Yesterday's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller (26 page)

Because of the ungainly DMSO-resistant gloves, the disk and suction cup assembly slipped from her fingers and fell inward. She caught them, and her heart skipped a beat. What was it Eric said when talking to himself?
Get grip! Get grip, Petki!

She placed the glass disk on the roof, reached through the hole, and undid the latch. She opened the window wide and climbed in. Hanging down with her hands on the sill, she dropped to the floor, bending her knees deeply to avoid making a noise.

Something snapped.
What was that?
Still wearing the goggles, she looked around and at her feet. She hadn’t hit anything. Did she imagine the sound?

She went to the door and slowly turned the knob. It just kept turning. It wasn’t connected to anything.

That snapping sound! She looked up to the window. Covered. A steel plate had apparently slid over it the instant her feet hit the floor.

A trap. Let an intruder find the easiest way in and trap him. Why hadn’t she seen that? Because she wasn’t thinking outside the box. She clenched her jaw and growled.

She pulled her grappling hook out of her pack. How long before the door opened? Did she have the element of surprise? No, but if she was unexpectedly fast, maybe she’d have a chance.

She held her weapon above her head and waited, listening. One minute, two. Maybe they’d leave her in here all night. Or maybe they didn’t know the trap had been sprung. The tension in her gut increased with every passing minute. She breathed deeply but couldn’t calm herself.

The door opened. She couldn’t strike blindly; it might be Zaharia. She could never hurt him.

It was Ferka. She swung the tool with all her might, but her hesitation defeated her.

He grabbed the shaft of the hook. “
Da. Esti a mea acum.
” You are mine now.

Viviana yanked down on the rope, putting all her weight into it. The hook slipped from his grip and jolted into his mouth. One of the four tips clacked against his teeth and sunk into the space between his lips and gums. For an instant he was a hooked fish. Viviana dashed past him, her heart in her throat.

Ferka roared and reached out, grabbing her backpack. She wriggled out of it. Ferka was strong but not fast. If she could just keep out of his grasp, she could survive.

Shedding the backpack had taken too much time. Ferka wheeled around and grabbed a fistful of her hair. She twisted, jumped, and spun. Her hair was slipping from his hand. She wouldn’t let him get a better grip.

Her hair was short, thanks to her successive disguises. To keep from losing her, Ferka had to play her, giving her some slack when she jerked fastest. She forced him to follow after her as she moved down the hall.

Bolts of pain shot from Viviana’s scalp with each tug.

She yanked, twisted, and ducked forward at the same time. By hunching her back and snapping her chin to her chest, Ferka’s wrist hit her shoulder blades. It was stopped cold, and the move gave her the leverage she needed. Some of her hair ripped out of her scalp, and the rest slid from his grasp.

She tumbled through an open door into some kind of workshop, smashing her head against a trestle table. Ferka followed her in, turned on the light, and slammed the door.

She rubbed her scalp and looked at him through her tears. His smile was triumphant. She could not escape.

He came toward her.

Moving only her eyes, she examined the tabletop. It was covered with dusty tools. Could she grab a makeshift weapon before he was on her?

A small pair of scissors, no bigger than nail clippers, lay by the edge. She grabbed them and, with her other hand, reached for a better prize, a box cutter. He intercepted her, wrapping his huge hand around her forearm.

The vulnerable underside of his wrist was uppermost. A perfect target. The advice to suicides flashed into her mind: Cut down the road, not across the street. She stabbed the scissors into his wrist and raked them toward his elbow. But the outside edge of the scissors was blunt. Instead of slicing up his arm, they flipped from her grip, rattling onto the workspace. Blood flowed from the stab wound, but not enough to end the fight.

He howled and released his grip. She picked the scissors up again and pushed off from the table. By slipping her index and ring fingers of her right hand into the holes in the handles, she had a set of brass knuckles with two small but sharp blades. She sucked air in and out through her teeth. Her left hand clenched and unclenched.

She got a good jab into his midsection, the blades slipping deeply into his flesh. He wore only flannel pajamas.

Dancing around, she took advantage of her superior speed and gymnastic ability, jumping in, stabbing, then bounding away to avoid his deadly grasp. He flailed around like a bear in a tar pit.

Da!
She landed a few more in his gut, one in his buttock, and one in his cheek. The prize was his neck or eye, something to put him out of commission long enough for her to get out the door.

He lumbered back and guarded her only escape route. Was he moving more slowly? It was the chance she needed. She tensed her muscles and dove for the box cutter.

She got her hand around it, but his body crashed down onto hers, knocking the wind out of her. The heavy table teetered and then tipped back, crashing to the floor. They both slid off among a clutter of tools and lamps.

He had her in a bear hug from behind, one hand crushing her breast. He shifted and pinned her arms at the elbows.

She slammed the box cutter down onto his thigh, but the blade protruded only a little, barely enough to get through his pajamas.

She threw her head back, connecting with a crunch. Probably his nose. Maybe that wiped away the leer she pictured on his face. In spite of the pain, she did it again.

With her thumb, she pushed the cutter’s blade out as far as it would go. Five clicks. She glanced at it. She had a knife with a six-centimeter blade. If only she’d had that when standing free.

She raised her forearm up, gritted her teeth, and smashed the blade down into his sensitive inner thigh. There was a big artery down there somewhere.

But a box cutter isn’t a knife. The blade has little stability side to side. It’s designed to snap off when a new, sharper point is needed. Instead of sliding smoothly into the flesh of his leg, it hit at an angle, and the blade cracked off with a pop.

She threw her head back again but didn’t connect. Ferka must have held his head to one side. She wound up to do it at a different angle, but he lurched forward like a mating elephant seal and jammed her head into the corner.

