So far, at least, events were proceeding as planned. Mapping strategy against Streinikov was like playing chess. At least, Bonnie assumed it was. She didn’t actually know how to play chess. Frank Kershaw had tried to teach her, but she could never get the hang of how to move the little horsey thing.
But from general knowledge, she’d gathered that a good chess player anticipated his opponent’s moves—not just the obvious next move, but the more subtle ones that might follow down the line.
She’d been sure Streinikov could track Gura’s cell; that was why she’d powered off the phone in the first place. Once it was back on, he would know she was squatting at the neighbors’ house. But he would also know—probably—that she wasn’t dumb enough to give herself away like that. So he would pretend to play along by sending just one or two guys after her, keeping the rest of his force in reserve.
She’d been hoping for two, had gotten only one, but it was a start.
Now for phase two of her plan. This part was simpler and more straightforward than phase one. She would go in shooting and kill as many of the bastards as she could.
Seven of them were left, not counting Streinikov and the doctor. Seven men who had to die in the next few minutes.
It was going to be a fucking bloodbath, like the last reel of Scarface. Or it was going to end with only one more body—hers.
Either way, in less than five minutes it would be over.
The thought gave her a strange sort of comfort as she climbed into the Range Rover and cranked the ignition key.
* * *
“Barsky’s coming back.”
The voice on the intercom belonged to Lysenko, who’d been stationed in the residence, manning the gate controls.
Streinikov stabbed the transmit button. “Too soon—Parker hasn’t made her move yet.”
“He wants in. He’s got his brights on and he’s honking.”
Even in the greenhouse on the far end of the property, Streinikov could hear the petulant blats of the horn.
“Goddamned xyecoc,” Ilya said. “I should have sent a better man. Why the hell would he disobey orders?”
“Why, indeed?” Streinikov considered the problem. “Could it be that Parker actually was at the house, and Barsky took her out?”
“It can’t be that easy.”
“Why not? We’re due for some udacha”—luck—“where our Firebird is concerned.” Streinikov keyed the intercom. “Open the gate. See what he wants.”
* * *
The gates parted slowly. Bonnie waited, hunched behind the wheel of the SUV with her beret down low on her face.
Someone was emerging from the house. Another guy, one of the sentries, was striding across the lawn, alerted by all the racket she’d been making.
The sentry was closer. As she watched, he stepped onto the driveway, directly into the high beams’ glare.
Go.
Her foot pinned the gas pedal to the floor. The Range Rover rocketed forward, scraping one side of the gate and throwing up a cascade of sparks. The sentry was lifting his gun when she barreled into him and made him into roadkill. Her tires thudded over his body, whumpity-whump, and left him rolling on the asphalt.
The guy from the house opened fire. Reflexively she ducked, expecting the windshield to fly apart. It puckered but held. Bulletproof. Sweet.
She threw open the door on the driver’s side, thrust the sub-gun through the opening, and fired a ten-second burst, blowing the asshole away.
The front door of the house was rushing up. No time to hit the brakes. She hurled herself clear, abandoning the machine pistol, which was empty.
She hit the soft grass on the side of the driveway and twisted into a crouch in time to see the SUV head-butt its way through the open door with a shout of wood and steel. It wedged itself in the doorway at a crazy angle, tires spinning.
She shook her head, mildly dazed, ears ringing.
Yowsah. Did she know how to make an entrance or what?
Her hat had come off. She retrieved it—no hat left behind, that was her policy—then recovered the second man’s Kalashnikov. She checked the magazine—still about two dozen rounds. He’d been firing on semi-auto, lucky for her. If he’d gone full auto, he would have spent his whole wad.
On the run to the doorway, she pulled Mrs. Swanson’s stocking out of the backpack. Her leg was probably still hurting but, funny thing, she didn’t notice it anymore.
Two guys here, one at the Swanson place. Body count: three.
Five to go.
She boosted herself over the crashed Range Rover, entering the house.
38
“What the hell is happening? Lysenko?”
