She’d been too tipsy to notice him. Amateur. Not that the guy was a threat, but Murphy shouldn’t have let anyone get that close without noticing him. Then she remembered the Asian man in the hat who had been loitering on the corner. A coincidence? Not likely. Adam had just sent her to have a heart-to-heart with a Uyghur separatist who might have information on the whereabouts of the Wuming.
Murphy quickened her pace, suddenly grateful for the weight of the little Glock 43 resting under her jacket in the small of her back. Normally, she would have continued west, to the T, before turning left on Sami Frasheri. Her apartment was two long blocks down, with a view of the Tirana Grand Park. If Pukwudgie was a state actor, the last thing she wanted to do was let him know where she lived. Protocol said she should have gone straight back to the bar where Vlora was, but this was probably nothing.
Murphy looked behind her again. He was still there, smoking a cigarette now, making no effort to hide, but was slowly closing the distance between them. She cut left down Janos Hunyadi, behind University of Tirana. It was a wider street and didn’t lead directly to where she lived.
She fished her phone out of her pocket and voice-dialed Vlora. It rang three times and then went to voicemail.
Shit!
Behind her, she heard footfalls on the pavement as Pukwudgie made the turn as well.
She thought of dialing 112—Albania’s 911 equivalent — but if something was about to go down, it would all be over before the police could get here. She stuffed the phone back into her jacket, wanting to keep her hands free.
Twenty, maybe just fifteen, steps back, Pukwudgie coughed. Loud, fake, the way you cough when you want someone to know the toilet stall is occupied. She didn’t even have time to check before a second man, also Asian, stepped around the corner at the intersection ahead and started walking toward her. This one was taller, with glasses and a puffy gray ski jacket. There was a street to her left, an alley, really, flanked by a scabby vacant lot and a run-down four-story apartment building. There were no streetlights, but she figured she could use that to her advantage. Tirana was her turf. Pukwudgie and his friend were trying to pinch her on her streets, the very route where she ran virtually every morning. She could cut down the alley, and then squirt out the end by the market, and then hang a left and run straight back north to the Illyrian, where Vlora was probably still making time with the drummer.
She made the turn, skirting a parked sedan, picking up her pace, running through the darkness.
She felt the man in the hat before she saw him, her gut registering some clue nanoseconds before the conscious part of her brain picked up on it. He stepped out of a little alcove to her right, midway down the block, less than ten yards away. She slowed, trying to make sense of the situation. Her hand flew to the gun at the same instant the man lit a cigarette. His motions were slow, methodical. The match lit his face under the low brim of the fedora. Then he held the flame sideways, so it illuminated the alcove beside him — and the lifeless body of Joey Shoop.
Murphy’s breath caught like a stone in her throat. She stutter-stepped, slowing her draw of the pistol when she should have sped up. These men had known she would take an alternate route if pressed when she left the bar. They had driven her to this exact spot.
Something heavy impacted her right knee at the same moment her hand touched the Glock. White lights of pain exploded through her body. Instinctively, her left leg propelled her away from the impact. She hopped sideways, trying to regain her balance as she brought the weapon up toward the man who’d hit her. He hit her again, with a metal bar — probably a collapsible baton, but it was too dark to see for sure. The second blow caught her across the top of the arm, impacting her radial nerves. The gun flew from her hand. At the same moment, a powerful hand struck her hard between the shoulder blades. Her right knee destroyed, her arm still aching from the blow, she threw her left hand out front to arrest her fall. Her wrist snapped on impact.
She choked out a scream, her senses flooded with nausea from the pain. Scrambling onto her back, she chambered her good leg, ready to kick any son of a bitch who came near her again. She screamed again, ragged, torn, her voice already hoarse from the bar.
The tall man in the hat stood there looking down at her, almost bored, while the other two approached from her head and her feet. It was impossible to fight them both at once, injured like she was. She felt someone move and turned in time to see the syringe the moment before Pukwudgie jabbed her in the neck.
She felt herself detaching, floating away. This was bad.
The pain in her knee and wrist faded away… No, that wasn’t right. It was still there. She just didn’t care. The men stood back, waiting for the drug to take effect. The syringe was huge. Whatever they’d given her, it had been a big dose.
Then she saw the spiders. Hairy. Black eyes. Obsidian fangs, dripping with venom. Dozens of them pouring out cracks in the ground. She tried to run, but floundered, falling again — into the path of the spiders.
A light came on in one of the apartments above. Someone shouted in Albanian — muffled, distorted. In her stupor, Murphy couldn’t make it out.
“It’s okay!” the man in the hat yelled in English. “My friend has had too much rakia!”
A dark panel van screeched down the alley and they shoved her inside facedown on the metal floor, leaving poor Joey where he lay.
Her face pressed against the cold floor, she tasted blood, smelled puke and urine. So dizzy… Her lungs were heavy.
This was where they’d killed Joey…
She came to slowly at first, willing her eyes to open, then jerking, jolted by the cold chill of the van’s metal floor against her bare skin. She was naked, hog-tied, hands and ankles zip-tied behind and then tied together. Arched backward by the bonds, it put excruciating pressure on her injured knee and shattered wrist.
Whatever they’d given her, Murphy metabolized it quickly. Probably a ketamine dart — straight into her muscle. That would explain why she hadn’t dropped immediately. Her memory of the attack was fraught with gaping holes. She remembered the spiders, though. She’d never forget those. Yeah, it was ketamine, all right.
The van was moving, bouncing over a rough road. That told her nothing. Many of the streets around Tirana were in a constant state of repair. The men spoke among themselves in hushed Mandarin, ignoring her for the time being.
Murphy shut her eyes, struggling not to let her breathing get away from her. She needed to calm her thoughts, no easy task naked and bound in the back of a van with three dudes.
Pain and the drugs had turned her brain to mush. Her thoughts were fuzzy, unhinged and without defined edges. Nothing made sense. Everything hurt.
Was this random? Did they plan to take her somewhere and rape her? Panic bore down, crushing her chest. No. Rapists didn’t tie your feet together. Did they?
Come on, Leigh. Think. They trained you for this at The Farm.
No, they didn’t. Not really. There was no way to train for something this horrific, this futile.
They wanted her awake. That meant they wanted to question her. She blinked, trying to remember. Adam. They would want to know about Adam.
The man in the gray hat sat on an overturned bucket behind the driver. He reached down to pat her cheek, gently at first. Hard enough to rattle her teeth when she clenched her eyes.