by Lee McGeorge
He went through the motions of collecting snow and melting it.
“Do you live here always?” Floriana asked.
“For more than one year. I would have stayed here too if Gjokeja had left Ildico alone. If he hadn’t interfered, I would have vanished and nobody would have heard of me again.”
The hovel was warming.
They drank tea. He sat beside her and caught the smell of her hair. Her skin was lightly tanned, her cheeks were in a blush against the cold. He looked at her breasts, pressing against her top. He looked at her lips… He put down his plastic cup, turned her head to his and kissed her.
She kissed back.
He lifted her top and pulled her arms out of the sleeves. It was like he’d brought a girl home after a nightclub. The awkward dance of awkward adults who both wanted the same thing but had to go through the motions. The post-club, pre-sex ritual of taxi, beverage, sofa, cuddles, kisses, undressing and all the while excited it was happening and terrified it might stop. Floriana wouldn’t stop, she was willing to do anything and it distracted from the uncomfortable truth that he’d kidnapped her and driven her to this place by force and fear. He left her stockings on, the lingerie adding a touch of glamour; the vintage Playboy photo-shoot of a girl who rolls in the hay of a rustic building in her finest underwear. He undressed as she did. He climbed on top of her to almost perch on her breasts that unnaturally didn’t flatten or slide to her sides. He penetrated and she pressed her hips into his like an experienced older woman. She held the back of his neck and pressed his face to her neck as she nibbled his ear, panting against his skin as he rocked his pelvis. One of her hands ran down his spine to rest at the top of his ass to pressure his motion as she writhed the muscles of her core against his stomach. Floriana played their bodies like they were musical instruments; arranging the notes and melodies like she was composing a symphony. Sex had never felt so dreamlike and exotic and perfect and Paul allowed himself to relax and cum inside her without care.
He rolled to the side and smiled. She smiled back seductively. He touched her lips with his fingertips. “I wanted you to suck me with those lips,” he said.
“I want to,” Floriana said. “Please will you let me. Don’t make me beg too much. I want to lick the cum off your cock. Please let me suck your cock.”
The spell broke. It was like a bucket of water thrown over him. Floriana the succubi, a seductress sent to hypnotise and transfix him with desires and pleasures had just awoken him by being too good.
He climbed off the hay bed and grabbed his clothes, checking the karambit first to make sure it was still where he imagined. This girl had almost seduced him into death. She would have soothed him, relaxed him, made him drop his guard and close his eyes before killing him with whatever weapon she could find or fashion. He stared at her, seeing her in a new light. She was dreamlike and seductive but to what end? He could imagine her taking the karambit whilst he was distracted. During the drive he’d found her so compliant and accommodating he’d taken his eyes off what she wanted, which was to escape. Get paranoid. Stay paranoid… and never trust a kidnapped woman who wants to sleep with you.
----- X -----
Although there was less than twenty feet from the van to the hovel, dragging Gjokeja in his wheelchair was miserable. It was dragged, not rolled. Too many stones and holes beneath the snow. The combined weight of old man and chair was light enough for Paul to lift but awkward in shape. He made Floriana come with him, but he kept her naked, not even allowing her to put her shoes on. She shivered and trembled, her arms wrapped around her body. By the time he got Gjokeja into the hovel he was so frustrated by the task he threw the chair and the old man onto the side. Aldo shrieked under the duct tape but remained in his chair thanks to the bindings. Paul pulled him upright and pushed him to one side facing the corner.
He took Gjokeja’s mobile phone and sat on the hay bed. He tapped his hand beside him to beckon Floriana. “You’re going to help me with this,” he said. “Tell me who attacked Ildico.”
Paul flicked through the address book looking at the faces of Aldo’s contacts. It was filled with old silver haired men, young thugs and beautiful young girls with professionally photographed images. There were no old or middle aged women in Aldo Gjokeja’s life. Young girls only.
“This one,” Floriana said pointing. “Loro Ahmataj. He is the man who was shot at the police house.”
Paul looked to Gjokeja. “Does he know why she was at a police house? Ask him how they found her.”
