by Asher, Adele
Despite being beaten to shit down the entire drivers side it was still drivable so we did the only thing appropriate under the circumstances and got the hell out of there.
Chapter 20
NICK PULLED off the autobahn at Ulm and we found a large Mercedes dealer on the outskirt of town. We got out and walked around to survey the damage.
“It’s going to need more than a touch up and wax,” I told Nick. The entire right side of the car was dented beyond recognition and most of the front spoiler was hanging off. “You don’t have much luck with cars do you baby,” I added as I tried to stick the mirror back on which came off in my hand. Having failed to repair it I discarded it.
I surveyed the dealer’s sales lot before spotting transport more appropriate to Nick’s approach to demolition driving.
“You know honey I think its time we got you something a little tougher,” I said.
I went round to the boot and counted out one hundred and fifty thousand Euros in ten thousand Euro bundles and put them in my handbag. I took Nicks hand and like a mother taking her badly behaved child to school to report to the headmaster dragged him into the showroom and headed straight for the military-grade tough, matt black G63 AMG SUV parked in the middle. I handed Nick my handbag
“Hold this,” I said.
He took it off me and held it the way all men hold handbags - like it was a ticking bomb and if he held onto it for more than thirty seconds he would turn into a homosexual.
Nick watched bemused as I picked up a large coat-stand from the corner of the showroom then returned with it (and it has to be mentioned) to the utter shock and horror of the smart suited salesman, whacked the one hundred and fifty grand pristine luxury SUV as hard as I possibly could with it. To my satisfaction it bounced off car like the tough metal coat-stand was made of cardboard. I chucked the coat-stand on the floor where it landed with a loud clatter.
“See? There you go. Not even a dent. Even you can’t destroy this surely,” I said.
“It’s not me it’s the Russians,” protested Nick.
“Yeah yeah. Tell it to your insurance company,” I said.
The salesman came over looking most disturbed.
“Madam! Really I have to ask you…”
“Shut-up Fritz. We’ll buy it. Handbag…” I said gesturing Nick to return my Birkin which he did quickly, glad to be relieved of it before his testosterone evaporated and he developed bitch-tits as a consequence of holding it.
I unzipped the bag and tipped it upright on the bonnet emptying out the bundles of five hundred Euro notes and then looked at the dealer.
“Well don’t fuck about Fritz. Go and get the keys man!” I told him assertively.
“I need to do the paperwork. This is nicht korrect!”
“You can do your paperwork until ze German cows come home. Fetch the keys. We’re leaving. So much for German efficiency…” I tutted at him as I climbed into the sumptuous AMG diamond-stitched leather interior. The salesman looked at me in shock. I double-tapped the horn. “We haven’t got all day! keys Fritz! Chop-fucking-chop. Or in your case sausage-fucking-sausage! Keys! Go!”
The salesman looked at Nick.
“She’s much less impatient when it involves shoes,” Nick told him with a shrug of his shoulders.
“But the paperwork!” the dealer protested to Nick.
Nick picked up a bundle of the Euro notes and tucked one of them inside the salesman’s pocket.
“This is the only paperwork you need. I’d really do what the lady asks. She gets much more difficult if you upset her.”
“Very well but das ist nicht korrect!” the salesman said reluctantly scooping up the Euros from the bonnet and disappearing into his office. I smiled at Nick.
“See? You have to be firm with the Germans. Otherwise they take liberties. Like invading Poland.”
Nick walked around and got in the passenger seat. I smiled at him as I twiddled with the various buttons and dials.
“Let’s see those bastard Russians mess with us now.”
“It’s not going to be very fast though is it?”
Nick looked longingly across at the SLS AMG parked next to it.
“When you manage to go an entire week without destroying a car. Then I will buy you something faster,” I said, kissed him and honked the horn again.
“KEYS FRITZ!” I yelled. “For fucks sake!”
The Salesman hurried back with the paperwork and keys.
“If you can just give me your signature here.” I grabbed the pen and scrawled my signature across the form and flung it back at him and grabbed the keys from him.
“Pleasure doing business with you Fritz. Don’t spend it all on lederhosen. Now open the fucking doors.”
I put the key in the ignition and fired the V8 into life. The side exit exhausts burbled throatily like a Van-Halen concert warm-up. I gave the salesman a couple of angry revs as I put it in drive to make him fully aware if he didn’t open the showroom glass doors I was more than prepared to drive straight through them. Dropping his paperwork he ran across and hurriedly slid them open falling over and crashing into a pot plant as he did so. I gave the G-Wagen a boot full of throttle and exited the showroom leaving two long streaks of black rubber on the surgically clean white tiles.
I drove across to our abandoned E63. Nick being the perfect gentleman unloaded our belongings into the capacious cargo space before returning to the passenger seat and putting his seatbelt on.
We departed back to the Autobahn and set off in the direction of Stuttgart and Luxembourg. While not quite as rapid as the E63 to Nick’s disappointment the five hundred and fifty horsepower tuned AMG V8 still gave the G-Wagen a fair turn of speed and a delightfully woofly soundtrack. We made good progress despite it having the aerodynamics of a shed albeit at the cost of doing less than seven miles to the gallon.