Streinikov thumped his fist on the intercom. There was silence on the other end.
“Barsky must’ve gone crazy,” Lukin said cluelessly.
Streinikov shut his eyes. “It wasn’t Barsky, tormoz. It was Parker.”
Ilya, pacing the greenhouse’s center aisle, was on the phone. “Kolba is with Denisov and Abroskin at the scene. Parker’s not there.”
“Let me talk to him.”
Ilya gave Streinikov the phone, set to speaker mode.
“Lysenko and Kovalenko are down,” Kolba said. “No sign of Barsky. The Range Rover hit your house. The girl took Lysenko’s Kalash. We don’t know where she’s gone.”
In the background Denisov said, “She could be drawing a bead on us right now.” Abroskin told him to shut up.
“Look there.” Ilya pointed at the monitor displaying a mosaic of video feeds from the residence. Two of the cameras appeared to be inoperative. The third showed a slender figure in a stocking mask entering the kitchen.
Lukin snorted. “Stupid bitch. Why would she hide her face from us?”
“Not from us,” Streinikov explained with infinite patience. “She knows the police will look at the video files. She’s planning for her future.”
“She won’t have a future,” Ilya said.
The masked figure turned to the ceiling-mounted camera and aimed a spray can at it. Instantly the image was obliterated.
“She’s in the house,” Streinikov informed Kolba. “I saw her on the monitor.”
“Then you can guide us—”
“No, I can’t. She’s already disabled three cameras. No doubt she’ll do the same to the rest. You’ll need to go in blind.”
“Chyort,” Kolba murmured, then added in a louder voice: “Yes, sir.”
“She’s avoided the east wing so far. It appears she intends to make her stand somewhere between the front door and the sun porch.”
It was a straight shot along the central corridor, with detours into rooms on both sides—living room, kitchen, library, lavatory. The sun porch, which doubled as a dining room, lay at the north end, with a door that opened onto the backyard and the path to the greenhouse.
“I’ll go in with Denisov through the front,” Kolba said. “Abroskin will enter via the rear.”
“Just do it.” Streinikov licked dry lips. “Make her dead.”
Lukin lifted his Jati-Matic. “I’ll join the others.”
Ilya nodded. “Me too.”
“Nyet.” Streinikov shifted in his seat, feeling the complaint of his ruptured side. “I want you here—both of you. This could be another feint on Parker’s part. She may intend to leave the residence and come here.”
His tongue scraped his lips again. He felt hot and strangely lightheaded. Vasnev placed a palm to his forehead. It came away wet with a sheen of sweat.
“Sir, you have a fever.”
“So?”
“It’s a sign of infection. The antibiotics aren’t getting it done. You need to be hospitalized.”
“Am I supposed to leave now? Parker is in the compound.”
“All the more reason to absent yourself from the scene.”
“You’re a coward, Vasnev. I don’t run from a fight.”
“I’m only saying—”
Streinikov waved a hand. “Poshyol ty!”
The polite translation was get lost.
“Da, da.” Vasnev backed away, picking up his black bag. “Yes, sir. Very good.”
On the phone Kolba’s rapid breathing was clearly audible. The man must be wearing a throat mic. There was a shatter of glass, then scraping noises as he and Denisov went through a broken window.
“They’ll get her,” Ilya said.
Streinikov nodded, his eyes hot and bright. “Parker has fought well. Now she pays the hangman.”
* * *
Bonnie used her trusty spray can of Cool Whip to kill the camera in the sun porch, then shrugged off the stocking mask and backtracked to the library, where the camera was already blacked out.
The library was dominated by a big fireplace and the impossibly plush sofa that faced it. Heavy draperies covered the windows. The only illumination came from scattered table lamps. She went quickly around the room yanking out all the plugs.
In the dark, guided by her flashlight, she rummaged in her pack and went to work.
Not much time. She could hear the bad guys entering at the front and back, clearing the house one room at a time, converging on the library.
