by Simon Wood
Christ, this was it. We were going to die. My stomach clenched so tight it forced me to bend over. I wanted to see my future stretching years in front of me, but my mind blotted out the images, instead screaming you’re going to die, again and again.
The car swayed in the air and it gave all three of us a clear view of the crusher’s mouth. There were no teeth, just three independent hydraulic rams capable of reducing any vehicle to a cube and us along with it.
The sight of the crusher’s open maw stilled me. The fear didn’t leave me, but it no longer paralyzed me. I didn’t know if there was a way out, but I’d be damned if I was just going to sit there and do nothing because Rykov decreed it. I saw life beyond the next five minutes.
‘I can’t believe I’m going to die,’ Dylan said.
‘You’re not. At least not today,’ I said.
Dylan met my gaze.
‘We’re getting out of here.’
‘Are you mental?’ Dylan said.
‘No, he’s not,’ Steve said. ‘It’ll take minutes to crush this car.’
‘And we only need a few seconds to get free.’
‘Then what?’ Dylan said. ‘Rykov isn’t going to let us walk.’
‘Then we do something else. I’m not letting Rykov get the better of us. I’ll die first.’
‘You might get that wish,’ Dylan said, ‘but I’m with you.’
Rykov barked an order and the crane operator lowered us into the crusher.
The Renault hit the crusher’s loading trough hard enough to toss the three of us around. Steve yelled when he smashed his head off the roof of the car. I smacked my head on the gear shift, which left me dazed, but only for a second. The cold realization that we were going to be crushed alive snapped me out of it. We had to get out. This was no joke. No test. Rykov was going to kill us. I reached for the door handle with my bound hands and opened the door. A gap of no more than three inches opened up before the door slammed into the side of the trough.
A cackle of laughter from Rykov and his boys came back at me. They, along with Derek and his crew, lined the edge of the crusher for a front row view of the action.
‘Try the other doors,’ I yelled.
The three of us tried the remaining doors with the same result.
Without the ignition key, the power windows were dead. ‘Kick out the windows.’
Rykov had made a mistake binding our hands in front of us. We still had mobility and the ability to grab things, albeit it in a handicapped fashion. I scrabbled across the seat and kicked at the driver’s door window. The glass flexed against the impact, but absorbed the blow. I kicked again and again. I wouldn’t be stopped. ‘Break you bastard, break.’
Steve and Dylan fought for space in the tight confines of the car’s back seat in order to get to a window. They manoeuvred around until they were back to back to give each other room to kick. We gave it everything we had. Each of our blows reverberated throughout the car.
Steve’s window went first, then mine. Diamond-sized splinters of glass went everywhere. I crawled across them to climb through the window. It was a squeeze, but I wormed my way through. Glass shards gashed my arms and chest in the process.
One of Rykov’s men climbed into the crusher and kicked me hard in the ribs. The kick took my breath away, easily immobilizing me. He shoved me back through the busted window, then jammed his gun in Steve’s face to halt his escape. Dylan pulled Steve back into the car.
‘No escape for you,’ he said and jumped off the crusher.
I looked at my grandfather and my best friend. They were terrified. I’d put them in this danger. I wanted to say, ‘We’ll survive this. We’ll get out,’ but the lie wouldn’t come.
‘Help. Get us out of here. Help,’ Dylan screamed. His voice bounced off the car’s interior.
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Don’t waste your energy. There’s no one here who can help us.’
Dylan just looked at me, his face devoid of all emotion.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
Rykov leaned over the edge and peered directly into the car at me. He grinned at me, revelling in my misery. ‘Hancock, come. You see.’
Hancock was conspicuous by his absence. When he didn’t respond to Rykov’s immediate beckoning, one of Rykov’s goons dragged him over.
Rykov slung an arm around Hancock’s neck and drew him close. ‘You see, Vic? This is how you deal with problem. I show you to teach. Next time, you do same and make problem disappear like a bad dream. Yes?’
‘Oh God,’ Hancock murmured. All the colour had drained from his face.
‘No gods here,’ Rykov said. ‘Only devils.’
