‘He’s going to kill us anyway, Aidy,’ Steve said.
I thought of Dylan and was glad one of us had gotten away. I repeated myself. ‘Just Steve and me.’
Rykov lowered the gun. I took that as a sign of belief.
His mobile burst into song and he answered it. He spoke in Russian and his face darkened.
I assumed a lookout had spotted the cops. I strained to hear for sirens, but heard nothing. There wouldn’t be sirens anyway. They wouldn’t want to spook the Russian and his pals. I hoped the cops were close.
Rykov said something in Russian then snapped his phone shut.
Moments later, I heard scuffling, followed by a cry. My stomach went into free-fall. I knew what was coming.
Out of the far corner of the yard, another of the Russians emerged from behind a stack of ruined cars. He shoved Dylan ahead of him. Dylan’s nose was bleeding and his left eye was closed up.
Rykov’s man threw Dylan down on the ground between the Russian and me.
‘You insult me with lies,’ Rykov said. ‘You disappoint me.’
‘I’m sorry, Aidy. I didn’t get the call out. He got me first.’
There it was. No cops. No rescue. No chance.
Lap Twenty-Six
‘Bind them up,’ Rykov said.
The bouncer who’d shoved a gun in my face said, ‘Put out hands.’
I put my hands together as if in prayer and he wired them together in front of me. He repeated the process with Steve and Dylan.
Rykov tossed out a bunch of instructions in Russian. Whatever he said got a laugh out of his fellow Russians. The English speakers looked on dumbly. Actions would have to speak for themselves.
‘Aidy, what the hell is going on?’ Dylan asked. Panic roughed the edges of his words.
‘Nothing yet. He won’t try anything here.’
One of Rykov’s men rushed over to Steve’s Renault and got behind the wheel. He brought the car over. Three of the bouncer types pulled us to our feet and shoved us in the car. Steve and Dylan went in the back. They pushed me into the front passenger seat.
They weren’t going to kill us here. Rykov wasn’t dumb. He’d kill us somewhere else so as not to leave any physical evidence.
Steve leaned over close to me and whispered. ‘We’ll take this prick on the road. He won’t be able to handle three of us at once.’
I nodded. It was the only option open to us. We didn’t stand a chance at the salvage yard.
The Russian behind the wheel looked at the three of us and reeled off a stream of Russian then laughed like he’d told the world’s funniest joke. He sat behind the wheel with the engine running but made no move to drive off. He just kept laughing and pointing at us.
Another of Rykov’s enforcers ran over to the crane and fired it up. I saw a sea of blank faces from the English speakers. What the hell was Rykov playing at?
Hancock put a hand to his mouth. ‘Oh, no. Oh, no,’ he kept repeating.
Then I understood. ‘Oh, God,’ I murmured.
‘What’s going on, Aidy?’
I couldn’t bring myself to utter the words.
The Russian behind the wheel snapped his fingers and pointed at me. Then he laughed again. ‘You get now, yes?’
‘What?’ Dylan said. ‘What’s going on?’
The Russian drove the Renault over to the crane and the car crusher. His compatriots thought it was the funniest thing in the world. They banged on the car’s roof as it went by. The Russian stopped the car and slid out. He waved at us and said in jagged English, ‘Bye, bye. Have good trip.’
‘Jesus Christ, they’re going to crush us, aren’t they?’ Dylan said.
I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t. My silence was all the confirmation any of us needed.
Dylan bolted from the car. He got ten feet before one of Rykov’s men pistol-whipped him across the cheek. The blow chopped his legs out from under him. Two Russians picked him up and tossed him back in the car with us.
I looked at Steve. He looked a thousand years old.
‘Everything will be OK,’ he said.
I so wanted to believe him.
The crane rotated on its base and I closed my eyes when its magnetic plate crashed down on the Renault’s roof, then lifted the car off the ground.
Christ, this was it. We were going to die. My stomach clenched so tight it forced me to bend over. I wanted to see my future stretching years in front of me, but my mind blotted out the images, instead screaming you’re going to die, again and again.
The car swayed in the air and it gave all three of us a clear view of the crusher’s mouth. There were no teeth, just three independent hydraulic rams capable of reducing any vehicle to a cube and us along with it.
The sight of the crusher’s open maw stilled me. The fear didn’t leave me, but it no longer paralyzed me. I didn’t know if there was a way out, but I’d be damned if I was just going to sit there and do nothing because Rykov decreed it. I saw life beyond the next five minutes.
‘I can’t believe I’m going to die,’ Dylan said.
‘You’re not. At least not today,’ I said.
Dylan met my gaze.
‘We’re getting out of here.’
‘Are you mental?’ Dylan said.
‘No, he’s not,’ Steve said. ‘It’ll take minutes to crush this car.’
‘And we only need a few seconds to get free.’
‘Then what?’ Dylan said. ‘Rykov isn’t going to let us walk.’
‘Then we do something else. I’m not letting Rykov get the better of us. I’ll die first.’
‘You might get that wish,’ Dylan said, ‘but I’m with you.’
Rykov barked an order and the crane operator lowered us into the crusher.
The Renault hit the crusher’s loading trough hard enough to toss the three of us around. Steve yelled when he smashed his head off the roof of the car. I smacked my head on the gear shift, which left me dazed, but only for a second. The cold realization that we were going to be crushed alive snapped me out of it. We had to get out. This was no joke. No test. Rykov was going to kill us. I reached for the door handle with my bound hands and opened the door. A gap of no more than three inches opened up before the door slammed into the side of the trough.
A cackle of laughter from Rykov and his boys came back at me. They, along with Derek and his crew, lined the edge of the crusher for a front row view of the action.
‘Try the other doors,’ I yelled.
The three of us tried the remaining doors with the same result.
Without the ignition key, the power windows were dead. ‘Kick out the windows.’
Rykov had made a mistake binding our hands in front of us. We still had mobility and the ability to grab things, albeit it in a handicapped fashion. I scrabbled across the seat and kicked at the driver’s door window. The glass flexed against the impact, but absorbed the blow. I kicked again and again. I wouldn’t be stopped. ‘Break you bastard, break.’
Steve and Dylan fought for space in the tight confines of the car’s back seat in order to get to a window. They manoeuvred around until they were back to back to give each other room to kick. We gave it everything we had. Each of our blows reverberated throughout the car.
Steve’s window went first, then mine. Diamond-sized splinters of glass went everywhere. I crawled across them to climb through the window. It was a squeeze, but I wormed my way through. Glass shards gashed my arms and chest in the process.
One of Rykov’s men climbed into the crusher and kicked me hard in the ribs. The kick took my breath away, easily immobilizing me. He shoved me back through the busted window, then jammed his gun in Steve’s face to halt his escape. Dylan pulled Steve back into the car.
‘No escape for you,’ he said and jumped off the crusher.
I looked at my grandfather and my best friend. They were terrified. I’d put them in this danger. I wanted to say, ‘We’ll survive this. We’ll get out,’ but the lie wouldn’t come.