Rope on Fire (John Crane Series Book 1)

by Mark Parragh

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  Crane had the cab drop him off several blocks from Natalya’s apartment and walked the rest of the way. He doubted anyone had had time to follow the cab, but he wasn’t positive. He also didn’t understand the chatter between the driver and his dispatcher. Cab outfits seemed to have a connection to the seedier side of life everywhere Crane had been. It wasn’t beyond question that a call had gone out to the drivers asking after him and his drop-off location had been sent back to whoever was after him.

  So Crane walked a twisted, complicated route through darkened side streets, looking for signs of a tail. The night was growing colder. Some of the old alleys were still paved with cobblestones in this part of town, and the streetlights gleamed off the stone. He took another turn and checked over his shoulder. He saw no one, heard no footsteps on the cobblestones besides his own. Finally he decided they hadn’t followed him.

  A coffee shop was still open across the street from Natalya’s building. Its bright lights cast shadows out across the pavement. A lone patron was visible at a table by the window. Crane passed by and turned quickly into the entryway of her building. He pressed the button for her apartment, and the door buzzed and let him in.

  He took the stairs to the top floor and knocked at her door. There was no answer. Several seconds went by. Crane knocked again and this time heard something fall over inside. He had a terrible thought. They hadn’t found him; they’d found her.

  Crane turned the knob, and the door opened. He eased inside, listening, but heard nothing. As he passed out of the tiny entry foyer and into the sparse living room, he caught movement in his peripheral vision and instinctively let himself drop.

  A figure in a dark overcoat moved out from behind a battered display cabinet, holding a pistol with both outstretched hands.

  The gun went off with a roar in the enclosed space, and the bullet drilled through the air over Crane’s head. He hit the floor and dove for the man’s legs as the shooter tried to readjust. Crane hit him hard in the shins and knocked his legs out from under him. He fell hard and fast, instinctively throwing out his arms to catch himself and fumbling the gun. Crane grabbed for it but only succeeded in knocking it across the floor toward the kitchen door. As his eyes followed it, he registered a thick spray of blood across the kitchen wall.

  Then Crane was fighting with no thought for anything beyond staying alive. He kicked hard, connected somewhere. His enemy grunted in pain but then drove an elbow hard into Crane’s ribcage. Crane tried to grab him, but he slid away and threw himself across the floor toward the gun. Crane grabbed his ankle as he rose to all fours, and pulled him down again.

  The killer gave up on the gun. Instead, he rolled away to one side and drew a switchblade. It opened with a solid click, and the man scrambled away and got to his feet as Crane got up, breathing hard.

  His opponent didn’t rest. He moved forward, making a wide swing to drive Crane back against the wall. Then he followed with a thrust. Crane moved to the side, let his training come to the fore. Sidestep, strike the forearm. Try to trap it. But Crane wasn’t in the right position for that.

  Fall back and reposition. Crane felt the cabinet against his shoulder and leaped to his left as another thrust came in and smashed the cabinet’s glass doors. It spilled a dozen little porcelain figures Natalya must have collected. Crane moved in and felt them being crushed beneath his shoes as he made simultaneous strikes at the man’s throat and knife arm. This time he hit the arm on the nerve he’d been aiming for. The arm went briefly numb; Crane could see it in the way the grip on the knife softened. He slapped the knife out of the man’s hand, and it fell among the shattered figurines.

  The man tried to respond with a punch, but it had no energy. Crane twisted and let the blow glance off the side of his abdomen. Then he smashed the heel of his palm into the man’s chest and knocked him back toward the window. The killer staggered back, trying to catch his breath and regain his balance.

  Crane calmly took four steps toward him, his eyes cold with rage, and backhanded him hard across the mouth. He caught the man’s attempted off-hand punch and used it to pull him down into his upthrust knee. The man gasped and went limp for a moment. Crane pushed him to the floor beside the window and fell onto his back with both knees. He grabbed for the blind and found the cord. The blind flew up with a metallic protest as he pulled the cord hard and looped it around the man’s neck.

