The River of Bones v5 (15 page)

What now?  Then it hit her, check the ticket counters.  Whoever had snatched Sasha couldn’t have purchased a ticket for her beforehand, and the queues were always slow in Russia.  She pulled her pistol again, folded her coat so it covered everything but the laser sight, and started walking along the   counters, watching for a blond woman standing beside two or three men.  She had a plan . . .

Halfway down the airport terminal she saw Sasha ahead, standing between the godfather on the near side and a fat man on the other, holding onto her arms in a line of people waiting to buy tickets.  She had guessed right.  Now came the hard part—how to get Sasha away from the two mobsters—one with gauze covering half his face, like a mask, and the other surely carrying a pistol of his own.  At least they had no idea she was within a mile of them.  She snapped on the Glock’s laser sight and stopped a few feet away.

“Sasha, turn around and look at me.”

She moved the red laser to the crime boss’s head, between his eyes, as he turned also.  One good thing about lasers, she told herself, no one could see them except the one in their aim, and that individual always knew he or she was within a millisecond of death.  One wrong move and your brains would be blown to bits.  She saw the fat man start pulling his pistol.  Nonetheless, she stood still.

The godfather stood motionless as well, but quickly whimpered,
“Nyet.  Ya eta ne hachu.”
  The fat man froze.

She took a deep breath, exhaled, then said, “Tell them to let you go.  Say I shot off his nose on purpose the first time, and I surely won’t miss his entire head now.”  She saw everyone around them had fallen silent.  They sensed the danger.

Sasha spoke to the men, barely above a whisper, and then walked away.  Both stayed where they were, watching the red beam.  Molly knew they realized it wasn’t worth it, and there would come another day.  Then, they’d torture her to death, given the chance.  She started backing away, holding her aim, and Sasha joined her.

“Guide me through the door so I can keep an eye on them.  Hurry, there’s someone waiting, the guy with a crowbar.  You can’t miss him.”

“How will we get away?” Sasha asked.

“Don’t worry.  In a moment you’ll see the biggest riot ever, and we’ll have plenty of time.”

Sasha’s voice pitched higher.  “What are you going to
do?”

“Fire a few rounds into the ceiling, and then the whole place will panic.  A thousand people will run right over the godfather and his fat friend.  They won’t have time to chase us because they’ll be fighting for their lives.”

She heard the door swing open behind her and felt the cold air rush past her.  She lifted her pistol and pulled the trigger three times.  The building shook with the blasts.  Women screamed, men yelled, then everyone ran at once, none with any clear intention in mind.  They had no idea where the shots had come from, with the echoes bouncing off the walls.  She turned and ran as well, following Sasha to the cab, the driver still clutching his crowbar, but now bug-eyed because she’d forgotten to put away her pistol.

“Tell him to get out of here, say the
Mafiya
is chasing us.”  She dove through the back door and heard Sasha yell.  The cabby raced away again, faster this time.  She started shivering.  Maybe she was crazy . . .

“Ask him if he’ll take us Kansk.  We’ve missed our train.”

Sasha stared at her, round-eyed, then hugged her, laughing and crying simultaneously.  Both rolled around the back seat because they felt so happy.  Their quest had become very dangerous, but their love for each other had won the day, and together they’d conquer the world.

They calmed themselves, and Sasha began bargaining with the driver for the trip to Kansk, so they could once more ride the Trans-Siberian Railway.  Yes, he had the time.  It was just a matter of money.  He must buy extra gasoline from the black market for the long drive.  Commercial supplies were tight in Siberia.

He settled for a thousand dollars, a sum that Molly thought must seem like a king’s ransom to him.  But what difference did it make?  If not for him, she might have missed saving Sasha, and that would have meant her death.  They weren’t playing patty-cake with the boy scouts.  The
Mafiya
had earned a worldwide reputation for their passion for cold-blooded murder, without mercy for anyone.  Pay up or get blown to eternity, that was their motto.  The Mafia of America paled in comparison.

They bought gasoline from a back-alley garage on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk and got underway.  Molly relaxed and eyed the cab driver, who now drove at a sensible speed and acted serious about getting them to Kansk.  In a few hours Sasha and she would be back on the train and again heading for their rendezvous with Jake and Simon, if both, in fact, had made it to Baikal.

