Planned Coincidence: A Thrilling Suspense Novel (International Mystery & Crime)

by Dana Arama

  "Check him for weapons. Do it before he wakes up. If you find something, use it!” Guy whispered.

  Too bad he didn’t kill him, I thought as I searched him. Being in the same room with him, when he could come to at any minute, scared me. I removed the goon’s knife. I grabbed the undershirt Guy had torn from me in passion, threw it on and went back to hide in the bathroom. I forgot the knife. I was riveted by the thug’s reflection in the mirror. Every moment, I expected him to wake up, spit out the socks and free himself from the ties. However, unexpectedly, I found myself empowered to go back into the room and take the only weapon available that I would need.

  For ten minutes, I remained in the bathroom alone - ten minutes in which I tried to hear what was happening on the floor below, but heard only my own breathing. The more I tried to breathe quietly, the noisier it became. In the mirror, I saw the door open again. A big hand reached for the switch. Light flooded the room, throwing me into panic. I huddled in the bathroom, gripping the knife hard. I was afraid to look in the bedroom mirror, as if by doing so I would avoid exposure.

  My stay in the bathroom ended when a big bully joined me. He had an especially long barreled gun aimed right at me. I cowered with my hands in the air. I left the knife on the bathroom floor. He signed with the gun to get up and I obeyed. If he had got past Guy, then I was in really bad shape.

  I went downstairs to the living room. An army of tattoos and boots had moved in. A voice boomed over me in Russian. Sergey's voice came in response. "What’s your safe code?" He was sitting, relaxed, in my favorite chair, legs outstretched and hands on the upholstered armrests. Next to him was one of his soldiers, behind me was another and up the stairs, a third. The fourth, I knew, was tied up in my room. Guy was nowhere to be seen.

  "I don’t know," I said. "It was Dan's safe."

  The soldier standing next to Sergey kicked the floor and I heard Guy moaning. Now I knew where he was. He kicked Guy’s belly again. A low moan escaped his lips. He seemed unconscious. As he lay there in his underpants with his head down, he looked helpless.

  "No!" I shouted. "Don’t hurt him, please."

  "Code?" he asked again with a cold smile.

  "I’ll give it to you. Please don’t hurt him."

  He handed me a piece of paper and an expensive pen from his pocket. "Here, my dear, make a note of it, please."

  I walked over to him and risked a glance at Guy. His face was cut and bruised. Tears welled up in my eyes and I turned my face from the sight.

  I wrote the code down and handed the note to Sergey. The soldier next to him took it away and gave it to the guy who was waiting upstairs. Now I was glad I’d destroyed my notebook with the doodles. I knew every line by heart and it was only unnecessary evidence. In the safe was the investigation on Sergey, a file about the farm in the north, and a set of keys for storage room at the farm. I had planned to put the bank vault key, where I’d left the diamonds, in there, but I did not.

  "Sit down." He told me. I sat.

  "I have to admit that, today, you almost confused me with your invitation and welcoming manner. For a moment, I thought you didn’t connect the things."

  "What things?" I said innocently.

  "I don’t buy your game." He smiled, but in his eyes there was no hint of humor. "Your facial expression betrays you. You’re not surprised to see me here." I was silent. He continued: "For years, you wondered - How did they die? What would have happened if I hadn’t fucked him? Maybe I was part of his plan to get the diamonds?" He lit a cigar and nonchalantly continued, "However, for years, I wondered: where are my diamonds?!" Cigar smoke snaked upward. I knew it was going out of the round window at the end of the stairs. I did not answer.

  "How about information in exchange for information?" he asked.

  "You’re wrong.” I deliberately ignored his question. I wanted to undermine his abundant confidence. I wanted to smash it to pieces, but my hand was so inferior. "I accepted their deaths. I learned not to dwell on things I can’t change. So I invited you, to reconcile myself."

  "Oh? You started Zen and yoga… were you looking for peace of mind?" He smiled politely. "You'll never find it again!" He smiled. He was playing my feelings like an artist.