Floriana spoke to Gjokeja. He answered weakly, but he answered.
“He says they had her in safety so our men cannot speak to her. But they put her in house used by police. The address was in the police accounts.”
“But why was she there?” Paul asked.
Floriana translated. “He does not know, but it was Detective Latis who put her there.”
She leaned a little closer and shielded her mouth as she next spoke, covering herself from the old man. “Mr. Gjokeja was very happy when they found her. He told them to hurt her badly.”
Paul glared at Gjokeja for a few seconds. “Did he?”
He went back to the telephone, skimming through more contacts until Floriana pointed out the next man. Agron Jupi. Paul wrote down the details and skipped forward until he hit Corneliu Latis. He said nothing to Floriana. He wrote down the details. Latis lived on Calea Bucharest. He wouldn’t survive the house call. Paul continued until Floriana again told him to stop. The name was Ludovik Sina. Again he wrote the details and continued through the gallery of rogues and teenaged whores from A to Z until hitting the skeletal face of Miklos Zhega. “This is the one?” Paul asked. He wrote down the last name and address on the kill list. These were the men who would die.
----- X -----
Paul set Gjokeja’s mobile phone on his bed so that the camera looked into the hovel. He positioned Gjokeja in his wheelchair left of frame and rotated the old man to face the camera. He seemed resigned now to his fate. He didn’t look up or make eye contact, he remained slumped in the chair taking intermittent deep breaths.
“I want you to explain to Aldo that we are going to make a bargain. I am going to release him to the men he sent, so long as he guarantees that nothing will ever happen to Ildico, or her daughter, or to me in the future… Explain it to him.”
Floriana nodded. Paul put his hand on her shoulder. “This time tomorrow you will be skiing. Help me do this and then it’s all over for you.”
Floriana spoke to Gjokeja, part in English with a few words reiterated in Albanian to make the offer.
“Po!” Gjokeja called suddenly jerking his head up to look at Paul. “I agree. Is good.”
“Tell him,” Paul continued, “that we are going to make a video and Aldo must make our arrangement known to the men. So that when they see the video they know it is the truth.”
“Po. Po. I go.” Gjokeja said animatedly.
“That’s right, you piece of shit. If I let you go, it’s all over. Finished, you understand?”
“Finished. I understand.”
Paul unhooked the karambit and moved it to within inches of Gjokeja’s face as he leaned in. “If we make this deal, you better keep your side of the bargain, or I swear I will take you again and spend the rest of my life making you suffer… Tell him, explain it.”
Floriana translated. Gjokeja was nodding and trying to agree whilst at the same time moving his head away from the blade.
“Do you understand what you have to say?” Paul said slowly.
“Yes. I understand.”
“Then we can begin.” Paul unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it aside to be bare chested for this video. The muscles of his chest, arms and abdomen looked swollen and powerful. To Floriana he said, “I want you sitting here on the floor by Aldo’s feet.”
Dutiful as ever Floriana complied without question, completely naked and assuming the position at the foot of the wheelchair.
Paul reread his list to remind himself of the vil
lains names, then put it away, composed himself, walked to the camera and started the video recording.
He walked back into shot.
“This is a message for Miklos Zhega. Sitting beside me is Aldo Gjokeja, your employer. He was going to pay you twenty five thousand euros to kill me. He offered ten thousand each to Loro, Agron and Ludovik… Well take a good look Miklos because he’s not in a position to pay you anything. I have him and I can kill him if I choose which means you get nothing… Now, Aldo and I have made a new arrangement. We are going to make an exchange. I am going to hand him over to you. I’ll put him in a safe place and you can come and collect him. In exchange you leave Romania and never return. If anything happens to Ildico Popescu or her daughter, Alina, I will kill you all. I know who you are, I have your faces, your addresses and I know how to find you.” Paul rotated towards the wheelchair and said, “Tell him, Aldo.”
Gjokeja cleared his throat and in a strained and faltering voice he cried out, “Give him what he ask, Miklos. It is over. It is finished. Come home. Give him what he ask.”
