Diana's Disciples

by Eddy Will

  “Who’s hurt?” he barked.

  “I am fine,” Jack said, scrambling to his feet.

  “I am fine, I guess,” Styx called out from behind the bed. Jack found Maria on the floor, bleeding from a wound in her gut. Her eyes stared at the ceiling, her breath short.

  “The window,” the Russian said, “open the window, Jack.”

  Jack tore the dirty curtains back and pushed open the old window. It took a good shove for the swollen sash to give way and swing open. Jack climbed through the opening onto a rusty fire escape. The alley below was deserted.

  Shots erupted on the other side of the hotel room door, the wood splintering as bullets punched holes. Jack ducked and the glass in the sash shattered.

  “Move,” he cried, stepping away from the opening. Tarpov fired through the door into the hallway.

  “Go, Styx, go,” the Russian shouted.

  Styx scrambled to her feet and ran. She reached the open window and Jack roughly pulled her through the frame. The punk girl screamed. Shots exploded into the room. A mirror shattered. Jack bundled the punk girl down the rusty metal steps. “Go, go, go,” he said. He had to clear the escape route for Sergey Tarpov, for when the Russian abandoned his post by the door, he would have to move quickly. Jack and Styx reached the bottom of the steps. He pushed down on the lever that would release the ladder section of the fire escape. The ladder did not move.

  “Christ,” Jack said, and kicked the lever, frozen in place from decades of decay and rust.

  “It won’t go,” Styx said. She swung her legs over the railing and climbed down the rusty ladder rungs until she reached the end. Her legs dangled in the air as her hands grasped the bottom rung. Styx screamed and let go, plummeting to the ground below. She hit the ground hard and rolled to the side, softening the blow to her body.

  Tarpov appeared in the window, firing his gun at the door before he raced down the rickety steps.

  “Bloody hell,” Jack mumbled as he followed Styx’s path. He hit the ground and rolled away.

  “The gun,” Tarpov said when he reached the bottom of the stairs. Jack looked up, his body still rattled from the impact with the hard pavement and the Russian tossed the gun from the landing. Jack caught the firearm and stepped into the alley for a better view of the window.

  A killer appeared at the window, his gun searching for a target. Jack fired at the window. The killer ducked back into the room.

  Tarpov climbed over the railing and jumped to the ground, his heavy bulk crashing on the pavement.

  “Ouch,” he cried in pain, and scrambled to his feet. “I am too old for this crap,” he said, limping away.

  He took the gun from Jack and the three ran for the end of the alley. Sirens screamed in the distance. They had to hurry. There was no time to explain themselves to the police and Jack and the Russian had probably broken a fistful of British laws.

  Tarpov ran around the corner and collided hard with a killer. The two men bounced off one another, the powerful impact rattling both. Tarpov staggered over the man, who had dropped his gun. Jack delivered a powerful kick to the killer who struggled to reach for his gun. The man’s head slammed into the wall with a dull thud. Jack sprinted to keep up with the Russian, who was running for the car, parked a block from the hotel. They neared the corner when another killer turned into the narrow side street, his gun pointed at the two men. Tarpov stopped and so did Jack. There was no time for Tarpov to raise his weapon. They were caught. The killer flashed a hint of a smile as he sensed his victory. His eyes narrowed and his finger squeezed the trigger. A deafening shot exploded in the narrow street and a small hole appeared in the killer’s forehead. There was no surprise on the man’s face for he was already dead. Jack turned in shock. Styx stood behind him, her arm outstretched, the weapon of the killer who had collided with Tarpov in her small hands.

  “Holy Mother,” Tarpov grunted. “I owe you, but let’s go.”

  The trio crossed the street dodging traffic. Police cars raced down the busy street, pushing their way through a sea of automobiles, parting the line of cars with wailing sirens. The three reached the other side of the street just as squad cars pulled up. Doors flew open and armed police officers scrambled from the vehicle. Seconds later a black van screeched to a halt and men in helmets carrying automatic weapons piled out, taking up positions, surrounding the Railway Hotel.

  Jack and his team had slowed their pace, blending into the crowd gathering on the sidewalk, keeping an eye on the fast growing number of police officers. They turned into a small street, convoys of police cars racing to the scene of the gun battle.

  Jack climbed into the car and tossed the keys to the Russian. “Can you drive?”

  “Of course,” Tarpov said, flatly. “Where to?”

  “Heathrow. I’ll map it,” Jack said.

  Styx piled into the backseat. “I know the way,” she said.

  Chapter 48

  Carpathian Mountains, Romania, August 4, 2012, 3:31 PM

  It had rained hard for hours and Anna was soaked to the bone. She had moved along the winding river searching for a place to cross without having to get into the cold water. The pouring rain slowed her progress, but, she prayed, also kept Remington huddled in a warm tent.

