by Greg Rucka
“You're right,” I said. “I can't make you a promise and guarantee that I'll keep it. You're smart enough to know that. You're smart enough to know that no one can. I don't know what will happen, Tiasa, not tomorrow or next week or next year. All I know is what I will try to do. I followed you all the way from Kobuleti to find you. You know I mean what I say.”
She closed her eyes, pained, nodded. Then, to my surprise, she threw her arms around my middle, pushing her face into my chest, the hug tight enough to hurt where the wound on my side was still struggling to heal. I didn't move for a moment, and then, very carefully, very lightly, I returned the hug.
When she let me go, she wiped her nose with her fingers, then turned to Cashel.
“Okay,” she said in her fractured English. “I go with you.”
CHAPTER
Thirty-six
I was in New York another two days, and saw Tiasa on each of them. Cashel had arranged for her to stay at a shelter for abused and battered girls in the North Bronx, one of three her order ministered to. It was the kind of place that didn't advertise itself and relied on anonymity and secrecy for security, rather than guards and alarms, which was a good thing. Guards and alarms were likely to bring back bad memories for Tiasa.
The first day, I went with her and Cashel to visit a doctor. Cashel had prepared her for the visit as best she could, but Tiasa was miserable all the same; she knew why the examination was necessary, but honestly understanding the need for it didn't diminish the fact that she was being asked to, quite literally, open her legs to another stranger, even if the reason for it this time was quite different. Cashel hadn't yet been able to arrange for a translator, and as a result, I had to remain nearby, which I'm sure didn't help things.
The initial results came back quickly, and were as good as could be expected. She wasn't pregnant, and had scored negative on a broad spectrum of tests for venereal diseases. Blood had been drawn for an AIDS test, as well, but it would be another day at least before we knew anything there. The doctor confirmed that Tiasa had been abused, physically and sexually, and while all the news was delivered with clinical precision and professional compassion, it was very hard for me to hear. Somehow, Cashel didn't seem to have the same problem, and I envied her practiced serenity.
The next day, in the afternoon, I took them to lunch at a Chinese restaurant Cashel suggested, near the shelter. Tiasa ate some rice, and a lone steamed dumpling, and that was all. She didn't offer much in conversation, so I did most of the talking, alternating between Georgian and English, trying to keep Cashel in the loop.
Cashel told me that they'd located someone to help with translation, a woman who would be coming by later in the afternoon. I shared that information with Tiasa, and she shrugged. The only emotion I was reading off her was anger, and that just barely.
Men weren't allowed inside the shelter, so after the meal I drove them both back to the house, and made my goodbyes in the car.
“I'm leaving tonight,” I told Tiasa. “To check on Yeva and Cashel's sister.”
Tiasa stared at me, and I saw that the anger I'd sensed was now, at least for the moment, being directed my way. She unfastened her seatbelt and got out of the Jetta.
“Fine,” Tiasa said, and then she slammed the door.
Cashel, in the backseat, leaned forward slightly. “It's going to take time.”
“She thinks I'm abandoning her.”
“I think she knows you're not. She hasn't even begun to talk about what happened to her. As I said, Atticus, it's going to take time.”
I sighed. It wasn't that I didn't believe her. In addition to her holy vows, Cashel had a degree in social work, and far more experience dealing with the survivors of abuse and addiction than I. It was one of the things that had drawn her to become a nun, a calling that had come about as a direct result of witnessing the damage caused by her sister's addiction to heroin back when Bridgett was a teen. I trusted that she knew what she was talking about.
“You have to tell me,” I said. “Is visiting going to do more harm than good?”
“I think it would be wise if you stayed away for a little while,” Cashel replied, carefully. “You have confusing associations for her, and it may complicate things.”
“Great.”
“Keep in touch. And tell Bridgett to call when she gets back in town.”
“I will,” I said. “Thank you, Sister.”