He repeated the joke in Russian for his compatriots, judging by the laughter that followed.
He waved at his man closest to the crusher’s controls. He went to the control panel and kick-started the crusher into life. The roar of the engine and whoop of the hydraulic compressor winding up turned my insides to water.
‘Oh my God,’ Dylan murmured. ‘This is it. They’re really going to do it.’
‘Keep it together,’ Steve said. ‘Don’t give them the satisfaction.’
It was a nice sentiment, but I felt my grip slipping on the notion. Just the idea of the hydraulic rams squashing the car and us along with it swept away any possibility of bravery. We were going to be crushed to death. We wouldn’t last long, which was a blessing, but those final moments before the end came would last a lifetime.
‘Your grandfather is right,’ Rykov said. ‘I am going to kill you.’ He moved over to the controls. ‘I cannot say it will not be fun.’
Derek snatched the Russian’s arm. ‘Don’t do this. Let us deal with it.’
‘Why take risk? Kill birds with one rock while we can.’
Derek didn’t correct Rykov on his poor telling of the phrase. But who would?
‘You’ll literally leave a trail to Hancock’s door. Do you want that?’
Rykov thought for a second then shook his head. ‘I do not think so. I have done before. Very clean kill with little blood. It easily washes away and body is burned up when car is smelted. There will be no trail.’
‘I can take care of them just as cleanly,’ Derek said.
A distrusting smile spread across Rykov’s face. ‘You sound like friends.’
‘It’s not that. I screwed up and you’re fixing it for me. I don’t want that. I fix my mistakes myself. I want to make up for it,’ he nodded at us in the crusher, ‘so I don’t suffer the same fate.’
I didn’t know why Derek was going to the trouble of staying our execution. Rykov was right. This was a very effective and clean execution. Wasn’t this what Derek had wanted all along? Maybe it wasn’t. From his expression, he wasn’t deriving any glee from this. Maybe Rykov had crossed a line Derek wasn’t willing to cross.
‘You don’t worry,’ Rykov nodded at the crusher. ‘You, good soldier. You I trust,’ Rykov said, removing Derek’s hand from his arm. ‘But if make you feel better, you start machine.’
Derek hesitated then nodded.
Rykov stepped aside for Derek. He barked at his men and they trained their guns on us in case we tried escaping again.
‘I think I’d prefer to take a bullet than to go out in here,’ Steve said.
‘I don’t want either option,’ Dylan said.
‘None of us do,’ I said. ‘Everyone stay put.’
Something about Derek’s personality shift gave me hope. He wasn’t the same man who’d played up killing Alex in the clubhouse. This was a human. He wouldn’t let us die this way. He wouldn’t press the button. He’d do something to help us. I didn’t understand it, but I felt it. My panic melted. I hoped I could believe in my gut feeling.
‘We won’t talk,’ I yelled. ‘No one knows what we know. Anyone I’ve tried to tell hasn’t believed me.’
Rykov smiled. ‘I believe you. That big problem. If I believe, others believe. Is not good for me. Can’t take risk. Derek, please continue.’
&n
bsp; Derek looked at me. I looked into his eyes for hope, but it wasn’t there. He pulled a lever on the control panel and the crusher burst into action.
The crusher’s engine roared and the first ram moved in from the side. It eased along its path with slow, deliberate speed, sweeping the Renault along. The tyres squeaked as the car slid on the metal bed. There was nowhere for the car to go except inward. The ram pinched the car against the opposite wall. The door panels popped and banged as they buckled under the pressure.
My breath shot in and out in fast, untidy pants. A scream was building in my throat.
Even though it was futile, the three of us yelled for help. Rykov patted Derek on the back as he operated the controls and his Russian buddies pointed and laughed at us. Some mocked us by putting their hands to their faces and pretending to scream back. I wished we could keep our screams in, but we just couldn’t help ourselves.
