s doing. He asks again, “Where are you taking me?”
I go to the galley to heat the food.
He calls to Emma in his rasping English, “Were you in on this from the start?”
“Shut up,” I tell him.
While I’m starting the microwave and I’m wondering if he’ll make me prove that I mean i
t, he says, “I don’t think so. You don’t seem the type.”
It’s what I would do. Make the maximum irritation and annoyance. That way the captive takes the initiative, keeps his morale high while he wears on the nerves of the captor. Straight from the Russian navy special forces manual.
I return to his chair. I pull the small Taser from my pocket and jab the prongs into his neck as I press the button. He shouts out, jolts and jerks, and his face contorts as his free arm waves, wildly. I give him three seconds of that agony before I return to the galley.
I call back to him, “Chicken or fish?”
He groans as he shouts back, “Chicken.”
Putting the piping hot container from the microwave into the tray, I chuckle and tell him, “Wrong. Guess again?”
Before I take the try to him, I unwrap the plastic cutlery, and take out only the spoon.
I drop the tray onto his lap. But I keep the spoon.
“Apologize to the lady nicely. I’ll decide if it’s nice enough for you to have privileges.”
Special forces teach how to treat captives as well as how to act if you become one.
He snarls, jabbing his left elbow at the chair arm. “There’s a pull-out table in the arm.”
He glares into my face as I tell him, “You didn’t behave well enough to get the tray-table.”
His thigh shifts. I can tell the hot food burns his leg some. He’ll live.
With impressive courtesy, he tells Emma, “I’m sorry, Ms. Fielding. I was wrong to try and engage you in my predicament. Please accept my apology.”
I give him the plastic spoon.
I watch as he struggles to get the hot food container open with one hand. He moves it nearer to his strapped left hand. I can see that the task is difficult and a little painful.
I return to the galley to take a bottled beer. It’s as disgusting as I knew it would be. That won’t stop him drooling over having to watch me drink it. Especially as I smack my lips and sigh. Emma doesn’t approve.
Over the Tannoy, the pilot announces in Russian, “Dear esteemed passengers. Since you de-activated the camera in the passenger cabin, the crew will remain in the flight deck for the duration of the flight. We don’t have meals or a galley here so, would one of you be kind enough to heat two meals from separate crates, and bring them forward to the cockpit, please.”
I pull the cockpit door open and put my head around. “Any preferences for which meals?”
The captain says, “Surprise us,” over his shoulder. I give him a nod as I recognize the tattoo on his wrist from the Black Ops naval division. He sees me noticing it. We exchange a look. We know that, on some level at least, we are comrades. That’s good news.
The copilot tells me, “The meals are all equally awful.” I think he was feeling left out. Maybe the captain will put him in the picture. It doesn’t matter to me either way. I’m glad to know I have a potential ally, though.
While the crew’s meals heat up, I think about a call that I need to put in, and I decide that the flight deck would be a good place to make it. Now, since I’ll be there for ten minutes or so, I wish I’d just disabled the cabin surveillance, rather than destroying it.
The thought of leaving her in the cabin with Igor makes me angry enough to consider killing him, just to prevent it. I have enough discipline not to do that.
Only just enough, though.
Chapter 12
Her
ANATOLY TAKES THE MEAL trays to the crew. I try not to think about Igor. He eats noisily. I’m sure he’s only doing it to make me look back at him, though.
He says, “Psst,” but I don’t pay any attention.
Then, in a hoarse voice, half whispering, he says, “Come back here.” Then, urgently, “Emma.”
I don’t turn. I’m surprised how hard it is for me to ignore him, though.
“Emma!” he hisses, “Do you have any idea how much money I’ve got access to?”
Still, I don’t turn. “The Quayside development? I’m buying all of that in cash. A single payment.”
He bangs on the arm of his chair until I look around. “I’ll give you five million dollars US, okay? Cut these cable ties. Ten if you help me when he comes back. What do you say?”
As calmly and cooly as I can, I tell him, “I’d say you’re resourceful. It’s smart of you to try...”
Before I can turn my head back to face the front, he says, hurriedly, “Okay. Double it. Ten.” His mouth tightens. “Ten to cut the ties. Twenty if you help.”
“But how would I know that I could trust you, Igor?” I keep my voice light. I can play this game too, if he wants. “Be realistic. I learned that much from the property business. What a deal is worth is the value of the guarantee. Your word? I can’t even put it in my pocket.”
“Please,” he says, “Please. If he doesn’t kill me, then I know he’ll give me to a man who will. Trust me, please? I’m begging you. Okay, you know what, you’re right. I can’t prove it to you. My word is all I can give you. So. Double it again. Twenty. Twenty million dollars. I’ll give it to you in clean, untraceable cash, less than an hour after we land in Moscow. Twenty million dollars if you just cut these plastic ties. And another twenty if you help me.”
I ignore him.
“He’s not such a good man, your Anatoly. You need to be careful. He’s a regular Bluebeard. Nobody can keep count of the number of innocent girls who ‘disappeared’ after they went to meet him.”
“I don’t believe you.” My voice shakes in a way that makes me angry.
I don’t reply to him. I turn back to face the front. It’s hard to ignore someone when they’re pleading. He says, “Please, Emma. Help me. He’s a total sadist. He’ll torture my little children. Maim and kill them in front of me.”
He keeps it up for the whole time while Anatoly’s away.
I’m glad to see that I have WiFi on the plane. At least there’s something to amuse myself with, while Igor keeps up his assault on my ears and my sympathies.
I get an off email to Tania and find an online detective puzzle to try and keep my mind occupied. Keep myself from thinking about his lies. They must all be lies. Mustn’t they?
The cabin door swings open.
Anatoly steps back in. Immediately Igor calls out to him, “I’d have thought you’d be more careful, Anatoly.” Anatoly strides straight past me to the back. Igor keeps on, “You of all people. This bitch offered to suck my c…” I hear the crackle of the Taser again, and Igor’s howls. This time for much longer.
Igor is finally quiet. I don’t look around. I hate the thought of him suffering. But knowing that Anatoly is doing that for me gives me a feeling inside that’s hotter than I can describe. Almost hotter than I can bear.
Anatoly crouches, beside my seat, looking up into my eyes. Gently, softly, he says, “Are you okay?”
I reach out and touch his hand. I feel more secure, stronger just for touching him. “Of course,” I squeeze his hand. It feels so good to have him care about me, so much. “I’m fine.”
Anatoly : Ruthless (Bad Russian Book 11) Page 6
