The Third Antichrist (37 page)

Sabir nodded. ‘That’s a bright girl you’ve got there.’ He checked up and down the street. The snow was settling again. ‘What’s our alternative to the border? You know this country, Radu. Where the heck can we go?’

‘When I was shot, a man helped me. He is called Amoy. He is a C
ă
ld
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rari. This is a maker of copper pots and stills. He and his wife have many children. She is called Maja. She is a good woman. She will look after Lemma. These C
ă
ld
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rari are a large community. They will protect us.’

‘But where are they?’

‘In the south-west of the country.’ Radu waved his hand in a vague southerly direction. ‘Near the border crossing at Jimbolia. Not far from Timisoara.’

‘That’s a good ten hours’ drive away. We are in the middle of a snowstorm, Radu. And there are only so many roads leading west. We’ll never make it. The Corpus will be out looking for this car. The weather won’t matter rat’s piss to them.’

‘No. Listen to me, Damo. You remember I told you about Driver Kol who drove me to the village? He is the cousin of Maja’s cousin Palfi. Kol told me of a road that cuts right up through the Carpathian Mountains. It is closed in winter.’

‘Great. You know why they close the roads over the Carpathians in winter, I suppose?’

‘Kol says it’s passable.’

‘But this car will never make it, Radu. It must be thirty years old. It does not have snow tyres. It does not have four-wheel drive. It will be carrying six and a half passengers.’

Radu frowned. He did not like the baby being mentioned even in jest. ‘There are chains in the back. Alexi and Calque are putting them on now. I believe we have some time before the man is found. We must drive hard. On the main roads. Until we get to the pass. It is our only chance.’

‘Even if we make it to the road, it will be sealed off. There may even be patrols.’

‘Yes. It will be sealed off. There will be barriers at either end. But Driver Kol says the army uses the pass for winter exercises. They keep the road clear for this reason. Sometimes the truckers secretly use it. If the army catches them the truckers pay off the soldiers with cigarettes. It saves them many long hours of driving. We cut through this way and we get Lemma to my friends. This is my plan. They will hide us. I know they will. Amoy is a good man. His wife, Maja, will be happy to see you and help with...’ He trailed off. ‘Things.’

Sabir knew when he was beaten. The car was Radu’s. Lemma was Radu’s. It was clear that the ball was no longer in his park. ‘Alexi? Calque? Yola? What do you think?’

Yola emerged from the car where she had been making Lemma comfortable in the space vacated by the back seat. She glanced up at the sky. ‘Damo, if we stay here any longer it will be spring. And you will be godfather twice over. Just think what that will cost you in presents, and the calling in of favours, and bribes for Alexi.’ She glanced at the others. ‘Alexi is drunk, Calque is exhausted, and Radu has been beaten up.’ She pointed at Sabir. ‘I elect you driver.’

Le Domaine De Seyème, Cap
Camarat, France
Friday, 5 February 2010

58

Abi left it until Rudra, Nawal and Dakini had finished their packing and were waiting down in the salon for the taxi to arrive. He entered Dakini’s bedroom and filled another suitcase full of her clothes, leaving just enough room in the case for an overnight bag of his own. Then he went downstairs to join his siblings.

He cemented his plan on the way to Nice Airport. He had already used his false passport, in the name of Pierre Blanc, when booking the flights from Nice to Bucharest. For the internal Bucharest to Satu Mare flight he had given yet another name, for which he had no passport but merely a French identity card – but he was confident that that was all that would be required in an EU country. As leader of the party, Abi had access to all the tickets. It was an easy thing to make sure the others did not see what he had done – and an equally easy thing to explain away if they did. Vau had teased him for years about the compulsive complexity of his travel arrangements, and Abi had admitted many times, to any of his siblings who cared to listen, how much he enjoyed travelling under a multitude of different aliases – that way, he explained, if he ever decided to do something illegal on the spur of the moment, he had already protected his back.

But none of the others were going to see the tickets this time around. Abi was going to make damned sure about that.

On the final leg of the flight to Satu Mare he began putting his plan into action. He doubled up in his seat, as if suffering from intestinal cramps. ‘Bloody airline food. I knew I should have had the beef like you people. They’ve probably given me salmonella with their fucking undercooked chicken.’

He made three trips to the lavatory during the final twenty minutes of the flight. At Satu Mare airport it was natural that he should make a further emergency trip, once the baggage was safely through. ‘Look. Go and hire the car without me. I’ll meet you outside. I’ll be standing over there by that bloody great sign which says Ascovit, okay? Do you think you can do that?’

Rudra shrugged. He was used to Abi’s moods. Dakini and Nawal swung their cases onto the luggage trolley. Abi dumped the suitcase with Dakini’s purloined extra clothes on top.

‘Sorry. But this is desperate. I’ve got to get myself some pills at the pharmacy. I need to rehydrate.’

‘Seven Up is the best soft drink in terms of minerals. Get yourself some of that.’

