In For the Kill

by Shannon McKenna

  “I am not alone,” Sveti said, teeth chattering.

  “No? I don’t see anyone. Except for myself and my colleague.”

  Sveti closed her eyes, thinking of them. Nick and Becca and Sofia, Tam and Val, Rachel and Irina. The McClouds and their wives and kids, and all the rest. A wonderful family. She was lucky. No matter what.

  But she would not debate such matters with a torturer.

  Her captor scooted his chair closer and slid his fingers into Sveti’s hair. He jerked her hair until her chair rocked on two legs. His bloodshot eyes were inches from hers. “Tell me about the photographs.”

  She shook violently in his cruel grip. “What photographs?”

  “One, in particular. It appears in your TED talk. Great presentation, by the way. I was so moved, I almost donated money to help give a new start to those poor pet slaves of yours. How sweet.”

  “Which . . . which photo are you—”

  “A photo of your mother,” he said. “You displayed a slide, in your TED talk. Where did you get that photograph?”

  She was utterly confused. “Ah . . . she sent it to me, years ago.”

  “Something is written on it, Svetlana. And there are numbers. Do you remember what is written?”

  She shook her head. “Ah . . . The Sword of Cain,” she faltered.

  “Tell me about this Sword of Cain. Tell me everything.”

  She tried to shake her head, but could not move, with his fingers gripping her hair. “Tell you what? I have no idea what it meant.”

  “Did she send other photos from that same series? Or others taken at the same place?”

  She shook her head.

  “What did the letter that came with the photograph say about it?”

  “There was no letter.” She struggled to keep her voice steady, without success. “She sent it through the mail, like a postcard.”

  He let go and backhanded her across the face, so hard everything went black for a moment. “You expect me to believe that you never asked her what it meant?” he bellowed.

  “It was delivered after she died!” she yelled.

  He dipped the plastic pitcher into the ice water and slung it into her face. Splash. “You are lying,” he spat out.

  She gasped, sputtered. “N-n-not lying,” she choked out.

  “Would you like to see what the day has in store for you? I am a professional interrogator. There is nothing you can hide from me.”

  “I have nothing to hide! I swear it!”

  “Look here.” The man set down his knife and picked up a dark briefcase from a rickety card table that had been set up nearby. A small portable video camera lay upon it, too. He spread the briefcase open, tilting it up so that she could see its contents, nested in crimson velvet.

  Sveti recoiled. Blades gleamed. Scissors and shears, scalpels and pincers. Things whose uses she did not dare imagine.

  “The tools of my trade. One more detail . . . let me just get the angle right.” He bent down over the video camera, pointing it toward her, then peering at the digital window. “Perfect,” he said. “That should catch everything. And now.” He pulled a ski mask over his own face, with a flourish, and his teeth flashed through the slit as he pushed the “record” button. A light flashed red. “For posterity,” he said. “Once again, Svetlana. The Sword of Cain. What do you know about it?”

  She bit her lip, shook her head. “Nothing,” she whispered.

  The man let out a theatrical sigh. “Poor Svetlana. It is going to be a long and painful day for you.”

  “I don’t know anything!” she cried out. “It was just a picture of my mother that I kept by my bed!”

  The man crouched and sliced through the duct tape that fastened her ankles. He hoisted her up by the armpits and dumped her to her knees with a jarring thud against the wet floor next to the big tub. He grabbed her sodden hair again, jerking her head so that she was bent over the icy tub, her nose mere inches from the ice water.

  “We will start soft. We have plenty of time,” he said. “I’m an artist, you see. I like a long, slow buildup. Tell us about The Sword of Cain.”

  She dragged in a huge breath and screamed, with everything she had. All her horror and fear and anger, from the depths of her being. She screamed, in his face. His mouth was open, he was yelling back, but she just kept on screaming. She might never stop.

  He shoved her underwater.

  The world went blue, shot through with red, her lungs already empty from screaming. Her lungs jerked in agony. Her torso was overbalanced, shoved down headfirst. She flopped and writhed, but that cruel hand held her down. Airless, frantic. Drowning.

