Mafia Trilogy 03 - The Scythe

by Jonas Saul

  “Darwin?” Her voice grew stronger, louder. “Darwin!”

  The Russian manhandled her to the door and shoved it open.

  Extreme rage hit Darwin like a tsunami of molten lava. It covered him in its wake, pulsing every muscle into action, the pain welcoming and stirring him on instead of debilitating.

  “Rosina,” he shouted, his voice a growl, the hooks in his cheeks sliding along his teeth, cutting his gums. Then he roared her name, vibrating the chains that held him.

  He ripped his right arm up in a vain attempt to grab the Russian, but the man had stepped out the door.

  He had pulled too hard. The hook in Darwin’s triceps tore through his flesh. The chain slapped harmlessly into the wall behind him, useless now. Blood seeped down his elbow, but his arm was free. The pain added to his will to survive and to get to his wife.

  Through the open door, Yuri held a small silver gun in his hand. He watched the Russian walk Rosina across the floor toward him. Three men watched: one Chinese, one Italian, and Yuri’s bodyguard. Other men lingered by the double doors on the far side.

  “Rosina,” he yelled. “Rosina!”

  He pulled against the chains. He couldn’t move again for fear of passing out, but he had to do something. They were about to shoot his wife.

  The Russian handed Rosina to Yuri and started back to the office.

  Rosina screamed as Yuri kicked her legs out from under her and dropped to her knees.

  “Kneel bitch,” Yuri yelled at her.

  “I will kill you again and again, Yuri,” Darwin shouted.

  Yuri looked over his shoulder at Darwin. He grinned like a mischievous feline and brought the gun to the back of Rosina’s bowed head. The Russian torturer got to the door and slammed it shut, blocking Darwin’s view.

  He shouted an inhuman growl and pulled against the hooks.

  “Wait,” he bellowed, his voice hoarse.

  Then he gave up on the pain and the resistance. There was nothing left to live for without Rosina. They were in a nightmare not of their making, but he could change things. He could make it worse. One thing he could not do was hear the gun that blew his wife’s head open.

  He clenched his teeth, allowed the rage to fuel him, grunted deep in his throat and stepped one leg forward, hard and firm.

  The hooks ripped out and dropped to the plastic, the chain part rattling against the wall. He stepped his other leg forward, knowing the damage he was causing, but he needed to get to Rosina. Without her, the damage to his flesh was nothing.

  The Russian hadn’t turned around yet. He must have assumed Darwin was only jerking around, rattling the chains. He stood in the corner by the table that held the torture implements, his back to Darwin. As Darwin struggled, the man’s head twitched and he looked over his shoulder. When he saw what Darwin had done, his eyes widened.

  Patches of flesh and meat still clung to each hook.

  The pain of what was happening to Rosina was a thousand times worse than the pain from the hooks.

  Darwin pushed with all the willpower of a possessed man and ripped the rest of the hooks out of his back, tearing flesh and meat with them, blood shooting from each wound.

  Wearing only his underwear, Darwin moved toward the torture table and the man who impaled him with the hooks.

  The Russian grabbed a hammer off the table. He brought it up fast, but Darwin was filled with such a rage that his focus was clear, his strength that of ten men. In his mind, the Russian was already dead.

  Darwin shoved the handle of the hammer back, twisted it in the Russian’s hand and pushed the claw end toward the Russian’s face. A struggle of raw strength ensued, until the hammer entered the man’s mouth. Darwin yanked down hard. With a crack and a snapping sound, the lower section of the man’s face dislocated.

  He screamed as Darwin ripped the hammer out of his hands and flipped it around. Then he brought it down again.

  The scream stopped as the claw end gouged into the Russian’s right eye and sunk a couple of inches deep inside the orbital bone.

  The Russian’s mouth sagged open at an odd angle as he slipped to the floor in a pool of his own blood mixed with some of Darwin’s.

  He tore the hammer out of the Russian’s face with a sickening twist and wet, mushy sound.

  At the door, he sucked in a couple of breaths and said, “I’m coming for you, baby.”

  He gripped the knob.

  A gun fired in the other room.

  Darwin screamed and ripped the office door open.

  Chapter 21

  More weapons fired. He kept his head low and his eyes on Rosina. Men fell around him and bullets fired in a chaotic mess. He couldn’t tell who was shooting at whom.

  Still by the door in the office, he waited because a couple of Yuri’s men were still alive, shooting at an unknown enemy. Moving out of the office at that second would make him a target.

  Yuri and his men moved toward the doors that led out of the convention center with Rosina clutched in their arms, under fire from someone out of Darwin’s range of sight.

  “No,” Darwin shouted as he moved into the cavernous room.

  Both bodyguards turned to him as their back hit the exit doors. They leveled their weapons at him.