Three or four men, she thought.
* * *
“Blyad, I don’t like this.” Denisov’s voice, low over the phone’s speaker.
“She’s only a woman,” Kolba said in a reassuring tone.
From a distance, Abroskin shouted, “Porch—clear!”
“Woman?” Denisov said. “She’s a fucking polenitsa.”
The man-killing warrior woman of Slavic myth. Streinikov, listening, couldn’t help but smile. The old folklore still retained its power.
Scuffling sounds, hoarse breathing. Kolba’s voice boomed, “Kitchen—clear!”
Streinikov was unsurprised that they’d failed to find her so far. He would expect her to take cover in the library. It was centrally located, the logical point on which all three men would converge. It seemed she wanted all of them together, though he couldn’t see why. Ambush? His men were far too vigilant to be taken by surprise.
“Where’s Vasnev?” Ilya asked, interrupting his thoughts.
Streinikov’s gaze panned the jungle around him. The doctor was nowhere in sight.
“Sukin syn ran out on us while we weren’t looking,” Lukin said. “I’ll chase him down.”
Streinikov negatived the idea. “Let him go. We’ll discipline the damn fool later.”
The doctor was unimportant. Fever and infection were unimportant. Only his Firebird mattered. She had raided his apple orchard, and now she must give up her golden life.
“Library coming up,” Kolba said over the phone.
“Friendly, don’t shoot.” That was Abroskin, meeting up with the other two. “Bathroom’s clear. If she’s in the house, she’s holed up in the library.”
“She killed the lights in there,” Denisov said. “Wall switch doesn’t do shit.”
Kolba barked, “Get clear of the doorway!”
Three shots cracked in quick succession and somebody screamed.
“Dermo.” That was Denisov. “Bitch winged me. Fucking pegged my right arm.”
“At least we know where she is.” Abroskin sounded unruffled, faintly amused.
“We go in shooting,” Kolba breathed, “and blow her the fuck away.”
Streinikov tightened his grip on the phone. Ilya and Lukin stood staring.
A beat of silence, then a roaring fusillade.
Streinikov knew what the men were carrying. Kolba used a KG-99 with an aftermarket fifty-round mag. Denison toted a Dragunov rifle. Abroskin had an AK-47.
All three weapons were unloading simultaneously into the library in a volley of furious noise.
Parker couldn’t survive this. No one could.
Then it was over. The only sounds were the ragged breathing of three men and the clatter of expended magazines being dumped and new ones heeled into place.
“Use your flashlights,” Kolba said, his voice pitched low. “Look for movement.”
“I don’t see—” Denisov paused, then emitted a low whistle. “Fuck.”
Abroskin laughed. “Boss moy.” Oh my God.
“Do you see her?” Streinikov shouted. “Is she dead?”
“She’s dead, all right.” Kolba was no longer whispering. “We’ve got her pinned in three beams. She’s on the floor by the fireplace, with her fucking brains blown out all over the fucking flagstones.”
Streinikov’s relief was mingled with a twinge of disappointment. He would have liked to receive her head intact.
“Good work,” he said, as Ilya and Lukin visibly relaxed. “Collect the remains.”
“We’re going in now, sir. Damn. Fucking brain spatter is everywhere.”
“Gonna need a new carpet,” Abroskin said, and the others laughed.
“She’s still got her hand on the Kalash.”
“Lysenko’s piece.”
“Man, her brains stink like shit.”
“Yeah, I might be losing my appetite.”
More laughter.
Streinikov tried to envision the scene. Parker sprawled on the floor, clutching her firearm in a death grip, the back of her skull shot away, a mass of blood and brains decorating the hearth like so much uncooked meat.
Uncooked ...
“I got Cool Whip,” she’d said, “and Beefaroni.”
He knew then. He understood.
“Kolba!” He was screaming into the phone. “Fall back! Fall—”
Shouts. Gunfire. A prolonged burst.
Muffled thuds. Bodies falling.
After that, nothing.
