Henning sighed in exasperation. ‘Alright, my beauty. I’ll be right over with a nice sleepy cocktail for you.’
Stevie and Anya crouched in the darkness, their little hearts racing too fast to speak to each other.
A muffled thud-thud-thud seemed to come through the walls. At first Stevie thought it was her heart—or maybe Anya’s—then she realised it was the sound of chopper blades.
Who was landing in the pre-dawn, in the car park?
The door burst open and Henning raced in. He had the car keys in his hand. The three of them ran through the boot room and out of the external door.
Now they were in the frozen car park. They could see the helicopter hovering a few metres off the ground.
‘Maybe it’s guests arriving late . . .’ panted Stevie hopefully.
‘Then why don’t they have their lights on?’ Henning was right. The helicopter was not shining its landing lights. If it hadn’t been for the thunderous noise it might have gone unremarked. From inside the sanatorium, it probably had.
They ran for the Jaguar, Henning pulling Stevie, Stevie still holding Anya by the wrist. Fortunately Henning had insisted the car be left outdoors, under a cover, despite the frost and snow.
Stevie heard boots hit ice—men were running out of the hotel entrance. Dragoman’s men. They were carrying torches and guns. It wouldn’t be long before the three of them were found and the men wouldn’t be asking questions. Thank goodness for the helicopter—it had drawn their attention.
Obviously not one of theirs then, thought Stevie.
The fugitives stayed crouching by the parked car, Henning pulling the cover off, ready for a quick getaway.
‘Can we get in, Henning? Anya’s feet must be frozen.’
‘Afraid not—these blasted bippers make a hell of a noise, and even if I use the key, the lights go on automatically. We’ll glow like a Christmas tree.’
He took off his dinner jacket and put it around Anya’s shoulders. He gave his scarf to Stevie. ‘Wrap her feet in this.’
The helicopter was still hovering centimetres off the ground when the door opened and four men in black fatigues and heavy boots leapt out. In the semi-darkness, Stevie saw the clear outline of assault rifles.
Beside her, Henning muttered in a low voice, ‘SR-3 “Vikhr” compact assault rifles. We’re in trouble.’
‘What do you mean? Who are they?’ Stevie’s eyes were wide.
‘Russians,’ he whispered, eyes on the running men. ‘The SR-3 is used as a concealed weapon by the FSB, VIP protection teams, and other Russian state security operatives. It’s pretty much the same size and weight as most submachine guns but it fires much more potent, armour-piercing bullets.’
Stevie looked at Henning, surprised. ‘You know a lot about guns.’
Henning grinned in the dark. ‘I have an encyclopaedia of weapons— both volumes.’
Then Stevie remembered their conversation in The Boar about criminal tattoos; she realised she knew even less about Henning than she had thought.
‘Well,’ she whispered, ‘what are they doing here?’
The first man turned to shout something, and she recognised him immediately.
Dragoman had appeared, and was now standing prudently behind his men. He obviously recognised him, too. He drew, of all things, a golden gun.
‘Orlikov,’ Henning said.
‘You don’t think they’ve come to rescue Anya, do you?’
Henning shook his head. ‘The dead man obviously had a friend that Dragoman’s men never found.’
Orlikov and his men raised their guns.
Stevie nudged Henning. ‘What’s that one? It’s much bigger than the SR-3s.’ Henning squinted in concentration. ‘It’s an AKS-74U Shorty Assault Rifle—a relative of the Kalashnikov—with a silent fire device and silent underbarrel grenade launcher. I don’t think these chaps are going to be overly concerned with collateral damage.’
Orlikov’s men took out two of Dragoman’s guards with four shots, easy as ducks. In response, there was immediately a volley of gunfire from the others; Orlikov and his men took refuge behind a Hummer parked in the lot. Bullets zinged about like fireflies in the night.
Stevie, the words ‘grenade launcher’ turning in her head, shoved Anya under the Jaguar and prayed. Dragoman now ran back inside the castle, his shadow giving covering fire. The siege had begun.
Stevie put her mouth close to Henning’s ear so he could hear her over the deafening gunfire. ‘I say we wait until the shooting’s stopped and then we make a break for it,’ she said. ‘Orlikov’s men won’t be interested in us—they don’t even know we exist.’
