Chapter Sixteen
Pain — it was the first thing Thaler felt; it was nauseating, piercing, excruciating. It pulsed in his temples and ached in his back. He couldn’t feel his arms or his legs. A ridiculous image of a blind, limbless, cave-dwelling reptile tumbled into his mind. But he thought, therefore he was; and so was his pain. They both existed.
Thaler tried to open his eyes, but they were glued shut. He tried again, straining his facial muscles, this time with some result. It wasn’t duct tape; it was dried blood. Through a crack, he saw his knees. They were covered in mud and blood. On his right thigh, he recognised a deep flesh wound with some scraps of clothing sticking out of it.
He couldn’t feel his neck, had no command over it. He realised his head was drooping on his chest. That meant he was sitting on something, probably a chair, in a pretty uncomfortable position. He summoned all his strength and forced his neck muscles to lift his head. After a few attempts, he succeeded.
Through a red jittering haze, he recognised the figure of a man. Suddenly, as if somebody had flipped a switch, he started to feel his limbs. It was an encouraging change; however, it worsened the pain. He made a hasty attempt to stand up but failed instantly — his arms and legs were tied to the seat. His wrists were still numb, so he couldn’t feel the ties — just insuperable resistance, which made his efforts pointless.
‘Yo, brother, welcome back!’ bellowed Tom, the figure who stood in front of him. ‘You’re not a dead man anymore!’
Thaler tried to get a better look at the man, but his blurred vision didn’t serve him well.
‘That’s what happens when you don’t respect the law, bro. And the law says, “Never mess with trucks on the road.”’
‘Thank you,’ Thaler mouthed; his vision was improving.
It was a dim room with some rubbish scattered around and concrete walls rising high into the darkness. The smell of rotten eggs hinted at the proximity of sewage. He spotted another man standing to the side with crossed arms. Ashley was nowhere to be seen.
‘Ashley,’ Thaler whispered indistinctly.
‘He’s a good man, Pit! I told you,’ Tom said. ‘He says nice words. If Mody won’t pay us, he will. I tell ya!’
Thaler shifted in his seat. Tom bent down to him.
‘You have to be grateful to us, bro,’ he said sincerely. ‘We’ve got an order to kill ya. I don’t kill people with my hands, but a car accident is another story. You and your girl survived though, and now we’re in trouble, deep trouble, and we don’t know what to do. Let’s think together, bro, if your brain isn’t fooked up completely, that is.’
Thaler smiled and felt dried blood crack on his cheeks. Ashley was alive and probably there. He looked up at Tom.
‘Yo, brother, you’re smiling!’ Tom said excitedly. ‘Look, Pit, he’s smiling! He’s a good man, this guy, I like him! He’s not a wimp. He’s a strong man who stands his ground!’
Tom patted Thaler on his cheek playfully. For Thaler, however, his touch was like a hammer blow. He nearly fainted again. Despite the dizziness and pain, he turned his head and spotted Ashley ten yards away, also tied to the chair. She sat straight, her face pale but clean. She didn’t seem to be injured.
‘Look,’ Tom said, walking slowly around the room. ‘Pit and I worked hard to pull you out of your fooked car. I cut my wrist, and it’s still bleeding. We need a little compensation for our efforts. We need money. I found your bank account on your phone, but I haven’t got a fooking key to it. Our boss, Mody, is on the way and he’ll decide what to do with you. I steal cars and rob houses, but I’d never lie to the judge. Mody will decide. And I’ll tell ya the truth,’ he continued, ‘he wants to kill ya, because that’s what he was paid to do. I, myself, do not like murder. It’s not my profession. I’ll try to put a word in for you and your girl, but I can’t promise you any success. And I want your money before you fooking die here.’
Thaler blinked slowly to indicate his agreement.
Tom, standing in front of him and holding Thaler’s smartphone in his hand, entered the numbers as Thaler whispered the code. Then Tom grabbed Thaler’s hair, yanked his head back, and scanned Thaler’s irises with the phone’s camera. Full of expectations, Tom stared at the screen. Soon, however, his smile evaporated.
‘Holy shit!’ he cried. ‘This man got nothing! He wears a nice coat and talks nice, but he’s got minus zero on his account!’ He showed the smartphone to his friend.
Tom scratched his head and turned to Ashley.
‘Your friend is no good, girl.’ He twisted his lips and shook his head. ‘He doesn’t want to reward us.’ He threw Thaler’s phone to the floor and stomped on it. ‘But, you look like a decent girl. We’re working hard to save you, and we need a little compensation for that. I won’t ask you for money. Girls like you never have money of their own. But you have a nice mouth, and you know what to do when a man needs some relief.’
