Authors: Steve N. Lee
Tags: #Action Suspense Thriller
Hooking her free hand under his chin, she yanked around and back, cranking his neck further than it would naturally turn, the blade now in front of his face.
Michal wailed, his arm being yanked out of its socket in one direction and his head being ripped off his body in the other.
“Where is Catalina Petrescu?”
“F-f-f-fuck you!”
With his free hand splayed on the trunk, he tried to push up. He must have believed that, being a man, he’d be stronger than she was so he could break free and attack her again.
She cranked the armlock and headlock on harder, levering his bones and tendons to their breaking points. He wailed, his handsome face so twisted he looked like a grotesque gargoyle from a church in the Old Town.
Elena poked her head around the end of the alley. Tess was in complete control, so she crept closer.
Her biceps straining, Tess said, “You’re going to tell me where you took Catalina Petrescu or I’m going to rip your head clean off.”
She relaxed her hold slightly, let the pain she was inflicting subside, then yanked hard again, renewing the bone-breaking agony.
Bucking to break free, he shouted, “Fuck you!”
“Wrong answer.”
Tess let go of his chin. The torque on his neck made his face smash into the trunk while her armlock pinned him there still.
She grabbed the knife. Speared it down into the back of his free hand. Nailed him to the trunk.
His whole body bucked as he screeched with pain.
His eyes wide with terror, he stared at the knife sticking out of his hand and the blood running down his car.
Tess said, “Next time it goes in your goddamn eye. Now, tell me where you took her?”
He didn’t so much reply as squawk, “5-2-6 Dlugie Ogrody.”
Tess grabbed the handle of the knife and twisted it back and forth. The cold blade scraped against the bones in his hand.
Michal cried out, half-screaming, half-blubbering.
She eased off the knife. “What street?”
Spittle shooting from his mouth, he said, “Dlugie Ogrody, Dlugie Ogrody!”
Again, she twisted.
“What number?”
“Please! 5-2-6. Please, no more!”
Tess had to be sure he was telling the truth – increasing the level of pain while checking his answers matched was the quickest and easiest method. It had worked for Sergei in Russia and once he’d passed on how to torture someone correctly, it had worked for her in Shanghai. Although, if Michal were smart, he’d tell her the truth anyway – leading her to his accomplices for them to dispose of her would be his best option for his survival.
A man’s voice boomed from behind Tess. She looked over her shoulder without releasing her grip on Michal.
A man stood at the end of the alley. As wide as a door, he was either a bodybuilder, a steroid junkie, or both. He shouted something in Polish, the little girl with pigtails clinging to his side.
Elena stepped forward and shouted back in Polish. Tess couldn’t tell what she was saying, but her tone was passive, not aggressive.
The man replied, his tone more mellow. Tess heard the word ‘
policja
’. She didn’t need a Polish-English dictionary to tell her that meant he might have called the cops already. She didn’t want to say anything to Elena as speaking in English could cause even more suspicion. Their only option was to get away. Fast.
Elena shouted one last thing and the man and his daughter left. She turned to Tess. “I told him the guy stole your purse.”
“Did he buy it?”
“Buy it?”
“Believe it? Did he believe it or is he going to call the cops?”
“I’m not sure.”
Tess had an address. She was ninety percent sure it was the right one. They had to go with it.
Keeping the knife in Michal’s hand and her armlock in place, she used her free hand to pat his pockets to search him. During the search, she found two phones – a smartphone and a burner. She took both. She also pocketed his wallet – whatever money he had would come in very handy. Finally, she found his car keys.
He screamed as she pulled out the knife. She held it to his throat. His eyes so wide they were almost round, the only noise he made was from gasping for air. She then bundled him into his car’s trunk.
Once she had him squashed inside, where he was in no position to be a threat, she took a plastic tie from her bag, which Elena had been looking after, and bound his wrists. The ties had proved invaluable in Shanghai, so she always kept a few with her.
His face bloody, hatred boiling in his eyes, Michal stared up at Tess. “Artur will enjoy to break you.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure I’m going to love him too.” Tess slammed the trunk shut.
They jumped in the car, Tess in the driver’s seat. After slinging her backpack and gloves onto the backseat, she fired up the car’s satnav and then turned to Elena. “How do I spell ‘Dlugie Ogrody’?”
Elena said, “Do you want me to type it?”
“Please.” Phonetics were fine – she could repeat the words she’d heard because she’d had so much practice learning languages over the past decade – but spelling Polish words? From the language tips in her guidebook, among its other idiosyncrasies, Polish had three different forms of the letter
Z
. What kind of a language needed three
Z
s, for Christ’s sake?
As Elena input the address, Tess started the engine. “You’re going to have to translate the directions too.”
Tess would have liked to have questioned Michal further, but time was crucial. Cat had been gone for almost a day and a half now. If she was still alive, for how much longer would that be the case? Or if she had already been ‘put to work’, how much longer would it be before she wished she was dead?
Tess pulled the Mercedes into the curb in front of a grocery store with heavy-duty black metal security grilles over its windows.
The car’s satnav said their destination was a hundred meters around the corner behind them. They’d driven past it once, hoping no one inside would be looking out to recognize Michal’s car and raise the alarm if they saw a stranger driving it.
An old hotel in a mostly deserted building, 526 Dlugie Ogrody looked to have just a door at ground level with the actual rooms on the levels above. While she couldn’t be sure because she’d been driving, it looked like the door had an intercom. That could mean she’d have to be buzzed in. Maybe even give a password. Thank God she’d kept Michal alive in the trunk.