Henning nodded. ‘Best thing if we could create a distraction for both teams . . .’
Stevie had an idea.
Quickly stripping off the white nurse’s coat she was still wearing over her evening clothes, she crumpled it into a ball.
‘Henning, give me your lighters—all of them.’
Henning pulled three cigarette lighters from his pockets and handed them to her.
‘Stay here. I’ll be back.’
Stevie took off, crawling through the gravelly snow on her hands and knees, heading for an old Mercedes on the other side of the lot.
There was more gunfire, bullets, breaking glass. It all sounded terribly random to Stevie and she hoped they would not be hit by a stray bullet.
What would Gunnar Gobb tell his guests in the morning, when all the damaged cars would be revealed? A plague of locusts perhaps . . .
she almost smiled at the thought.
Crouching by the rear wheel—petrol tank side—of the Mercedes, Stevie quickly drained the lighter fluid from two lighters into the balled-up fabric, then shoved it on the top of the wheel. She fired up the third of Henning’s lighters and set fire to the fabric. It burned slowly but steadily. Satisfied, she wriggled herself back to the parked Jaguar.
Suddenly it went quiet. The
shooting had stopped. Stevie poked her head cautiously up over the bonnet and came face to face with one of Orlikov’s men. The man, with his boiled brown eyes, raised the tip of his gun and pointed it at Stevie’s forehead.
‘
Ne dvygatsya
.’
Stevie didn’t think she could have moved, even if she had wanted to. The grenade-launching Kalashnikov had snap-frozen her legs.
The man radioed in. ‘Got her.’
The hair rose on Stevie’s scalp.
Got her?
But they couldn’t have sent all these men after her, could they? What about Dragoman?
Then, to her horror, she saw the letters GROM under the man’s collar.
The Russian word for thunder, it also stood for the GROM Security Company, the Kremlin’s private army, manned by former KGB special forces soldiers of all kinds. They were a quasi-private organisation that served the federal government exclusively and were not bound by the constraints and laws of Russia’s official armed forces. They could be dispatched without the permission of the president.
GROM had been sent by the
siloviki
, there could be no doubt now. Stevie prayed Anya would have the sense to stay hidden where she was, and that Henning would stay with the girl. The order came back over the radio.
‘Kill her.’
Stevie had run out of time. Her eyes turned to the man’s gun.
On a Kalashnikov, the safety catch can’t be released while the finger is on the trigger. This meant a precious two seconds—finger off, release safety, reposition finger—before fire. Providing of course that the gunman has been trained to keep the safety on.
Stevie knew the PLO were, but Russian
Spetsnaz
—she could only hope.
Two seconds.
Her small body filled with adrenaline.
Before she could blink a huge ball of fire shot up into the night. The petrol tank, heated by the burning nurse’s uniform, had caught fire and the lovely Mercedes was incinerated in seconds.
Stevie crouched down then shot forward, her hands clenched in a double fist, straight for the assassin’s groin.
The man stumbled. Henning leapt from behind the car and grabbed him in a headlock, pulling him down. Stevie scrambled up and grabbed her knife, holding the point half a millimetre from the man’s right eye.
He was clearly shocked.
That was the beautiful advantage of being a girl, thought Stevie, no one ever expected you to fight so dirty.
Henning searched him quickly, taking away his other gun, his boot knife, his radio. In the man’s pocket he found a photo of Dragoman, and one of Stevie, taken in St Moritz.
‘It’s rather good, actually,’ he said, handing it over to her.
It had been taken in the Suvretta House, the day before the polo match—Stevie remembered, she had been wearing her pearl earrings.
There was a huge explosion in the west wing of the sanatorium and Stevie guessed Dragoman and his men were battling Orlikov there.
They had to move fast.
Henning raised his fist and elbowed the man hard and sharp in the temple. He crumpled and lost consciousness.
Stevie, rather stunned, stared up at Henning. ‘Since when do librarians punch like that?’
Henning fumbled with the car door. ‘Libraries these days are much more rowdy. Students are not what they used to be.’
Stevie scrutinised her friend for a moment, noting his bloodshot eyes. ‘How many vodkas did you drink with Heini, Henning?’
‘Enough that perhaps you should drive.’ He threw her the keys.
The three escapees leapt into the Jaguar and sped out.