“You're a good man,” she told me, then got out of the car and followed Tiasa into the house.
I sold the car at a lot in Jersey City, got maybe a quarter of what I paid for it back, and used some of my new cash to take a cab out to Newark Airport, where Matthew Twigg was booked on a Lufthansa flight to Dublin via Frankfurt that evening. I'd made a point of divesting myself of anything incriminating earlier in the day, sending the weapons I'd collected into the Hudson River along with the keys and radios I'd taken from the New Paradise PD. After a moment's deliberation, I'd sunk Vladek Karataev's BlackBerry, too.
It had confusing associations for me.
Before the flight, I used an international calling card to reach Bridgett and Alena in Ballygar. I gave them my flight details, told them they could expect me the following evening. Both were happy to hear the news, I thought, each for her own, separate, reasons.
The flight was long and uncomfortable, and the connection through Germany only made it worse. I tried sleeping, couldn't much manage it, and after three hours the battery on my battered and much-abused laptop gave up, leaving me alone with the in-flight entertainment and my thoughts. Mostly, I was worried for Tiasa, if I was doing right by her.
It was just past five in Dublin when we touched down, and by the time I'd cleared customs it was a quarter to seven and already dark. When I emerged into the baggage claim, I was surprised to see both Alena and Bridgett waiting for me.
“She thought we should come to get you,” Bridgett said as I approached.
I made a beeline for Alena, feeling the smile come onto my face unbidden. She looked, to my eyes, great, better than when I'd finally caught up to her in Odessa. Maybe it was just the light, but I thought that the cliché about how pregnant women glow had to have some merit to it, because she certainly seemed to be doing so to me. She was also beginning to show, and my reaction to the sight of the slight bump at her belly took me by surprise, delighted me.
“Hello,” Alena said.
I didn't bother to drop my bags, just wrapped my arms around her and kissed her.
“Oh Christ,” Bridgett muttered. “Should I get you two a room?”
I ignored her, told Alena, “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” she said, and actually smiled at me, then followed it with another kiss, this one even sweeter than the first.
“Please, please, please stop doing that where I can see it,” Bridgett begged. “For the sake of my stomach if not my sanity.”
“One wonders what she would do if forced to watch us fuck,” Alena murmured.
“Gouge my eyes out, to start. The car's this way, come on,” Bridgett said, then turned and began threading her way out of the airport. I took Alena's hand, held it as we followed her to where their rental was parked, the same Ford Focus that Bridgett had been driving last time. We shoved my bags in the trunk, and Alena insisted on my taking the front passenger seat, I think mostly because she didn't want to be that close to Bridgett.
It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive back to Ballygar, and the first half was spent with me relating what had happened since I'd left Ireland. For once, I didn't feel the need to spare any details. When I told them about the drop site in the desert, the concrete building with its jerry can and galvanized bucket, each of them swore under their breath, muttering the same curse, but in different languages.
By the time I was finished, we'd reached the N61, the road all but empty, the night sky clear and full of stars. For a while, none of us said anything, and there was only the expanse of Ireland's fields and the sound of the ro
ad and the engine.
Then Bridgett asked, “So am I finished here?”
“You could head home tomorrow,” I said. “Cashel wants you to call when you get back into town, by the way.”
“Of course she does. Tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“You don't need me around for another day or two?”
“I'd welcome the company,” I said.
Bridgett lifted her chin, indicating Alena's reflection in the rearview mirror. “She wouldn't.”
I expected Alena to offer a retort, or at least a confirmation, and when none came turned my head to see that the reason she'd become so silent was because she'd fallen asleep. Either that or she was avoiding participating in the conversation by pretending to fall asleep. I brought my attention back to the road.
“Maybe not, but she appreciates what you've done for us. I do, too.”
“Good, you should.” She sounded satisfied. “You know where you're going next?”
I shook my head. “Haven't had much time to think about it.”