  Then he pulled it tightly and held it. Crane could feel the man’s struggles, but his eyes were locked on the kitchen door and the arcs of blood on the cabinets and walls.

  When he knew the man was gone, he pushed off him and ran to the kitchen, knowing what he would find.

  Natalya lay on the floor near the stove where he’d cooked for her. The man had fastened her arms to the back of one of her aged aluminum chairs with duct tape. Then he’d gone to work on her with the knife. It was bad. It was very bad. Crane knew she was dead, but he checked her pulse anyway and listened for breath. More than anything, he wanted to look away, but he forced himself not to.

  He didn’t have the right to look away.

  Finally he let out a long breath. He went back to the living room and took off his jacket. He was checking the man’s pockets when he noticed he was wearing an earpiece. He took it out and listened. Someone was calling out in frantic Czech. Crane dropped the earpiece, edged over to the window, and looked out. The coffee shop window was empty now.

  Crane locked the door and then finished going through the man’s pockets. Besides his wallet, Crane found a few pairs of latex gloves, a phone paired to the earpiece, some keys, and another clip for the pistol.

  He put on the gloves and used the switchblade to carefully cut Natalya’s body free of the chair. He laid her out on the floor and wiped down the stove and areas he’d touched while he was here before. His movements were rote, mechanical. Guilt was there, but he ignored it the same way someone might ignore pain during the first rush of adrenaline. It could crash down on him later. When he was finished here.

  Finally, Crane put himself back together, checked the load in the pistol, and stuck it into his belt. He listened at the door and then opened it onto an empty hallway. He took the stairs slowly, a flight at a time, and then stopped after each one to listen and sense the vibrations of the place.

  The spotter was still out there. The one who’d sat with his coffee in the shop window and watched the street while his partner was upstairs torturing an innocent girl to death. The one who’d warned him when Crane arrived so he could buzz Crane into the building and then wait to murder him.

  Crane made it to the front lobby without interference. He kept one hand on the butt of the pistol as he opened the door and let himself out. The street was empty. Through the window of the coffee shop, he saw only a bored barista reading a magazine behind the counter.

  Crane turned left and walked down the street. What a sight he must be, he thought randomly, in his very expensive suit and shoes, with latex gloves and a stolen pistol. Then the thought vanished in the whirl of heightened sensory impressions. Crane felt the cold night air on his cheeks, heard the cries of a cat in the distance. He instinctively evaluated every reflected flash of the streetlights off glass or metal. He could feel each beat of his heart. Crane sensed something primal inside himself, something ruthless and pure.

  When the spotter came, Crane was more than ready for him. He was a shape hurtling out of the darkness of a narrow alley, a blade catching the light with its particular shade of gleaming reflection. Crane caught the knife arm by the wrist and pivoted. He redirected the man’s surging energy into an arc around himself and hurled him into the corner of the building on the other side of the alley. The spotter hit the stonework hard, lost the knife, and staggered back with a face full of blood. He stumbled a few steps down the alley, bleating like a sheep.

  Crane followed and kicked him hard in the crotch. The spotter fell at Crane’s feet, and Crane calmly drew his partner’s gun and shot him twice in the hea
d.

  He dropped the gun beside the body and continued down the alley. At the other end, he turned onto a street of darkened shops and walked away.

  Chapter 35

  Crane stalked the streets, barely aware of where he was going, distracted by equal measures of rage and guilt. Eventually the night’s chill got to him. He looked around and realized he was only a few blocks from the garage where he had left the Audi.

  He headed that direction and jammed his hands into his jacket pockets to keep them warm. He felt something in one pocket and took out a folded piece of notepaper. He stopped under a streetlight to read the words scrawled in blue ballpoint pen. “We need to talk.” A phone number. “Novak.”

