Long Way Home

by Tom Crown

  The structure collapsed.

  Ryan felt himself falling and heard Katia call out his name. The rifle flew from his hands and clattered to the floor. Alex tried to protect himself from the falling wood, from Ryan landing right on top of him, but Ryan still managed to get a good grip around the man’s neck as they tumbled to the floor. Then everything stopped moving, stopped falling, stopped making the slightest noise, and a split moment later Alex was on top with his hands around Ryan’s neck. He felt his head slam against the floor and then took a punch right in the face. Blood flooded his left eye. He tried to shake the pain away, tried to focus, tried to see what was happening to him, and realized Alex had pinned his arms to the floor and was reaching for a sturdy piece of splintered wood. It wasn’t a club, it was a stabbing weapon. For a moment, Ryan felt himself give in to the irony. This was how he had killed. This was how he had won his freedom. He knew he still had to fight and struggled to wriggle away, to kick out, to do anything at all, but he couldn’t move an inch and he felt the moment slipping away.

  “Alex!”

  Katia’s voice rang out loud and clear as she stepped into Alex’s line of sight, rifle in hand, very much like Jenny had approached Mats the night before.

  “Let him go,” she said. “Let him go now!”

  Alex considered his options. He grinned for a moment, tilted his head left, then right, and opened his mouth to say something.

  Katia pulled the trigger.

  The bullet hit Alex in the chest. He coughed once and then slumped backward. Ryan could feel the pressure on his arms ease and began to push himself free. Alex collapsed to the side, and Ryan rolled away from under him.

  He looked at Katia, who was still holding the rifle. “You just saved my life,” he said, panting hard. “Thank you.”

  She turned her face away, hiding her reaction.

  “No, you really did. Thank you.” He was grateful but at the same time not sure what to believe. Had she killed Alex to save Ryan’s life or to stop Alex from talking? He felt his eyes communicating the question he would never ask.

  He took a step forward. “We should get out of here. Come on.”

  He shuffled painfully toward the door, but stopped when he saw the laptop on the floor, still where he left it before all the shooting began. He picked it up.

  A shot rang out behind him.

  “Katia?!” Ryan spun around.

  Katia was still standing, still holding the rifle.

  Fire was spreading from a gasoline tank further back in the shadows, flames already licking the nearest wall and swirling hay igniting in the air.

  Ryan raced back, grabbed her free hand with his, and began to pull her toward the door.

  * * * *

  Alex knew now how he would die. It would happen here, in the Lapland forests, and it would happen soon. But he still had enough time to take everyone with him. Every single one. He would live long enough to do it. Just long enough.

  He had already survived a bullet to his chest and the fire and smoke that had followed. The pain was unbearable; he could hardly breathe, could barely move, and it had taken all his willpower to crawl out from the barn before its burning frame collapsed on top of him. After that it had been a slow and painful struggle to make his way into the house, feeling momentarily stronger with fresh air in his lungs, but still leaving a worrying trail of blood in his wake. He had finally made it into the kitchen, where he had poured himself a Vodka and downed a generous handful of painkillers, just enough, he hoped, to kill the pain without actually killing himself in the process. The house could only be a temporary shelter, though, and soon enough he had been out the door, for the last time in his life, stumbling from time to time as he shuffled down the stairs and headed into the wilderness.

  The forest would have to keep him safe now. He still had his favorite gun, wedged out of Roman’s stiff fingers, and he had patched up his gunshot wound enough to slow the bleeding. It wouldn’t be enough, he wouldn’t ever wake up again if he fell asleep, but he had no plans to lay his body down just yet.

  He understood now what had happened, or at least where to put the blame. It hadn’t just been Steve Manning, he saw that now, even if the man had already admitted some guilt. Steve had, of course, been the front man in this assault. Yulia had died only three days after his arrival. That should have been clue number one, something he should have recognized earlier on, even before Steve spelled it out to him in plain English. To that he could now add that Steve had killed Sergei and Dimitri, and also taken the girls. That must have been his intention all along, to first blackmail them for money he wouldn’t get his hands on otherwise, and finally to take over the rest of the operation with force. But it wasn’t just Steve. He had help, including Katia, Jenny, Mats possibly, but primarily Ryan West, who looked more and more like an all-out accomplice and perhaps even the brains behind it all.

  That made sense. It was he who had followed them in the forest after the crash, and it was he who had stayed to fight them at the barn. It was Ryan West.

  He brought out his phone and selected his brother’s number, smearing bloodied fingerprints all over his display.

  “Vlad here,” the voice came after only a second. Alex smiled when he heard the industrious typing on the keyboard on the other end.

  “Hey, brother, it’s Alex.”

  The typing stopped.

  “Sasha?”

  Alex had always hated the nickname, it sounded much too soft for his liking, but this time he smiled.

  “Yes. Look, I’m in a hurry here. I just have a quick question.”

  “Go ahead.” The typing started again, but slower now.