He swaggered toward Ashley, slowly unbuttoning his pants. He stopped and looked back at Thaler who was sitting motionlessly with his eyes closed and his head drooped on his chest.
‘You’re doing right, bro,’ Tom said contentedly. ‘You’d better take a nap while we play.’
‘Hey, Tom.’
‘What?’ Tom turned to his friend.
‘Look at her face,’ Pit said, giggling.
Tom stared at Ashley and smirked.
‘It’s okay, Pit,’ he said smugly. ‘Now she looks like the mother of wolves, but after a good slap, she’ll be pretty.’
‘Tom?’ Pit giggled again.
‘What?’
‘I wouldn’t stuff my bunny into this bear trap.’
‘So . . .’ Tom looked at Pit and tilted his head to the side, ‘what’s your plan, bud?’
‘We can sell them to the Eviscerator for spare parts,’ Pit suggested, squeezing a pimple on his cheek. ‘I mean, for transplantation. It’s good money. This guy’s fooked up, but the girl is fresh.’
‘I don’t want to hear ‘bout that fooking twisted cyborg!’ Tom erupted. ‘How can you think of such thing for this girl? You’re a perv yourself, Pit! Shame on you!’
Pit shrugged and folded his arms again.
Tom approached Ashley. Her face was calm, but her eyes blazed with hatred. He pondered her face.
‘Hey, Pit,’ he said finally, ‘you may be right; she’s under stress.’ His mouth curved into a crooked smile. ’Can you do me a favour, bud?’
‘Uh . . . Sure,’ Pit said after a pause.
‘Point your gun at the gentleman’s knee.’
Pit stood near Thaler and complied.
Tom watched Ashley’s reaction. She didn’t move a muscle. He drew near and leaned close to her face.
‘You see, I have a good friend who respects me, dolly,’ he said in an intimate voice. ‘And you’ll have a lame friend if you ain’t nice to me. Worse, you’ll have a fooking screaming lame friend. We can do it right now.’
Ashley winced. A miserable smile appeared on her face. Tom smiled back and put his hand on her neck.
‘Nice girl,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll get along here. I’ve got another friend. He’s hot as a rod, and you’ll see him now.’ He leaned forward, his mouth opening for a kiss. Then, just as he was close enough, Ashley swung back and smashed her head into Tom’s nose.
The blow was so strong that his whole body jerked back and sprawled on the concrete floor. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, his mouth gaped, blood gushed from his nostrils and his limbs flailed like the claws of a flipped-over crab. He turned on his side and rose to his feet like a man with no sense of balance.
Pit jumped back in panic and pointed his gun at Ashley. She narrowed her eyes, bared her teeth and hissed at him like an angry cat. Pit shuddered and pointed his gun back at Thaler.
Tom staggered into the middle of the dark room like an evil spirit in the swamp. ‘Pit,’ his voice was hoarse and mean. ‘Kill ’em.’ He spit out a wad of blood. ‘Now.’
Pit pointed his gun at Ashley again. His body and arms shook like he had a fever and his face was a mask of terror. He tried to aim at Ashley, but then he drew back his gun.
‘Tom, it hurts!’ he shrieked and tried to switch the gun to his left hand, but in vain. The gun was stuck in the dead grip of his right hand. He stretched his right hand toward Ashley again and tried to pull the trigger, but his fingers wouldn’t move. He grasped the gun with his left hand and tried to wrest it out of his grip, but his attempt ended in panic.
‘Tom, it hurts!’ Pit squealed. ‘Like a hot iron!’
‘Shoot ’em.’ Dripping blood as he shuffled toward his friend, his arm outstretched, Tom was reaching for the gun.
‘My hand! It burns!’ Pit wailed, dashing around the room and smashing his right hand into the walls. But he still couldn’t dislodge the blazing gun from his hand. The gun became red-hot, and the smell of burning flesh filled the room.
Suddenly, a gunshot rang out — having ignited from the heat, the gunpowder sent a bullet across the room. It bounced off the wall, chirped in the air, and hit Tom in the groin. He screamed and fell to his knees.
‘Stop!’ he shouted. Pit was shaking his hand desperately. The second bullet went harmlessly into the ceiling. The third one struck Tom in the throat. He gurgled as his mouth filled with bubbling blood. His body bent backwards and his hips slid apart, twisting out the heels.
The fourth bullet skipped across the wall.