  He remembered Novak’s warning at the party. Apparently Novak had managed to slip this into his pocket at the same time without him noticing it. That was surprising by itself. But Novak had known about the threat from “Ivan.” The notes suggested he had more to say. It could be a trap. But maybe there was more to Klement Novak than Crane had thought.

  He took out his phone and punched in the number. It was obscenely late. By all rights, Novak should be fast asleep. Crane didn’t care. He could damn well wake up.

  Novak answered almost immediately.

  “What do I call you?” were Novak’s first words.

  “Crane will do.”

  “And I guess you won’t be buying my company. But then, it was never really my company, anyway, was it?”

  “Do you have something to tell me or not?”

  “You asked about an Emil Zajic,” said Novak. “You were right. He worked for Deštnik, but I’d never heard of him. It turns out there’s a lot going on at Deštnik that I didn’t know about.”

  Crane was hurrying toward the garage. He let Novak have his weighty silence.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Novak said at last, “why you’re involved. But we need to meet. I have what you need.”

  Crane stopped short. “What do you have?”

  “The files, all of them. The real ones. Names, account numbers, payments, delivery schedules. Once I knew it was buried in there, it wasn’t hard to find. You can have the whole damn thing.”

  “Why would you want to help me?”

  “Because they took everything from me!” He could hear the pain in Novak’s voice. “All I was! All I poured into my work, they took it and they stretched it like a fake skin over their own rotten bones…” Novak sighed. “Somebody with money around here, you know going in they have to be shady. Everybody knows that. But I thought they just wanted to invest. It’s all useless now. And I can’t do a thing about it. Who am I? I’m nobody. But you scare them. That’s why I want to help you. Because whatever you are, you scare the hell out of them, and that means you can hit them back.”

  Crane had no idea who they thought he was. Back in Puerto Rico, Zajic had demanded answers to questions that he didn’t understand. The cop, Acevedo, had said something about Team Kilo. It meant nothing to him. And now Novak was telling him people who shouldn’t even know he existed were frightened of him. Frightened enough to torture a young girl. To splash her blood shoulder-high up her kitchen walls in great arcs.

  They were right to be afraid of him now.

  “Where are you?”

  “At Deštnik.”

  “Stay there. I’m on my way.”

  “All right. I’ll meet you out front.”

  Crane hung up and hurried the last few blocks to the garage.

  Thankfully, no one had tampered with the Audi. Crane unlocked the reluctant wooden doors and hauled them open. The R8’s nose gleamed ominously in the glow of a streetlight.

  He quickly checked the car and then got in and pulled the silenced CZ pistol from beneath the seat. He checked the load and set the pistol on the passenger seat. Then he turned over the engine. The car growled as he pulled out into the empty streets. It was an angry sound that fit his mood perfectly. Slaughterhouse images of Natalya’s kitchen kept intruding into his memory, and he fought them back. He’d deal with those thoughts later. Now he had work to do.

  He let the GPS guide him back to the research campus through empty roads and past darkened houses. Brno still slept. There was a mist in the air that swirled in ghostly tendrils in his headlights and gave all the lights a hazy, yellow glow.

  This could still be a trap, he thought as he drove. Novak still didn’t strike him as a man who kept secrets. But Crane had just been reminded that he could make mistakes sometimes. Bad ones.

  He remembered a small rise that looked down over the campus. It would offer a good view of Deštnik’s building. He killed the lights and slowed as he approached. The Audi rolled slowly up to the crest, and he stopped. The research campus spread out before him. Empty parking lots, darkened buildings. Sodium lights that turned all the colors to black.

  There was a figure outside Deštnik’s building. Crane opened the glove box, took out a pair of high-powered binoculars. He adjusted the focus until he could see Novak stamping his feet against the chill.

  Crane swept the parking lot, the spaces between buildings, even the roofs. But he saw nothing. Perhaps Novak was, once again, being up front with him.

  He was putting the binoculars away when he saw a corona of headlights enter the parking lot. He yanked the binoculars back out.