‘Lucky you parked cavalry rules,’ said Stevie, spinning the steering wheel.
‘Always facing out. Old habits die hard.’
Stevie headed for the exit but they had forgotten the helicopter, crouched like a scorpion on the snow. Stevie slowly circled the car park, headlights off.
‘This car’s not bulletproof is it?’
‘No, Stevie, afraid not. It’s not usually required in my line of work.’
They saw Dragoman and his shadow racing out of the entrance. Dragoman was stumbling, holding his eyes, his shadow holding him by the arm. They were heading for the helicopter, circling around behind it so the pilot could not see them.
The shadow reached the machine, wrenched the door open and shot the pilot in the face. Tossing the body aside, he shoved Dragoman into the chopper and leapt to the controls. The helicopter lurched wildly then righted itself. The rotor blades spun faster as it began to leave the ground.
Orlikov appeared, covered in blood, and began to run for the helicopter. A sudden burst of machine-gun fire exploded into the top of his head. He crumpled.
‘I think it’s high time we left.’ Stevie, shaking with adrenaline, put her foot on the accelerator and drove straight for the helicopter.
It cleared the car by inches, the Jaguar roaring through the gates at high speed, the snow whipping up around them in the rotor wind.
Stevie looked up as they passed. The shadow was staring right at her—for a split second their eyes met—and then the helicopter was gone into the night and their car was a hundred metres down the icy road.
Pale light had begun to
creep into the valley. It was day break. The road circled down the mountain, the sanatorium growing ever so slowly smaller on the other side of the ravine.
Stevie turned the heating up on full, poor Anya was shivering like a lake in the back seat.
‘Are you alright?’ Stevie asked.
Henning turned around and spoke to Anya quietly, holding her frozen hand, coaxing her. It would help that he was a familiar face, she thought. Mostly though, Anya would be in shock. Stevie had seen it before. One never knew how long the kidnap victim would take to recover: sometimes weeks, sometimes years, sometimes never. They could at least be thankful that Anya appeared unhurt.
Stevie concentrated on speeding down the winding mountain road. She was beginning to feel lightly euphoric, the adrenaline of terror wearing off, the happiness of having rescued the girl kicking in. They were driving, she was sure, towards a happy ending. That didn’t happen often now, did it? Not often enough.
‘Stevie,’ Henning’s voice was full of alarm. ‘Anya says there were two other girls with her.’
The cold crept back into her heart. ‘What?’
‘In the sanatorium, held captive with Anya.’
‘Dasha and Ludmilla,’ Anya said, her voice quivering. ‘They never told me their last names. Yesterday, the man told them they were going to be a gift to a fighter from Sudan who was buying lots of his guns.’
Stevie was speechless as the horror sank in.
Then came the sound of sirens in the distance.
‘The Swiss police!’ She almost shouted with sheer relief. ‘They must have heard the explosions.’
‘They’ll find the girls,’ she told Anya reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, Anya, my love, they’ll be—’
She was cut short by the young girl’s gasp and spun to follow her gaze.
The west wing of the sanatorium was clearly visible from the road now, although they were below it and on the other side of the ravine. Two tiny figures, one in a bright pink top, the other in canary yellow, were standing up on the balustrade of a stone balcony. They were holding hands.
‘
Nyet!
’ Anya screamed.
Like tiny blossoms from a tree the two bodies fell, so slowly it seemed, through the air until they disappeared from view, lost in the ravine.
For kilometres, no one in the car could speak.
Anya was the first to break the long silence with her low whisper. ‘Ludmilla was always saying she would rather die.’ Tears were rolling out of her eyes like marbles now. ‘They promised each other they would stick together, no matter what.’
Stevie’s eyes were fixed to the icy road but her mind replayed the falling girls over and over.
‘They decided they would rather jump and die free.’ Anya was staring at her hands. ‘At least then you know what is going to happen to you.’ She looked up at Stevie. ‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’
Stevie nodded. ‘No one could survive a fall from that height. I’m sorry, Anya.’
The river was fast and deep. The bodies would probably get swept down the mountain and either catch under a rock, or end up at the bottom of a lake. It was unlikely they would ever be found.
No one spoke again until they reached the street lamps of Zurich and the safety of Stevie’s home by the woods.