  Sam peered through the swaying tree boughs that draped the rotten, fragile roof upon which he was stretched full length. Trying not to slide down, not to make a sound, to catch a clear glimpse of the sentry by the open door. Breathing down his panic. He’d never panicked before. He turned ice cold when things got dangerous. He had a reputation for it. He didn’t sweat, his heart rate didn’t go up. His colleagues envied him that quality. It had never failed him.

  Until now. His heart was crawling up into his mouth, and his bowels churned. How anybody could think clearly or handle lethal weapons responsibly in this condition, he did not fucking know.

  Didn’t matter. Scared shitless or not, he was all Sveti had.

  He dragged himself up off his belly, easing into a crouch behind the cover of pine branches that draped the roof. The van was parked right below him. The building he was on looked like a derelict barn from the first half of the last century, paint peeling, wood faded to gray. In front of the barn, on the other side of the van, was a small cinder-block building, of newer make, but just as derelict.

  He had not seen them unload her. They must have done that while he was making his approach on foot. Lucky their team was small, and that they weren’t expecting company. The front entrance that looked down the road was the only approach they bothered to guard.

  He tried not to think about what was happening inside.

  The sentry was smoking a cigarette, a walkie-talkie on his belt, a ski mask, an H&K PSP in his hand. Sam had a clear shot. He could cap the guy, and was tempted to do so, but with no suppressor, he’d lose the advantage of surprise. This had to be quiet, or he’d get Sveti killed.

  It had taken fifty minutes to get here. The roads were deserted; he’d been forced to hang back and risk losing them so as not to be noticed. If he shot the sentry, he could use the guy’s cell to call the cops, assuming there was coverage, but it might take the local guys a half hour just to find this place, let alone get on top of things.

  No. It happened now, and fast, or not at all.

  At least he wasn’t dealing with high security. The place had the feel of an impulse decision. The owner would be absentee Joe Schmoe from Phoenix, or somebody dead with no heirs, property in limbo.

  His face itched under the mud he’d smeared on it as he reviewed his strategy. All he had to work with was what he’d gleaned from his car, the detritus of an out-of-work loser. Bottles he hadn’t bothered taking to the recycling center, the gas in his tank. He’d half-filled an empty whiskey bottle with premium unleaded, ripped off the lower half of his shirt, wound it around the bottom, knotting it and soaking the dangling end of the rag in the bottle for a fuse. He corked it, leaving the bottle top free for flinging. His hands stank of gasoline. He’d be lucky not to self-immolate. A hostage situation, and he was reduced to a fucking Molotov cocktail. Problem was, it would make noise, too.

  His leather jacket would have given him more camouflage than his light gray sweatshirt, and the smartphone in the pocket would have given him fifteen experienced cops to back him up.

  This was what he got for being a goddamn gentleman.

  If he could get that guy into a better position, he’d have a chance of jumping him. Sam lobbed the chunk of rotten wood he’d found on the roof, aiming for the cinder-block wall. It thudded dully against the wall. The sentry’s head jerked around at th
e sound. He held still, listening. Slowly, he sidled closer to investigate. Sam willed the guy to follow the right trajectory. So much hung on pure, random chance. He fucking hated it.

  Closer . . . closer. A gut-wrenching female scream ripped out from within the building. Sam lit the fuse, with trembling fingers, and let the bottle fly. The scream continued as the bottle sailed through air.

  Crash, breaking glass against the cinder-block wall, then the whump of ignition. The sentry stumbled back with a startled shout, and Sam leaped as he reached for his walkie-talkie. He landed on the guy, smacking him to the ground. The walkie-talkie dropped. The H&K flew out of the sentry’s grip, bounced, spun.

  They rolled on the ground. Sam came out on top, but the guy was wiry and quick to recover. He smacked the heel of his hand up under Sam’s chin. Sam jerked back in time to avoid the elbow rake across the throat. The sentry twisted free. They bounded to their feet, and Sam blocked a roundhouse to the thigh and spun, deflecting a punch to the face. A grab, a rush, and the guy went down again, Sam on top.

  The man’s legs wound around him, struggling to flip him. Sam grabbed the guy’s biceps to pin him, wrenched loose, and slammed his fist down into the guy’s groin. He howled. Sam shoved the man’s legs aside and half-mounted the fuckhead’s chest. An elbow strike into his face, a knee strike to the temple. He pulled away, panting. That guy was done.