Paul held out a hand to indicate he wanted Gjokeja to be quiet. With his other hand he raised the karambit. “Now I need you to understand, Miklos.” Paul put a hand under Floriana’s armpit to coax her to standing. “This is very important that you understand how serious I am.” Paul’s hand slipped smoothly around Floriana’s throat from behind, whilst the karambit blade carried the other way around her body to rest its tip under her plastic breasts. The girl stood rigid, a hand on her throat, a blade over her stomach.
“Are you watching, Miklos?”
Paul jabbed the karambit into Floriana’s flank making her shriek with the sudden shock. Her hands darted to the wound in her side. Paul slipped his hand away from her neck and yanked her head sideways. The karambit flashed up catching from collar bone to ear with a deathly move across her jugular. With astonishing speed Paul stepped back and swung the karambit across the back of her legs to hamstring her, dropping her to the ground. Standing over her sliced body, he leaned down to clamp his mouth across the gash in her neck. He felt her body locking rigid, her hands raising, her tiny little fists shaking with nowhere to go. Her mouth was clamped closed, her screams were hummed. It was controlled. Like a painful visit to the dentist of just taking the discomfort without interruption.
He took her blood. All of it. The warmth, the salinity, the viscosity of it. Her little heart no bigger than one of her clenched fists pounding away and pushing the fluids so fast into his mouth that it overflowed and spurted between his lips and her skin, running across her shoulder and breasts as red paint.
Paul supped deep, drinking as much as he could, all the while aware of the theatre. As pleasurable as Floriana was, he mustn’t forget he was creating a show.
He dropped the girl, her hands reaching for her neck. The scene flowed back in as though emerging from a dream. Aldo Gjokeja was screaming in his wheelchair, his one good hand squirming against the impossible duct tape bondage.
Paul licked his lips and wiped his hand across his mouth and chest, smearing Floriana’s blood against his skin. He stepped across the bleeding and immobilised girl to approach the camera. “You see this Miklos. I will do this to you. I will come for you and your men, I will do this to your families, your wives, your children. I know where you live. Don’t make me visit you, Miklos... I will contact you with where you can collect Aldo. Then you can pick him up, put him in your car, fuck off back to Albania and never come back.”
He stopped the video recording, his fingers streaking the phone in blood.
Gjokeja was still screaming as the video ended.
Floriana was conscious but barely moving other than to make little breaths and roll her eyes onto him. He would deal with her first. Paul put the karambit down and pulled the door to the hovel open. He gripped the girl by her hair and wrapped an arm around her waist to carry her. He took her into the overbearing sunshine. His eyes were adjusted to the gloom of the hovel and the outside world caused snow blindness it was so white and bright.
Floriana rasped a few words. Her feet with painted toenails dragged bloody lines in the snow. He dropped her by a small wooden frame that served no purpose that could be determined and scraped with his foot until finding a blue plastic sheet below ten inches of snow. It took effort but he managed to find the edge and kept sweeping away the snow until he could pull it back.
Underneath the sheet were two bodies.
Dead girls. Playthings. Women he had chosen to spend time with.
He returned to Floriana and lifted her by the waist whilst one of her hands still gripped at her throat. “The ground is too frozen to bury you,” he said to her. “I’ll have to bury you in the spring when it thaws.”
Under his grip he felt the dying girl suddenly spasm and shake as she saw where she was going. Her legs kicked as the realisation hit her. She was going under a plastic sheet beside two other dead girls.
Two others.
One was a woman of about twenty, the second a young girl perhaps no older than twelve. Both had their throats slit, both had their eyes open, both were iced solid.
Floriana was laid beside the young girl. Her skin was a delicate blue and her lips were dark purple. Floriana’s hand was still holding her neck. She was barely alive but had the mental will to run and flee, but with the tendons of her legs cut escape was impossible.
Paul stared down at her with blood smeared across his face and chest. “I’m sorry I lied,” he said without showing any expression.
Then he pulled the sheet back across the bodies and left her to die.
