Foresight (15 page)

Robin waited a moment, then rose to his feet, rushing over to Clara, stroking her hair and hugging her close.

'It's OK', he assured her. 'I'm going to get you out of here'

'Boal,,,', began Clara, Robin cutting her off mid sentence.

'I know, he let us down', said Robin. 'But I've spoken with him and he's got men outside ready to get us out of here, there's just something I need to do first, then...'

'Let us down?', Clara asked, puzzled. 'That son of a bitch set me up.'

Robin, who'd been struggling around his pocket looking for his phone stopped, taken aback by the severity of Clara's statement.

'Set you up?', he asked. 'The casino mission went wrong, but they've been tracking us. He's helping me get you out of here.'

'He made the call Robin', said Clara. 'The casino knew about me because Boal called them. He told them I've been ripping them off for months, and when they find you in here trying to save me, they're going to think you're part of it as well.'

'What the fuck are you talking about?', asked Robin, doubting everything Boal had told him. 'He's got a car outside with Agency guys in, ready to pick us up'

'So what?', asked Clara. 'How do you know they're Agency guys? How do you know they give a fuck about saving us? How do you know they're even still there?'

Robin stood up and moved to the window, the large metal bars on the outside making it hard to see outside. He peered through, tilting his head to get a better view. In the distance, at the far end of the street near an intersection, the same black car sat exactly where it had been before. He squinted, trying to catch a view of the men inside, and the mobile phone in his pocket vibrated as he scrambled to answer it quickly and quietly. It was Boal.

'What?', whispered Robin.

'You're in?', asked Boal.

'You know I'm in, you're listening right?'

'Right. Let me speak to Clara. Put the phone to her ear.'

Robin moved quietly across the room and held the phone to Clara's ear.

'Fuck you', said Clara. 'You set me up, why?'

'This is going to be hard for you to understand', said Boal, 'but this has all been necessary, and I'm still on your side. Gorshkov is a brutal, vicious murderer, a monster, and we need you to get a confession from him. He ordered a hit on Helen Berghaus last year, and we want justice for her. That's what this mission has been about Clara, this is why you're there'

'You're lying', snapped Clara. 'Why not just tell us that in the first place? Why put us in this situation?'

'Because this situation was the only way you were going to get close enough to him. You think you just call up and make a fucking appointment to meet Andrei Gorshkov? This was necessary, but it's controlled. We won't let him hurt you, but we need this confession Clara.'

The trio all paused, Robin and Clara looking at one another, Robin shrugging his shoulders.

'I don't see that we have any other option', he said. Boal continued.

'The phone that Robin's holding will capture the confession and we're recording it at our end Clara, all you need to do is get him to talk. Our guys will be in seconds later and you're both home and dry. And after a success like this, you can take your pick of Agency missions.'

'With all due respect', snapped Clara, 'the Agency can go fuck itself after this' She waited a moment. 'We have your word?'

'You have my word'

Robin put the phone back to his ear. 'You'd better not be lying Boal', sneered Robin. 'You'll get your confession'
 

Robin hung the phone up, slipping it back into his pocket. He leant down toward Clara, pushing her knotted her gently away from her eyes, tucking it delicately behind her ears, wiping her moist, bloodshot eyes with his thumbs. He smiled sweetly at her.
 

'I know you can do this', he said. 'And I won't be far away, you'll be safe'
 

He kissed her softly on the forehead, then on the lips, their moment rudely interrupted by the thud of footsteps in the corridor outside. Robin squeezed Clara's handcuffed hand, and slid under the bed out of view.