“What?” I asked Nick who hadn’t spoken since we left the dealership in Ulm.
“Nothing,” he replied sulkily.
“Nothing bullshit. You haven’t spoken for forty miles or more.”
“Nothing…” he replied again with an exasperated sigh.
“It’s because I didn’t buy you the SLS isn’t it? You wanted a sports-car.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Come on, you had that little boys face on.”
“It would have been nice if you asked my opinion on vehicle choice,” he said petulantly.
I realised I had transgressed the line that must never be crossed with anyone in possession of a penis and testicles.
I, a woman, had chosen a car.
“Ah I see. I’ve pissed on your carpet. I can choose the shoes but choosing a car is mans work. Apart from the fact I paid for it,” I said.
“I know you paid for it and you have every right to choose. But you didn’t even ask me my opinion.”
“Are you cross at me?” I said surprised.
“Yes I am,” he replied with annoyance.
“You’re hungry. You always get grumpy when you are hungry,” I retorted.
It was like we were an old married couple already.
Nick ignored me for the next hour until he went to sleep. I pulled into the Autobahn services to refuel the car and acquired him a meal. He woke up as I got back in the car and threw the cardboard box in his lap.
“Here, I bought you a happy meal.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Yes it is,” I smiled. “That’s why it’s called a happy meal not a miserable sulking motherfucker meal.”
“Well It isn’t. Funny,” he said as he opened the window and threw the box out of it. I looked at him trying to work out why he was in such a bad mood. Without saying anything he got out of the car and slammed the door closed. I watched as he stormed across the car park before sitting on the fence with his back to me and lit a cigarette.
Normally at this point when faced with such a bout of petulance I would drive off and leave him to his sulking fit. Nick’s sudden
change of mood actually took me by surprise since he had been incredibly mild-mannered given our ordeals up to this point so I could only put it down to the exceptional stress getting to him. I felt an unusually deep sense of regret that I had somehow done something to offend or hurt the man I now loved deeply.
I got out and walked over to try and make amends. I put a gentle hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off in annoyance and I retracted it reluctantly.
“Why are you being like this Nick?”
“You don’t get it do you?”
“If it’s the car…if it means that much to you we’ll take it back and change it.”
“It’s not the car. It’s everything.” He got up and glared at me briefly before looking away. I bit my lip and did my best to hold back the tears. “I can’t afford to play these games with you. They’re too expensive.”
“It’s only money. If you knew the manner in which my father made it you really wouldn’t give a fuck either.”
“All those people on the Autobahn. It’s not a game to them. It’s not a game to me.”
“It’s not a game to me either! I’m just trying to keep us alive. I love you.” I shrugged my shoulders and wiped the tears from my cheeks. “If I could stop this I would. I just don’t know how.”
“Well I don’t know how either. And here we are,” Nick said almost to himself.
“Why can’t you even look at me?” I asked pitifully but he didn’t respond. I nodded reluctantly. “You know I don’t care about the money. The car. None of this shit. I care about you. I just care about us making it through this to the end in some desperate hope we can be together and be happy.” Nick didn’t respond. “But if you don’t want to fight for that too, well I guess there isn’t actually any point in keeping going is there? We already lost.”
I walked back to the car crying and got in hoping desperately he would follow and would hug me better, would kiss me and tell me he was sorry and everything was okay.
Reaching the car without feeling him there to stop me, a little bit of my heart broke in two. I waited not sure if I should stay or go. I didn’t want to look up, look over and see that he was already gone. When I finally found courage I looked across to see Nick stood by the barrier staring over at me wiping the tears away from his face. I had never seen him cry. Somehow with all his macho bravado I thought perhaps he was one of those men too disconnected from his emotions to cry.
I got back out of the car and walked slowly around to face him. He smiled softly at me in an apologetic sort of way. I smiled back I saw him mouth ‘I love you’. I mouthed ‘I love you too’ back. He started walking towards me then was suddenly distracted as two black GL’s smoked to a halt either side of him and Russians spilled out of the back of each and pointed their guns at him.
It seemed as if the world was caught in slow motion. I saw Nick feel for his gun and realise it was still in the car. I watched helplessly as they surrounded him. They had but to squeeze the trigger and end his life thus destroying every hope of future happiness I could ever have in an instant. Nick looked down at the floor reluctantly realising he was trapped. He put his hands behind his head as the Russians warily circled him.
Nick looked me in the eye and mouthed ‘go’. I shook my head. He gently nodded. Without thinking I couldn’t stop myself.
“Nick!” I yelled crying at him instantly attracting the Russians attention, they aimed their guns at me and opened fire.