PART V
Lucian Noica unfastened his tie and allowed his shirt to hang open necked. Outside was growing dark and the ridge behind the building had cast the hospital into shadow. The view directly beyond his window was dark, but a few of the mountains on the distant horizon were still under the last rays of sunlight.
The telephone rang. A woman’s voice. “Doctor Noica, I have the Department of Justice on the line.”
“Put it through.”
There was a pause, then a voice on the other end said, “Good evening, I have Minister Vadescu on the line for you.” Then there was the wait. It was the conceit of a government minister. Once they became important, a government minister’s ego demanded a secretary make the call then keep you on the line until they had time to speak. The more self-importance they felt the longer they kept you waiting.
“Lucian?”
“Minister.”
“I have an update on Paul McGovern. It’s serious.”
“Go ahead, Minister.”
“We’ve been informed by the Albanian police force that McGovern turned up in the city of Skhodra yesterday evening at the residence of a known criminal called Aldo Gjokeja. Police discovered surveillance recordings of McGovern murdering two security guards and forcibly taking Gjokeja and his personal nurse away in a black Mercedes people carrier. The Albanians identified McGovern almost immediately. They put out requests to trace the vehicle and it’s logged heading into Macedonia first, then Bulgaria. It was tracked by toll-road cameras logging number plates. The trail was lost as it approached our borders but it would seem likely that he is heading to Romania. The last known position of the vehicle was close to our border about nine hours ago.”
There was a silence on the phone.
“What’s your take on this?” Vadescu asked.
“I know what is happening... Paul McGovern ambushed and stole money from Aldo Gjokeja. Within the last month, I discovered that Gjokeja had active operations to find him. They attempted to flush him out, but this sounds like blowback. McGovern has gone to the head of the snake and attacked them first.”
“The British police were already all over this,” the Minister said. “Now the Albanian, Macedonian and Bulgarian police forces are involved and asking questions. Yet we seem to be treading water without answers. This cannot end in embarrassment. The world is starting to look at us.”
“I unde
rstand, Minister.”
“Make sure you do understand. Make sure you do.”
----- X -----
Paul awakened at daybreak to a bad smell. The old man was still strapped in his wheelchair and facing the corner of the hovel. Paul breathed deep. It was shit. The old man had filled his diaper. “Oh, fuck you,” he mumbled. He opened the door to let fresh air in. “You’ve shit yourself.” he said to the back of Gjokeja’s head. The old man said nothing. Paul grabbed the wheelchair and turned it around. The old man’s head was down, his chin resting on his chest, his eyes reddened with tears. Gjokeja was broken and pathetic. Broken physically, mentally and spiritually. He had nothing left. An old man in a broken body who had sat in his own shit all night.
The cold air flowing through the open door was biting and Paul took the blanket from his bed to wrap around Aldo’s shoulders. “You stink. But I’m not cleaning you.” He checked the bindings around Gjokeja’s wrists and ankles. His one good arm was strapped to the chair with an overwhelming amount of tape. Even with two free hands and a pair of scissors, it would take time to cut him free.
Paul went to the van. It started with a light purr and blew warm air into the footwell. He drove carefully and surely, almost too cautiously so as not to attract the attention of any policemen looking for a bribe.
He approached Brasov and found his driving become even more stilted and unnaturally cautious. Like he was taking his driving test again. He drove right into the heart of the city that knew his name and face. He was English, he was Paul McGovern, he was wanted for murder in this small town. Hopefully his image had faded over the last two years.
He went to an internet cafe and began by searching for ‘saltpetre explosive’. It was a remnant of knowledge from writing magazine articles about tropical fish. The same substance used to make gunpowder was a common chemical for fish keepers. He found aweb page ranking homemade explosives. Saltpetre appeared at the bottom of the list as the least powerful. At the top was something called ANFO. He started reading. It was an acronym, Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil. Mix regular garden fertiliser with diesel and it becomes highly explosive. There was a warning on the website that ANFO was so easy to make that many countries had banned fertiliser or made it a restricted product. Did Romania follow suit? Fingers crossed he could buy it.
