Red Notice

61

Delphine was still lying on the toilet floor when she heard Tom’s voice.

‘Delphine… Delphine!’

It sounded a long way off at first. Perhaps even in a dream. Then a terrible stench assaulted her nostrils. She opened her eyes, saw the bundle of soiled clothing, and started to recover her bearings.

‘Delphine! Come on!’

Her strength surged back. She started to crawl towards the entrance to the carriage. Tom’s face was framed in what was left of the doorway. He raised his hands to help her out.

A smile crossed her face. ‘You took your time…’ She jerked her head sideways before he had a chance to answer. She could hear Laszlo’s shouts in the distance.

Tom stretched his arms out towards her. He was only a few feet away.

‘Don’t stop — come on.’

But she couldn’t help herself. She glanced once more along the carriage and saw Laszlo approaching, with three of his gunmen behind him.

All Delphine could do was mouth: ‘Go… the children… go…’

She knew he had to fight every instinct that urged him to stay and protect her. She could see it in his face. Finally he nodded. ‘Keep your mobile — I’ll come back for you.’

He dropped back into the gloom.

Laszlo strode up to her, ordering his men to jump down from the train. He seized her by the hair, lifted her head and jerked it back. She arched her back, trying to ease the burning pain in her scalp. She looked into his lifeless eyes and, for the first time in her life, felt pure and uncontrollable fear.

‘Someone attacked us. They took the kids.’ Delphine flinched, expecting him to hit her. But just as quickly, the fear changed to something else. It started to feel liberating. She had no control over the madman standing over her. No matter what she did or said, there was no guarantee he would react as she wanted him to. So what was the point in being scared? All she could do now was cling to any chance she was offered to save herself and the children.

‘You lying bitch.’ Laszlo’s expression darkened, and then the blow came. He raised his arm and backhanded her across the face.

Delphine tasted the metallic tang of blood. ‘Am I lying about the cuts?’ She tried to match his stare. ‘Do you think this is makeup?’

Laszlo’s fingers tightened in her hair and he dragged and kicked her out of the doorway towards the toilet cubicle. She saw the hole in the floor and the empty 9mm cases scattered around it. He inched forward, his feet making no sound, and peered down through the hole. He was suddenly, dangerously, still. Delphine knew what he’d seen: the guard they’d dispatched to escort her and the children, stone dead, his swollen tongue protruding grotesquely from his mouth.

Laszlo betrayed no emotion. The man had been there to fight and, if necessary, to give his life for their cause. What was he supposed to feel? Compassion? Regret? Those luxuries could be afforded only by the comfortable, complacent middle classes of the West. Laszlo had no doubt that he would rather have died in that way than in the squalor of whatever pig-shit village he had come from.

He turned his ice-cold glare back to the woman. She was defiant, this one. He could see the fear in every fibre of her being, but he could not see compliance. Or understanding. Like every one of her kind, she couldn’t comprehend why men chose to fight and die. Maybe these people had spent too long sitting in front of their 44-inch flat-screens, phoning for pizza delivery, knowing the state was always there to feed them if their funds ran dry. Maybe they just had too much to live for.

Laszlo heard Sambor’s hurried footsteps and stepped back into the corridor.

‘The guy we sent to sort out the radio — he’s dead.’

Again, Laszlo’s reaction was no more dramatic than it would have been if his brother had announced that a bulb had blown and needed replacing. He shrugged and pointed out into the darkness. ‘There is just one man out there. And the children will slow him down.’

He wasn’t too fussed if this man had contact with the world outside or not. ‘Come, brother — we have more important things to do.’

Laszlo started to head back up the train, then, almost as an afterthought, waved a hand in the direction of the woman. ‘Bring her.’

Sambor grabbed the bitch’s hair and pulled her to her feet, indifferent to the blood welling from her scalp and starting to dribble down her cheek.