‘Great advice. Thanks, Nawal. You should have been a nurse.’ Abi made a sour face at her and walked away, very slightly hunched, as if he was fighting off yet another diarrhoea attack. Thank God he was dealing with women like Nawal and Dakini. Ordinary women would have been fussing around him like mother hens by now. Nawal and Dakini had never cared for him that much, anyway, so they were no doubt relishing his predicament – they probably wouldn’t even bother to mourn him if he crapped his lungs out like Noiret, Piccoli, Tognazzi, and Mastroianni in his favourite movie,
La Grande Bouffe
. What was that motto Piccoli had quoted from the Bible?
Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas
. Or, to put it more succinctly, ‘What’s the fucking point?’

Once in the pharmacy, Abi checked his pockets for ticket stubs, passport, money, and credit cards. He had packed enough spare clothes to last him for the duration in the overnight case he had hidden inside the main suitcase. The rest he was wearing.

He watched, from a distance, as Rudra negotiated the car-hire desk. When he saw the three of them heading for the underground car park, he struck out for the Ascovit sign.

The weather had worsened, which came as a pleasant surprise. He had been counting on the snow, thanks to the long-range forecast he had checked back in France, but this was even better than he had expected. The roads around the airport had recently been cleared, true, but he was willing to bet that the snowploughs hadn’t bothered with the B road that led from Livana to Negre
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and then on through to Sighetu Marmatiei. The one skirting the Ignis Mountains. The one with all the S bends.

The rental car pulled up beside him. Abi motioned Rudra out of the driving seat.

‘But I thought you had the shits? What do you want to be driving for? You must be out of your head.’

‘I’m wide awake and chock-full of pills. You guys might as well take it easy for a while. There’s no way I’m going to be able to sit back and rest with what’s happening in my stomach.’

Rudra raised an eyebrow. But he got out of the car and walked round to the back. Abi was a control freak. If he wanted to drive in a white-out, he was welcome.

Abi hurried round to the trunk. He rummaged in the suitcase containing Dakini’s clothes, and brought out his overnight case.

‘What are you doing now?’

‘This is just in case I shit my pants again. I’ve got a spare change of clothes in here.’

‘Ugghhh. Do you have to be quite so explicit?’

Abi tucked the overnight case in behind his legs.

‘Are you really going to drive in all those clothes? This car is air-conditioned.’

‘I’m freezing. I’ll take them off when I warm up.’

‘Suit yourself. There really must be something wrong with you if you feel cold dressed in a getup like that.’

Abi grinned and started the car. It was all going smoothly so far. It was such fun to out-think people – to really use one’s head over a thing. He’d got out of the habit recently, roosting in luxury at his mother’s house. It was good to be on the road again. Good to have some definite end in sight. This time around, Sabir and Calque wouldn’t slip through his hands like they’d done in Mexico. He’d have his revenge for Vau’s death.

And what about revenge for the others, he caught himself thinking? Oni and the rest? And now Rudra and the girls?

Well, he couldn’t care less about them. Sabir could piss inside their corpses as far as he was concerned. But his twin brother? That was different. Vau was the only person on earth he had ever really given a damn about, and he wasn’t about to allow his murderers to get off scot-free.

He forced his mind, with difficulty, back onto the issue at hand. It was hard to believe that Catalin had really found the Gypsy whore and dealt with her and her baby. But the man had seemed so certain. And the description he’d given of the village made sense. Maybe his tame Crusaders were good for something after all? But how come she’d been alone? What about her husband? If a woman was pregnant, people usually hung around to help, even if their help wasn’t really needed. Husbands in particular. That was the way of things, apparently, in what passed for the real world. So for her to be alone didn’t make sense.

Well. He’d work it all out when the time came. Before that he had other things on his mind.

It took the Corpus party twenty minutes to make the Livara turn-off – and as Abi had anticipated, the condition of the road began to deteriorate from there on in. But the car Rudra had hired was the rental agency’s premium model, complete with winter tyres and four-wheel drive, so the road surface was a doddle apart from the black ice on the corners where the sun hadn’t shone – but all you had to do when you saw the black ice was not to brake, and pray that the man veering towards you in the opposite lane did not brake either.

Abi reckoned that things would really start to get interesting when they began their ascent towards the mountains. Not that the Negre
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ti Oa
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road was going to take them very high. Probably not more than 1,500 feet tops. But that was plenty high enough for what he had in mind.

Albescu, Moldova
Friday, 5 February 2010

59

Antanasia woke up to the sound of her brother weeping.

She was still lying on her stomach with her arms stretched out in front of her, but while she had been unconscious the torn clothes with which Dracul had originally bound her had been exchanged for handcuffs. The pain in her back, buttocks and legs was extraordinary. It was as if someone had run a steam iron across her body, only stopping, now and then, to allow the heat to radiate to its full effect.

She groaned, and forced her face deeper into the pillow. ‘You’ve killed me, Dracul. I shall not survive this. I must not survive it.’