  “That laptop you set up for me. It’s been stolen.”

  Vlad grunted, and Alex could see him shaking his head at his brother’s characteristic carelessness.

  “I need you to find it for me.”

  “Of course you do. But I can’t do that unless they go online. It doesn’t have a GPS or anything like that. It’s not a phone. But I have the MAC address from the network card, so if they go online and they use a static IP, I could probably match them up and give you a location, but that takes time. The internet is big, you know.”

  Alex found himself grinning. He didn’t understand half of what his brother was saying, but he understood he would do what he could to help.

  “It’s the HP Pavilion, right?” Vlad asked.

  “HP. Yes.”

  “And you’re thinking it’s still there in Sweden.”

  “Northern Sweden.”

  “All right. That narrows it down. A lot, actually. Not many people there.”

  “Call me back when you have something.”

  Alex disconnected the call and let out a deep sigh that hurt his injured chest. He almost started laughing, but then forced himself not to. He didn’t know how the bullet had struck, exactly, but it had missed his heart and his lungs and passed right through his back. He was bleeding internally, he knew that, but it was a slow process. He felt weaker with every breath, but he still had a couple of hours.

  He looked at his phone again and selected Steve’s number. To his surprise, the man picked up instantly. The background noise, people talking, plates clattering, made him feel a stab of sorrow.

  “You’re going to die,” Alex said, struggling not to cough. “A slow, gruesome death.”

  “Oh, hi,” Steve replied briskly, walking now, the noise around him fading. “I heard the same about you. In fact, I heard it had happened already.”

  “I’m not that easy to get rid of.”

  “You sound a little short of breath there. Maybe you should go home, get some rest. But no, you don’t have a home. You’re on your own and everyone wants you dead.”

  “I guess we’re the same, then.”

  “I don’t see how. Your life’s torn to pieces, and mine’s just the way I want it.”

  “No,” Alex said. “It’s not.

  “How’s that?”

  Alex moved the phon
e to his other ear to relieve his arm, which had started to throb painfully. “Because you will die,” he said. “All of you. You’ll die before this day is done.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  STEVE MOVED BACK into the kitchen and took in the familiar surroundings. He had left a knife on a chopping block and was supposed to be slicing cucumber and tomato. He was good with blades, and had always admired the way they extended a man’s capabilities without shrouding the experience in technology. Using a knife was almost as good as using your hands alone, almost the same level of commitment and responsibility, but with all the more speed and power for when you really needed it. Guns, on the other hand, was just wasteful cheating. Sometimes called for, but only as a last resort.

  Jenny was doing the dishes, the few items they had used so far, and she glanced at him when he moved closer. He liked the way she didn’t ask any questions. She knew about the divorce in progress, and had probably thought the phone call was from his wife, and yet she didn’t show the slightest hint of interest. She was a very pragmatic young woman. He knew he would feel regret when he finally had to let her go, but he saw no way around it. No woman was pragmatic enough to live with what he had done, and certainly not with the things he was about to do.

  He picked up the knife again and began to chop the vegetables. She turned off the tap and shook the water off her hands. Looking over her shoulder, she shot him a brief smile, just for a fraction of a second.

  “You okay?” he asked when she didn’t say anything to follow that look. “Really, are you?”

  She leaned against the counter and looked past him, peering at the girls in the living room. Three of them were sitting on the sofa, cautiously picking food and drink from a tray of chocolate, tea, and sandwiches. They had probably been moved between various groups before, perhaps even in such a violent manner, and they wouldn’t be able to tell just yet whether this was an improvement for them. Katia was pacing about nervously, glancing repeatedly toward the bedroom where Ryan was hooking up the laptop, and the other girls were following her movements in tense silence. Steve reminded himself that he would have to go check on Ryan before he found too much on that hard drive. This could all get very messy if he did.

  “They’re so afraid,” Jenny said, taking a step away from the counter.

  Steve nodded. “And you?” He looked at the knife in his hand and then put it down again.

  Jenny sighed hopelessly. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you do.”

  “I just keep thinking about everything. My whole life. I’ve always felt so trapped. A lot of girls left this place, but I never did. And the guys here, they’re not bad, not really, but... Oh, I shouldn’t tell you about that, I know. But you’ve seen what it’s like.” She glanced at him, then shook her head and looked down. “I don’t know what I’m talking about. All this, and I’m still feeling sorry for myself.”

  Steve stepped closer and took her in his arms. He saw something in her eyes when he pulled her to him and pushed her hair back. It wasn’t self-pity, but rather a sudden maturity he hadn’t expected from her, and he had to admit he liked the way danger was making her grow right before his eyes.

  Feeling her soft skin against his cheek, he looked at the knife he had left on the counter. He wouldn’t use a knife with her. He didn’t want the slightest detachment. She deserved to feel his hands.

