Authors: Steve N. Lee
Tags: #Action Suspense Thriller
Tess slowly rubbed a hand back and forth over her lower jaw. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, he’s going to leave sometime, so we could just wait and see if he leads us to Cat.”
“Yeah, but if he’s parked nearby, we’ll lose him before we can get another taxi to follow him.”
“Er… we could… Hmm…” Elena scratched her head. “Well, we can’t call the police because he’ll just deny everything so…” She sighed. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. And it’s killing me because we’re so close now.”
“Don’t worry, we’re going to do something; I just have to figure out what.”
“But he could leave any minute.”
“I know.”
“So we have to do something now.”
“I know.”
“So what are we going to do?”
Tess snapped at her, “Elena, please. You have to let me think.”
With an anxious tone, the lady muttered something in Romanian. Tess appreciated that she was frantic over what might be happening to her daughter, but they didn’t have a choice but to wait – they’d get one shot at this, so they couldn’t afford to blow it.
Elena peeped over the top of the car again. “Oh God, he’s going to go. I know it. He’s going to go.” She looked down at Tess. “Please, Tess. We have to do something. Now.”
Yes, they did. But what?
While Nova Huta’s buildings were overwhelmingly gray in color and style, the area’s spacious tree-lined boulevards were a refreshing contrast to the Old Town’s claustrophobically narrow alleys.
In the sunshine on the other side of the street, Tess skulked along the street, shoulders slumped, head hung. She drew level with the man sitting on the bench, who appeared to be reading a newspaper. She didn’t even look at him, but kicked a pebble lying on the sidewalk. It skipped across the ground and into the gutter.
The man said something in Polish loud enough for her to hear.
Tess glanced over. The man looked in her direction, but she couldn’t see his eyes for his mirrored sunglasses.
With a welcoming smile and tone, he said something else.
“Sorry, I don’t speak Polish,” she said.
“You American?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I love American. Wonderful people. Very wonderful.”
Tess forced out a glum smile.
“Ohhh, but why such beautiful woman is having such sad face?”
“I, er, oh, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”
He folded his newspaper and put it on the bench beside him.
“No, no, no, matter does. Polish very warm people. We no like see sad face if we can help.”
Tess rubbed her jaw, as if deep in thought. After shrugging to herself, she shuffled closer, pushing out her chest as far as she could so her black T-shirt strained over her breasts. This was another reason she dreamed of having bigger boobs – a B cup was a nice handful for a man, but on the street, you couldn’t beat C cups for really grabbing a guy’s attention.
“I’ve had my purse stolen so I have no money to get back to Krakow and no money to call my friend to come get me. I don’t suppose you have a phone I could borrow, please? I promise I’ll pay for the call when my friend gets here.”
The man was looking for a target. There was no better way to snare him than to give him an easy one.
But would he bite? Or would he smell a proverbial rat?
“Oh, is horrible story. Horrible,” said the man, removing his sunglasses. “I apologize my country treat you so bad.” He beckoned her. “Come, of course my phone you use.”
Tess slumped with relief. “Oh, God, thank you. You’re my hero.”
He waved his hand at her. “Is nothing. Come.” He felt each of his suit pockets. “Now, where I put phone?”
Tess bounced over. “I can’t thank you enough for this. I thought I was going to be stuck here all night. Or have to walk back.”
“No, no, no. You no worry – Michal Burakowski here now. You safe.”
Michal, huh? Not Jacek. But they already knew the bad man was crafty – Blondie had told them his real name was not Jacek Grabowski. A string of aliases would be a very effective strategy to use for a criminal who wanted to work out in the open.
He pulled out a cheap-looking gray phone, exactly like the one Tess had found in the trash can outside the café.
He held out his phone. She reached to take it. But he withdrew it.
Putting his free hand to his mouth as if he’d just thought of something, he said, “Hmmm… You know, I must go Krakow today. Why I not go now and you come in my car?”
Tess made her eyes pop wider as if pleasantly surprised.
“Really?” she said. “Oh, wow, that would be great. Thank you. Er,
bardzo dziekuje
, Michal.”