The ram’s progress slowed then stopped when it squeezed against the Renault’s tough chassis. I wanted the crusher to chip its tooth on the French made car, but no. Derek cranked up the power and the ram resumed its path. The chassis resisted the overwhelming pressure for just a moment before giving way. The exterior of the car collapsed with a shriek of buckling steel. The confines of the car’s cabin shrank and we instinctively shifted to the centre of the cabin where there was still space. It was a futile gesture. We were only buying ourselves seconds. But there was no control over our need to survive. We tried to hold onto life for as long as we could.
The front and rear windscreens split then burst under the pressure, spraying us with glass.
Steve pointed to the gaping holes. ‘Out through the front and back.’
I scrabbled out over the bonnet. Two bullets thudded into it inches from my left hand.
‘What we say about escaping?’ Rykov shouted over the din. ‘Get back in.’
The Russians opened fire on us, driving us back into the Renault. They laughed as we disappeared back inside.
‘We’re so dead,’ Dylan said.
‘Not yet, we aren’t,’ I said.
I jumped on the car horn and learned on it. It blared. The annoying sound spread far and wide. I hoped it would draw someone. No one would put up with that noise for long. The car shifted by another inch and something inside the car broke, killing the horn.
‘Nice try,’ Steve said, ‘but a little late.’
Steve was resigned to his death. I wasn’t.
‘Keep moving,’ I barked. ‘Don’t get trapped.’
The floor pan buckled and collapsed beneath us. The roof popped and peaked. We might have been losing width, but we were gaining headroom.
‘Get in the middle,’ I said, clambering between the two front seats.
I had the front of the car to myself. Steve and Dylan had to share the back seat and were losing space. Dylan tore out the parcel tray from the boot with his bound hands and tossed it through the windowless hatchback. He clambered into the boot space.
‘Now what?’ Dylan demanded.
‘We keep fighting.’
The back seats snapped off their mounting. One seat smashed into Steve, knocking him over. He yelled out, stuck in the well between the front and rear seats. He had seconds before he’d be pinned down. Dylan lunged for him and when he yanked him back up, blood streaked half my grandfather’s face. The front seats crushed the centre console and armrest as they came together. Other pieces of the interior sheared off and struck us as the car continued to shrink. Dylan yelled out when he got his hands trapped between a seat back and the car’s frame. He worked them free, but the damage had been done – two broken fingers on his right hand. The injury didn’t stop him. We all contorted our bodies in an attempt to find an inch of space, tossing anything and everything that was no longer affixed out the busted windows for that vital extra cubic inch of space.
Suddenly, the ram stopped. The crusher had squeezed the car to a third of its width and we were still alive. Sweat streamed down my face and burned my eyes, but my hands and feet were ice cold. I looked at Steve and Dylan. We grinned at each other like idiots. Our lives were coming to an end, but we were grinning.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to them.
Steve reached across the front seats and grabbed my bound hands with his. ‘Don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re a good kid and I’m proud of you.’ He turned to Dylan. ‘I’m proud of both of you. Got that?’
A new hydraulic whine wiped away our smiles. The crusher had only completed the first stage of the process. The second ram, a hinged affair, folded over to crush us from the top like a giant, metal clamshell.
I looked up at the gallery of faces watching us. The Russians were egging the machine on to do its job. Hancock had turned away. Tommy had lost all the colour in his face. Even Morgan had lost his bloodlust. Only Derek met my gaze. I saw compassion, which wasn’t the reaction I expected to see. The top ram closed over the car and everybody disappeared from sight. Tyres burst, the suspension collapsed and the roof buckled and lunged at us.
Now in total darkness, my fear spiked. The collapsing car was a lot more frightening in the dark. The pitch-blackness forced me to find a pocket of space based on sound and touch. With the car’s geography changing every second, it was easy to get it wrong.
Our actions were futile, but life had become so damned precious. We no longer cared about the noise from the snarling diesel engine, the shriek and moan of collapsing steel or Rykov’s laughter. We didn’t care because none of it mattered. Living was all that counted. We’d fight to survive for as long as we could.
Over the noise of the compressor, the hydraulic rams and the buckling steel, I thought I heard something else. Short sounds. Loud noises. Harsh snaps. Sounds that didn’t fit the situation. My brain processed them and delivered an answer.