  The ground was soft and muddy, run-off from higher ground creating fast moving streams flowing into the river. She was a long way from the waterfall, which she had made her destination. She was glad for the meat, which she had cut from the rabbit and cooked over the flames of a small fire. Just in time, too. The rain ruled out fires for the foreseeable future. How easy was it to walk into a supermarket at home and buy a ready cooked chicken from the deli, no matter the weather or time of day? She missed home. A hot bath, a warm meal and a cozy bed was more than she could wish for. She thought of their small house in the Rocky Mountains, she thought of Jack and what he might be doing about now. Was he home, mourning the loss of his wife? Or was he still on the mountain in Peru, looking for her body that was not there? What she would give to cuddle by a roaring fire with Jack sipping hot chocolate and just being together. And the thought that she might never see him again, that they would never make love by the fireplace, hurt her heart, the sudden ache in her chest made her wince.

  But she was not dead yet, she told herself. And as long as she had breath there was hope. There was a way out of this nightmare; she only had to find the key, figure out what steps would save her and which would kill her. It was a gamble. Every step she took could mean her death, while another step meant survival. But which step was which? She still had no plan, she was merely running from the hunters, praying for an opportunity to present itself. Eventually she would have to take charge of her predicament. She would have to wrestle control from Remington and his crew.

  Her eyes registered the movement before her brain connected the dots. An instinctive reflex made her duck. The muzzle flash barley preceded the violent cracking of the rifle and a fraction of a second later a bullet streaked over her head, the sharp whistle piercing her ear.

  The sudden involuntary move caused Anna to slip on the muddy ground. She fell into wet dirt. A second gunshot. Then a third.

  Anna screamed and scrambled in the mud, sliding down the steep and slippery embankment to the river. Her legs and arms flailed and kicked in all directions desperately seeking purchase, frantically looking to slow her descent. Another shot rang out and echoed across the landscape.

  Anna was not going to stop her slide into the river below. She scrambled to her feet and used the momentum of her fall to propel her body into the water. She took two steps and hurled herself into the river. Stretching her body, her arms reaching for the opposite bank, she dove into the river, the icy cold took her breath away. Fighting panic and terror, she stayed under the surface, kicking her legs and shoveling her arms to get away from the embankment, powering to the other side. A high-pitched ping shot through the water and a bullet plowed a bubbly path past her head and to the bottom of the river.

&n
bsp; ‘Please God, no,’ she thought. Remington could not see her under water, he was merely guessing. Anna powered forward, her lungs choking spastically for air. If she surfaced she was dead. She would rather drown than be shot by Remington, denying him the satisfaction of a kill. Her lungs ached for air, Anna had to bite her lip hard to stop her mouth from opening involuntarily and inhaling the river, flooding her lungs with water and killing her. She pulled her arms hard, pushing her body through the deadly water.

  Her hand burrowed into soft slimy mud. She had arrived. She turned her body, facing the surface and when she felt vegetation on her face she pushed her mouth from the water and sucked in air; cold, wet, life-giving air had never tasted so sweet. She gulped in mouthfuls while her hands dug into the roots of river reeds keeping her body under the surface. She popped her head up, and hidden in the grass-like plants she scanned the river bank. Remington walked by trees, clutching his long rifle, his eyes searching the river for his prey. He was looking in the wrong place. He had not taken into account the powerful current that had pulled her downstream. Anna took a deep breath and pushed her body back into the river, her hands digging into the mud, the current doing the job of moving her, while she focused on staying under the surface and out sight. And when her lungs threatened to burst again, she pulled her body to the river’s edge and popped her head through the vegetation, sucking in air. The river had dragged her a hundred yards from her would-be-killer. Remington had not left his position, the rifle pointed at the river as he continued his careful search in the same area where he had seen her enter the water.

  Anna repeated the process until a bend in the river had taken her out of sight from her hunter.

  How had they managed to cut off her path? How did they know where she would be going? The river. It was the river that had given her away. They had been tracking her along the river and assumed that she would not cross the river while it was too wide. It had been easy to predict her path: just follow the river. She wanted to kick herself for her stupidity. Instead she clawed her shivering, mud-covered body from the river and up the steep muddy embankment.

  Cold rain pelted her face. She ran away from the river and away from Remington’s deadly rifle. She was angry, angry at the psychopath hunting her, angry at herself for not having been able to see the danger of following a predictable path along the river. It would be a mistake like this, which would kill her. It could have happened by the river. Remington only needed one lucky shot. She had presented herself to him on a platter. She had been lucky, again, but eventually her luck would run out. That was a fact. And she would make more mistakes. That was another fact. The time to turn the tables was running out with every encounter with the hunting party.