“You could come back to the States. It's a big country, I'm sure you two could find a nice quiet corner to hide in for happily ever after.”
“You think?”
“Like I said, it's a big country.”
“No, the ‘happily ever after’ part.”
Bridgett grunted. “Fuck if I know. You two and baby makes three.”
I thought about that, didn't speak. Thinking about the future, at least outside of the immediate future, wasn't something I'd devoted time to in years. When we'd lived in Kobuleti, the days had all seemed alike, and even as they passed, time felt like it was standing still. That was until Bakhar had died, until Tiasa had been taken, and in that, it seemed, our life there had been revealed for the purgatory it had been.
I was still thinking about it, lost in my thoughts, when the headlights burst into the car, shining much too close and much too bright. They appeared suddenly, no warning at all, and whoever was behind the wheel had been driving with them off, and as I realized that, I realized we were in trouble.
Bridgett knew it, too, managed to say “What the fuck?” and then followed it with an emphatic “Shit!” as the car behind us tried to clip our rear bumper. The Ford swerved, and she fought it back into line, accelerating. The road stretched straight and thin ahead of us as far as the headlights could see, no turnoffs, no buildings, just field on either side. From the backseat I heard Alena start awake. I twisted in the seat, got rocked a second time as the car following collided with us again.
“Stay down,” I told Alena. She was wearing her seatbelt, which reassured me somewhat.
“Who are they?” Alena demanded.
“No fucking idea,” I said. “Don't suppose either of you have a gun?”
“Talk to her,” Alena snarled.
“I told you, it's Ireland,” Bridgett snapped back, her eyes dancing between the view out the windshield and the view in the mirrors. “They don't like people having guns here!”
“Let's hope whoever's trying to drive us off the road had the same problem,” Alena said.
“I hate you,” Bridgett told her.
Behind us, the car was coming up for another try. As it swung out, I saw a new set of headlights revealed behind it, a second car, following close on the first.
“Now there are two of them,” I remarked.
“I can see that!”
“Don't you think you should lose them?”
“The fuck you think I'm trying to do?”
The Ford rocked again, and I heard something crack on either our car or theirs, and suddenly our wheels broke with the road and we were spinning and sliding. Headlights seemed to flash from impossible angles, Bridgett swearing a blue streak, and I heard the engine scream in agony as she tried to treat the automatic transmission like it was a manual. We flipped around, facing the opposite direction, still moving, now in reverse, and the motor was shrieking like it was about to burst.
“Try to PIT me, motherfucker?” Bridgett said, and wrenched the wheel again, stomping pedals and yanking on the shifter. The Ford flipped around in a J-turn, once more heading the right direction, and then there was a gunshot, and just as suddenly, instead of being on the road we were off of it. The suspension bounced us like kernels in hot oil, and I realized we'd lost a tire to a blowout. The car slewed crazily in soft earth, and both pairs of headlights were still coming after us.
Whoever it was, they had demonstrated their sincerity, even if they lacked skill. The PIT—precision immobilization technique—as Bridgett had called it, was used mostly by law enforcement to immobilize a target vehicle during a pursuit. When executed properly, the fleeing car would be nudged just enough out of line to force a spin that would bring it to a halt. When executed improperly, any number of things could happen, normally beginning and ending with the word “crash.”
Which was exactly what happened to us next.
CHAPTER
Thirty-seven
There was an air bag in my face when I came back, the dust from broken safety glass in my eyes and nose and mouth, and I didn't understand why. Then I did, and I started, felt pain in my right knee and lower back and head. The car was at an angle, its nose tilted down, and Bridgett groaned behind the wheel. I pushed at my door, got it open, but couldn't understand why I was having such trouble getting out. Then I remembered my seatbelt.
“Out,” I said, and then, louder, “Out, get out!”
