“I see you, Parker. You want me to kill you, but I’m taking you alive. There will be much pain for you.”
She gritted her teeth. “That’s what you think, comrade.”
Now he was coming. His tread was rapid, assured. He had a good fix on her location, and the stars and the flashlight helped him to see, and he knew she was unarmed.
Well, she had her stupid homemade spear. Fat lot of good it would do her.
There were no good options left. She could try to fight at close range, or she could run and get cut down by gunfire. The second way offered a better chance of a quick death.
Okay, then. Do that. Run and die.
She heard her own breathing, fast and shallow. This was it, really it. She was punching out. She would be dead in the next few seconds—unless she was really unlucky, in which case she would die on the bench.
On her feet. Legs pumping. Twigs and branches tearing at her as she pushed her way through the dense brush.
He saw her, of course. He had to see her.
And he roared.
It was a hoarse, bellowing roar, a Tartar war cry, a shout of rage.
She looked back and saw him charging through the bushes, heedless of obstacles, his gaze fixed on her.
But not shooting. He really did want to take her alive, God damn it.
His shout pursued her as she stumbled forward, fighting the woods, a thousand spiny fingers clutching at her hair and ankles. She lost sight of him for a moment as she plunged through a wall of shrubs, but she could still hear him, closer than ever, almost at her back.
And the ground vanished under her.
She tumbled into a narrow gully, three feet deep, lined with stones and dead creepers. She landed on her back, the breath hammered out of her, staring up at a canopy of leafless branches and the blazing stars.
Dazed, she shook her head, struggled to rise.
An idea.
The spear—she’d dropped it when she fell. She groped the rough stones, searching for the feel of wood.
There.
Above, the bushes thrashed wildly as her assailant powered through. He was a yard away, still releasing his endless bray of fury.
She planted the spear in the ground, holding it upright in both fists, the sharp end pointed at the sky.
With a cascade of loose stones, he blundered into the pit, dropping almost on top of her, and his shout changed to a high keening wail as the spearpoint punched through his groin, driving upward into his belly.
His legs kicked. The gun fired. The shots flew wild, his hand spasming. Blood spattered her face. His blood, not hers.
She threw herself at him and batted the pistol away. As she watched, he slid another few inches down the spear, impaling himself still more deeply. His face twisted, his mouth hanging open in a gargle of bloody froth.
Her hand closed over the first blunt object it could find. A triangular rock, heavy. She snapped to a standing position and brought the rock down on his forehead—again—again—until he was silent and unmoving and nothing was left of his features.
She withdrew, shaking, and stared at the dead thing in the pit. Her voice was a ragged gasp.
“Do Svetlana, asshole.”
23
Gura came upon the body in the gully about five minutes after hearing the last shots and the long drawn-out womanish shriek. Until his flashlight played over the bloody remains, he had held out hope that the shriek had been Parker’s. It had not sounded like a noise a man could make.
But a man whose insides had been chewed open, a man who’d been run through like a spitted pig ... Well, there was no telling what sounds could come out of his throat.
The circle of light probed the bottom of the pit, finding neither Gregor’s gun nor his flashlight. Parker must have taken both. So she was armed now, carrying a Makarov. Gura had counted seven shots in all, and he knew Gregor used the newer ten-round magazine. Three rounds left.
The intelligent thing would be to return to the estate and get Ilya or Lysenko to come along. But he could not do that. It would mean he was running from a fight, and he never ran. And when his adversary was a woman—unthinkable.
Anyway, he could not allow her an even greater head start. She had been making her way toward the river, and he expected her to continue that way. Luckily she was wet with Gregor’s blood. He could follow the glistening red trail.
It led him through stands of pines and sycamores, around thickets of witch-hazel and wild azalea. The moon hung near the horizon—the molodyk, the first outline of a new moon. The same pale sickle he had seen on that other night, in the village, when he had killed Stavitsky. He was no longer a boy, but a man in another country, yet he was on the hunt again, in the cold and dark, seeking a human life. Some things never changed.