  Pockets of blood popped out of the cheek of one man and the forehead of the other within a second between them. Neither one got a shot off at Darwin.

  He ran after them, slipping in his own blood, and as he made it across the convention center’s floor, it was a struggle to stay on his feet. Yuri opened the door with his back and yanked Rosina through after him. The door closed before Darwin got halfway across the room.

  He shouted after them, a raw animal sound. Five feet from the door, it opened and men in fatigues, helmets and goggles barged in, almost colliding with Darwin. He tried to slow down, but his feet slipped. He fell on his butt and slid with a squeak.

  Before he could get back up, arms restrained him.

  “It’s okay,” someone shouted into his ear. “It’s over. We got them.”

  Darwin stayed on the floor, nearly hyperventilating. His vision blurred for a moment as he tried to get his breathing under control. As everything came back into focus, he took in the room. Men dressed in emergency task force gear circled the area. Doors opened and closed. Men came and went, toting assault rifles.

  “Where—” Darwin swallowed, “—is my wife?”

  “One sec,” a man said, his hand raised. He listened for a moment, nodded to himself and then spoke into a microphone on his collar. “The area is secure?” He waited. “Copy that. Bring the injured to the ambulances. I got Darwin Kostas.”

  The man faced Darwin. “You okay?”

  “Where did all of you come from?”

  The man tore off his mask.

  Agent Williams. Relief washed over Darwin.

  “I told you we knew about this meeting and that we would swoop in before they killed Rosina.”

  “Is Rosina okay?”

  Williams nodded. “My men told me all combatants are dealt with and hostages released. Yuri didn’t have a chance.”

  “But how?” Darwin asked. He sat up and tried to stand. “How did you know about the meeting?”

  “Stay down. You’re bleeding everywhere. Paramedics are outside. They’re coming in now.” Williams stared at the hooks still embedded in Darwin’s cheeks. They were the only two that didn’t have chains attached to them. “That’s got to hurt.”

  “Not half as bad as the ones I tore out of my backside. Yuri said he had tricked the FBI.” Darwin had to know. “There was no way you could know where the meeting was or when, he said.”

  “He didn’t trick anybody.” Williams spoke into a microphone and then looked back at Darwin. “We had a man on the inside.” He turned and pointed up at the rafters. “One of Yuri’s snipers was ours. He was instructed to start shooting if they were going to kill any innocents.”

  “You had someone on the inside?” Darwin asked. “Why didn’t y
ou tell me?”

  Kirk’s face grew stern. “Yeah, right. And jeopardize a three-year operation to reassure you? Put a man’s life in danger so you didn’t have to worry so much? Darwin, we’re the professionals here. We got this. I told you I would handle it. This cowboy stuff you pulled is going to get somebody killed. Look at you. You’re all fucked up.”

  Williams turned around as the door banged open and paramedics rushed in with a gurney.

  “Over here,” he said to them. “Get this guy patched up and stop the bleeding. Looks like he’s lost a lot,” Williams added as if the medics couldn’t see that for themselves.

  They dropped the stretcher to floor level and on the count of three hoisted Darwin onto it.

  He tried to smile and looked over at Williams who frowned at him.

  “You know, you look pretty fucked up right now. How are you happy with all those holes in your flesh?”

  “Because it’s over. It’s truly over.”

  Williams touched the arm of a medic as they were about to wheel Darwin away. He leaned down close.

  “Guess what else.”

  Darwin nudged his head up. “What?”

  “You were right about The Scythe. He cut a swath through Toronto yesterday, stole a police car to get to this meeting and left it parked by a farm out on hole number twelve. Left Russians cut up at Yuri’s Queen Street restaurant and attacked one of his businesses in North York. Two hours ago, detectives found his body in Lake Simcoe. His throat was cut and his teeth were stomped out. Both hands and feet were missing.”

  “Nasty,” was all Darwin could say. He was overjoyed that The Scythe was dead.

  The medics tried to pull him away but Williams held them again.

  “I found something odd, though.” Williams stepped around and stared into Darwin’s eyes. “A couple of the descriptions from witnesses didn’t fit with The Scythe’s body shape and mass. Everyone at the strip club where he killed Arkady—”

  “Arkady’s dead?” Darwin interrupted. He knew where Williams was going and didn’t want to go there.

  “There was a female adult store clerk that described someone closer to you than The Scythe. I called Carson Dodge in Florida and asked if you could be running around Toronto using The Scythe’s name and cutting people up with a blade. You know what he said?”

  Darwin shook his head, not trusting what his mouth would say. The last thing he wanted was a long court process and possibly jail after getting free of the Russians.

  “He said he could see you killing people, you’re that determined to end this, but never with scythes or blades of any sort. ‘There is no court this side of heaven that would convict Darwin Kostas for killing anyone with a blade,’ is what he said. Can you believe that? He’s not even here and he’s vouching for you.”