  She ran across a field, the tall grass coming up to her belly, heading for the relative safety of a forest. She could no longer assume that Remington was too soft to cross the river. That assumption would be another miscalculation, another mistake, one that could well be her last. She had to keep moving, head to higher ground, head for the faraway waterfall. The soaked clothes hung heavily on her tired and cold body and slowed her pace, but a fire in her heart fueled by rage and the desire to go home, to see Jack again, kept her legs moving. She moved through the dense forest in a light trot.

  As long as she held on to the GPS tracker, it would only be a matter of time, before the hunters would catch up with her, but if she kept moving at a brisk pace, they would have to do the same, which gave them less time to recover and less opportunity to plan. Her path was erratic, changing direction frequently. She would not allow them to easily plot and predict her path again. Anna visualized her movements on a large screen, her position being a red dot, much like she had seen on the tracker’s display. She added a black dot indicating the location of the hunter and she used the screen in her mind to track her own moves, changing direction as it might relate to the hunter’s location. She had drawn the river onto the mental map and she plotted her moves in such a way that no matter where or when Remington crossed the river she would be a long way away, hopefully buying precious time.

  The sky was black with heavy clouds and the remaining daylight began to fade. It would be dark soon. Anna was not looking forward to a cold and wet night in soaked clothes. It would deplete her strength and possibly make her sick. Spending another night huddled in a tree or in a hole in the ground would be her last, she figured. Tomorrow she would be easier prey than she was today and as the harsh wilderness sapped her strength, Remington would have an easy shot.

  She slowed her run and stood still in a small clearing, allowing the rain to pummel her face and body. The sudden realization that, bar a miracle, tonight would be her last was profound. She stood motionless, eyes closed, breathing in the clean air, and feeling the weight of her wet clothes. She listened to the steady beating of her heart and allowed her mind to drain out all thought and images. And soon the pounding rain disappeared as did the dense muddy forest around her.

  And then she knew. She felt the thought before it entered the mind, not born in the brain but in her soul, and it grew from a tiny fragile bubble to something larger and stronger, to something that would withstand the light, then her touch and finally her grabbing it with her fist. It was only then, that Anna opened her eyes. The rain pelted her face again, her wet clothes pulled on her frame, and the forest stood dense all around her.

  But something had changed. It was Anna. She raised her face to the rain and let it needle her cheeks, her chin, her forehead, her eyes, her open mouth. She let the rain fill her mouth before she closed it and swirled the water around. Then she spat it out in a long stream, giving it back the forest.

  She dropped to her knees, sinking deep into the mud, and pulled the knife from its leather sheath and placed the pointy tip on her right cheekbone. Slowly, she pulled down, the sharp blade cutting a trench into her flesh. She watched as her red blood mingled with the rain water, turning pink, as it washed over her tunic and pants and ran into the brown mud. The wound stung, but she welcomed the pain. Her blood and rain mixed and ran along the dirt, seeking cracks and nooks into which to disappear, to nourish and feed the fertile ground. And with her blood ran the fear and the terror from her heart into the muddy dirt.

  When she finally rose and sheathed her knife, her change was complete. Nothing would be the same now. The rain felt different, it had become her friend. The dense forest looked different, no longer an obstacle, but an advantage; and the darkening sky no longer a threat, but an opportunity.

  Anna fell into a run, but it was no longer an escape, it had become an attack.

  She ran and could not wait for night.

  Chapter 49

  Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, Romania, August 4, 2012, 8:22 PM

  The Lufthansa flight had touched down in a driving rain at Cluj-Napoca International Airport and Sergey Tarpov had taken charge when they entered the arrival’s hall. He was in his element and Jack was once again grateful for having made the decision to hire the Russian. As soon as Tarpov had learned that their journey was taking them to Romania, the former KGB operative had jumped into action, working the phone, activating long dormant contacts for much of the drive to London’s Heathrow Airport.

  Cluj-Napoca is the second largest city in Romania, situated in the Northwest of the country and essentially a Balkan hub. It had been a strategic center for the former Secret Service of the Soviet Union. As a young man Tarpov had spent time on official business in the capital of Transylvania. But that was decades ago, and the Russian was stunned at the modern, bustling metropolis into which Cluj-Napoca had developed.

  The former KGB operative rode shotgun in the taxi, which took the trio to the city, while Jack and Styx took the backseat. Jack had fought Styx’s decision to join the team, but she had been adamant and Jack had relented. The bearded driver sped into the city, ignoring the heavy rain and dodging slower moving traffic, while carrying on a non-stop conversation with Tarpov in their native tongue. The driver, as Tarpov had explained when
making introductions, was an ex-pat from Moscow who had left the dying KBG, but never the place of his first and only assignment. In fact, Cluj-Napoca was home to a small but ardent community of former Russian intelligence operatives who had made the city which lay roughly equidistant from Bucharest, Belgrade and Budapest their home of choice.