Lust, Money & Murder (18 page)

“Do you really want to help me?” she asked.

“
Da
, Janyet. I already say I want help you.” He paused. “For little extra money, of course...”

“Then listen very carefully...”

* * *

When she finished explaining her plan, Dmitry’s face turned pale.

“Janyet...this very dangerous. If I do what you say, this man in jeep will kill me.”

“He won’t kill you. He’s not interested in you, Dmitry. Trust me. He’ll tell you to go away.”

Dmitry swallowed, staring through the windshield at the SUV. It was only 100 feet ahead of them now. They had just crossed the Moscow River. The traffic had thickened. The sky was showing the first violet hues of dawn.

“You ask too much, Janyet.”

“I thought you told me you wanted some excitement in your life?”

Dmitry, winced, looking like he sorely regretted those words.

“I’ll pay you well,” Elaine said, remembering the cash she had with her. “Very well.”

She could see temptation in his eyes. Making the sign of the cross over his chest, he pressed on the accelerator and closed in on the SUV.

Elaine rolled down the back window, raising the pistol. The frigid wind whipped across her cheeks. The SUV was in the left-hand lane, tailgating the car in front of it. They were easing up on the right-hand side.

“Closer!” Elaine shouted, over the wind
. I hope to God this works
, she thought. As they neared the SUV, she aimed the gun at its spinning back tire.

“Closer!” she said. She wasn’t taking any chances.

Dmitry pressed a little harder on the gas. Now the jeep’s rear wheel was almost within reach of her arm.

Elaine pulled the trigger.

The tire exploded, then made a
flop-flop-flop
sound as the rubber began to shred.

Dmitry hit the brakes and let the SUV swerve in front of them.

“Now!” she said.

“
Bozhe moi
,” Dmitry muttered, then let up on the brake. Two seconds later the front end of the Lada slammed into the rear of the SUV. It was enough to throw Elaine forward but not enough to do any serious damage to either vehicle.

Both cars came to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Elaine ducked down to the floorboard. Dmitry reluctantly opened his door. He looked terrified when he saw the big, pockmark-faced man open the door of the SUV and lumber towards him, scowling.

“
Durak
!” the man shouted. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You stopped too fast,” Dmitry said in Russian, walking cautiously towards him. “I—I was not prepared...”

The man stepped behind the SUV and peered down at the flat tire, cursing.

“I’ll help you change it,” Dmitry said, with no enthusiasm at all.

The man opened the SUV’s rear door. “Get the hell out of here.”

Dmitry did not need any more persuasion. He quickly walked back towards the Lada.

While they were talking, Elaine had slipped out of the car. She was squatting behind the Lada’s bumper. Traffic was passing by, some of the cars honking.

As soon as the man bent down and tried to fit the jack under the car, she dashed forward.

The next thing the man knew, the barrel of the Sig Sauer was pressing into the back of his head.

“Lie face down on the ground,” Elaine barked, adrenaline pumping through her veins. Pushing him down into the gravel, she grabbed both his arms and pulled them behind his back. She felt around and felt inside his jacket. There was a pistol in one pocket. She pulled it out and flung the weapon down the embankment, into the snow. In the other pocket, she found the data key.

“You’re dead,” he said, as she pocketed it.

She leapt off him and backed up towards the Lada. “Stay on the ground!” she said, but he climbed to his feet. There was a noxious sheen in his eyes.

Dmitry had the Lada’s passenger door open for her. Just as she reached it, the man suddenly bent and plucked something from his ankle. An instant later the object was flipping end over end through the air towards Elaine, end over end, metal glinting in car headlights.

The stiletto tore through Elaine’s wool coat and pierced her side.

Elaine gasped and stumbled into the Lada’s back seat. Dmitry stared through the rearview, frozen with fear, his eyes wide.

“Go!” Elaine yelled.

Dmitry pressed on the accelerator, burning rubber.

The man ran at the car, smashing his fist into the passenger window, but the Lada grazed him and knocked him to the pavement.

“
Bozhe moi
!” Dmitry yelled.

* * *

“You are hurt!” Dmitry said.

Elaine braced herself, then yanked the stiletto out of her side. Blood spurted. For a second she was terrified, afraid she might have been seriously wounded. But the pick-like instrument had only pierced an inch or so of flesh. No internal damage had been done.

“I have medic kit,” Dmitry said, fumbling to open the glove compartment.

“Just drive, Dmitry!”

With one hand pressing against her side to stop the bleeding, she opened the first aid kit, pulled up her red-stained blouse, and applied a stick-on bandage to her side.

Dmitry was looking nervously between the road ahead and the rearview.

“Where go now, Janyet? Where go now?”

Elaine looked out at the heavy traffic. She changed her mind about trying to go back to the airport. “Do you know where the American Embassy is?”

“
Da
.” He drove faster, tailgating the car in front.

If they could make it to the embassy, she could call the Treasurer, or the Secretary Treasurer, and explain everything over the phone. She would turn the data key over to the embassy staff. They would have to believe her.

She could hardly believe she’d gotten the data key back. But she’d done it!

Dmitry was looking distractedly into the rearview.

“What’s the matter?” Elaine said anxiously. She was afraid to turn around and look. No way could it be the SUV—it would be impossible to drive with that shredded tire.

“Hummer,” Dmitry said.

Elaine gathered the courage to look. The wide, menacing black vehicle was creeping up behind them. The glass in the Hummer’s windshield was tinted so heavily that it was impossible to see inside.

“It is Mafia,” Dmitry said, his voice wavering with fear.