  "You’re wrong again. The power of life is strong. I dealt with death and loss before you came into my life and I overcame it. Here, I'm doing it again now."

  "Maybe with the help of this young man? He’s important to you, no?" This time, it would be Guy who paid the price. I knew I was no hero. If Guy got hurt in front of me, I could not stand it.

  "No. He’s not significant to me."

  "You're a bad liar." I hated the smug smile on his face.

  From the stairs came the voice of the guy who was sent to open the safe. He returned with its contents in his hand.

  Sergey set the clipboard on the low table, adjusted his chair, and pulled out a pair of reading glasses from his pocket. It was quiet in the room as he studied the documents. His playful smile never left his face for a moment, but there was something cold about his actions. "Very impressive. Your researchers did a good job here. Almost very good.” He took off his glasses and leaned back again. "I will fill in the rest for you..." The dramatic pause in his words made me sweat. What horror stories did my researchers expose from me?

  "Let's go back three years. That's what's missing here. When your husband stole diamonds worth about twenty million. You know, he was very careful, that husband of yours." He smiled at me viciously again. "Then, he was not careful." His face was now smeared with a look of mock concern. "When my soldiers arrested him, he tried to take off the boot of your son's leg while he was driving!" He clicked his tongue, "Not very careful… to endanger himself and your son that way in a car accident!" His body language expressed absolute ease. He ruled the moment completely. I was silent. The moment he spoke of was clearly etched in my mind from other trips, as I sat in the back after the competitions, so they could continue to be happy together. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly half past two in the morning. In less than six hours, Esther would come. I began to worry.

  "He panicked, your husband. He was very frightened. Immediately he realized he had made a mistake and that there are people you should not try to play. You simply can’t." Again, he smiled at me. Dan understood. Fear began to filter into my heart. In the same voice he used in our intimate moments, he added: "I am one of them..."

  The kicker nodded. From that, I realized that he understood Hebrew. The group of soldiers were joined by the tied up man from upstairs. His face was familiar. Was he one of Sergey’s two regular bodyguards? No, probably not. I knew him from elsewhere. I could not put my finger on it. I tried hard to focus on the familiar face. I wanted to remember, to fill up my brain and put up armor that would deflect Sergey’s cutting words.

  "I knew that the best way to get him to cooperate was to threaten the child." No armor in the world could prevent these words from penetrating to my heart. I went against my will and continued listening to him. "But I didn’t know when I could catch them both together." He smiled. There was something sinister in his smile. I remembered it from the meeting with Pierre. "You provided this information to me: 'I have the afternoon free. They always go to competitions together.’ Remember?"

  I wanted to throw up. He knew how to stab me in my softest spot. Now, I could no longer see the kicker, the house or Guy. I was terrified of the picture he was going to reveal to me. I knew forever that it would be locked inside the same thoughts I had run from since I knew about the diamonds.

  "But the fool continued to lie. He repeated that the diamonds were not in Israel. You see," he smiled and smoked quietly, "when Evgeny disappeared in Paris, I began to suspect that he’d told the truth, and when I found his body, I realized that you know where they are. Maybe I should have focused on you in the first place, instead of your husband. I almost feel bad for him, and for the boy. He didn’t suffer the pain well. Evgeny actually tried to be gentle with him.”
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  "No," I whispered. "Don’t go on, please, don’t go on..." The picture of Evgeny putting his hands on my son’s body, mixed with images of the scarred girl's testimony, burned my brain. "Stop it!" I shouted, as if by doing so I could undo what had already happened.

  "You know," his voice continued to fill the room, "your child was very beautiful." He got up and came over to me. With his big hand, he raised my blank face. "Very much like you." I felt the pressure of his hand increasing on my face. "It would be a shame to destroy your beautiful face." He almost whispered in my ear, "I want the diamonds. Where are they?"

  "In the north," I answered quickly, without thinking, as if the place I set up for him gave me the power I was missing here. The journey would give me another two hours’ grace.

