The Sirani Connection

by Estelle Ryan

  “Another device was delivered, but went off too early. There was no one in the women’s clinic except the cleaning lady.” Manny rubbed his hands hard over his face. “Two paramedics also died.”

  “When did this happen?” Colin asked.

  “A few hours ago. The bloody bastard has been at it before we found Gabriella on that bridge.”

  I stared at the electronic numbers showing the slow ascend to our floor. How many more people was Shahab going to kill before we found him? Before we stopped him? Darkness pushed into my peripheral vision as I thought of the possible danger Phillip, Francine and Roxy were in. Manny had phoned Francine while we’d rushed here. She also hadn’t answered.

  I was terrified.

  Manny turned to me. “Doc, I need you and Frey to stay back. We can’t protect you if you’re all over the place.”

  “I’m never all over the place.” I swallowed the rest of my argument when the elevator stopped and the doors pinged. As if in slow motion, the doors slid open to reveal an empty hallway.

  Manny pressed a button on the elevator and the lights inside dimmed. The porter who had brought our luggage up had explained that it locked the elevator in place to allow guests to load or unload the elevator with suitcases or shopping.

  Manny and Vinnie both had their weapons in their hands as they entered the hallway. Colin took a step closer to me and placed himself partly in front of me. All I could do was push more Mozart into my mind to prevent a shutdown from taking me.

  “Genevieve!” Shahab’s deep voice reached into the elevator and the tightness around my chest increased. “I know you are here. I heard the elevator. The door is open. Come on in.”

  “She’s not here.” Manny took a careful step away from the elevator, out of my line of sight.

  “Then this one will die first.”

  Francine’s scream lasted three seconds. The intense agony was unmistakable in that sound and darkness rushed into my vision. “Stay away, Genevieve!” She screamed again and I could hear Roxy sobbing in the background.

  “If anyone other than Genevieve walks in here, they will both die. Slowly.” Shahab sounded out of breath. “Are you coming, Genevieve?”

  I didn’t know what to do. Would my mind be able to handle the incredible stress awaiting me in there or would my mind shut down and cause the deaths of two women and a man who’d come to mean everything to me? I felt paralysed when I considered the options. My brain didn’t want to function.

  I shook my head in an irrational attempt to clear it. And came to a decision. Instead of micro-analysing the situation like I did in almost every aspect of my life, I acted.

  I stepped around Colin and walked into the hallway.

  “Doc, get back!” Manny’s hiss accompanied his furious expression.

  I shook my head. I might not have the tools to be a good friend, but I did have tools. Fear was scratching at my brain and my voice was hoarse, but I was determined. “I can keep Shahab calm and contained until Ivan’s team is in place. Until they end this.”

  “Bloody hell, Doc.” Manny rubbed his one hand hard over his face.

  The conflict on Vinnie’s face was most distressing. When he looked towards the open door leading to our hotel area, I could clearly see his desperate concern for Roxy. But when he looked at me, I saw the same for me.

  I took a step closer to them and pulled my shoulders back like Bree had done so many times in the last few days. “I can do this. I hate it, but I know how to manipulate. I know how to get into Shahab’s head. Just make sure Ivan, Daniel and the team make haste.”

  “Jenny.” Colin put his hand on my forearm. He didn’t have to speak. I could see all his emotions on his face. His love, his dread at letting me do this and his respect.

  “I know.” I turned away from him before his emotions became too overwhelming for me. I shook out my hands and held them loosely at my side to be as non-threatening as possible and walked to the door. “I’m coming in, Shahab.”

  “At last.” He was standing in the centre of the sofas, his feet apart, a handgun in one hand and a spray can in the other. He waved the weapon at me as I stepped deeper into the room. “That’s far enough. Stand right there.”

  I stopped half a metre before I reached the sofa where Roxy and Francine were sitting. One glance at them and the darkness I was fighting returned. Francine was curled into herself, cradling her hand. Roxy had pulled Francine against her and was glaring at Shahab through her tears. Her curly hair was a complete mess and her mascara left black streaks under her eyes and down her cheeks.