Crushed against the floor with her head bent at an unnatural angle, she couldn’t get enough air.
Eric, help!
He was surely out of range.

Ferka shifted his grip, pinning her arms completely. She kicked him, but after all the exertion, and weakened from the lack of oxygen, she couldn’t get any power into it.

With little jerks he rolled over onto his back with her on top. Viviana gulped in air. Without releasing her, he sat up, then pushed against the wall and stood.

Blood and dust covered them both. Most of the blood was his. It dripped from his nose and jaw, and oozed from the many scissor cuts. It didn’t matter. She’d lost.

Her uncle sat, expressionless, on his scooter in the doorway.

“
Unchiul Zaza rog ajută-mă!
” Help me!

Ferka squeezed her, cutting off further words. Her feet weren’t even touching the floor. He was too strong.

Zaharia hovered over to the upturned table. He spoke sadly, in Romanian. “Lia, you betrayed me. You and Andrei fornicated in the woods, like pigs.” He stared at the floor. “I know what to do with pigs.”

If she could talk, she’d convince him she wasn’t his dead wife. But Ferka held her in a death grip.

The huge Gypsy nodded. “
Vâna.
” Hunt.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Pacing back and forth outside the fence, I clenched my fists. The sky had cleared and moonlight filtered down through the bare branches.

I couldn’t call Peggy. The phone had worked here before. Did Zaharia have some kind of signal jammer?
Damn!
Each time I’d considered driving away to get more bars, I pictured Viviana running out and finding me gone.

What was the last thing I’d said to Peggy? Don’t send in the cavalry unless you hear from me. I was worried the police would go bustling in and Zaharia would destroy the device.

Peggy and I had argued. She’d said we should have a time limit. I should have listened to her, but the more she objected, the more resistance I’d given her. Too late to change my instructions now.

I checked my watch for the fiftieth time: 5:29. One minute to go. The last hours had been the longest of my life.

I went through my checklist. Backpack, dark clothing, pistol, night-vision goggles, night-vision scope, radio, long-range wire-guided Taser. The last one had set me back $100,000. It had a range of sixty feet, and as long as I kept the laser dot on the target, I couldn’t miss.

With the night-vision goggles on I made one more check. Nope, no Viviana. Time to go.

I climbed the fence, dropped down on the other side, and jogged toward the house. It was almost a mile away, the bright lights barely visible. Heaven help anyone who got in my way.

Running like an elephant, I soon reached the edge of the clearing around the house. I had to do everything right, even though I wanted to rush in there, guns blazing. Breathing hard, I worked my way to the back of the residence. 5:41.

* * *

Uncle Zaharia would hunt her just as he’d hunted, and killed, his wife. Viviana pleaded with Zaza that she was Viva, his loving niece, but she couldn’t get through. Her tears didn’t soften him.

She spoke to Ferka, who continued to hold her from behind in a bear hug. “You’re not insane, are you? You can stop this.” Turning, she caught a glimpse of his leering smile. She couldn’t expect any help from him. Worse, the hardness pushing against her leg suggested Ferka had a different objective than hunting down pigs.

Zaharia stepped off his hovering scooter and came over to her in his slow, shuffling gait. He bent down and reached for her shoes. She kept them away from him until Ferka applied so much pressure that she couldn’t breathe. Zaharia laboriously undid the laces and tossed her shoes away, then stood, pulling himself up using her body and Ferka’s.

She tried one more time. “Zaza. It’s me Viva. Viva.”

He pulled out a syringe and plunged it into her arm, slowly depressing the plunger.
La naiba!
She kicked him in the shin and wrenched her shoulder down. Zaharia looked at his legs. The hypodermic popped out of her arm and half the dose dribbled onto her skin.
Okay.

Ferka carried her to the door. He opened it with a push of a button and let her go. “
Zece minute.
” Ten minutes. She checked her watch: 5:41.

Bursting from the front of the residence, she sprinted toward the fence. She hadn’t gotten the ball, but escape would be easy. She had a ten-minute head start, and the fence was only minutes away. She’d be fine as long as the shot they’d given her was slow to take effect.

Leaving the well-lit area around the house, she slowed down. In the moonlight she was able to follow the trail. She ignored the pain from her bare feet. A few minutes more and the fence came into view. This was going to work. She yelled, “Eric, help. We ha wo go. Day chayz.”

Her words were slurred. The shot! Her thinking was fine, but her muscles didn’t work right. She stretched her mouth open and shut like a fish. She spread her fingers and then made a fist. They responded slowly. It was as if she were really drunk.
Thinking works okay.
She looked down at the leaves.
Would be nice to sleep.

She coughed. A hacking cough. Her mouth was dry. She tried swallowing. It didn’t work quite right.

At the fence, the windshield of Eric’s car reflected some light from the sky. Good. She screamed, “Eric, where are you?” but it sounded more like the yells of a zombie.

She looked at her watch: 5:49. She’d told Eric to give her until 5:30. He must have gone in to rescue her. Could she drive? Could she leave without Eric?

She started up the fence and immediately fell back. Would the effects of the shot get worse? Twice more she clawed her way up then fell back. She kneeled and leaned her forehead against the fence, hyperventilating.

The whine from the tracked, high-speed Segways snapped her from her thoughts. She had to succeed this time. Her legs were okay. Could they do most of the work? She took a huge breath and started again.

Clawing the chain-link, she poked her toes into the fence and extended her legs. She kept her body right up against the mesh. Deep breath, repeat. This might work. She paused, listening. Was the double-note whine coming closer? Shaking out a free hand, she reached up for the next claw-push cycle. She eyed the top.
Maybe would work
.

She extended her legs one more time. So tired. Images of her marathon gymnastics sessions swam in front of her.