by Estelle Ryan
One of the guards narrowed his eyes as I came closer to the staircase. An almost invisible nod to himself alerted me that he’d recognised me. He reached into his jacket pocket and fear rushed through me. I came to a complete stop, my eyes on his hand.
The loud sounds of rap music drowned out the rock music behind the closed doors. The next moment a large group of people joined in a line and started a well-choreographed dance. More people joined, filling the entrance hall within seconds to a very crowded state. I looked behind me, but could no longer see Colin. I also couldn’t see Manny, Vinnie, Claudette or any of the other team members. My throat felt dry and tight, my breathing shallow. Fradkov had been prepared for my team joining me.
Most of the young women in the entrance hall were identically dressed. Jeans, red coats, blue scarfs and blue gloves. The exact outfit I was wearing. My team would never find me in this crowd of impersonators.
I turned back to the staircase and barely suppressed a shriek when the guard who had reached into his pocket was standing in front of me. He held a phone. “This is for you, Doctor Lenard.”
The moment I took the phone, he turned around and walked away. Before I could call out to him, the phone in my hand rang. I took off my gloves and swiped to answer the call. A video filled the screen and I gasped.
Alexis was hunched over in a chair, groaning and swearing.
“Look up, Alexis. Say hello to the woman who’s going to save you.”
The sound of Fradkov’s voice sent a rush of adrenaline through my system. He was in the same room as Alexis. The décor was modern and rich. I had never been to this concert venue, but was willing to guess they were in a VIP room or an extremely well-furnished office.
Large abstract paintings decorated the battleship-grey walls and a beautifully carved red door with three silver locks was all I could see behind Alexis. She was tied to an executive office chair, her cheek bleeding. She looked up, strongly resembling her grandmother in that moment. Their anger looked the same. “Fuck you!”
“That’s not nice.” Fradkov chuckled. “Doctor Lenard, you have exactly five minutes to get to the VIP lodges. Once there, I’ll direct you further. For fun, I’ll keep this line open. You know, so you can see what happens to this pretty little girl when you don’t get here on time.” He laughed when Alexis spat at him. “Such a feisty little thing. Oh and by the way, I’m splitting the screen on your phone so you can follow the directions towards us.” The video shook as he worked on the phone. Then the image of Alexis became smaller and moved to the top right of the screen. Behind that a map of the building appeared. “Just follow the red arrows and you’ll be here in no time. You’d better get moving, Doctor Genevieve Lenard. Your five minutes start now and you have quite a distance to cover.”
He was right. I would have to run up stairs, along three different corridors and another set of stairs to get to the room indicated on the map. I estimated it would take me more than ten minutes to walk. I started running.
I reached the top of the first set of stairs when I remembered the camera on my left breast pocket. I lifted the phone a bit higher, so Francine and everyone else could see what I was looking at. And where I was. I wondered how Justine was dealing with seeing her granddaughter being beaten up and restrained in an office chair.
The physical activity warmed me up and soon I removed my hat and scarf. Was this Fradkov’s plan all along? Not only would he be able to see anyone else running with me, he would also have me at a disadvantage being out of breath from running. I was grateful that I had always found jogging a way to calm my mind. I might not be fit or fast enough to compete in a marathon, but running through the halls of the Zénith was not an extreme test of my physical condition.
The true challenge was in my mind. I ran down the second last corridor and focused on following the red arrows. If I were to think about all the people and emotions surrounding this moment, the darkness pushing in on my peripheral vision would completely take over.
“Ooh, look.” Fradkov’s quiet voice over the phone echoed in the empty corridor. “You’re almost there. But you can stop and catch your breath first, Doctor Genevieve Lenard.”
I stopped, but didn’t need to catch my breath. I hated that he used my full name, but wasn’t going to respond to that. There had been a tone in his voice that made me realise he was playing a game with me. I waited.
“You’re still there, Doctor Genevieve Lenard?”