“How do you know?”

“Mafia like Hummer.”

Elaine fought panic—she wasn’t about to let them catch her now, not after all this!

The traffic was thickening as they neared the center of the city. Ahead, she could see a river of red brake lights that looked like it went on for miles. The embassy was on the other side of town...they would never make it.

She glanced across the median to the other side of the road. The traffic back towards the Sheremetyevo Airport was moving along freely.

“Turn around,” she said.

Dmitry hesitated. “But—”

“Turn around!” she said. “We’re going back to the airport.”

* * *

The sky was growing lighter, a fine snow falling from gunmetal gray clouds. Elaine and Dmitry were only a few miles from the Sheremetyevo Airport, but the Hummer was riding their rear bumper.

If she could lose them, somehow, and make it inside the airport, she thought there was a good chance she could flee the country before they could catch her. She had the fake Irish passport, which nobody knew about, at least not yet. Sheremetyevo was a very busy airport, with flights leaving every couple of minutes to destinations all over the world. She had plenty of money—she could buy some clothes in one of the shops and disguise herself, then purchase a ticket on the first flight out.

Dmitry looked petrified, both his hands clutching the steering wheel as if he were holding onto it for dear life.

She looked back at the trailing Hummer again. “What about losing them on some small roads?” Elaine said.

Dmitry motioned to the rearview. “How? They have Hummer, we have Lada.”

Elaine pointed the gun at the dashboard. “Open your road atlas and show me where we are.”

Dmitry pulled out the frayed book and turned to the middle. They were just approaching a town called Burtsevo. Elaine leaned forward, studying the map.

“What about taking this route?” she said, indicating a small highway that branched off into a forest. It looked like it continued almost all the way to the airport. “Can you think of a way to lose them along here?”

“I know this
rejone
well, Janyet—I often fishing in river.” She saw a thick blue line that snaked through the middle of the green area. “But there is no way lose them. I already say you—they have
Hummer
and we have Lada.”

“A Hummer is very wide,” Elaine said, “and your car is very narrow. Is there some place this car can go that a Hummer
can’t
go?”

She saw the flicker of an idea cross his face.

“What?” Elaine said.

When he didn’t answer, she pushed the gun against his neck again. “Speak up, Dmitry.”

He swallowed. “In forest, trees very close together. Too close together for Hummer.”

“Get off at the next exit.”

* * *

Dmitry sailed down the exit ramp for Burtsevo as fast as the little Lada would go.

Elaine looked out the back window—the Hummer was following, but lagging behind. The driver had not anticipated the sudden turn Dmitry had made.

“Faster,” she said, as they swung around the ramp.

Dmitry picked up more speed, the tires screeching. Fortunately, the snow had long been cleared off the pavement and the surface was clean and dry.

They came out onto a deserted road that ran parallel to the highway. Elaine held the atlas, tracking their route. They reached a crossroads—there was a sign pointing to the left, to the town of Burtsevo, but Dmitry kept driving straight ahead.

The pavement soon became rough, packed with several inches of snow, with only a few tire tracks.

Elaine looked out the back window again—the sudden exit had been unexpected, but the Hummer was gaining on them fast.

Just ahead was the beginning of the forest.

“Faster!” Elaine said.

Dmitry pressed harder on the accelerator, the little Lada now rattling and bucking as they hit ruts and ice-covered potholes. Elaine gasped as the car flew over a depression and slammed back down—the icon of Mary on the dash tumbled to the floorboard.

Dmitry swerved the car hard to the left. They were heading down a very narrow lane, the snow fresh and unblemished, the densely packed rows of birch trees coming up quickly. The Hummer was on their rear bumper now—Elaine could hear the thundering of its big engine over the weak whine of the Lada’s.

Dmitry slammed on the brakes. An instant later, the Hummer banged into them, then lagged back as the Lada skidded ahead, thrown forward by the heavy vehicle. Dmitry took a hard left, straight into the forest, the white bark of the birch trees whizzing past their windows, coming within inches of the car on both sides. Elaine had dropped the road atlas and hugged the back of the passenger seat. The tree trunks were coming at them fast, Dmitry frantically twisting the wheel this way and that to avoid them. He was a very good driver.

“Are they still behind us?” Elaine asked.

“Yes, but not very...” Dmitry didn’t complete the sentence, yanking the wheel hard to the left. There was a loud bang—the door mirror on Elaine’s side snapped off. “...close,” he finished.

Elaine looked out the back window. The Hummer was at least 50 yards behind, slowly picking its way through the trees, having veered off Dmitry’s path to find clearance. She saw it simply run over a young, thin birch, the tree snapping partially up again as the heavy vehicle moved relentlessly forward.

If the Hummer caught up with them out here in the forest, they were both dead.

Elaine studied the road atlas, trying to determine where they were. The deeper they went into the woods, the longer it would take the Hummer to pick its way back out...

Dmitry slowed the car. Elaine looked up—directly ahead of them, a huge, fallen birch was blocking their path. It looked like there might be enough space to go under it, at least on the left-hand side.

Dmitry slowed the car, then pressed on the accelerator again, but he kept going straight.

Elaine said, “No! There’s not enough roo—”

She was thrown forward and there was a loud crunch from the roof above.

Now the car was perfectly still.

Dmitry pressed on the gas pedal, the engine racing, but the vehicle was immobilized. Elaine looked out the back window. The wheels were only kicking up arcs of snow.

“We’re stuck!” she gasped.

The Hummer was still approaching. It was moving faster now, threading its way through the trees, the driver become more adjusted to the terrain.