Pit, screaming and moaning, goggled at his companion, who looked like a dead frog sprawled on the dirty floor.
Another shot went off.
Pit glared at the charred remains of his hand — the glowing gun still in his skeletal grip — screwed his eyes shut and put the barrel against his temple. A sixth, muffled, shot followed. Pit collapsed to the floor. There was no more screaming.
While the two gangsters crept to their death, Ashley didn’t waste time. Another man was on the way, and he wasn’t coming to say hello. She wore a necklace that looked like an ordinary piece of jewellery but which was actually a set of survival gadgets, including a hidden almond-shaped blade. She needed that blade badly.
She grasped the collar of her T-shirt with her teeth and pulled it up. The fabric ripped off. She rubbed her chin against her chest in order to create some free space around her neck. The gangsters hadn’t saved on ropes when tying her up, but she could still rock back and forth a little. She tried to use her limited freedom to throw the necklace up and release it from under her clothes, but sweat kept the necklace glued to her skin. She tried repeatedly, with no success. She stopped her vain attempts, closed her eyes and focused.
She needed enough thrust to push the necklace out. Controlled falling was a routine part of her martial arts training, but nobody had taught her to fall while tied to a chair. If the somersault went wrong, she would break her neck. She had no time for doubts.
Ashley rocked herself back and forth gaining momentum and then flipped forward. She tumbled — ducking her head and leading with her shoulder — and landed on her back on the floor, still tied to the chair. The necklace was stuck on the tip of her chin. One wrong move, and it would slip down — game over. She waited until her breathing calmed. Then she made a quick forward movement with her head and caught the necklace with her lips.
Holding the blade in her teeth, she cut the ropes on her chest and shoulders. Releasing her shoulders gave her more freedom, but her arms and legs were still fastened to the chair. She bent forward, cut the lace with her teeth, turned the blade inside her mouth with the tip protruding from her lips and spit it out toward her right hand. The blade landed not far from its target. Rocking her body from side to side, she managed to shift the chair and pick up the blade.
As she sawed through the cluster of knots that held her right hand, she glanced at Thaler. He looked like a dead man tied to the chair. Her right hand was finally free and it was a race against time to do the rest.
Her ankles were still tied to the chair when she heard a beep. She looked at the lift door. The blinking light above it said that somebody had called the elevator. She cut the rest of the ropes and rushed to Thaler. He didn’t show any signs of life.
She turned back to the lift. The flashing light above it changed — a guest was on the way. Ashley stood up, stretched her arms, kicked off her right shoe and pulled a sleek flat throwing knife out of it. Holding it in her hand, she hurried to the elevator door and pressed herself up against the mouldy concrete wall beside it.
Chapter Seventeen
There was no sense of time or direction, no light or colour, just an elusive feeling of immense space before and beyond him. No joy, no fear, no expectation. Only a soft, barely audible tune coming from afar; the tune a man can savour in the moment but never save in his memory. Somehow, he was heading for that. Minutes or ages had passed until he began to feel a small change. It was the same senseless state but a hint of dim shining shimmered far, far away. A weak inner effort, like the undulating bell of a jellyfish, was propelling him towards that silver veil of light. Suddenly, his senses came back to him and held him tight, like a snare. Thaler opened his eyes.
The bed was soft and comfortable. His hands were lying on a thick, crisp-white sheet. He touched his face. It was unshaven but clean. He felt some lingering numbness in his body, but no pain. He carefully rolled his head from side to side and shifted his legs — everything worked perfectly. He propped himself up on his arms and looked around.
The room was lit with ambient light. His bed stood in the centre. There was a built-in wardrobe with a mirrored door on the right side and a doorway on the left. In front of him was a wide window with a panorama of solitary fir trees enshrouded in thick fog.
Ashley stood by the window, dressed in a loose grey training outfit. Her eyes were closed, and her face looked serene and tired. She held a small wooden flute in her hands and played the very melody that had pulled him out of oblivion.
‘Ashley,’ he called her.
She opened her eyes and smiled.
‘Good morning,’ she said softly.
‘What is this music?’
‘Ah, nothing special. Just my improvisation.’ She shrugged and looked out the window. ‘It’s eight in the morning. You’ve been sleeping for almost twenty hours. I had to wake you. Otherwise, you’d miss breakfast.’
‘Is this your house?’
‘Yes,’ said Ashley. She slipped the flute into the sleeve of her jacket and walked slowly towards him. ‘It’s a guest room. My father stays here when he comes for a visit.’
‘We’re not safe here,’ Thaler said.
