His eyes scanned the outline of the massive oil-storage tanks as he ran his gun sight right and left, panning across the top edge of the most likely drum, looking for the smallest tell.
He spotted it. A lumpy shape that seemed extraneous to the clean structure underneath it, rising off it.
Koschey locked his sight on it and loosed his remaining six rounds in quick succession. A fresh clip was in the Glock before the last shell casing from the previous one had hit the ground, but he didn’t need to draw from it as he saw the lump flinch up with an audible grunt, then watched as the dark silhouette rolled sideways and dropped off the edge of the drum, falling more than a hundred feet before bouncing off a metal ledge and hitting the asphalt with a dull thud.
Koschey waited a moment to make sure no other threats were in store, then he got up and pulled Sokolov to his feet. He looked around, a scowl darkening his already-tenebrous stare. The Escalade was out of action due to its burst tire, and they were in the middle of nowhere. Which made him vulnerable.
Koschey didn’t do vulnerable.
He herded Sokolov across the yard to where the sniper had fallen. He knew the man had to be dead, if not from his bullets, then from the fall. Which he was. He was lying in a crumpled heap, on his front, his head a mess of blood, hair, and green streaks. Koschey rolled him over using his foot, for a better look. The man was Asian-Korean, Koschey thought-and young, somewhere in his twenties. One side of his skull had been caved in by the fall, and his face was a mess of blood-slicked hair. His upper torso had taken at least three bullets.
He looked at Sokolov, who was staring at the young man with dread.
“Friend of yours?” Koschey asked.
Sokolov shook his head. “No. A friend of a friend.”
Koschey nodded, thinking it through for a moment. Then he rifled through the dead sniper’s pockets and found a set of keys.
The ring included car keys. For a Toyota.
Koschey glanced around. On the ground, a couple of yards away, was the sniper’s rifle. Koschey recognized it as a Dakota T-76 Longbow. A solid weapon. He picked it up, gave it a cursory check, then turned to Sokolov.
“Davaite,” he ordered him. Let’s go.
They walked away from the sniper, heading out of the yard, the way the van had left. They found the lime-green Toyota Supra sheltering in the dark behind the farthest oil drum.
Koschey hit the key fob. The lock bleeped open.
“Time to go home, comrade Shislenko,” he told Sokolov as he gestured for him to climb in. “You’ve been sorely missed.”
33
Jonny peered into his side-view mirror as the big storage tanks faded into the night. No one was following.
Not the maniac Russian. But not Jachin, either. Which didn’t bode well.
If his buddy had made it out, he’d be somewhere behind him already. The streets were dark and deserted, and Jonny knew he’d have seen his car’s lights, even in the distance. But there were no lights, and the phone link to Jachin had also gone dead.
He wondered whether Jachin was still alive, whether or not he’d be calling Jonny at any moment to tell him he’d picked off the Russian and was bringing Sokolov back.
For the fifth time that minute, he glanced at his cell phone. It stayed dark. And deep down, something told him he wasn’t going to get that call.
He wanted to go back, to try to help him. But he couldn’t do that. Not with Daphne.
A wave of vengeful rage crashed against his heart as he kept his foot on the gas, wrangling as much pace as he could from the old van and missing his souped-up Mitsubishi. Why he’d ever agreed to use his teacher’s lousy old van, he didn’t know. He couldn’t wait to dump it once he’d dropped Daphne off. More than dump it. Feed it to a crusher, maybe, or just torch the damn thing to hell.
Daphne was in the seat next to him, gripping his left arm so tightly it was starting to hurt. He gently uncurled her fingers and turned to face her. She was sobbing, but bravely trying to stifle the sound.
Jonny gently squeezed her hand and kept driving, in silence, not knowing what to say, even though he felt he had to say something. She needed it.
“We’ll get him back,” he finally said to her. “One way or another, we’ll get him back. This isn’t over.”
Daphne gasped a lungful of air and tried to take control of her emotions, but her body wouldn’t stop shaking.
“They must want him alive, Mrs. Soko. Otherwise, they would have killed him there and then.”
She nodded, staring ahead, and straightened up. “We have to go to the police, Jonny.”
He’d been wrestling with the same thought. Much as he hated to have anything to do with them, the cops needed to be alerted to Sokolov’s abduction. The events of that night were beyond both his comprehension and his firepower, and one of the reasons he was still alive was because he could back out of something just as quickly as he could burst in. But he didn’t know the first thing about what was really going on, who the Russians were, or what beef they had with Sokolov. The cops needed to be brought in.
But not by him.
He wasn’t used to having so little control over events in his life, and he wasn’t enjoying the feeling at all. But he didn’t want to upset Daphne.
He reached over for his smokes, lit one up, and took a deep pull. He offered one to Daphne, who declined.
“Do you know who took you?” he asked.
“You mean now, or before?”
Jonny wasn’t getting it. “What do you mean?”
“The men who grabbed me outside the hospital were Russian. They worked for a man they called kuvalda. It means sledgehammer. Does that mean anything to you?”
Jonny nodded. “Sure. He’s Russian Mafiya. Big.”
“The man you saw back there, the one who brought me there-he came to the motel where they were keeping me and he killed them and took me with him.”
“And you don’t know who he is or what he wants from Mr. Soko?”
“No,” Daphne said.
Jonny frowned. “I’ll drop you off at the precinct by the school, okay? But you can’t mention me when you talk to them. I need you to tell me you won’t. There’s nothing I can tell them anyway. I’ve told you all I know. I was just trying to help keep you both alive.”
She dabbed at her cheeks with a sleeve. “And I appreciate that,” she told him. “A lot. I won’t say anything about you if that’s what you want.”
He thought for a moment, then said, “I’ll hang on to the van for a while, if you don’t need it. Make sure it doesn’t have my prints on it or anything. Is that okay with you?”
Daphne looked confused. “Why wouldn’t it be? It’s your van.”
“No, it’s not. It’s Mr. Soko’s.”
Daphne seemed genuinely surprised. “It’s Leo’s?”
“You don’t know?”
“No. I’ve never seen it before.” She twisted around and glanced back at the partition and the narrow door, then looked at Jonny. “Why would Leo have a van? He doesn’t need a van.”
“I don’t know,” Jonny said. “Why didn’t he tell you about it?”
Daphne seemed confused and lost, and she started to sob again. Jonny decided not to take it any further. It was painfully obvious that whatever Sokolov was involved in, his wife knew nothing about it.
“I’ll take you to the station now,” he told her.