  “Agent Williams, you have your case. You have people saying it was The Scythe. I have a phobia of sharp or pointy things—”

  “Didn’t the doctor tell you something about your induced coma and the swelling on your brain the day we met? Aren’t your phobias cured?”

  “You have all you need. What more do you want?” Darwin looked up at the medics who were listening intently. “I’m bleeding to death. Can you guys do something about that?”

  They pushed him away, leaving Williams to stand alone in the convention center, a smile on his face.

  “Hey, Darwin.”

  “Yeah,” he called as they pushed him through the double doors.

  “I don’t believe in vigilantism.”

  “Me neither.”

  “But I’ll give you a free pass.” The doors closed, but through them, Williams yelled two more words. “This time.”

  Chapter 22

  Darwin sat in the back of the ambulance while they patched the open cuts and exposed flesh. They explained that a doctor at the hospital would take the hooks out of his face. He was supposed to already be on his way but refused to go until he saw his wife. He told the paramedics that he would not leave without seeing her.

  An FBI agent said he would find Agent Williams and ask where Rosina was taken. It had been less than five minutes since he had been wheeled out of the convention center and no one had told him where Rosina was yet.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Darwin asked out loud.

  The paramedics worked behind him, dabbing here and there, pasting bandages in places. He winced, gasped at times, and waited.

  Williams came out of the building, met Darwin’s gaze, and shrugged.

  “What does that mean?” Darwin shouted.

  Both medics stopped what they were doing.

  Williams raised a finger for him to wait and started walking toward Darwin. He talked into his lapel but was too far away for Darwin to hear anything.

  Darwin hopped off the back of the ambulance and dropped to one knee as pain shot up from his legs. Not as pumped up on rage, his adrenaline had withered and now he felt the damage.

  It took effort, but he stood and faced Williams as he approached.

  “They can’t find her. I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what happened. They said everything was secure. All hostages were safe. Combatants dead or secure. I was with you and now no one knows where Rosina is.”

  Darwin scanned the golf course in the immediate area. “You have got to be kidding.”

  “I’m sorry, Darwin. She’ll turn up. There’s no way anything could’ve happened to her. We have fifty men here.”

  Darwin turned back to Williams. “Ask Yuri. He’ll know where she is. He was the last one with her. Get the agent that has Yuri to ask him.”

  Williams shook his head and grimaced. “He’s missing too.”

  The horror had restarted. Just like that, Darwin felt Rosina slipping away from him again. The incompetence of the authorities was going to cost him his wife.

  Darwin spun on his bare feet in the grass, walked to the front of the ambulance and hopped in the driver’s seat. The keys were in the ignition. He turned it on and dropped it into drive as Williams got to the window.

  “Hey, Darwin, what are you doing? Get out of there.”

  He hit the gas. Both paramedics in the back jumped out as the vehicle lurched forward.

  He ground the tires into the perfectly tailored grass of the golf course, drove over the first tee box to get around all the other emergency vehicles and squealed the tires as he fled the High Hills Golf Course.

  A siren screamed behind him, but he didn’t care. It would only add to the entourage as far as the public were concerned.

  He hit the two-lane highway and turned east toward Highway 400. If Rosina and Yuri were gone, that meant Yuri took her as insurance. How much of a head start did they have? What kind of vehicle would they be in? Once he hit Highway 400, which ran north to Barrie or south to Toronto, which way would Yuri have gone?

  Some of his bandages bent up at the edges and a couple of them tore off. Blood ran down his back like sweat, but that didn’t matter. He could spend the rest of his life healing. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life without Rosina.

  Highway 400 was coming up fast. In the mirror, he saw five police cruisers on his tail, taking up both lanes of the two-lane highway when no one was coming from the other way.

  North? South? North? South?

  He picked north. Yuri would head toward home. He wouldn’t go to Toronto where everyone was looking for him. He would go to the quieter city of Barrie where he owned a house somewhere on Highway 93 by a golf course. The same course where Darwin was found covered in peaches.

  He slowed at the ramp. For a brief moment, the ambulance tipped up on two wheels, and Darwin wondered if it would roll. The ramp ended, Darwin straightened the wheel, and the vehicle dropped onto all fours. He jammed the pedal down and checked the mirror.

  All five cruisers were right behind him. He stared forward and watched the vehicles ahead for any sign of evasive action. With this much noise and lights, if Yuri was up there, he would accelerat
e away or get off the highway fast.

  Darwin had no illusions about the head start Yuri had. How he got past all of Kirk’s men baffled him, though. He would’ve had to slink away quietly, otherwise someone would’ve seen him.

  But how did he do that with Rosina? How did he keep her quiet?

  “Shit!”

  He pounded the dash and drove on.