  "So, then, we go north.” He issued an order in Russian and movement began. Guy was loaded on the shoulder of the bully who had kicked him. I saw his head swaying like a doll's head, before my bully pushed me toward the exit. Sergey took the keys in his hand and walked slowly after us. "Keep in mind," came his voice from behind, "if we get there and the diamonds are not found, your friend will die."

  part 5 – Guy 2010

  Chapter 24

  When I woke up, it was already too late. I lay beside Gabriella upstairs while those motherfuckers surrounded the house. But how? I managed to get three of them: the first I stunned in the bedroom and the other two on the same floor, when they were alone. I didn’t want to kill them, but they left me no choice. The fourth was ten feet in front of me with his gun drawn. I gave up. This didn’t stop him kicking my ass. I lost consciousness for a moment, and when I came to, I was on the floor with my eyes closed. I opened them just enough to see what was happening. It provided me with an excellent observation point. Step by step, I saw their boss trample Gabi. She entered the room like a panther and left without any vertebrae left. The conversation revealed the secrets and lies. I realized something had happened between them and the bastard had taken advantage of her completely. Her purpose to avenge was apparently for another reason.

  We left the house with the threat to our lives clearer than ever. At least the threat on my life. I knew that since we got back to Israel, she hadn’t been north, so the diamonds weren’t there. Now I had about two hours to plan what to do when we arrived. I remembered the building and where the knives were. I was hoping she would take them there, and not to the house. I didn’t get to test it.

  The iron gate opened and two cars entered, the silver Mercedes and a large and bulky Cadillac Escalade. They put Gabi with Sergey in the Mercedes, with the nosey one and with the one that caught her. I was thrown in the trunk of the Cadillac, my head slammed into a prominent bracket. In the car, I was joined by the guy I had tied up earlier and the bully who kicked me. I thought he was the most dangerous. Maybe that's why I thought of him as deputy of the boss.

  Both drivers left the two cars and had a short conversation in Russian with Sergey, after which they got into a van waiting on the street. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the security company logo on it. Now I knew how he penetrated the house and grounds. The security van went ahead and they loaded the two bodies of the others I’d killed into the other cars. The whole thing took no more than ten minutes. I have to admit, they were superbly trained. Sergey without a doubt had several ex-military men with him.

  Sergey’s soldiers replaced the imposters posing as guards, who drove the cars into the driveway. The electric door of the trunk fell with a silent whistle, after which I heard the iron gates close behind us. Now I went through in my mind all their mistakes. From them, I had to find the weak points. The first of these was the fact that they hadn’t gagged me. The other was that they didn’t tie my hands behind me. Quietly and under cover, I began to erode the plastic cuffs that bound my hands. Twenty minutes later, I still hadn’t even scratched the plastic. I had to find another solution.

  My buddies in the car were euphoric. The vodka bottle they passed to and fro reinforced their mood and weighed the driver’s foot on the gas. As part of their celebration, the bottle was even thrown from car to car with loud remarks in Russian. They seemed to be competing as to who’d get there first. I was hoping that the alcohol would undermine their stability, but I knew enough to know that alcohol flows in Russian veins. It had no effect except to make them more dangerous; dangerous enough to take risks on an empty road at night. The emergency stop I longed for came with a sharp bend to the left.

  My movement in the trunk caused both of them to turn around quickly. I kept my eyes closed without moving. The laughter coming from the front seat conveyed a positive message: “Nothing can stop us.” Now that my face was in the direction we were traveling, a whole world was revealed to me on the floor of the trunk, but I made do with just one rough point on the bodywork - the one my blood was smeared on. Slowly and quietly, moving my wrists, I placed them at the point where the iron was especially sharp. I tried to find the corresponding bump before it, to rub the leg cuffs. The angle was nearly impossible. I focused on a ledge next to me and started rubbing the handcuff. Slowly, powerfully, with hardly noticeable movements, I moved my hands and legs together with the movement of the car. The cuffed hands began to give in.

