The Survivor

Chapter 54

The men were on him immediately, boots pinning his wrists to the floor, hands wrenching free first the Beretta, then his cell phone, which snapped closed. He was kicked once in the temple, his head snapping back, the sight beneath the bare bulb flashing again into sickening view.

Ice block. Abara, unattached from himself, displayed in parts. Rescue saw on the ground, utterly slathered, the circular blade gummed up and bent from overuse. Matte black handcuffs, now empty, dangled from a chain.

Woozy from the kick, Nate was hoisted to his feet. Two more ice blocks waiting at the back of the barn came visible, along with several rolls of plastic drop cloth. Reserved for him and his daughter.

Blind terror. Bile creeping up his throat. He had to remind himself to breathe so he wouldn’t black out.

Pavlo stepped around the partition, sliding a hand along the edge of the ice block. Tattoos crawled up his neck, down his wrists, escaping his shirt.

“Mr. Abara was a sad man. No wife. No children. Alone.” Pavlo approached, and there was no mistaking the animal rage simmering just beneath the sinew of his face. “It is hard to be alone. To have nothing worth living for.” He wiped his hand on his pants, leaving a dark smear.

Valerik gripped one of Nate’s arms, Dima the other, while Misha pressed a pistol to Nate’s temple. His face a swollen mess, Yuri looked on, wearing gloves and another black guayabera. Blood flecked the front of his shirt, thighs, forearms, face, even the key fob hanging from his breast pocket. Struggling to find air, Nate turned away, wanting to see anything but the ice block and its gruesome display.

Pavlo grabbed Nate’s face, grinding his cheeks painfully against his molars and forcing his head toward what remained of Abara. “This man was your last hope. He told everything. As will you.” He leaned in, and Nate could smell the breath leaking through his teeth. “Where your daughter is. We will get her here.”

“No.” The word barely left Nate’s lips.

Pavlo laughed. “You do not realize that before we even played this chess match, you had lost. Because we are in America, you think your laws cannot be bought? Your computer systems and watch lists? Every one of your movements. Each ATM withdrawal your wife makes.” His hawkish eyes searched Nate for a reaction.

“I know. You buy people-”

“No. We buy people’s time. In five-minute chunks. Little favors. One database search here. A bank report there. There is nowhere you and your family could have gone that my money would not reach. It was over before it began. And now we will have you and your daughter side by side. When we are done with you, you will beg us to hurt her instead of you.”

“Either way,” Nate said, “you’re gonna kill me.”

“Yes. You will die. But that is not the part that interests me.” Pavlo’s eyes reshaped, a squint of amusement and menace. “It is the hour before that.” Keeping his stare on Nate, he gestured with a hand. “Bring saw here.”

Yuri did as he was told, thrusting the dripping saw at Nate until the smell made him gag. Grabbing the handle, he shoved it away.

Yuri raised the saw, checking the set of prints on the sticky handle, the bent blade rasping against the guard bar. Content, he walked the saw over and set it at the base of the ice block. Exhibit A.

“He trusted you,” Pavlo said. “Abara. But the other agents, they did not. They will be upset to learn you justify their suspicions. Would you like to hear recording of call he made to headquarters telling that he changed his mind over you? That he was concerned you were…” He turned and murmured a question to Misha, who said, “Unstable.”

Nate fought another lurch of his gorge and forced out the words: “But the FBI has a file on you-”

“Everyone has file on me.”

“They have evidence on the witness killings. They’re building a case-”

“Let me be clear,” Pavlo said, sounding out each word. “They can use team of forensic accountants, but they will never connect me to Danny Urban”-the name barely making it through the sneer-“and those killings.”

The confidence blazing through Pavlo’s glare removed all doubt. In that instant, Nate felt every hope collapse. His only law-enforcement ally lay severed on an ice block. Nate himself was captured, sure to be tortured, sure to die. And Cielle was next on the chopping block. He gagged some more on the wartime smell and the feeling of the residue on his hands. Choking on despair.

He reached for anything to give him strength. The impression of Janie came to him, her mouth at his collarbone: Why’d you make me wait so long? And then his vow to Cielle: I will let nothing happen to you.

You can’t promise that.

Yes. I can.

He lifted his head, steeled with purpose. Stall, gather information, negotiate, redirect. Anything and everything to shake loose that grain of a chance.

Pavlo had turned to Misha, brushing against him. “Let us get started.”

“You went to all this trouble to frame me,” Nate said. “But once the cops find my carved-up body, they’re gonna know I didn’t kill Abara. And they’ll come after you for it.”

Misha flicked his yellow bangs from his eyes, the ridiculous Beatles mop moving as a single hair-sprayed unit. “No one will find your pieces. Only your fingerprints. And the agent. We will clean the scene. Prepare it.”

“You will tell us where your fat daughter is,” Pavlo said. “You will kill her with words from your own mouth.”

“You broke the saw,” Nate blurted. “What are you gonna use on me?”

Yuri: “We haff backup.”

Pavlo nodded at him, and the big man ambled toward the door.

Nate said quickly, “I made a 911 call. Before I walked in here.”

Misha looked bored. “You did not.”

“Right before you grabbed me. Check the phone.” None of the men moved. “Check the phone.”