The cliff that dropped down to the river was quite near. The trail brought him there. He saw bright splotches, like varnish, on the rocks and shrubs that checkered the steep incline. She’d scrambled down. Going to the water? No. To the boats.
He had never been an athlete, and he smoked too much. He was wheezing with strain as he went slip-sliding down the hillside. Sharp outcrops cut his hands. A patch of briars snagged his coat. Cursing, he pulled himself free with a rip of the lining.
From a distance, he heard a low cough, a brief guttural sound.
He stopped, listening. At first he wasn’t sure just what he’d heard.
It came again, another cough, more prolonged this time. The sound of a motor being cranked, refusing to turn over.
The motorboat at the pier. Of course. She couldn’t take the cruiser; he had the keys. But the little launch moored near it would take her down the river or across to the city.
He descended the rest of the way in a headlong tumbling rush. His shoes found the wet strip of sand and stones along the water.
To the south, the motor coughed again, still refusing to start. He had used the outboard himself. It was a stubborn beast. It might defy her just long enough to let him reach her. Preoccupied with the boat, she might not even see him. An easy target.
He had long since given up any idea of taking her alive. He did not care for torture anyway. And after what she’d done to Gregor, he was taking no chances. Three shots to the center body mass, then a coup de grace to the head. If he could get to her in time.
He ran along the narrow ribbon of beach, the muddy ground tugging at his feet with every step. He was unused to such exertion. It might kill him. Already he felt an alarming twinge in his chest. He could give himself a heart attack before this was all over. It didn’t matter. He kept going. He could not fail Streinikov.
They called him the domovyk for a reason. He was ever the faithful servant. He had few virtues, but he was loyal and dependable. Given a task, he would complete it.
As he was rounding a bend in the riverbank, he heard the motor catch.
She was getting away. But he was almost there. He still had a chance.
He pushed his way through a mass of trees that had grown right down to the water. Ahead of him was the floating pier, bobbing gently. Beyond it, but not far, was the launch, heading due east, toward Manhattan.
Gura clambered onto the pier and staggered to the far end. He lifted his gun, steadied it against the pounding of his heart, and fired twice at the retreating boat. Each shot was a whip crack of sound skipping like a stone over the water.
He expected her to return fire. She did not. Maybe she knew she couldn’t hit him at this distance.
But he was a good shot. He could hit her. If he could see her ...
She must be staying low, keeping her head down. He had no target. But he could take out the launch itself. He fired at the stern, aiming for the outboard. Kill the motor and she would be helplessly adrift. He could close in on her in the cruiser, kill her while her sad little vessel was dead in the water.
After four more shots, the boat veered, turning in a circle. He’d hit the rudder. She couldn’t steer. She would spin aimlessly. Her only chance now was to fight bac
k. She had Gregor’s gun. He waited for a shot, refusing to kneel, though it would make him a smaller target. He would kneel to no one, and certainly not a woman.
Still she did not fire. He began to think he’d hit her, after all. She might be wounded or already dead.
It was strange, though. Strange that she’d never even tried to shoot back ...
Then he understood. He was not, perhaps, the cleverest of men. Streinikov had not hired him for his brains, but for his devotion. The girl, though—she was a clever bitch. And she had never been on the launch at all.
The gun in his hand was nearly empty. It would do him no good, anyway. He relaxed his grip and let it fall.
He turned, and she was there, standing at the landward end of the dock, Gregor’s pistol in her hand. She had started the launch and sent it on its way, and then she had waited for him to walk into his trap.
Clever, clever bitch.
He stared at her across a length of floating planks. He could not see her face, but he imagined she was smiling.
He smiled also. A last, sad smile.
“I hired you as a killer, poppet,” he said, his voice carrying across the water. “Now you must earn your pay.”
24
“You hear that?”