But first, Tess needed to prepare while they were still out of sight. She reached around and then pulled her backpack from the backseat.
“How are we going to do this?” Elena asked.
“We?”
“So, you’re going to take on everyone in there, find Catalina and watch him?”
Elena had a point. If entry was through using the intercom, she’d need him to speak to whoever was inside to get the door open. What would she do with him then? If Tess wasted time bundling Michal back into the truck, the security system’s automatic lock function would kick in and lock the door again before she made it back to it.
She studied Elena. Frail, sick Elena. Could she really help?
Tess removed her armor from her bag. “If he’s tied up and kneeling on the floor, do you think you can guard him if you have the knife?”
“Please, I used to gut pigs when I was growing up. After what he’s done, he’ll be lucky if I don’t slit his goddamn throat the moment I’m alone with him.”
“Yeah, well don’t, please. Not because he doesn’t deserve it, but because we might still need information from him if anything goes wrong.”
Elena frowned as if puzzled. “We’re here now. We’re going to get Cat and escape. What could go wrong?”
Tess shot her a sideways look. “That’s usually what people think before they get their ass handed to them.”
Pulling on her bulletproof vest, Tess said, “I’m hoping nothing will go wrong, but there’s never any guarantee.”
“If you want me to guard him, I will, of course. Anything to help get Cat back.”
Tess rolled up the legs of her jeans and then put her left foot through an elasticated tube. Once the tube was on her leg, she twisted it around until the ten-inch strip of concave steel – similar to the ones for her forearms – hugged her shin bone. She put on the shin guard for her right leg, then the guards for each forearm. Finally, she slipped on her gloves.
She was ready.
Physically.
Mentally, that was another question.
Getting out of the car, Tess’s heart pounded like a blacksmith’s hammer beating hot iron.
She hadn’t killed this year. She’d half-hoped she might not have to. Half-hoped she wouldn’t encounter someone who victimized other people so much they didn’t deserve to live.
Half-hoped.
Deep inside, in the part of her she knew existed, but rarely liked to acknowledge, she half-hoped she would have to kill.
Not that she got off on killing.
No, it wasn’t the killing she liked, but the warm glow of knowing she’d made the world one tiny bit brighter. That she’d brought relief where once was only suffering. Brought justice where once hung only abuse.
It was a sacrifice. She’d traded an ordinary life of career, family, and friends for one of pain, solitude, and danger. But then that was what life was: sacrifice. As any parent, entrepreneur or athlete would testify. The secret was to only sacrifice when you knew it would bring something of value into the world. Value was the key. Ridding the world of people who forced women into prostitution? Hell, that was one big pile of value, that was.
Walking around to the back of the car, Tess’s muscles twitched with nervous energy as her adrenaline kicked in at what might be lying in wait for her in the abandoned hotel.
Resting a hand on the trunk for a moment, Tess drew a couple of long, slow breaths to combat her fight-or-flight response and, thus, calm her mind and body.
With a clear mind and a steady hand, she opened the trunk. Stared down at Michal. Pressed his own blade against his cheek just beneath his left eye.
Wincing, he tried to pull away but the trunk was too small.
“You’re going to get us into 5-2-6, okay?” Tess said.
“Anything. Anything.”
“If you don’t do exactly as I say, I’ll take your eyes. If you try to warn anyone, I’ll take your life. Understand?”
“Understand, yes. I do only what you say.”
She hauled him out. Cut the tie binding his hands together. Pushed him into the driver’s seat. She then sat behind him and thrust the knife against his throat.
He sucked air in sharply as the cold blade touched his flesh.
“Drive us to the door,” she said.
He fired up the engine. Moments later, they pulled up outside the hotel.
Tess leaned forward so she could speak right into his ear. “Remember, if anything goes wrong, the first person who dies is you.”
“Please, I do everything you say. Please, no more knife.”
“Keys.” Tess held out her other hand.
Michal put the car keys in it.
“How many of your men are inside?” She didn’t care about johns as they’d either run or hide. All she needed to know was how many guards she’d have to fight.
“Two, maybe.”
“Guns?”
As if it was a preposterous idea, he said, “Guns? No!”
Two guys more than likely meant at least four. No guns meant they were probably armed. Being smart, he was playing down the threat in the hope she’d waltz in with too much confidence and get the crap kicked out of her, which would save him.
“Elena, when he speaks Polish, listen to what he says so we know he’s not tricking us, and when we get inside, do what we discussed earlier. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Tess shoved Michal on the side of the head. “Get out and get us in.”
All three of them climbed out of the car and walked over to the door, where Michal pushed a button on the brass-plated intercom and spoke in Polish.
Elena nodded that what he’d said was fine.
A buzzer sounded, Michal pulled the door open, and they went in.
Tess stared at a gloomy corridor with a filthy brown carpet and walls covered in black grime. The only way to go was forward, where a staircase climbed into the unknown.
Her heart raced. What was she going to find at the top of the stairs?
Tess crept toward the stairs and up. As she did, she drew in a deep slow breath over four seconds, held it for another four, and then exhaled slowly for four. Then repeated the process. Calming her breathing calmed her mind and her body. Not that she was superhuman. Only a complete imbecile wouldn’t be afraid walking into the nightmare scenario into which she was. But while her heart hammered, it wasn’t running away with itself like an untrained person’s would be in this situation. Similarly, her thinking remained clear, unclouded by panic.
Her slow breathing was a simple technique she’d developed through trial and error in Shanghai. It constantly amazed her how something so simple could have such a tremendous effect in staving off panic.