Pausing, Yuri reached into his pocket and raised Nate’s phone, clicking through. “Two-second-duration call. A hang-up. So what.”

He started for the door again, but Nate noticed a flicker of concern on Pavlo’s face and pressed the advantage, hard. “My cell-phone number is red-flagged with the authorities. They’ve been waiting to track me down. Now they get a 911 hang-up that traces to a cell tower near Agent Abara’s house? The same agent you just had call in to say he was concerned I was unstable?”

“They won’t come,” Misha said.

“Maybe not.” Nate stared at Pavlo.

Yuri crushed the phone in his hand. Literally crushed it in one hand. It gave off a crackle, pieces of the tough plastic case sticking out of his fist at all angles. The remains hit the concrete floor with a thud.

Yuri took a heated step toward Nate, that key fob flapping in his breast pocket, but Pavlo held up a hand. “Pull car around. Quietly. We move him. Do this at warehouse, where we take our time.” The last three words he spit into Nate’s face.

Yuri glared at Nate, then hurried out. They waited in the chill, the ice blocks crackling now and again as they melted, Nate keeping his eyes from the red smear below the bare bulb. After a time an engine pierced the silence, growing louder, a car drifting up in front of the barn and then turning off. A key scratched in a lock, and then came the distinctive sound of a trunk yawning open.

A few seconds later, the immense front barn door shuddered back, Yuri’s massive form framed against the opening. Behind him the dark Town Car waited. With no ceremony he crossed and seized Nate by the throat and shirt, hauling him through the space like a rolled carpet. Nate wheezed, air cinched off, legs dragging behind him. The capacious trunk awaited, a duffel bag taking up barely a third of the space. As they neared, Yuri hoisted Nate up and hurled him inside. His head struck something hard inside the duffel, and then the trunk slammed, leaving him in pitch-black.

Frantically, he twisted the key fob he’d managed to lift from Yuri’s pocket. He fumbled it, heard it tap somewhere by his neck. Contorting, he searched desperately with his fingertips, finally nudging something. Seizing the key, he felt for the tiny buttons and hit the one with the raised bump. The car chirped twice, locking.

From outside came noise and confusion.

“-how did he…?”

“-other keys?”

“-now you tell me he is inside the fucking-”

Nate rolled over, kicking at the front wall of the trunk, hoping to knock the rear seat backs down so he could squirm into the main cabin. His quick breaths bounced off the roof; his shoulder blades banged back against metal. Again and again he hammered his feet forward.

Zero give. Clearly, the Town Car didn’t have the fold-down feature he was praying for; there’d be no getting through.

The duffel was lodged beneath him, something jamming his kidney, and he remembered that clank when whatever was inside had struck his head. Something hard enough to hammer through the division? As the voices outside grew angrier, he swung the bag around, fought the zipper open, and groped at the contents, trying to guess at what the hell he had.

His hands closed on a curved metal handle, and for the first time tonight he felt the advantage tilt in his direction. He ripped the cord, and the backup rescue saw roared deafeningly to life. The blade seethed in the contained space, all heat and teeth. One slip and he’d lose a limb. Bracing himself, he raked the blade against the trunk wall, sparks and shrapnel flying back into his eyes, his mouth. The smell of burned upholstery and greased metal clogged his throat. Under the strain he felt the weakness of his muscles; given his condition, he wouldn’t be able to keep the pressure on for long. He stopped, the blade quieting, and kicked at the spot he’d carved out. His foot blew through, but the hole wasn’t big enough.

From outside: “-locked in there with the-”

As he revved the blade inches from his cheek, he heard a percussion, and then a straw of light impaled the darkness.

A bullet hole.

Wrenching with all his might, he slashed at the dividing wall, then dropped the saw and smashed through the rear seat backs, a series of bullets skewering the cargo space behind him. Panting, he scrambled over the console into the driver’s seat.

Misha stood five feet back from the driver’s window, aiming for Nate’s head. So it would end here in the front seat of a Town Car. Nate had only an instant to wonder why Misha was standing so far back when he pulled the trigger.

Flinching away, Nate heard himself bellow.

Inches from his temple, the driver’s window wobbled and spit out a chip.

Bullet-resistant.

Of course the boss’s car would be bullet-resistant.

Misha fired again and again, aiming at the same spot.

Nate rammed the keys into the ignition and floored it, the Town Car leaping forward, fishtailing around, clipping the rolled-open barn door. As the ass end of the vehicle swept past the men, they all leaped back except Pavlo. The rear bumper swung within inches of his knees, but he held his ground, unimpressed, glaring through the rear windshield, his craggy face and dead eyes promising, as the car accelerated away, that Nate’s safety was only temporary.

Nate hurtled up the long driveway and careened onto the main road, spilling into the empty oncoming lane, wrestling the car back under control just in time to skid to a stop parallel to his parked Jeep. He stumbled out, across, in, his own set of keys at the ready.

The engine roared to life. Wiping sweat from his brow, his blood-sticky hands firm around the wheel, he aimed the hood at the glowing dotted line and clamped the pedal to the floor. Hurtling through darkness, he felt a sensation overtake him-that he was flying out of his own grave.