  He spun around, looking for that H&K. Sweet Christ. The one thing that could have upped Sveti’s odds lay in a pool of flames. They licked hungrily at the weathered chunks of lumber and junk.

  Suck it up. He ran inside the warehouse. Faint light leached through filthy, cobwebby windows. Nothing but piles of moldering stuff. Ancient furniture, dusty machines and appliances, piles of newspapers, boxes shredded by rodents. There was a single aisle through the heaps of junk. A door at the end of the room.

  He approached it on soft cat feet and burst inside.

  A big man in a ski mask was hauling Sveti’s head and shoulders out of a plastic tub of water. Her eyes were closed. She sputtered, choked, wheezed. The man’s gaze whipped up.

  Bam, bam. Sam squeezed off two shots. The fuckhead jerked back with a shout, hand to his ear. Bam, he took one to the upper arm and jolted sideways, letting go of Sveti. She fell forward into the tub, struggling, but her weight was canted too far forward, and her arms were bound. She was drowning.

  He lunged toward her, which was what saved his life. Bullets ripped out. A whip-slash of fire across the side of his lower back and he hit the ground, rolling up to take aim at the new shooter. Bam, bam, bam. Ski-mask Number Three staggered, blood pouring from his neck.

  Sam sprinted for the tub, saw the torturer struggling up on one arm, and took the moment to aim a flying kick to the guy’s face before he scooped his arm under Sveti’s chest. He hauled her out of the water and laid her on the ground. Her chest did not move.

  He smacked her cheek, pumping on her chest. “Goddamnit, Sveti! Are you going to let those assholes win? Fucking breathe!”

  She convulsed, vomiting water and coughing.

  Tears fogged Sam’s eyes, but another perception clamored for attention. A smell, acrid and scary, tickling his reptile brain. Danger.

  Smoke. Oh, fuck. Sveti was still coughing and choking, slumped on the floor in the sodden heap of crimson fabric like a wilted poppy.

  Sam dragged her to her feet. “Babe. We have to run for our lives now. Up. Move!” He hated using that hard-ass tone when she was so fucked up, but smoke billowed in, there was an ominous orange glow out in the main room. This place was a death trap. Of his own making.

  She wobbled on her small, bare feet, but nodded, still coughing, and stumbled gamely when he dragged her forward.

  Flames leaped at the far end of the room, where mildewed heaps of newspaper had caught fire. The smoke was choking. Searing heat battered their faces. The door was obscured by glowing orange smoke.

  He bent low, forced Sveti to do the same. They scurried, coughing and hacking down the narrow, stinking corridor, into thicker smoke, hotter air. It hurt to breathe. Sveti was slow, scrambling awkwardly, hobbled by her sodden skirt. Eyes squeezed shut, hand clamped over her nose. A little farther—he pulled on her . . .

  And they were out, in the sweet cool morning. Gasping for air.

  The fire roared out of the roof, only on one side, but spreading fast. Sparks swirled and flew up. Heat battered them. Sveti thudded onto her belly. Blood was mixed with the dirt stuck to her bare feet.

  Sam’s eyes fell on the first ski-masked guy, lying where he’d fallen, right next to the blazing building. “One second.” He ran back, close enough to the blaze to scorch his face. Seized the dead guy under the arms and dragged him free of the fire.

  He dropped the stiff fifteen meters away, in the middle of the clearing, and met Sveti’s questioning glance. “I don’t want that body incinerated,” he said. “I want him ID’d as soon as possible.”

  “You think like a cop,” she coughed out.

  “Damn right.” He picked her up. Her soaked dress was in tatters, her face smudged with soot. She stared into his face. Teeth chattering.

  He picked up speed, going at a steady lope. She needed a hospital. Tetanus, shock, hypothermia, water in her lungs, who knew. His car came into view. He got her into it, cranked the heat up. They bounced with teeth-rattling jolts over the bumpy gravel road. He wished he had a coat to wrap around her. A blanket. Anything.

  Her blue, shaking lips formed a word with no breath behind it. “Sam.”