‘Gunfire,’ I said.
Steve and Dylan didn’t hear me. They were too busy trying to find the last pockets of space to save themselves.
I heard shouting, then the crusher stopped. The monster enveloping us was silent.
I was shaking. It had to be a joke. Rykov wanted to drag out our deaths for his entertainment.
‘Get that bastard thing open,’ a muffled voice shouted from outside.
The voice had authority and moments later the crusher opened up. I stared out through the slit of the windowless windscreen. Detective Brennan looked back at me.
‘Get them the hell out of there,’ he barked.
Lap Twenty-Seven
For the second time, I was alone with Brennan in a police interview room in the early hours of the morning. This time, I was being held at the divisional headquarters in Kidderminster. He’d sent Steve and Dylan to hospital to get checked out. Their statements could wait. Mine couldn’t. I was tired and I wanted to see Steve and Dylan to say sorry, thanks and tell them it was over, but I couldn’t leave without giving Brennan some answers.
‘Do you know how bloody close you came to ballsing up this operation?’ Brennan asked.
I didn’t. I just knew how close I’d come to dying. Another twenty seconds and the crusher would have squeezed all the free space from inside the Renault. When the crusher opened up, we re-emerged into a war zone. While Steve, Dylan and I thought we were living our last moments, four of the Russian’s men had lived theirs. The armed response team had killed them. They lay in various, untidy piles riddled with bullets. It looked to be touch and go for another of the Russians. Blood pumped from a big wound in his chest and the cop working on him struggled to stem the flow. Derek and his boys were OK and in cuffs. Hancock was gone. The police had slapped a bulletproof vest on him, put him in a car and taken him out of there before Steve, Dylan and I had been cut from the crippled Renault. Rykov had been wounded, but not seriously. Uniformed, plain clothes and armed police littered the salvage yard in large numbers.
When Brennan had brought me to the station, he stuck me in the interview room and left me for an hour before attempting to talk to me. The back
lash of almost dying a nasty death was euphoria. I was amped up on the simple notion that I had a tomorrow and another one after that. My emotions pinballed off each other. I went from laughing one second to crying the next. Once the elation burnt itself out, Brennan came for my statement.
There was no pantomime or messing around with procedure this time. Brennan went by the book. He recorded the interview. Another detective sat in the room with us while I spilled everything to Brennan from the night before Alex died to the police’s eleventh hour arrival. Brennan had to change the tape twice before I was finished.
The other detective left with the tapes to get them transcribed. Now Brennan and I could really talk.
‘Did I get any of it right?’ I asked.
Brennan cracked a small smile. ‘Not much, but I’ll give you marks for originality.’
‘You could have made things a lot easier by telling me what you were up to.’
‘Yeah, like I was going to confide in you about a six month undercover operation. I tried to be as clear as I could that you were on the wrong track and you needed to back off. You chose not to listen.’
‘You didn’t do a very good job.’
Brennan swung his arms wide. ‘What can I say? Guilty as charged.’
I wondered how guilty. That smile said a lot. Brennan could have done more to set me straight, but he’d let me believe in the myths surrounding Derek, concoct my own theories and charge off on my fool’s errand. My misguided beliefs had done him a favour. It worked to his advantage to have me as a fly in everyone’s ointment. My interference made things happen.
Suddenly, I became aware of my stink. I reeked. I’d sweated through my clothes. First, from fear, and then from my survivor’s high. I wouldn’t bother washing them. I was burning the lot. Brennan had to have noticed and it was kind of him not to mention it. I wrapped the blanket the paramedics had given me at the salvage yard even tighter around me.
‘If I’m going to be your star witness, you have to tell me how wrong I’ve been.’
‘Valentin Rykov is Russian mob. He’s been in the UK since the nineties. Glasnost did wonders for the Russian mob in Western Europe. They set up shop running drugs, girls, protection, human trafficking, loan sharking and anything else you care to name. Rykov had his fingers in a lot of dirty, yet traditional, criminal pies. The trading in phantom cars was just one string to his bow.’