  * * * *

  The old laptop had survived the shooting and the fire, and the ride back to Steve’s house in a very crowded three-seat-row Land Rover, and still played along nicely as Ryan tried his best to get to its contents. He was studying what he could find, the obvious and easily understandable, photos, transaction spreadsheets, telephone numbers, and had even connected the laptop to the internet with the hope of possibly accessing some of their email accounts. These guys were not overly computer savvy, but still fairly ambitious, and that combination had generated plenty of information he could get to without resorting to hacking techniques off the internet. He wasn’t good at those kinds of things, but he was good at finding information and could have investigated more forceful methods if it had been required. As it was, however, all he had to do was search and browse.

  The shower was on in the bathroom, where a couple of the girls were still cleaning themselves up. Anna was in there now, Ryan remembered. Her name was easy to recall, and her face too, since he knew at least something about her background, with the kidnapping she had endured and the death of her sister. Valeria was another name that had stuck. She was the first girl they had rescued. Then Yelana.

  The shower stopped. Out of hot water, no doubt.

  He thought he knew something about what they were feeling. The Kandahar dust had taken days to scrub off. In the end, it was the pool at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul that had finally made him feel clean again. He had spent three days there, swimming for hours at a time, feeling safe for the first time he could at all remember. That environment, the tile, the chlorine, the clean and symmetrical architecture of the building itself, had all been so entirely different from the basement he had been stuck in. It had still been a confined space, but one with a sky and a breeze, and doors and gates that could be controlled at his convenience. The Intercontinental had been the perfect halfway house, like the NATO base at Kandahar Airport on his way into the country. He had spent three precious days there, then been on a plane for New York. He had thought about giving Natalie the first interview on American soil, but she would never have asked, and he hadn’t had the strength to look her up to make the offer.

  The bathroom door cracked open.

  Ryan looked up and saw the two girls step out. They both immediately looked at the laptop screen, at all the horrible things they knew about in much greater detail than he ever would, and he quickly turned the computer away.

  “You’re Anna?” he asked and tried to smile.

  “Yes. Anna.”

  “I’m Ryan.”

  She didn’t reply, and the other girl had taken a step back, hiding herself in Anna’s shadow. They were both scared, he realized, scared of what he would do to them.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly and motioned toward the door. “Go ahead.”

  Anna made an almost unnoticeable bowing motion and then they scurried off into the living room together without another word.

  Ryan buried his head in his hands and sighed. Seeing them scared like that reminded him of the reality behind all the data he had found on the laptop. He hadn’t been able to access any email accounts so far, but the photos he had found told a horrible story, and it was easy enough to multiply that horror with the data in the spreadsheets, and then finally begin to approach some sort of understanding. Still, that was only on a general level. He wanted to understand what had happened this weekend, why all this had unraveled the way it had, and why so many people had died. He hadn’t found anything to explain that yet. And he hadn’t found anything to tie all this to the photos of Mats in the back of that van. That’s what he needed to look into. The envelope was still inside his jacket, which he had tossed on the bed.

  He sat up straight again and opened his eyes. Steve was studying him from the doorway.

  “What?” Ryan asked and turned the laptop to face him again.

  “You’ve been quiet ever since we came back.” He took a step into the room.

  “I know.” Ryan kept his eyes on the screen and began to browse the data. “I just really want to understand what’s going on here.”

  “Coffee and sandwiches. In the living room. That’s what’s going on. Plenty of hot chocolate too.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Maybe it’s the coffee I’ve been drinking, or just working in the kitchen with Jenny, or both, I guess. But it helps, you know, clearing your head. It helps, just doing everyday things like that. Just being human.”

  Ryan nodded.

  “I know it’s hard for you,” Steve continued. “You always seem to go off on your own, and that’s go
t to be hard. Sometimes, you know, it’s just easier to deal with things when you’re not alone.”

  “Thanks. You’re right.” Ryan finally turned away from the screen. “I wasn’t always like this.”

  Steve nodded. “Did something happened back there? At the farm? More than I know of? You shot a man, I know that.”

  Ryan looked at Katia through the door opening, pacing nervously at the far end of the living room. He didn’t want to give too much credit to anything said by Alex, whose objective had no doubt been to stir things up, to make them give up their position so he could kill them. It was a given he would say something provocative. Still Katia hadn’t denied much, and she had explained even less, and that was starting to bother him.

  “I have no idea,” he finally said, as Katia caught his eye from across the room.

  Steve turned and looked at the girls cowering on the sofa.

  “We’ll have to get them out of here,” he said. “Not tonight, of course, but sooner or later. Tomorrow, I suppose.”

  “I know.”

  “And the police? We don’t have to call them, necessarily, but we need to know what to say if they turn up.”

  “Yeah. You’re right. I guess they might.”

  “How about the girls heard gunshots and people running. Their doors opened, they don’t know how, but they saw smoke and fire. Then they ran into the forest, going as fast as they could, and eventually they ended up here. And we took them in.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “And that story could include Katia as well.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just in case someone asks.” Steve looked at the girls in the living room again. “That fire must have been seen far and wide.”