Streinikov asked the question with his head cocked, eyes half shut. Kneeling by him beside the potting bench, at work bandaging the pair of wounds, Ilya nodded.
“Gunshots,” Ilya said in his injured, croaking voice. “Small arms fire.”
They were alone in the greenhouse. The lights were back on. Ilya had pulled the pruning shears from the wall socket, then found the circuit box in the garage and flipped the switch. He had given Lysenko his instructions, then returned with the first aid kit. Like all experienced fighters, he was not unfamiliar with combat surgery.
“And a boat motor,” Streinikov said. “An outboard.” He sat stiffly in the chair, his jacket off, necktie loosened.
Ilya unwound a length of tape from the dispenser. “Da. I heard that, too.”
“My inflatable?”
“I don’t know. There are a lot of motor noises on the river.”
“Seldom an outboard, and never at this hour. Check it out.”
“I’m not done here.”
“I can finish. Go.”
Ilya left the greenhouse at a fast stride.
Streinikov tore off another length of tape and finished securing the bandage to his waist. The doctor, Vasnev, had been called and was on his way—reluctantly, no doubt.
So much damage had been done—to his organization, to his orchids, even to his own body. And behind it all was just one woman, young, brash, reckless. A blonde woman ... What was it about blondes? Katya had been blonde. He remembered her scalp on his wall, how pretty it was after it had been rinsed of blood. She’d had long hair. Parker’s hair, too, was long, and very nearly the same shade ...
His phone rang. Grunting with strain, he fumbled it out of his shirt pocket. The caller was Ilya.
“Yes?”
“Gura is dead.”
Streinikov shut his eyes. The domovyk, his obedient servant. Crude and boorish, a peasant with yellow teeth and callused hands, but the most reliable man he had.
Ilya was still speaking. “The inflatable was set adrift with the motor running, but it appears to be unmanned. It’s going in circles.”
“Have you checked the Dragon’s Mouth?”
“Of course. Parker’s handbag and coat are gone. She is not on board.”
“Any sign of Gregor?”
“None. I called his phone. He does not answer. And Gura was shot. Parker was not armed. Not at first.”
Streinikov nodded. He had heard a few scattered shots earlier, remote and muffled. Somehow Parker had outmaneuvered Gregor and taken his firearm.
“She is a fighter, this one,” he breathed.
“Sir?” Ilya hadn’t heard.
“Never mind.”
“She took Gura’s phone. I tried to track it, but there’s no signal.”
“She must have turned it off.”
“Why take it if she can’t use it?”
Streinikov neither knew nor cared. “In all likelihood, she’ll proceed south along the river.”
“I can follow—”
“No. She has a head start and a weapon. If she takes the high ground, she can pick you off as you approach.”
“That little dura is no threat to me.”
“So Gura thought,” Streinikov said coldly. So did we all, he added to himself. “Listen. She’ll make her way to where there are streets and houses, and she’ll obtain a vehicle ...”
He spoke for a few moments, giving Ilya his instructions, making everything clear.
“And call up Abroskin and Kolba,” he finished. “Send them over here. And Denisov, too. Hell, call them all. All our soldiers. I want the property fully protected.”
“You don’t think she’ll risk coming back?”
“It is hard to say what a hunted animal may do. But I have other enemies. If word should get out that I am wounded ...”
“No one will know.”
“We will take precautions, even so. Do you understand your orders?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. We’ll get her. That much I promise you.”
“When the time comes,” Ilya asked, “do we try to take her alive?”
“No. Just kill her. And bring me her head.”
“Her head?”
“Her pretty blonde head. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I will hang her hair on my wall and play marbles with her blue, blue eyes.”
“Yes, sir.”
He heard doubt in Ilya’s voice. Or was it fear? Fear that the old man was losing it? Well, perhaps he was. Parker had put a blade in his belly—a sharp blade, like a scalpel—and already he might be drowning in his own blood, and Gura was dead, and she was still out there, the fucking shalava, slut, whore, still mobile, still alive. He wanted to smash things. He wanted to throw her carcass on the hood of his car like a damn deer.