  I looked back at Shahab. “Let them go.”

  “No.” His smile was without any emotion. “I’m enjoying this.”

  “What is ‘this’?” Not only did I need to stall for time, I was actually interested in his answer.

  “Their suffering.” His smile turned into a sneer. “That makes me a psychopath. But you already know this. You’ve studied me for the last year. And you’ve ruined my life for the last year.”

  “I did no such thing.” I shrugged, knowing how to make my indifference believable. “You’re the criminal. You’re the one who ruined your own life.” I sighed as if I was bored. “Why am I here? What do you need from me?”

  He blinked in surprise, but quickly recovered. “Where is Sahar?”

  “Sahar is dead.”

  “Don’t lie to me!” He put the can in his trouser pocket and reached out for Francine. She flinched back, but he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to stand next to him. The whimper that came from her tested the hold I had over the looming shutdown.

  It took every bit of focus I had not to look at Francine, not to make sure she was okay. I turned up the volume of Mozart’s Violin Sonata playing in my mind. I shrugged again. “I’m not lying. Sahar Hatami is dead. You know that. You received the death certificate.”

  This time he stepped towards me, his posture threatening. “Don’t play games with me.”

  “I’m only telling you the truth.”

  “And that is why I want you here.” He glanced up to the left, recalling a memory. “You impressed me with your honesty when we worked together in Strasbourg. It’s hard to think if there’s ever been anyone else who has been this honest with me.”

  “You’ve been deceitful for a long time. I can’t imagine too many of your acquaintances are known for their honesty.” This was exhausting. I had indeed lied to him when I’d said I wasn’t playing games. I was using my skills in a manner I loathed. But this was important.

  I needed to do this if I wanted to keep Francine and Roxy safe. Alive.

  “Tell me where the woman I married is.” He pulled Francine’s hair until her head was completely tilted back. Tears flowed out of the corners of her eyes into her hair. “Or this one’s neck will be snapped.”

  I looked towards Roxy’s room. The door was open and the room empty as far as I could see. There was no sign of Natálie or Klára. Or Phillip. “I don’t know where she is. When I left here, she was sitting on that sofa.” I pointed to the sofa behind him. “I don’t see her here and I don’t know where she is.”

  “They do.” He shook Francine’s head. More tears flowed from her eyes.

  I looked away. “That is possible.”

  “Ask them.”

  I’d learned a lot watching Manny and Daniel in situations such as this. I tilted my head in an obvious thinking pose. “Only if you’ll first answer a question for me.”

  Shahab studied me for two seconds. “Okay, I’ll play your game.”

  “Are you ill?” I pointed at his sweaty face. Bree had been right. He looked physically ill. I remembered his healthy skin and clear eyes from our first meeting in Strasbourg. Now his eyes were bloodshot and his skin had a gray sheen to it. The way he braced his legs made me think he wasn’t feeling stable on his feet.

  He snorted. “Yes, I am. Jan killed me.”

  “You’re still alive.”

  “But as good as dead. I had myself tested and
the doctor said I have maybe one more week to live.” He held out his hand holding the weapon. “See how I’m shaking? And sweating? Jan poisoned me.”

  “How is that possible?” I now understood the passage in the last pages of Doctor Novotný’s book. “You controlled his days, his movement, his everything.”

  “Not as well as I thought.” He trained the weapon on Roxy. “She told me the other doctor was wrong. I don’t even have three days.”

  I glanced at Roxy and she nodded. Her chin wobbled with suppressed emotion. “I’m surprised he’s still standing.”

  “And while I’m still standing, I want to see my wife.”

  I looked at Roxy, but changed my mind and made myself look at Francine. Her left hand was pressed against her side, her thumb and middle finger in unnatural positions. Shahab had broken her fingers. I forced my eyes away and looked at her face. Her head was still uncomfortably tilted, but she was looking at me. Anger was predominant on her face. Overwhelming relief flooded me, but I only raised one eyebrow as I continued studying her. “Do you know where she is?”

  Her lips twitched. I knew she understood I was trying to stall for time. She whimpered. “Yes.”