Chapter 21

Robin saw a pair of sneakers first, dirty and scruffy, well-worn, followed closely by a smart pair of dress shoes. He could see the bottom of trousers, nothing more to tell him who each pair of the very different shoes belonged to, although from his previous conversations with Boal he was pretty confident that the dress shoes belonged to Gorshkov. He didn't know much about Gorshkov, hadn't really been briefed on his modus operandi, but he knew he was the top man in a large Russian crime syndicate and figured that realistically, that told him all that he needed to know. After all, he didn't know much about Al Capone, but knew enough to know that he'd never want to mess with him. He was the kind of guy that, had you asked him 6 months ago, Robin would have told you he was never destined to meet, never destined to simply 'bump into' the head of a Russian crime syndicate. Sure, weird circumstance in everyday life might, potentially, just possibly, put you in the same place at the same time, but for most law-abiding citizens, trouble doesn't find them, they go looking for it. As he lay on the dirt and blood encrusted floor, the vile bed above him, two incredibly dangerous men mere inches away from him, Robin couldn't help but be a little astonished at quite how drastically life had changed for him of late. He thought about it for a quiet moment, before his mind raced back to the situation at hand, and he froze, listening intently to the words the Russians were speaking, and just as intently to the sound of his own breathing. He watched as the familiar legs of one of the chairs in the room pulled up alongside the bed, the smarter dressed of the two men sitting down.

'So, you are ready to tell me who you work for? Enough of the games and uh, the bullshit. You will start by telling me who this man is...'

Gorshkov help up a black and white surveillance shot of a man Clara didn't recognise.

'My security men went through tapes', he said. 'These men were there the days we got cheated, these are the men you work with. You think we weren't able to get images from the footage, but here you go. So you tell me, who is this man?'

Clara's face welled up, unable to even fake a name.

'I don't know', she said. 'They cheated you and your casino, whoever they are, but not me, I swear. I know you don't believe me, but the reason you don't see me on the footage is cos I wasn't there, and I...'

'We don't see you on fucking footage because you thought you were clever and removed footage first', Gorshkov snapped. He stood up, tossing a pile of black and white images over Clara, turning his back and walking toward the door. He turned, tapping his associate on the shoulder.

'It is shame', he said, 'pretty thing like you' He began walking out of the room. 'But you will make me a lot of money when I put you out to work'

'Shit', thought Robin, realising that not only had Gorshkov gone, but their confession had gone with him. He spun round under the bed, looking at the feet of the other man, who had by this point moved to the head of the bed, pausing for a moment.

'Hold still if you don't want this to hurt so much', he said, needle in his right hand. Clara shrieked, straining her entire body to her left, trying harder than she thought possible to move away, the restraints locking her firmly in place. Robin balled his hands into fists, screaming inside but utterly silent outside, aware that one false move would give the game up for both of them, powerless to help. He stared at the Adidas tracksuit bottoms of the man, thoughts racing through his mind about what he could do. Perhaps he could wrestle him to the ground, snatch the needle from him and jab it through his eye, or somehow break his neck. He needed to think fast, and whilst he couldn't see what was happening on the bed above him, whilst he couldn't read Clara's thoughts, he knew she was seconds away from disaster.

The needle was inches away from her skin when Clara screamed out.

'I have money, millions of dollars, I'll transfer you all of it!'

The thug stopped, as if he was half-expecting her to say something, but wasn't necessarily expecting her to say that. He went to stick her with the needle again, before thinking better of it, deciding to spare a moment to follow the conversation a little further.

'What money?', he asked in his broken English.

'My Father is a wealthy businessman, a Billionaire. I started robbing casinos as a way of getting his attention and it just kind of escalated. I haven't spoken with him in years and he'd pay you, he'd pay you millions if he knew I was safe, I swear!'

Robin waited under the bed, poised and ready to strike, to grab the man and take him down by his ankles, punching, kicking, biting if he needed to. But he wanted to see how this panned out first, and willed the thug to believe her story. The 5 or 10 seconds of no movement felt like a lifetime. Then, without saying anything, the thug dropped the syringe, and left the room, saying something in Russian, out loud. And just like that, the pair were alone again, silent and still, together but separated by the bed, waiting to work out their next move.

Chapter 22

Gorshkov entered, his pace decidedly more hurried than before, stopping near the bed, the other man immediately behind him. They spoke Russian with one another, the tracksuit-wearing thug occasionally shrugging his shoulders and pointing in Clara's direction. Robin didn't need to speak Russian to know that Gorshkov was not amused.

