I didn’t answer, and Rakic said, “It will be best to tell us quickly. The longer you wait, the more pain you will feel.” He had a thick, wet voice, like someone suffering from chronic bronchitis. “Where is Mrs. Weston?”
“Mrs. who?”
Bad idea. Krashakov slapped my head with the Beretta again, setting off a few more flashes of heat lightning. This time it took longer for my eyes to refocus. My field of vision was beginning to seem like a Texas sky during a nighttime thunderstorm.
“Where is the woman?” Krashakov said.
“It’s over, boys,” I said. “The prosecutor knows what happened, and the media knows what happened. It’s time for you to run. Killing me will only make it worse.” I didn’t tell them that Belov knew what had happened. They’d kill me for sure then.
“He’s lying,” Rakic said.
“Where is she?” Krashakov repeated.
“With the police. She’s at the prosecutor’s office telling them the whole damn story. You can go down there and ask for her, if you’d like.”
“You lie,” Krashakov said. He jabbed the barrel of his gun at Kinkaid. “Not long ago, the woman and girl were here, and they were with him. Now he is unconscious, and you are alone. Your truck is still outside.”
“I told you, they’re not here.”
Krashakov lifted me and threw me forward, into the counter. My head connected with the edge of the sink, and then he grabbed my shoulder, spun me around to face him, and hit me three times in the stomach with savage uppercuts. I fell back to my knees and gagged, choking back a rise of vomit in my throat. He kicked me in the head and pointed the Beretta at my chest as he stood over me.
“We do not have time to play games,” he said. “You will tell us where to find her, because I wish to kill you last.”
“I’m your favorite, eh?”
“Hold him,” Krashakov snapped, and Rakic and Malaknik stepped over, grabbed my arms, and moved me out of the kitchen and into the living room. Behind me, the door to the deck was still open, and cold air rushed in past my face as the wind picked up outside. Krashakov knelt beside me in the doorway, using his left hand to pin my right ankle to the ground. He pressed the muzzle of the Beretta against my kneecap.
“One chance,” he said. “Then this knee goes. You will get another chance, and then the other knee goes. After that, I will have to be more creative.” His voice was calm and uninterested, speaking in careful, stilted English.
I looked at the gun pressed to my knee. So much for my evening runs. I closed my eyes and saw Julie’s face and heard Betsy’s laugh. I would not give them up to these bastards. Not for one knee, or two knees. Not for one life.
I opened my eyes again, ready to tell Krashakov to hurry up and go to work, but he was jerked away from me as if someone had tossed a lasso around him and yanked him backward. He shouted and tried to bring the gun up, but it was knocked from his hand as Thor stepped inside the cottage from the deck and drove a Buck hunting knife deep into the front of Krashakov’s thigh. Krashakov started to scream, but Thor’s gloved hand was wrapped tightly around his throat. His other hand was pointing a gun at Rakic. Behind him, Alexander stood calmly, pointing a Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifle at Rakic and Malaknik.
Kinkaid lurched up on his hands and knees behind us, still groggy. He looked at the hunting knife protruding from Krashakov’s thigh, said, “Oh, holy shit,” and fell back to the floor, covering his head with his hands.
“Let him go,” Alexander said. Rakic and Malaknik released me and stepped away slowly. Krashakov had been fighting against Thor’s grip but without success. Thor stood calmly, oblivious to the power of the man struggling against him. His handhold on Krashakov’s throat cut off the man’s air supply, and after a few seconds Krashakov went limp and slid to the ground, unconscious. Thor let him drop.
“Dainius would like to see you, gentlemen,” Thor said to Rakic and Malaknik. “We will take your car.”
Rakic started to mumble something, but Alexander stepped over to him and struck him repeatedly with the butt of the AK-47, driving him to the ground. Then he took the weapons from both Rakic and Malaknik and ordered them outside. I slid onto the deck and watched as Thor walked down the steps, dragging Krashakov behind him with one arm casually wrapped around the other man’s throat. When he reached the drive, he opened the rear door of the Navigator and shoved Krashakov’s bloody body inside. He reached inside, withdrew his hunting knife, and carefully used Krashakov’s pants to wipe the blood from the blade. Then he stepped over to the cowering Malaknik, who was waiting at the base of the steps, and hit him once in the jaw. Malaknik crumpled as if someone had dropped a Honda on him. Thor picked him up as if he were a small child and tossed him into the car on top of Krashakov. Alexander hit Rakic in the back of the head with the assault rifle and dumped him in beside them, then dug a set of car keys from one of their pockets and closed the doors.
Thor turned to me and fixed his glacier-ice eyes on mine. I was still sitting on the steps of the deck.
“You were looking for them, and they were looking for me,” I said.
He nodded once.
“Good timing,” I said.
He nodded again, then walked past me and back into the cottage. I followed. He gazed around the living room and pointed at Kinkaid, who was still lying on the floor with his hands over his head. A wet stain had spread across the back of his pants.
“Do you want him?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Fine. Understand that you never saw this. You never saw us.” I nodded. “I understand.”
He looked at Kinkaid. “Make sure he understands it as well.”
“He won’t be hard to convince.”
“No, it does not appear that he will be.”
He turned on his heel and walked back out onto the deck and down the steps. Rakic was already inside the Navigator. Thor opened the driver’s door but didn’t get inside. I thought about asking where they had come from, but that was only going to be answered with a cold, empty smile, so I let it go. They must have left their car at the top of the drive so as not to tip Krashakov off to his followers.
Thor was still standing with the driver’s door open. “Dainius sends his thanks for your help in resolving this matter. If someday you should need his help, he hopes you will not hesitate to seek it.”
“All right.”
He started to get in the car, then leaned back and looked at me again. “Dainius is a good man to find favor with.”
I thought of the hunting knife sinking into Krashakov’s thigh. “I believe it,” I said.
They were gone then. I stood and watched the Navigator pull up the drive and out of sight, and I tried not to wonder where it might be headed. Kinkaid was sitting on the deck now, and he looked ill. I walked up and knelt down beside him. Ten minutes earlier, I’d wanted to beat the shit out of him. Now I didn’t think I could lift a fist to anyone if I had to. I felt weary.
“Kinkaid,” I said, “those men would have killed you. They still may. You have worked against them, and they are not men to work against.”
He was breathing in ragged gasps. I stared at him and thought about Hartwick, about the fat, pale man, and about the gun that had been pressed to my kneecap. I thought about all of it, and I tried to come up with some more rage. I couldn’t.
“Go back to Sandusky, Kinkaid.”
I stood on the deck and waited until he had started his car with trembling hands and driven away. Then I went to get Julie and Betsy.
I went down to the crawl space and started to pull the panel away, then thought better of it and yelled out my name before I took a bullet in the chest.
They crawled out and into my arms, and they were both crying. I sat on the ground and held them as Betsy buried her face in my chest and Julie wiped at her eyes and tried to compose herself.
“What happened?” she said. “Oh, Lincoln. I was so scared. Where’d they go?”
“They left,” I said. “And they won’t be back. That’s all that matters.” I stroked Betsy’s soft hair with my hand and then gently tugged her face away from my shirt. “Hey, pal, relax. Everything’s fine. You’re fine.”