  The car was a dark Škoda sedan. Novak stepped forward to meet it. Crane saw him suddenly tense, then whirl and sprint back toward the building. The Škoda’s driver gunned it forward, leaping the curb and following. The passenger door flew open and another figure dove out and tackled Novak just outside the front doors.

  Crane swore, tossed the binoculars into the passenger footwell, and put the car into gear. He turned the lights back on and floored it. The Audi accelerated down the slope as if kicked. He took the turn into the campus at speed and flicked the lights to high.

  Ahead, the car’s passenger looked back at him, his face gleaming in the high beams. Then he finished stuffing Novak into the trunk. He slammed the lid, dove into the open door, and the Škoda took off.

  Crane followed them out onto the main road. They took a hard left, heading back toward Brno. The car was running flat out, but it was no match for the Audi. Crane closed fast and fell in behind them.

  The Hurricane Group had given him extensive training in defensive and pursuit driving. Crane was qualified in the PIT technique. All he had to do was overtake them slightly and steer into the Škoda’s rear quarter to fishtail it and spin it out. But they were doing more than ninety miles per hour through this semi-rural stretch of road. His instructors had emphasized that the method wasn’t recommended for speeds over thirty-five—unless the goal was to kill everyone in the target car.

  But they were headed into town. Eventually they’d have to slow down to speeds where it would be safer. In the meantime, they weren’t going to lose him.

  He hung a couple car lengths behind them and waited for them to make a move.

  Soon they did. The passenger leaned as far as he could out the side window. Crane dropped back and swerved as he opened up with a small submachine gun. Then he sped up in the far lane, putting as much of the sedan’s body as he could between himself and the gun. It was probably unnecessary, he realized, as the shooter emptied the clip, spraying bullets with no control. He heard one thud into the bodywork somewhere in the rear, but nothing more.

  Then the Škoda vanished. Crane checked his mirrors, looked over his shoulder. The car was simply gone, swallowed by the night. He jammed on the brakes and spun the Audi hard around. Tires squealed, and the car lurched to a stop, facing back the way he’d come.

  There. A gap in the fences and a small sign in his headlights. There was a narrow side road. With his focus on the gunner, Crane had missed it completely. But they’d killed the lights and made that turn at high speed, with a man hanging out the window. He had to admit that was impressive. They did have one edge on him. They knew the territory.

  Crane downshifted and hit the gas. He steered th
e Audi into the gap between the fences and flew down a short embankment. Then the road leveled out and led straight off between abandoned fields. Crane floored it.

  Before long, he made out the shape of the Škoda ahead. He kept his distance and followed them as the road wound through a light industrial area of metal buildings, chain-link fencing, and razor wire. The sedan was still doing more than seventy over the rough road.

  Novak must be terrified bouncing around in the trunk, Crane thought. He hadn’t asked Novak to stick his nose where he shouldn’t. But if it wasn’t for him, the man would be safe in his bed right now. Another innocent bystander Crane had put in danger. He wasn’t going to get this one killed too.

  The Škoda veered onto another side road, and Crane smoothly followed. He gunned the Audi forward and closed fast on them before dropping back again. Just reminding them he was there and could overtake them at will.

  Then the sedan braked hard and drifted into a smaller road that led back into a neighborhood of weather-beaten old houses. Crane braked and followed. The road was barely wide enough for two cars to pass. In places, parked cars and pickup trucks choked it down even further.

  The Škoda was already taking a right between two homes. Crane downshifted, and the Audi’s engine complained as he braked and flung it around the corner. They’d found a way to negate his advantage. Here he was no faster than they were.

  He lost sight of them after a series of tight corners. He stopped, rolled down the window, and listened. The Škoda didn’t like to be pushed the way they’d pushed it. Its engine was running loud and rough somewhere to his left. Crane hit the gas, took the next corner well over its design speed, and wiped out a scooter parked near the curb. Then he raced down the straight, checking side streets as he went.

  The Škoda suddenly shot across his path a couple blocks ahead, a dark shape bouncing over the road gradient with its lights off. He had them again.