  A stop. I heard Gabi talking to the guy on duty at the guardhouse. The moshav gate opened. The car door slammed again and we went on. I remembered around a ten-minute drive to the last farm, the isolated one. Dammit, my hands were almost free. Legs not yet. Another stop. I heard the creaking of rusty iron, rotating around its axis. I wondered if she noticed that there was no longer a lock, only wire holding the gate shut. The rusty gate opened. We went inside. A short drive. That’s it. We were at the building I wanted. Again, I was hoisted over a broad shoulder. This time, I was thrown down on the concrete floor. I took advantage of the darkness there and I rolled myself to the table in the corner. I quickly grabbed a knife from it. They were still looking for the light switch when I got loose, armed with a knife.

  It had to happen quickly. The knife, I put in the gunman’s neck. He didn’t utter a sound. I let his body fall to the floor and I was soon standing behind the other. He was still chuckling with his dead friend, his hand closer to the switch. He was as dangerous to me as the gunman. I dug the knife into him at a strategic point. His neck had a different thickness. The blood flow that erupted from his throat made the knife glide from my hand. I returned to the body of the first and took the gun. I wiped my hand on his pants. If I’d had time to put something on before they disturbed me from my bed, I’d have been more polite to him.

  I went to the closed window. I knew that there was a hole in the sponge, the one that had taken me hours to dig out on my previous visit. I expanded it with the barrel of the gun and looked out. First light of dawn had begun to break. I’d lost a huge advantage: darkness. The other driver - the one that found Gabi in the bathroom - got out of the car, and led her to the nosy one from the office and Sergey. They stood next to him and took from him instructions. Gabi was still restrained and stood between them barefoot on gravelly soil. From moment to moment, the sky was getting lighter. Now the picture was really in my favor. I knew I was able to eliminate them with some accurate shots, but that it would put her in danger. On the other hand, within seconds, they’d discover the two bodies.

  I had to put all my skills to the test. I estimated the weight of the silenced pistol in my hand, I cocked it quickly and burst from the room. I trusted that the seconds it would take me to get from the window and through the door wouldn’t forfeit any advantage. The four figures still stood exactly where they’d been. The three silenced shots were accurate. Now one character was left standing, but not for long.

  Sergey died with his eyes wide open, my last shot neatly placed between them.

  part 6 – Gabriella 2010

  Chapter 25

  For the third time, I opened the drawer and closed it immediately. The keys lay there, as before. Like a week ago, like three-and-a-half years ago, when I closed the stud
io and vowed not to enter it again. Although the situation was new, I was still not relaxed enough to go back there.

  I looked out toward the open pool and watched Guy. His arms sliced through the water at a constant rate. He preferred the pool to be open. When he reached the edge, he lightly pulled himself out of the water. I enjoyed his looks, while I had clear qualms. My goal was gone. I felt an emptiness, like a sail with no wind… but what about him?

  A ringing phone interrupted my thoughts. "Hello?" I said into the phone.

  "Gabi, it’s Dalia. How are you?" Although it was more than a month since our last conversation, we picked up again like it was yesterday.

  "Worse than it seems." My friendship with Dalia never was dependent on daily communication.

  "I hear it in your voice." She knew me well. "What happened? What about the guy? Still in the picture?"

  "I’m looking at him at this moment, and I know that I have to get him out of the picture."

  "Now? When you’ve finally run out of wars and you have a chance of happiness?"

  "That's part of the problem, Dalia. My wars ended… I ran out of targets and my soul’s empty.”

  "But, honey, this is what you have friends for. This is what your young man’s for, right? Your goal now should be to come back… be happy. Bring him, jump on a plane, and come here?”

  "My young man? No, he’s not mine. I can’t put him in the golden cage I got myself into when I was about his age. He has dreams that he mustn’t give up. He’s too important to me to let him make that mistake.”

  "It's not your mistake, Gabi, and you didn’t choose a golden cage. You didn’t know that this was how it’d end.”

  "No, I didn’t know. I was in love, and it just adds insult to injury because he’s also in love, but with somebody else.”