“You know what to do,” he said sharply. “Get moving.”
He ended the call, breathing fast. He stared around him at the rows of potted orchids. Irrationally he was afraid for them. Such tender, delicate things. If the girl should return now, while he was alone and unprotected—
He did not fear for himself. But who knew what such an uncouth ruffian might do to his beauties? She was a grubby little savage, that one. A creature without grace or humanity, uncivilized, nekulturny. Even a peasant like old Gura had been more of an aesthete than that wild-eyed, bloodthirsty little tramp.
Gura ...
He felt an unexpected twinge of grief. Though he had not known it before this moment, Pavel Gura had been more than a loyal employee. He had been a friend. The only one left who remembered the early days, the glory days. The only one still with him who had been there when Smolin and Katya had paid for their sins. Gura had wielded the knife himself; he had taken Smolin’s prick and balls and roared laughter at the man’s stupid staring horror. He, unlike young Ilya, would have understood the significance of the blonde mane soon to be nailed to the wall.
Slowly Streinikov lowered his head, cradling it in his hands. A moan escaped him, low and desolate, like the plaint of a dying animal. A gored ox, that was what he was. A mad bull.
But he still had horns. He could gore, could kill.
Lifting his head, he picked up the phone and began to set his plans in motion.
25
Bonnie headed west on US-46, looking for a motel. It had to be in her price range—in other words, cheaper than dirt. There wasn’t much money in her purse or in Clarissa’s handbag, and she didn’t want to use a credit card, either her own or the dead woman’s. Card transactions could be traced.
Yeah, she was being paranoid. She’d already powered off Sammy so the cell phone wouldn’t send out any pings. Only the phone company could track the phone, but she wasn’t ta
king chances. Streinikov was the kind of guy who would have contacts in lots of legitimate businesses. Hadn’t he bragged that he could buy and sell anyone in the state?
Of course, she’d killed the power on Gura’s phone also. It was a safe bet that Streinikov had a way of keeping tabs on his employees; an app like Find My Phone was pretty much a given.
She’d lifted the phone from Gura’s pocket after killing him with a bullet to the heart and a follow-up, at closer range, to the head. It had been quick and not too noisy. The second shot had been purely for insurance; she was almost sure the first one had taken him out, in which case he hadn’t felt a thing. Not that she would have lost any sleep if he had.
She’d taken his gun, too, and then she’d gone aboard the Dragon’s Mouth and retrieved her purse, with the Ruger still inside, and the purse belonging to the murdered dancer who’d been called Clarissa Lynch. A pair of binoculars had been left in plain sight; she’d taken them, as well. Waste not, want not. Oh, and her coat and hat, naturally. With the beret snugged on her head, she’d felt a whole lot better.
For approximately three seconds she’d considered using the Dragon’s Mouth to make her getaway. The wide river looked easy enough to navigate, and the lights of Manhattan were awfully inviting. A glance at the cockpit, or the helm, or whatever it was called, had been enough to scuttle that idea. She’d never driven a boat in her life, and right now was not the time for a practice session. Besides, Streinikov and Sundance would hear the big motor start up. Probably they could track the vessel via GPS. Wherever she came ashore, a welcome party would be there to do a little meet-and-greet. That was assuming she didn’t steer the boat straight into a coral reef or an iceberg or some damn thing.
So the boat idea was a nonstarter. She’d left the Dragon’s Mouth and retreated down the pier, again passing Gura’s corpse. Really she should have gone through his pockets for his wallet and spare ammo, but she’d been in a kind of a hurry. She’d tramped south along the riverbank and climbed the hillside to a residential neighborhood, where she’d boosted a Honda Civic and begun her search for the night’s lodgings.
Bad to the Bone (Bonnie Parker, PI Book 3) Page 15