“She’s the hostage,” I told him. “Just stay where-”
“BOTH OF YOU WALK toward me,” Koschey ordered them. “I’ll let her go when we meet. But first the big guy loses the gun.”
Jonny turned to Bon.
Bon didn’t move. Didn’t take out his gun and toss it aside, as ordered.
The Russian didn’t make a big deal out of it.
He just casually lowered his gun to the ground and pulled the trigger, drilling a hole into Ae-Cha’s foot.
“FUCK, HE SHOT HER,” Talaoc’s voice burst through the speaker. “The guy by the SUV just shot the girl in the foot.”
I turned to Aparo. “Floor it.”
47
Even through the tape covering Ae-Cha’s mouth, the scream was loud enough to rip through the park. Her knees buckled, but the Russian had a firm grip on her arm and kept her upright.
“I don’t ask twice!” he yelled out.
Jonny felt a flood of acid rush up his throat.
He knew the Russian would kill them all no matter what went down. He also knew the only way for any of them to leave the park alive was for them to take the initiative. He guessed Bon would react to the Russian’s provocation-especially in his coke-fueled state-which gave him a split second to act himself.
Bon managed to draw his weapon, but Jonny had already pulled his own gun and fired a shot at the Russian. Both were too late. Bon’s head flapped back and he collapsed to the ground, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. And Jonny’s shot had missed its mark.
The Russian let go of Ae-Cha and loosed two quick shots as Jonny ran for cover. The first shot sheared a slice off the side of Jonny’s head, ear included. The second hit him in the back. Jonny staggered for a moment, trying to stay on his feet, willing his body to turn around and his arm to raise the gun so he could shoot back, but his body refused to comply. He fell forward and smashed his jaw against the concrete as he landed.
For a moment it felt like the deepest winter. He saw Ae-Cha lying on the ground, the Russian walking toward her for the kill shot. Then there was nothing but darkness.
WE HURTLED THROUGH THE TREES, beelining at the cruiser and, beyond, the empty lot. An instant later, the lurking silhouettes of the van and the SUV took shape.
“Go, go, go,” I spurred Aparo, whose shoe was almost going through the footwell.
We were almost level with the cruiser when I saw muzzle flashes lighting up the night ahead, then I saw one of the figures drop and another start running.
“Keep going,” I blurted as we rocketed past the cruiser before bouncing onto the lot, heading straight at the two vehicles and a lone figure walking toward a lump on the ground a few yards in front of him.
“He’s gonna kill her. Take him out!” I yelled as I drew my gun and chambered a round. Not that I needed to say it. Aparo had the same idea and had aimed the car right at our target without taking his foot off the gas.
As we closed in on him, Ivan spun and started firing at us.
We both slid down in our seats as bullets punched through the front windshield, Aparo barely poking his head over the steering wheel, me keeping my head down while I stuck my gun out the window looking for a shot. I saw him bolting away a second before we plowed into him and watched him slam onto the hood of the car, crunch into the windshield before bouncing over the roof and hitting the ground behind us just as Aparo stepped on the brakes and slowed the car to a stop next to the Russian’s SUV.
I shot a quick glance at Aparo. “You okay?”
“Fuck yeah,” he said, already shoving his door open and drawing his gun.
We both scrambled out of the car with our weapons leveled at the shooter.
The bastard wasn’t out of it. He was moving, righting himself, pushing himself to his feet. He didn’t look like he had anything broken and was no more shaken than a gymnast who’d just hit the mat after a couple of flips on a pommel horse.
“Christ,” Aparo blurted, “this guy really is the fucking Terminator?”
I rushed right up to him and kicked his feet out from under him, causing him to spin on himself and fall flat on the asphalt. “Don’t move,” I ordered him. “Hands where I can see them.”
I put a knee on his back and patted him down. I pulled a knife and sheath from his belt and a Glock 26 from an ankle holster, both of which I threw behind me.
“You’re ours now, comrade,” I told him as I pushed my gun into the back of his neck.
He turned his head to face me and gave me the thinnest, coldest smile I’ve ever seen, but he said nothing.
“I’ll check the girl,” Aparo said.
He headed over to her, and as I was moving to cuff Ivan, I heard Aparo say, “We’ve got company.”
I looked up. He was right.
Another dark SUV was approaching through the trees, coming straight for us.
48
I pulled Ivan to his feet as the dark Mercedes SUV drove onto the lot and came to a stop behind our two vehicles.
Four men climbed out.
One of them was Mirminsky. The other three consisted of a tall blond guy with a dark scar across his cheek and two crew-cut soldiers. All three were armed with machine pistols.
The muscle covered us while Mirminsky stood front and center. There was about twenty yards between them and us.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked him, my Browning leveled at his head.
Aparo had his gun drawn too.
“Relieving you of a headache,” he said, glaring at Ivan. “Now, put your guns down, both of you. There’s no need for this. Besides, there are too many of us for you to handle.”
“He’s not a headache. He’s what I get paid to do. So how about you put the toys away, get back in your pimpmobile, and get the hell out of here so we can get the girl looked after,” I said as I gestured at Ae-Cha, who was still where she’d fallen. “And if you’re lucky and I’m feeling generous, maybe we can all forget this ever happened. Either way, I can tell you one thing: this asshole’s not walking away from this.”
The Sledgehammer smiled and shook his head. “You think I’m here to help him go free?”
I’d missed the nuance of his body language before then, but I wasn’t missing it now. Mirminsky was out for blood.
“He’s ours, Yuri.”
“What does that mean?” he asked. “You know what it means?” he continued, without giving me a chance to answer. “It means he’ll sit in some comfortable room while a bunch of guys in suits ask him a lot of questions, and given what he knows and who he is, he’ll end up making a deal. He’ll either get traded back to Moscow, where he’ll live like a king, or he’ll get a nice condo on Miami Beach and a big fat bank account in the Cayman Islands for telling you and your friends at Langley all kinds of fascinating things that will make you think you have an advantage in the pointless games you all play.”
“He’s not going to walk,” I insisted.
“Oh, please. You’re smarter than that, Reilly. You know how these things play out.”
I had to admit, he wasn’t spouting nonsense. Deep down, something within me squirmed with revulsion at the thought that what he described might actually happen. The idea was so repugnant to me, especially now, in the middle of the night, in this deserted lot, knowing everything the bastard had done. But I didn’t fully trust Mirminsky, and either way, there wasn’t much I could do about it, short of putting a bullet through the psycho’s head myself.
“Doesn’t change the fact that he’s coming with us,” I said flatly.
Mirminsky stared at me for a moment, then his expression soured, like he was really disappointed. He turned to the blond guy with the scar and tilted his head while murmuring something inaudible. Then, calmly, the blond swung his gun away from me and fired a short burst into the front tire of Aparo’s car, shredding it to ribbons. Then he pivoted around to face Ivan’s SUV and did the same.