I lifted the phone and breathed as if I was winded. “I’m here.”
“You made good time. Now you can follow the new map.” A different image filled the phone’s screen. I was certain Fradkov had this phone’s camera on and was watching me, so I frowned and looked deeply worried. It wasn’t that difficult to exhibit concern. In the top right-hand corner, Alexis was clenching her jaw so hard her masseter muscles were bulging. She was fighting tears.
“Should I follow the blue arrows?” I tried to sound breathless.
“Aren’t you just a genius.” He laughed. “You have four minutes. This is a little closer.”
I disagreed. The distance between where I was now and the final destination appeared to be further than the distance I’d just run. I turned around and started running again.
I was running towards a row of rooms that the map indicated were artist lodges. I assumed that was where the performers would ready themselves for the concerts. I reached the stairs I had just ascended and ran down them as fast I could. When I reached the level surface of another corridor, I lifted the phone to check on Alexis. She seemed to have gained control over her tears. Her anger was back.
I turned left into another corridor and skidded to a stop. I turned around and walked back to the previous corridor and stopped in front of the second last door on the left. There was a short carpeted entrance before the door.
The red, beautifully carved door.
I reached for the door handle. There was no doubt in my mind that Fradkov was in this room, terrorising Alexis. The door handle lowered and I pushed the door open.
Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
“Doctor Genevieve Lenard.” Fradkov was leaning against the large dark-wood desk, his thin lips pulled into a fake smile. His nose dominated his face, his deep-set eyes small, his teeth crooked.
His tailored suit and handmade shoes would lead a person to the rightful assumption that he was rich. But it would not make him attractive or give him class. The malice in his smile and his nails bitten to the quick revealed the person under the expensive veneer.
He was holding a smartphone in his hand aimed in my direction. He was still transmitting. I lifted the phone in my hand to make sure my breast pocket camera would catch this. Francine would be able to locate me. I was surprised—and quite concerned—that Manny, Vinnie and Colin had not caught up with me. I didn’t allow myself to consider the numerous reasons why they might not be close.
Instead I glanced one more time at Fradkov before I focused on Alexis, sitting with her back towards me. “Alexis, are you well?”
“Never better.” Her tone and what I could see of her body language belied her statement. Taking into consideration her grandmother’s penchant for rudeness and sarcasm, I dismissed her answer as such.
“Come in. Join us.” Fradkov tapped the screen on his phone and put it on the table. He reached into his jacket and brought out a handgun. And pointed it at my chest. “Now.”
The blackness I feared and had been fighting crept into my peripheral vision, the safety of a shutdown beckoning me. How was I supposed to protect this vulnerable young woman, my team and all the people at the rock concert when my mind wanted to close down under stress?
With more effort than I’d ever put into something, I pulled my eyes away from the barrel of the handgun. I looked up at Fradkov and forced myself to analyse his features. His nose was slightly crooked and he’d had a haircut since Emad had captured him on those photos, but there was nothing that would make him stand out from a crowd.
I regi
stered the small smirk lifting one corner of his mouth and the intelligence in his eyes as he studied me back. On a deep inhale, I put the phone in my pocket and stepped deeper into the room, but stopped when he nodded at the door.
When I didn’t do anything, he rolled his eyes and sighed as if highly inconvenienced. “Would you please close the door behind you? And do remember to lock it up nice and tight.”
I hated turning my back on him, but to make the idea that had flashed into my mind work, I had to do it. I walked the three steps back to the door, closed it and took a step to the right, obscuring his view of the locks. I had the same locks on my bedroom door as well as the front door to my apartment. Hoping Fradkov wouldn’t suspect anything, I turned the first lock’s turn button once to the right, then back to the left.
These locks were top of the range and with two rotations would secure a door against the pressure of a hundred and fifty kilograms. Two such locks would make the probability of a breach highly unlikely. But one rotation to the right and one to the left would give my team the possibility to reach us.