  “Where is she?” Shahab shouted into Francine’s ear. She turned her head and spat in his face. He threw her on the floor and kicked out at her, but she was too fast. She rolled away from him, bumping her hand in the process. The agony on her face made me gasp.

  Roxy got down on the floor and helped Francine back on the sofa.

  “Get her to tell me!” Shahab aimed his weapon at the two women, his trembling hand worrying me. “Or they’ll both die like that scum-of-the-earth journalist.” He frowned and looked at me, a smile replacing his frown. “Did she die with all those infidel tourists?”

  “No.” I took a step to the right to force him away from looking at Francine and Roxy. “She’s still alive.”

  “Impossible!” He shook his weapon at me. “What did you do?”

  “What you wanted. Your plan was to get us away from here so you could find Sahar.” I didn’t want to bring his focus back to Roxy and Francine by mentioning the part of his plan to get us away from the hotel so he could hurt them. “You didn’t succeed completely. We left, but we also managed to disable the opioid weapon on Charles Bridge and in the Free Women’s Council.”

  He took a step back. “How did you know?”

  “Really?” I used the word, tone and facial expression Nikki so often used to communicate her disbelief. “You are smart enough to know that I’ve built a complete profile on you and can predict your every move.”

  “Then you’re not as smart as you think you are.” For a moment, his tongue pushed between his lips—a sign of triumph. “You think I only created three weapons? Jan made many more for me. Everyone who played a role in taking Sahar away from me will suffer.”

  I rolled my eyes like Nikki did. “We also got your device before it was delivered to the women’s clinic.” My mind raced to use everything I’d learned against Shahab. “And we’ve already cleared the US embassy as well as the police headquarters and the offices of the Movement for Women’s Equal Rights.” His micro-expressions confirmed each guess I took. I only hoped Ivan was listening and sending his people to evacuate these buildings immediately. And that Bree was still able to remain standing. “Tell me this, if Doctor Novotný made the perfect weapon for you so you could exact your revenge, why did you torture him?”

  “He betrayed me!” Shahab swayed on his feet, but took a step to the side and braced himself, his focus now completely on me. “He started feeding me this poison and then he stole all my data and stored it somewhere.”

  “We know.” I made sure my smile was smug. “We have all that information.”

  “You think you know everything. You don’t!” He reached for the can in his pocket, but stopped when I took a step closer.

  My heart was racing, my breathing hard to control. I knew Manny, Vinnie and Colin would do everything in their power to ensure Daniel, Ivan and the team could come in here to neutralise Shahab. But I didn’t know if I would be able to maintain this for much longer.

  Shahab was sweating more, his blinking had increased and his eyes were constantly shifting around the room. He was escalating. I had to keep him engaged. “You are right. I don’t know everything. I know why you tortured and killed all your other victims. But Antonin Korn? The fentanyl you put on his briefcase would’ve killed him quickly and painlessly. Why?”

  “He was a friend.” Confusion flittered across his face. “He didn’t betray me. Not like everyone else. He was a friend. He helped me a lot over the years when others turned their backs on me. He wasn’t like Sahar.” He jerked his gaze from left to right. “Where is she? I need to speak to her. Where is Sahar?”

  His hand was shaking out of control now, the weapon rattling in his hand. He pointed the gun at me and I froze. Even with the shaking, it would be easy to injure me fatally at this distance. “Where is Sahar?”

  Everything happened at once. A familiar-looking device rolled into the room. I didn’t have time to warn Roxy and Francine. I slapped my hands over my ears, closed my eyes and dropped to the floor.

  A terrifying bang sounded in the room, the blinding light penetrating my eyelids. A gunshot went off, followed by three more shots. Roxy screamed.

  I couldn’t move.

  But the need to see if my friends were unharmed was immense. Strong enough to fight the looming shutdown. I couldn’t get my hands to move, but managed to open my eyes.

  Roxy was in Vinnie’s arms, weeping against his chest. Francine was standing next to Manny, looking down at Shahab.