The more she pictured their cross-country, the more she envied them, imagining their success.  What must it be like flying with such freedom, soaring over a world without end
?
  She had learned, first hand, the sky had no boundaries and the earth looked like your very own when you piloted an aircraft.  To journey all the way to Siberia seemed magical, a rite of passage for angels.  Someday she’d buy her own airplane, and a helicopter, too.

She watched the landscape slip by, farmland near the city, the Yenisei River with giant power plants standing along its shores, sending rolling white clouds riding on the wind, power lines running everywhere, to the east, the taiga, the forest she’d read so much about before she’d come from Texas.  The hills and mountains were covered with birch, pine, and larch as far as she could see, and, according to Russian fable, as distant as the wild birds could fly.  No one knew how far the woods ran, only that it was living, waiting, and dangerous.  She stared at it, remembering its great size, feeling it power.

The driver’s shout snapped her back to reality.
“Astarozhna!”
  She felt something slam against the rear of the car and heard Sasha scream.  She spun around, looked out the back    window, and saw a green car coming at them again, though the cabby had floored his own vehicle.

Thik!  Thik!

What were those strange sounds?  Why did the front and rear windows have spiders webs in them?  Then it dawned on her.  They were being shot at, and two bullets had barely missed them.  She watched the cabby shimmy down as far as he could, without losing sight of the narrow road ahead.  The look on his face looked maniacal again.  He was racing for his life, mumbling odd consonants to himself.

“Sasha, crawl up front and hand me the crowbar, then stay on the floor.  Hurry.”

Two more rounds hissed through the car, closer this time.  Sasha dove over the front seat, like a frightened child, legs and dress flying.  Seconds after, the crowbar sailed into the back seat.

“Tell him to drive as fast as he can.”  Molly wedged herself in the corner of the car, shielding herself with its metal corner, and swung the crowbar again and again, until she had beat out the back window.

She saw the green car gaining, the taxi’s blue exhaust smoke, the springtime slop of the muddy road flying up.  Now she had the gunport and dead rest she needed.  She pulled out her pistol, snapped on the laser sight, and aimed.

The car chasing them dropped back.  Well, it was a cinch the godfather and his fat friend were the ones trying to kill them, because no one else knew how well she could shoot.  She watched them keep their distance for a few miles.

“Ask the driver why they’re just sitting back there, beyond range.  Is there some reason they think this car will
quit?”

She heard Sasha question the cabby, and his guttural answers.  Oh, would they hurry up?  In a little while they’d freeze to death in the wind whistling around the inside of the car.  Maybe that was the bad guys’ plan, wear them down and run them out of gas.  She started worrying.

“He doesn’t know but says this road is very lonely and there’s no place to stop.  They know the car will soon need oil, or else the engine will blow up.  It’s old with over a million kilometers . . .”  Sasha’s voice faded.

What should they do?
 
Now they had become sitting ducks, ready to be picked off, one by one, the moment the cab faltered.  She had to get them close enough for a shot.  Then an idea struck her.

“How far to some corners in the road?  Are there any sharp ones ahead?”

“He says a few kilometers, but why do you want to know?”

“Tell him to slow down and act like he’s trying to get them to run up on his bumper again.  They know I’m trying to get a shot at them, so they’ll hang back.  When he sees the curves, I want him to race ahead, as if he wants to get away.  I’ll tell him when to slam on his brakes.  Maybe they won’t get stopped until it’s too late.”

She knew it was a weak plan, but infinitely better than waiting to get murdered somewhere down the road.  They had crept up, caught her off guard, taken their best shot, and missed.  Now it was her turn.  There were eleven rounds left in her pistol, bad luck for them.

The cabby slowed, drove at a hundred kilometers per hour, seventy, then fifty.  No matter what speed, though, the other car held back, pacing them.  They knew their time would come.  Besides, they were mad as hell and wanted to get even.  But the longer everyone played cat and mouse the better it was for her.  They’d likely lose their patience and get stupid.  Please give us some hairpin turns.