  “Yeah.” He pulled onto an asphalt road. The engine roared for joy.

  “You came for me,” she whispered. “You . . . were watching?”

  “It’s the upside to having a stalker,” he said.

  CHAPTER 8

  Josef pulled out the sewing kit from his suitcase. Dental floss, from the toiletries case. He pulled out a few lengths, dropped it in the hotel room’s coffee cup. Stuck it into the microwave to sterilize it.

  The keyboard of his laptop was sticky with drying blood, but he ignored that, logging in to the e-mail account Sasha had used to contact the Ardova girl while the microwave hummed, doing its work. Finally. There was a new message in the drafts folder, that being the method the two of them had used to communicate without ever actually sending out e-mails. A fine plan, if no one else ever hacked into one’s account. Stupid little prick. Thought he was so clever.

  He clicked it open. In Ukrainian Cyrillic, capitals, bolded across the page.

  DO NOT COME TO ITALY YOU ARE IN DANGER THEY ARE HUNTING YOU HIDE PLEASE JUST HIDE

  I WILL TELL YOU MORE WHEN IT IS SAFE

  That lying, sneaking, ungrateful sack of shit. Defying Josef, and his own father. The message had been sent a scant twenty-five minutes before. There was no response, as of yet, and chances were Ardova was too busy licking her wounds to be checking her e-mail.

  He poised his fingers over the keyboard. Selected Sasha’s text, deleted it, and typed in an alternate message.

  Please come as soon as you can. You are the only one I can trust. When is your plane arriving? Send flight information.

  Josef’s phone buzzed angrily, vibrating on the desk. Two rings. Three. He coughed. It felt like chunks of burnt lung were coming up.

  The smoke had almost overcome him. He’d crawled on boxes, smashed through a window. A long fall, but his cuts and bruises were the least of his problems. As was the bullet that had gone through his bicep.

  These things were as nothing, compared to that ringing phone.

  He picked it up, hit ‘talk.’ “Vor,” he rasped.

  The vor waited. There was little point pleading for mercy. It only made things worse. “She got away,” he said thickly. “There was a man she was fucking. He followed us. The snakeheads are both dead.”

  “Ah,” Cherchenko said. “So you did not question her after all.”

  “I had just begun,” he admitted. “But I am sure she knows everything. She’s coming to Italy. She left Sas
ha a message last night that she’s flying into Rome. I just checked the account, and Sasha warned her not to come. I deleted his message and wrote another, begging her to come as soon as possible. I will take her in Italy.”

  “You will do as I tell you, idiot. Who knows if she will come, after your hack job? Get on a plane. I will decide an appropriate punishment as you travel. Aleksei and the others have not found Sasha, who is out there writing messages to God knows who. He is our top concern now.”

  “Yes, Vor,” he said dully. The connection broke.

  Josef stared into the mirror at his broken nose, his bloodied chin. His blood-crusted, half-detached earlobe. He pulled out his knife. Splashed it with rubbing alcohol. He stretched the torn earlobe out and cut.

  The chunk of flesh thudded onto his boot and rolled to the floor.

  The phone burped. He glanced at it. An airplane ticket. The flight left in only a few hours. It would be a challenge, making himself presentable enough to be allowed on an airplane. A medical facility was out of the question. There were people he could call, but no one he trusted enough to let himself be seen in such a weakened state.

  No one had gotten the better of him like this since he was a boy.

  The microwave dinged. He pulled out the cup of boiling water. Fished out the dental floss with the point of his knife. Threaded the needle. He palpated the wet hole in his bicep, wiping it clean with gauze. His eyes stung with smoke-tainted sweat. Fresh rivulets of blood ran down his arm as he began to stitch up the torn flesh. The needle pierced his own raw meat. Again. Two stitches. Three.

  Enough. He doubled over, and vomit splattered the mirror.

  He was disgusted with himself. This was nothing. He’d had his legs shattered with a hammer. His pimp had branded his ass with a hot iron when he was a boy. Now that was pain.

  A hot iron. Yes, that would be entertaining, to use upon Svetlana and her lover. White hot, shoved deep into their tenderest places. Like the needle that he’d stabbed into his own raw, ruined flesh.