To start at the beginning of the story go here.
Happy to move into action, I gestured at Lanzo to take up the rear. I didn’t know what I was going to say to the Idiots. I decided to keep it short, so moved the pipe blocking the door and stepped through.
The Idiots were all happy to see me again, or at least happy that I might be leaving, until they spotted Nika. I jumped in front of that with, “Change of plans. I’m taking her to Sartre. He thinks they might know about this place. We need to move her.” I stared down at Max, feeling the intimidation I was putting out bounce off his amphetamine shell.
Max’s eyes jumped from me to Sophie to Nika, then back again, quicker than a hummingbird. “That is not the plan. Sartre said he was coming himself.”
“Neither was you talking to Sartre,” I almost said, but replied, “I know. He sent me.”
“What is this bullshit?” Max went from rational to spitting angry faster than the speed he was on. He grabbed me by the elbow, his grip like a snakebite. “Lanzo, you cannot trust this American.”
I took quick stock of the situation. The three Idiots in the contained space, Sophie with her Opinel knife, me moving slower than usual, no visible weapons on the Idiots. I didn’t have any doubt we could take them, but murdering Lanzo’s friends wasn’t what we needed. If Nika saw what Sophie was capable of she’d scream out into the night.
I was saved from this by the appearance of the revolver floating up into my peripheral vision. Resting it on my shoulder, Sophie braced the tarnished steel of the pistol there as if I were a bipod, leveling its weight at the Idiots. Despite my surprise I kept my eyes on them. Having had the revolver pointed at me, I could attest to its intimidation.
Sophie commanded, “Open the door.”
Max released my arm while protesting to Lanzo. He stood back and Sophie gestured for him to open the door. Sophie lifted the revolver off my shoulder so I could follow him.
Light spilled out from the hutch onto the shadowed path up to the road. I pushed the Idiots together so Sophie could cover all three as I gestured Nika and Lanzo out. Lanzo looked like he might want to say something, but the pistol had introduced a pressure into the situation that squeezed him in to action as it held his friends in place. He followed Nika out. I held the door for Sophie. She backed up, holding the pistol on the Idiots as she moved.
“Don’t follow us,” I said before I closed the door. It was only fair to give them an honest piece of advice before it was over. Even so, I thought I could detect a faint smile on Max.
As we climbed, I saw why. The edge of the riverbank glowed like the top of a lighthouse. I scooted to the front of the group on the narrow path when I saw it.
With nowhere to retreat to, I stopped everyone and gestured for them to wait. I crouched up the remaining yards of the path until I could see the headlights from the road pointed at the gorge. There were three cars there, black as any of Sartre’s rooks, purring quietly with the xenon lights nearly blinding me. I stepped out from the gorge, holding a hand up to shield my eyes.
I couldn’t see everyone, but I did some quick math – three cars meant Sartre was traveling with his usual entourage, so there were at least six I couldn’t see. I smiled as I thought about how any one of them could gun me down right then.
Sartre stormed out of the darkness. His hostile scrutiny shone brighter than the headlights his fireplug frame partially blocked. I said his name, loudly, so Sophie might here, and nothing else.
“American! Why are you here?”
While my brain scrambled over possible exits, I replied with a redacted version of the truth. “I’m here checking Nika. You?”
Sartre squeezed an eye shut and stared at me with the other, a jeweler eyeing every facet of a bad gem. “We are here for the girl.”
“She’s safe,” I answered. When he didn’t move, I stepped closed to him, lowering my voice. “You’re not supposed to be here. Do you want Mitnick to know you’re involved?”
Whatever his motives, a sliver of Sartre’s anger cut through like the shards of light around him. “The Russians are tearing the city apart. Searching for the girl.” In the fire of Sartre’s eyes I could see the violence ripping through his town, hitting his corners, terrorizing his cathouses, bombing his bookies. It all lay in contradiction to his next words of, “We will move her.”
“Then why the gun?”
Sartre glanced at the Tokarev in his hand as if he had forgotten it was there. His new plan became clear with his next words. “There will be consequences.”
He tried to step past me and I imposed myself between him and the river. He had no need to hide his anger in day-to-day life and so here, between the river and the city, he wasn’t any better at it. “You aren’t taking her,” I replied.
The long shadow we created between the headlights and the drop into the gorge stretched to the downward path. Sartre only hardened as he contemplated my usefulness versus my obstinance. “Get out of the way, American.”
To read the previous chapter, go here.
To read the author’s published work, go here.
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