“No!” I heard Nick shout angrily as he charged the Russian firing at me knocking him off his feet. The remaining three goons quickly turned their attention back to him and knocked him to the floor pinning him on the ground, guns pointed at his head, his cheek pinned against the concrete. Satisfied they had secured him the other Russians started running in my direction. Reluctantly with no other choice than to abandon the most important person in my life I ran round to the G-Wagen and got in the drivers seat.
I fumbled with the keys desperately trying to start it as the bulky Russian ran towards me - every precious second that passed feeling like a lifetime. I felt the V8 burst into life and ripped the handbrake off then pushed the stick into drive. I looked back over to Nick. He struggled as they bundled him into the GL. There was nothing I could do…as the Russian got close enough to wrench the passenger door open I floored the throttle and exited the car-park towards the motorway crying for all I was worth.
I drove for miles with no idea of where I was going or what I would do. The fact they would kill him I was completely certain. I replayed the scene over and over in my mind as I drove through the black night of the Autobahn trying to think what I could of done differently wishing I had been brave enough to take a stand and fight for my mans life. Having driven for more than an hour I pulled off the autobahn into a rest stop. I pulled my coat over me for warmth and cried myself to sleep.
I woke just after dawn broke as the cold light filtered through the tinted glass into the car. It was freezing. I turned the engine on, put the heater blower and heated seats to maximum and huddled in my coat. I had half hoped it had been a terrible nightmare and I would wake up and Nick would appear with coffee.
But it was real. He was gone.
I no longer cared about getting my apartment back or the rest of my estate from Luxembourg. I just wanted Nick back. I didn’t know what but I knew I had to do something. Nick of course would be the consummate professional. Just has he had sacrificed himself for my escape he would not give me up to the Russians no matter how much they tortured him.
I drove to the next service-stop pulled in and headed for the restroom to wash my face and clean up before going and ordering a miserable breakfast of croissant and coffee. Sitting alone in the café it felt as if my world had ended. I was completely alone. I felt angry briefly at Nick’s emotional outburst. Had he not been in such a bad mood we would have left and been tucked up in bed somewhere. Happy and together. Then I realised how much stress our entire situation had put him under. I was so used to him coping and dealing with it that it never occurred to me that he wasn’t actually superman. He had the same frailty and emotional fragility that everyone of us faces at some point - usually when life is trying its hardest to break us.
I didn’t know what to do. I knew, as Nick knew, that I was their real target. They wanted me to answer for Vladimir’s death and my money to pay for Roy’s arms deal. Nick was merely a pawn in their game to assist in reaching their goal and they would do everything in their power to make Nick co-operate and he would do everything to avoid it. I tried to think what he would do in this situation, how he would turn the odds against the Russians.
I remembered the list Roy had given me and I pulled it out of my pocket and read through it hoping it contained some answers.
Luxembourg.
The money-laundering bank was the key to this. I needed something to bargain with. Something to trade beyond what was important to them – the money. If they got to Luxembourg and liquidated my property funds into cash as Nick and I had presumed they would do then they would no longer need the cash I had and Nick would become redundant. As long as I held all the money I had a chance to trade it for Nick’s life. I downed my coffee and ran back to the car and drove as fast I could to the address that Roy had given me.
It would have been suicide to go direct to the banks offices. They were clearly an outfit of scoundrels and probably heavily protected with all manner of ex Special Forces private security guards not to mention the fact Roy and the Russians would head straight there. Instead I headed for the home address of Roy’s private banker contact in a smart residential district of the city. I found somewhere discrete to park and waited.
It was late afternoon when his wife and two children returned from school. Picking up a bag containing an M4 rifle, some prepack C4 and detonators I made my way down the drive. The wife looked up at me as she unloaded the shopping from her car.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
I discretely pointed my pistol at her in order to n
ot scare the children.
“Tell your children to go inside,” I told her.
She looked at me alarmed before complying.
“What do you want?” she asked with concern.
“I don’t want to hurt you or your family. I’m here for your husband.”
“What do you want with him?”
“Go inside the house,” I ordered her.
I pushed the gun into her back and followed her in.
“What time does your husband usually come home?” I asked.
“About six.”
I checked my watch. It was a little after four-thirty p.m.
“Who are you what do you want?” she asked.
“The people your husband work for are holding someone I love very much hostage. If he does everything I say you won’t be hurt. If he doesn’t I swear to you I will kill you, your children and then him. Are we clear?” I said. She started crying. “I’m sorry. Your husband really should do business with nicer people, then you wouldn’t have to be involved with all this.”
I didn’t like having to involve the children, while I may have taken certain latitudes with morally acceptable behaviour during my career as an assassin I wasn’t a psychopath. At that point I would probably have done anything to get Nick back and I knew that I couldn’t afford to be sentimental or give any quarter to my opponents, as Russians they would give me none in return and since her husband was unlikely to want to co-operate for fear of the retribution his clients would pay on him I had to ensure he felt the Russians were the lesser of two evils. This was an astonishingly difficult task given how little mercy Russians generally showed to men, women, children or animals if it didn’t suit them.
I tied the banker’s family up and gagged them before setting to work rigging the C4 and remote detonator.