“Kolba?” Streinikov breathed.
He expected no answer.
* * *
Bonnie pulled on her beret as she left the house at a run. She still had her hat, and she still wasn’t dead. She wasn’t sure which of those two facts was more surprising.
It had gotten a little hairy back there, what with all the firepower aimed in her direction. But the big sofa had provided decent cover, and the hardwood frame and thick cushions had absorbed the lead whizzing her way. The really dicey part was playing possum on the floor and hoping they didn’t pop her just for the hell of it before they got close enough for her to open up. And hoping, too, that they didn’t recognize the smell of Beefaroni, which she’d artistically smeared all over the fireplace even before the action started.
Her lethal burst had emptied the Kalashnikov. Luckily one of her new kills had been toting a KG-99, and he’d thoughtfully loaded it with a full magazine.
The body count was now six. This was starting to look like a Quentin Tarantino flick.
But there were still two left, and one of them was Sundance, whose face she had yet to see among the dead.
* * *
“They’re all down.” Streinikov put aside the phone he’d been using to speak with Kolba. “She outplayed them.”
Lukin’s eyes were wide and shocked. “How?”
“Does it matter?” Streinikov felt his strength ebbing. He was unnaturally calm.
“Khrenoten,” Ilya whispered.
“Da,” Streinikov agreed with something close to a smile. “A clusterfuck indeed. And she’s still coming. You two are the only men I have left.”
“We’ll barricade the doors,” Lukin said. “Make a stand in here and protect you.”
Streinikov sighed, weary of the man’s stupidity. “A greenhouse is no place for a siege. The walls are made of glass. Do you see? Glass! She can pick us off at her leisure.”
“That’s why we have to intercept her before she gets here.” Ilya gestured to Lukin. “Come on.”
He was at the door when he remembered propriety.
“If you approve?” he asked his boss.
Streinikov nodded. “Go. And do what you can.”
“We’ll get her,” Ilya said, leading Lukin outside.
Fine words. But Streinikov did not believe them. The girl had invaded his home, his sanctum sanctorum. She had taken out
six of his best men, his inner circle. And he, an invalid, could neither run nor fight.
All his life he had prized strength, and now he was helpless, as helpless as he had been under Smolin’s knife.
39
Ilya was up for the kill. The fact that Parker had taken out six others in the last few minutes meant nothing to him. He was no witless mudak like Barsky or clumsy oaf like Kolba. He was a killer, sleek and efficient, and no mere woman would write his finish.
Rounding a bend in the path, he caught sight of a distant moving figure. He snapped off two shots. Didn’t connect. Then she was gone, vanished in the trees.
“That way.” He didn’t wait for Lukin’s reply. Lukin was just another fool. Of all Streinikov’s men, only Gregor and Ilya himself had been worth a gob of warm spit. And Gregor was dead. Because of this girl, this bitch, this ...
“Shluha vokzal’naja,” he muttered. Train station whore.
He veered off the path, crossing the manicured grounds. The crescent moon had long since set. The sky was thick with clustered stars. Their brightness competed with the lights of the city across the river, flickering through breaks in stands of pine.
Then the trees were past him. He approached the cliff. She was just ahead. Before he could fire again, he saw her vault the gate and head down the staircase.
She was climbing down to the riverbank, perhaps hoping to get aboard the Dragon’s Mouth.
A mistake. She could never reach cover in time. On the stairway she would be exposed, and he and Lukin would occupy the high ground.
“We have her,” he breathed, speaking not to Lukin but to himself.
He pounded forward. As he neared the gate, he dropped instinctively into a half crouch. There was a chance she had turned on the stairs to target her pursuers. His best course was to stay low.
He pushed open the gate and slipped through, Lukin trailing him. On the landing, they stopped, looking below.
The staircase twisted down to the starlit sparkle of the river, where the cruiser bobbed at its moorings. Parker wasn’t there. She had disappeared.
Bad to the Bone (Bonnie Parker, PI Book 3) Page 21