I turned back to Fradkov, more in control of myself. “Let Alexis go. You have me.”
“Not yet, Doctor Genevieve Lenard. Not quite yet.” He tilted his head to the side and smiled. It was genuine. “I just knew you wouldn’t run past this room and go all the way to the artist lodges. So what did you think of my strategy to get you to come to me?”
“It was exceptional.” Complimenting him would serve two purposes. Firstly, being truthful was less stressful for me. But more importantly, people like Fradkov thrived on reassurance.
I wasn’t disappointed. His chest lifted with pride. “Once that pathetic loser Emad confirmed my suspicions that he was betraying me by making sure you caught him, it was fun watching you work. Oh, but just so you know, I’ve been watching you for a few months. I wanted to know who managed to destroy the plans that had taken me years to put into place. I was pleasantly surprised that it was you.
“And watching you try to solve Otto’s sad demise and then visit my homes was also a pleasure. You’re beautifully predictable. Your behavioural pattern was another fun thing to observe. For example, this winter you’ve only ever worn this red coat when the temperature was between five and ten degrees. Closer to zero and you wear your dark blue coat. And you confirmed it this morning by wearing this beautiful coat. It was easy to get my people in place.”
“You anticipated that I would not come alone.”
He snorted. “Of course I did. There was no way you would come to me if you weren’t protected. And there was no way those men hanging around you would let you come alone either.”
The micro-expressions when he talked about Manny, Vinnie and Colin elicited a strong fear response. I took a deep breath. “Have you hurt them?”
“No.” His malicious smile was back. “I’m just playing with them a little bit.”
The darkness returned and I took a few deep breaths to push it back. “What are you doing?”
“Scrambling signals. Everyone relies on technology so much today.” He glanced at the phone on the desk. “One tap and I disabled all transmissions.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You did that less than a minute ago. What did you do before that?”
“Delayed them.” He sobered and looked at me for a few seconds. “See? This is why you need to be here. Away from that distraction.”
“What distraction? Why me?”
He leaned a bit back as if he was indulging in daydreaming, but the grip on his weapon did not relax. “I want you to join me. Together we can do great things.”
His micro-expressions and the change in his gentle tone alerted me that there was more to his words. “Clarify what you mean by joining you.”
“What I mean by joining me is that I want you to partner up with me. I don’t want you to work for me. That’s banal and, frankly, far beneath us. I want you to work beside me.” He shook his weapon towards the hallway. “All those neurotypical idiots will never understand us. They will always resist our plans, undermine our greatness and try to make fools of us. You’re not like them, Doctor Genevieve Lenard. We’re not like them.”
“We’re different.” I needed to know how he categorised himself as well as me.
“You see it.” His smile was sincere. “I knew that you would. At first, I was worried that you’d been sucked into their ridiculous world of friendships and hugs. It surprised me when I discovered that you hadn’t published any new research in years. That’s why I sent you those magazines. I wanted you to know that I understand. I know what it’s like to hunger for more knowledge, for more power. Together we can be unstoppable.”
“Did you truly believe I would agree?”
He gave a half shrug. “No. But I hoped that you would be smart enough to know that I will kill Alexis right now, right here if you don’t come with me. But if you do come with me, I’ll leave her here for your pathetic, confused team members to find. And as a bonus for becoming my partner, I won’t detonate the thirteen other bombs I have planted.”
It took all my focus not to react. Fear constricted my lungs and throat as I thought about spending any more time with him. I wanted my team to come through the door and end this. I wanted to be with Nikki. I wanted to be anywhere but here. But to do that I would have to call on all the knowledge I had to be convincing.
I made sure my nonverbal cues conveyed my anger. As well as my reluctance. “I’ll come with you.”
His tongue protruded for a millisecond. Victory. He schooled his expression and nodded sagely. “You will not regret it, Doctor Genevieve Lenard. We’re going to be great together.”