  He was lying in front of me, his eyes wide open in death. Blood flowed freely from a perfectly round hole in the centre of his forehead. I scrambled back and hugged my knees to my chest.

  Manny put his arm around Francine’s shoulders and she sagged against him.

  “Jenny.” Colin kneeled in front of me, in my personal space, his body less than ten centimetres from mine. He put his hands lightly over mine—still against my ears. “Look at me. Focus on me.”

  I couldn’t. Even though I was looking at him, I was still seeing the fear on Francine’s face, the terror on Roxy’s. If I’d been able to speak, I would’ve asked Colin to take me away from this carnage. I would’ve told him to first make sure Francine got the best medical care for her fingers, that Roxy had her favourite sneakers and that Bree was transported to the closest hospital.

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I could only stare at Colin as he moved even closer. The moment his arms closed around me and he gently pushed my head into his shoulder, I surrendered myself to the shutdown.

  Chapter TWENTY-THREE

  “I’M HERE! I’M HERE!” Roxy ran into my apartment, her curls bouncing around her head. She rushed to the kitchen holding a plastic bag out in front of her. “I’ve got your parmesan cheese.”

  Vinnie turned away from the stove where he was preparing dinner for us and took the bag. He opened it and staggered back. The look of horror on his face was genuine when he looked at Roxy. “This is cheap Grana Padano. Not the Parmigiano-Reggiano I asked you to buy. Oh, Roxy.”

  She burst out in giggles. “Oh, the look on your face. Oh, honey.” She reached into her handbag and brought out a brown paper bag. “Here’s your fancy cheese. Oh, man. You’d think I gave you a bag full of coal.”

  “It would be better than that plastic cheese you threatened me with.” Vinnie threw the first bag on the counter. “If you truly love me, you’ll never do that again.”

  I settled deeper into one of the two sofas in my sitting area and sipped my camomile tea. Colin was next to me, reading an article on his tablet about a new art exhibition. We were expecting Phillip, Nikki, Eric, Pink and Daniel to join us soon. The bantering in the kitchen settled my tumultuous emotions.

  It had been a difficult four days since we’d returned from Prague. As soon as Ivan’s team had killed Shahab, Phillip and the
two women had returned from where he had hidden them on the small balcony off his hotel room. Shahab had been through all our hotel rooms including Phillip’s, but had not seen the door leading to the balcony off Phillip’s room. It had been Klára’s clear thinking to partly close the curtain that had kept them hidden.

  The memory of the fear I had experienced was still with me and I’d been fighting shutdowns every day since. The one that had followed the confrontation with Shahab had been one of my longer shutdowns. Colin had managed to take me to our room and had waited with me. In that time, Ivan’s crime scene investigators had processed our hotel area and had mostly cleaned up. The moment my mind had allowed me to return, I’d insisted we return to Strasbourg.

  Roxy was still giggling as she walked from the kitchen past Francine and held out her left fist. “Got him good, didn’t I?”

  Francine bumped Roxy’s fist with her uninjured hand. “I couldn’t have done that better myself. But I am wearing better shoes than you.”

  “Pah!” Roxy sat down next to Francine at the dining room table and lifted her foot. Today she was wearing canvas sneakers printed with abstract colours. “My shoes are gorgeous.”

  “It’s all your fault, Franny.” Vinnie shook a wooden spoon at Francine. “You’re pulling my pure, innocent Rox to your dark side.”

  Francine slowly lifted her injured hand and turned it around. Her hand was wrapped in bandages, her middle finger and thumb in splints to immobilise them. The way she was holding her hand to Vinnie was giving him a rude gesture. “Welcome to my dark side, Vin.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “I can’t be angry with you when you’re banged up like that.”

  “Someone make them stop.” Manny slouched on the other sofa and put a news magazine down next to him. “Or make her stop.” He turned to glare at Francine. “Do you know how many times I’ve been given the finger in the last two days? At least once an hour. Once every bloody hour.”

  Francine’s smile became even more mischievous as she once again lifted her hand and turned it, this time towards Manny. “I don’t think I’ve done it in the last hour.”