The soil beneath my shoes was soft and wet, and I went for the rear door, but Alena had already kicked it open. The back tires were in the air, the whole car canted like a javelin thrust into the earth, and as I pulled her free, the headlights found us again, both sets of them. I turned, keeping a hand on Alena, and with the light from the approaching cars could make out the field ahead and around us, sheep bleating and scattering in fear. The Ford had gone front-first into a creek, a four-foot drop, maybe ten feet across.
“Run,” I told Alena, but I needn't have bothered; she'd read the terrain the same as I had, and was already moving.
I rushed around to the driver's door, met Bridgett as she toppled out of the car. Headlights made the blood on her face shine, where it was flowing from above her right eye and her nose. She was unsteady as I helped her to her feet, and she managed two steps, then went down to a knee. I pulled her up, got an arm beneath hers, and dragged her with me down into the water. It was cold and moving fast, and the first part, at least, seemed to revive her, so that by the time we'd crossed to pull ourselves up the opposite embankment, she was shrugging me off, saying she was fine.
I made it up before her, then turned back to see the two cars were still closing, but slowing. Bridgett pulled herself to her feet beside me, and together we ran after Alena, trying to make for the deeper darkness. Whoever was behind us, the creek would stop them as it had stopped us, force them to follow on foot.
We'd covered maybe twenty meters when they started shooting at us, two short bursts from automatic weapons. I didn't look back and I sure as hell didn't stop. Unless they were exceptionally talented marksmen, there was no way they were going to hit us at this range, certainly not with submachine guns, and if they were using assault rifles, we'd have been shot dead already.
We kept running, and the light behind us ran out, and out of the darkness ahead, I could see Alena, and she had veered off to the left, and after another second I saw why. An old barn resolved out of the night, ghostly pale stone and wood. By the time we'd reached it, Alena had already managed one of the two doors on the side, and I followed after Bridgett, again turning to spare a look at our pursuers. They'd left their headlights on, and now I could see there were only two of them, silhouettes making their way patiently toward us.
I pulled the door closed behind me, feeling along the wood in the deeper darkness until I found the locking bar. It resisted me, and I had to force it free before it would slide into place.
“Yeah, this is so much better,” Bridgett muttered fro
m somewhere to my left.
“There are two of them,” I said. “Submachine guns. We've got maybe a minute before they reach us.”
I heard motion off to my side, the sound of metal clattering on metal. Alena cursed. There was absolutely no light in the barn, nothing coming in from above. After another second, I heard metal on stone, knew that Alena had found the bolt on the other door and thrown it.
“Light,” I said. “Matches, lighter, anything.”
Bridgett laughed bitterly.
“Start feeling around,” Alena said. “There must be something here we can use. A tool, something.”
I put my hand out to the wall, feeling the stone cold beneath it, using it as a guide, fumbling like a blind man. My left foot hit something hard and I reached out with my free hand for it, was rewarded with the feel of cold metal, thinking of the old joke about the five blind men trying to describe an elephant. Behind me and to the side there was another clatter as either Alena or Bridgett knocked something over. I tried getting a grip on whatever it was I was feeling, found an opening at the top, managed to lift it up with one hand. It felt heavy and ungainly, and I couldn't imagine what it was. Maybe a milk can. Too awkward to use as a weapon. I let it go.
“Got something,” Bridgett whispered. “Tools, I think.”
“Keep talking,” I said, coming off the wall and trying to find her by sound alone.
“Wooden handle, two wooden, no, three, four wooden handles … rake, one's a rake, think I've got a shovel, too, feels like it… maybe an axe. Something else.”
My outstretched hand touched her body, and I felt her own hand take my arm, guide it to what she'd been feeling. It was, as described, a wooden handle, worn and smooth, and when I lifted it, the weight on the end was solid and familiar. With my other hand, I felt for the axe head, found it. The edge was dull. Not that it would matter if I got the chance to use it.
The handle on one of the doors rattled, checking it, then stopped. The darkness was disorienting, but I guessed it was the same one I'd locked.