I didn’t respond. Even though I had agreed to go with him, I hadn’t agreed to work with him. And I had lied. I did not plan to leave this building with him.
Deception was never easy for me and required concentration, but I had convinced Fradkov. He lowered the handgun and straightened. “Well, let’s go. I won’t be able to keep your people busy and confused for hours on end.”
Against the wall to the right of the desk were two beautifully carved cupboards. The style resembled the door. Fradkov walked to the two cupboards and twisted both door handles on the one cupboard. The hiss of a hydraulic lock sounded and the cupboard slid to the side, revealing a wide doorway. And stairs going down.
I had lost count of the times Manny, Vinnie and even Colin had warned me never to leave with someone I didn’t trust implicitly. During the many years I’d learned self-defence, I had also learned never to be taken to a second location. I stood frozen.
“Having problems, Doctor Genevieve Lenard?” The muscles around his eyes contracted and dread settled deep in my stomach. Casually, he walked to Alexis and, while keeping his eyes on me, slapped the young woman hard across the face. So hard that the office chair rolled a few centimetres to the left. Fradkov raised one eyebrow. “Coming?”
I walked around the office chair and looked into Alexis’ face. Her lip was bleeding and there was a fresh cut on her cheek. Tears ran down her cheeks, but it wasn’t from fear. Even though I could clearly see the fear in her expression, it was anger that made her cry. I leaned forward and studied her for another two seconds. I straightened when I was satisfied. “You’re strong. You’ll be fine.”
She huffed a laugh, then winced when more blood trickled from the cut in her lip. I wondered if I should say anything else, but didn’t know what, so I turned around and walked past Fradkov. I hesitated in front of the stairs.
My mind was at war. One part of me wanted to give in to the comfortable shutdown beckoning me. That way, I would not have to deal with any of this. It would be someone else’s problem. The largest part of me agreed that humouring Fradkov was the best possible decision available at the moment. There was no one else to deal with him. There was no one to overpower him, take his weapon away from him and take him into custody. Not here and not at the moment.
This was up to me. I swallowed and took the first step down. I
lingered on each step, hoping that I was giving Manny and the team more time to reach me. A shudder shook my body when the light from the office was cut off by the cupboard sliding back into place. Soft yellow lights lit the staircase, at the bottom of which was another red door.
“Your people aren’t going to reach you in time, Doctor Genevieve Lenard,” Fradkov said from behind me. Something hard pressed against my shoulder. “I don’t have a problem shooting you in a place that can heal quickly. Mind you, you don’t need your shoulder to work with me, so I don’t even have to be careful where I shoot.”
I moved faster. Not because he’d ordered me to. I needed to get away from the gun pressing against my coat. I inhaled deeply and tried to focus my mind, tried to find a strategy. I reached the red door before I came up with anything.
“Open it.”
I didn’t want him to get close enough to push the weapon against me. I opened the door and quickly stepped into a brightly lit garage. My eyes widened at the exclusive space. I had not thought about what was behind the door, but had not expected a garage designed for at most four vehicles.
There were only two vehicles parked, one a black Mercedes Benz, the other a white Ford Mondeo. The latter was one of the most common cars on European roads, perfect for an escape. I walked to the Mercedes and waited at the passenger side.
Fradkov laughed as he twisted both the locks on the door to the staircase. “You’re trying to delay the inevitable. You know we’re not taking the Merc. Far too conspicuous. Get into the driver seat of the Ford, Doctor Genevieve Lenard. You’re driving.”
“After you answer a few questions.” Not only did I need the answers, I also wanted to give Manny more time to reach me. But more importantly, Fradkov would become suspicious if I became too agreeable.
“You can ask me three questions.” He glanced at his watch. “You have a minute for each. We need to get going.”
I closed my eyes, when he walked around the Mercedes and pointed the gun at my chest. I wasted twenty seconds calming my mind before I opened my eyes and analysed every muscle contraction in his face. “Are there more bombs? Here and in the other cities?”