‘I know,’ Ashley sat at the edge of his bed, ‘but it wouldn’t have been a good idea, with you dying, to ramble around town. There was too little life in your body to spill.’
‘I see.’ Thaler bent his knees under the blanket.
‘Multiple fractures, spine contusion, internal bleeding, splinters in your leg,’ Ashley listed. ‘Your side caught most of the impact. I got away with only a few bruises.’
Thaler touched his naked chest cautiously. There were a few fresh rough scars on it.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s all gone. Who did this miracle?’
‘Me,’ said Ashley quietly. ‘I’m a healer. Very useful skill for a fighter, isn’t it?’ she tittered. ‘My teammates love me for that gift. Strains, sprains, minor fractures . . . I would treat them pretty easily. This time, though, I had to work a bit harder to piece you together.’
‘Oh, thank you very much.’ Thaler looked at her gratefully. ‘I hope nothing important is missing,’ he added.
‘As far as I remember — no,’ she laughed. ‘But, you can always call me back if you find any Q.A. problems.’ She paused. ‘I wouldn’t have done as much if your body hadn’t had that extraordinary ability to repair itself. But, this time, it got too much punishment.’
‘Any recommendations, doctor?’ Thaler asked.
‘Uh—’ She stalled.
‘Go on.’
‘You should go to the gym more often.’ She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ve got a good frame, but it needs a bit more bulk on it.’ She smiled.
‘Thank you, doc.’ Carefully, Thaler put his hand on hers.
‘You’re welcome.’ Ashley stood up; her arm slipped out of the trap. She strolled back to the window.
‘That stunt with the red-hot gun . . . How did you do that?’ she asked, staring outside.
‘Some sort of concentration.’ Thaler pushed the blanket aside and swung his feet to the floor. He was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. There was a coarse concave scar on his right thigh, as if some of his hip muscles were missing. A pile of clothes was waiting for him on the corner of the bed.
‘It was the only thing I could do in that mess. I had no influence on their minds. You can’t rule what doesn’t exist,’ he sniggered, ‘but that trick drained my vitals almost to zero.’
‘Why do you think they hired those idiots?’ Ashley asked. The view outside was sleepy and calm.
Sitting on the bed, Thaler started to dress. He pulled on a white T-shirt, a dark sports suit, which was a bit too small for him, and a pair of white socks.
‘I don’t have a perfect answer for that question,’ he said, checking himself in the mirror. ‘Perhaps, they were short on time and wanted to hide their tracks. They still think I have the Supreme Order backing me,’ he said. ‘Or, maybe they just wanted to save money.’ He grinned.
Thaler stood up energetically, then reeled back, sank down to the bed and leant forward. Ashley rushed to him.
‘I’m fine.’ He smiled at her, though his face was ashen. ‘I shouldn’t have stood up that quickly. Perhaps, I have to drink some water.’
Ashley sat near him. ‘You need a rest.’
‘Probably,’ said Thaler as he took a deep breath, ‘but I have no time for that. We have no time . . .’ He rubbed his temples. ‘What happened to the third man?’
‘He was a tough guy,’ Ashley said slowly. ‘Bloody more dangerous than the other two. I didn’t know how the elevator was controlled. That guy could’ve sent it back, and we would’ve been stuck in a sewer for ages. I decided to attack him in the elevator. You need some skill to fight in a closed space, but I’d learnt it. He was prepared, that guy. I couldn’t catch him by surprise.’
‘Did you . . . neutralise him?’ Thaler asked cautiously.
‘Yes, I did,’ she muttered. ‘He was a well-trained fighter, but he made the same mistake many other men do — he didn’t take me seriously enough.’ She raked her hair with her fingers. Then she crossed her arms over her chest, put her hands under her armpits and shuffled back to the window.
‘I don’t feel proud about this fight,’ she said, ‘but I had no choice.’ She scoffed. ‘So many murderers have said that phrase.’ She glanced at Thaler — he looked consumed with his thoughts. ‘Nice job we chose.’ She sighed and headed to the door. ‘I’ll bring you something to drink and make us breakfast.’
‘Have you talked to your father today?’ Thaler asked abruptly.
‘No.’ She read his worried face. ‘I’m gonna pick up my phone and call him right now.’ She left the room.
Thaler stood up slowly and plodded to the window.
The landscape outside was still foggy and dull — the sort of scenery that a new couple would use as an excuse for doing nothing but spending the whole day together. It was a tempting prospect for them, but in the meantime they had to fight. Time was more precious than ever before. He left the room and walked through a small corridor to the kitchen.
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