She saw the road begin corkscrewing down a deep valley, perfect for what she had in mind, although scary as well.  A tunnel lay at the bottom, one that looked several hundred feet long, leading into the sharpest corner.  What if they raced downhill, zoomed through the tunnel, and stopped on the far side?  Chances were the godfather and his friend wouldn’t see the trap, not until it was too late.

“Sasha, tell him to drive like crazy, then stop on the far side of the tunnel below.  I’ll yell when.”  She heard her voice screeching a bit.  The old taxi was in no condition for the steep descent into the valley.  But what else could they do?

She saw Sasha’s head pop above the front seat.  “He won’t do it because he’s afraid.”

“I’ll pay him a thousand dollars, because it’s the only chance we have.”  She felt him take off, and supposedly he couldn’t understand English.

She hung on for dear life.  The taxi began to screech and rattle as it careened around every corner.  Either die running off the road or get killed by the
Mafiya
.  Jeez, what a choice.  She saw Sasha sit up and look forward, then turn and gape at her, realizing she’d put them on the edge of disaster.

The green car dropped back, accelerated, but not enough to keep up with the cabby.  He drove like a madman.  Molly began to see that he was very, very good, and knew his old car like his own evil heart.  He had hustled her out of $2,500 and had no intention on losing the chance to collect it.  Oh, well, shut up and do your part, she thought, and make sure you don’t miss when he slams on the brakes.  Somehow, she knew he’d do a good job of that as well.

They tore through the tunnel doing one hundred kilometers per hour.  The cabby timed his turn perfectly, waiting until the last second to slow for the last one, so the chase car wouldn’t see his red lights come on.  He shot around the curve, cornering his car on two tires.  When Molly screamed to stop, he slammed on his brakes, making the most maniacal face she’d ever seen.

Now everything was up to her.  She turned, knelt on the back seat, switched on her laser sight, and waited.  In a few seconds they’d come around the corner and find themselves way too close.

She heard the green car’s wail as it raced through the tunnel, then its tires screech as its driver braked for the bend in the road.  They were coming too fast and might end up in her lap
.
  She saw the car fly around the corner.

Pow, pow, pow!
  Give them a taste of their own medicine right through the front window.  Let’s see how they like lead zipping past
their
heads.  She saw them brake, lose control, and skid over the embankment on the right, crashing through the trees and brush.  Spinning, she kicked open the door and jumped out as they slid by, screaming their heads off.  They were in serious trouble and would be lucky to live.

Spreading her legs and taking the power stance, she began blazing away again, holding her red dot on their fuel tank.  Let’s see how they like getting their rear ends fried as well.  She would make sure it would be a long time before they ever wanted to chase her again.
 
She saw them hit bottom and tumble out, their car on fire.  She hadn’t killed them, but both were seriously hurt.  Good enough—now she’d taunt them.  There was no use being nice.  They would hunt her for the rest of her life, maybe even put out a worldwide hit on her.

“Sasha, wave at them and laugh.  I want them to remember us.  Tell them I’ll kill them if I ever see them again.”

“Molly, stop it and come here.  We have to go.  Have you gone crazy?  Those men won’t ever forget.”

She walked to the cab and climbed in.  “I don’t really care—I’m sick of being afraid.  Why should we live with them hunting us?  I should have killed them.”  Afterward, she began bawling, uncontrollably, letting all the craziness and terror pour out.  She felt the cab pull away and Sasha climb back and hold her, trying to quiet her.  Please leave me alone, she thought, she’d earned a good cry and wanted to have it.

Once again the cabby drove toward Kansk, speeding over the primitive road that had been bulldozed through the southern part of Siberia, connecting all the towns along the way to Irkutsk, on the south end of Lake Baikal.  Molly dried her eyes and looked around.  The sunlight had begun reflecting off the snow-capped mountains and the forest still ran on and on, rugged and    picturesque, much like Alaska.  What must it look like in the summertime when it had all turned green?  She would soon find out—she and her friends meant to live in it, searching for Sasha’s father and the diamonds.  What an incredible adventure she was on, and who else was as lucky as she?  She felt her spirits lift back up.