'Money? You expect me to believe that you have money? A rich Father? Why rob my casino if Daddy can give you everything you ever wanted?', he demanded.

'It was the only way to get his attention', insisted Clara. 'You think a man like that comes home and spends time with his kids? He was too busy signing merger contracts in China or fucking his whore secretary to spend time with us. I just wanted to make him notice me', she said, shedding real tears, albeit tears for a different situation to the one she was describing. Gorshkov paused, as if he'd already made his mind up about her, but her story had caught him off-guard. He seemed to be almost pondering her situation, weighing up the pros and cons. After all, it was probably worth at least an attempt at extortion, even if he had no intention of letting her go. She read him, and could see that, to an extent, he believed her, or at least he wanted to. She felt a rush of relief, knowing that how she played the next moment would be crucial. She went to speak, but was cut off by Gorshkov, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out his cellphone.

'Number', he demanded.

'Number?', Clara quizzed.

'Father. What is number? I will talk to him. Arrange deal with him'

Clara froze. A fake number would throw him into a rage, but all she had were fake numbers, and nobody to answer the call and play along.

'I uh, I don't know it. But if you just let me go, I could go and speak to...'

Gorshkov flew into a fit of rage, hurling his phone against the wall and shrieking an almost animal roar at the top of his lungs, the sudden crescendo of sounds making Robin jump so hard and so high, he worried that he might have knocked Clara in the bed above. Gorshkov lunged to the bedside table, grabbing the needle and plunging it into Clara's side, pushing down on the syringe. Clara screamed, a loud, deafening, tragic scream that became more sombre and defeated as he yanked out the needle, tossing it to the floor. Robin, realising he'd missed his opportunity to save Clara, balled his face up into his hands and cried. He watched as the pair headed for the door, the thug first, being berated by Gorshkov as they left.

Then Clara spoke the crucial words, as she lay broken, drifting slowly into unconsciousness on the bed above.

'I know about Helen Berghaus'

The two men reacted very differently to the words. The tracksuit wearing thug, perhaps unaware of his boss' involvement in the murder, continued babbling on in Russian, only falling silent when he noticed Gorshkov, a look of cold, pure hatred across his face, staring at Clara. He tried to say something to Gorshkov, who shoved him hard, knocking him off his feet and out into the hallway, slamming the door shut behind him. Gorshkov moved slowly, quietly back to the chair, calmly taking a seat. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and began to speak.

'I knew something not quite right about you', he said. 'I didn't know what. I feel as though I still don't. But something about you, something told me you were more trouble to me than just a fucking rat who steals money from me.'

Clara writhed on the bed above, trying desperately hard to keep her eyes open, the drugs in her system fighting hard against her, dragging her down into a cold, icy darkness of unconsciousness. Gorshkov leant forward and slapped her hard, grabbing a glass of dirty water from the side-table and throwing it over her face, neither having little effect.

'What you think you know about Helen Berghaus?', he asked, his tone becoming less patient.

Clara, struggling to focus her eyes, her head awash with noise and blurred vision, forced herself to respond, Robin under the bed, his phone held out of sight, but close enough to record everything. He pushed the red record button just in time to catch the entire conversation above.

'You,,, you killed her', she said.

'Fucking American. What are you, a spy? FBI? CIA?!' He yanked up Clara's dress aggressively, running his hand from her groin up to her chest and out the other end, her back as well, looking desperately for a wire, some kind of recording device. 'You Americans think you know everything!', he shouted. 'Well let me ask you this? What would Russian businessman like me want with Helen Berghaus dead?'

Clara heard the words, but couldn't even piece together a sentence to respond. She just stared, dead-eyed back at Gorshkov.

'You think I kill her?', he asked. 'You think I ordered my men to kill her?', giving the skilled Agency audio workers more than enough ammunition to piece a confession together. 'There is no blood on my hands my dear', he said, brushing her greasy, knotted hair away from her sweat covered face. 'That was James Friedman's murder. He may not have got his hands dirty, but it was his money that paid for Helen Berghaus to die'