“Ohhh, you speak Polish!” He grinned, wide-eyed with surprise and pleasure.
Tess looked away coyly. “Only a few words.”
“But with beautiful accent.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. Like someone from Warszawa. Er, how you say, Warsaw.”
“Really? Oh, wow.”
“So” – he held up his phone in one hand and car keys in the other – “you want call or you want drive?”
“You’re sure it isn’t any trouble to drive to Krakow?”
“Trouble? What trouble? What better than to be drive with beautiful woman on beautiful day?”
“Ohhh, you’re so nice.”
He stood and gestured to his left. “Then we go. Come.”
As they walked along the street, he told her about Nova Huta’s enormous steel mill, which had once been the biggest in the world. She didn’t know if that was true, but he knew how to tell a tale. She studied him. He was polite, charming, and handsome. Could he really be the evil monster she was hunting?
Some of her targets in Shanghai had outwardly appeared to be perfect gentlemen leading perfect lives. But there, she’d had time and resources to ensure she made the right decision about what to do with them. Here? She had nothing but the clawing image of the hell Cat was living.
Waltzing along, he pointed to a covered alley, a tunnel running straight through the apartment building to the other side.
“Here my car.”
Parked in the shade was a black car, the badge on the hood was the unmistakable upside-down Y in a circle – a Mercedes. She checked the license plate. Sure enough, it contained a two and a five, just as Blondie had said the bad man’s car did.
“Whoa!” Tess stopped dead in her tracks as if surprised. She pointed at the vehicle and grinned at him. “Now that’s a car.”
Okay, this guy was called Michal, whereas the one who had taken Catalina called himself Jacek, but whatever his name was, he looked like the man they were hunting and had the same make of car. Was he the guy?
Admiring the car, Tess meandered around to the rear and saw the model number on the trunk: SL500. It was the make, model and color of the one Blondie had said the bad man drove, plus it had the right numerals on the plate.
He was the guy.
“You like cars?” he said.
“I like this one.”
She checked further up the secluded alley. Deserted.
She glanced behind her. No one passed by on the main street.
This was going to be the best chance she was going to get.
Sensing the impending conflict, her body reacted on autopilot. Adrenaline surged through her, filling her with so much energy she almost shook trying to restrain it, while her heart pounded like a Kodo drummer on speed.
It was always the same. No matter how many combat situations she faced, it never got any easier. In quieter moments, she prayed it never would because if it ever did, she’d have lost that one shred of humanity that kept her from turning into one of the very monsters she hunted.
It was time. Time to flip the switch.
She gasped and clutched her mouth. “Oh, no.”
“Is problem?”
“There’s a big scratch?”
“Scratch?” He marched toward her, frowning. “What scratch?”
Tess pulled her armored gloves out from the back of her belt and slipped them on.
As Michal marched around the back of the car, Tess pointed to a spot low down below the right-hand rear light. “Here. It looks bad.”
Michal muttered something in Polish and stooped to look.
“Where? I don’t see scratch.”
“Here.” She pointed again.
Michal bent right over to look. Tess grabbed his head and slammed it into the trunk with a loud thunk.
He automatically flung his arms up to protect himself.
She hammered her elbow down in between his shoulder blades. He exhaled with a loud wheeze as the air was knocked out of him.
Without pausing, Tess slammed her knee up into his face, then grabbed one of his hands, and yanked it up and twisted it around into a simple wristlock. She rammed him down over the trunk of his car.
He squirmed. Groaned. But was caught fast.
“Where is Catalina Petrescu?” Tess asked.
He shouted something in Polish. From his tone, she could tell it wasn’t the answer to her question.
Tess levered the wristlock harder.
Grunting, Michal grimaced, his face squashed against the car’s body. Blood smeared across the paint from his broken nose.
“You’re going to tell me,” she said. “I don’t care if I have to break—”
Singing drifted up the alley. A child’s singing.
She glanced around.
A little girl with long brown hair in two pigtails skipped alongside the car. When she saw Michal’s bloody face, she froze, her mouth agape.
He shouted something in Polish.
With a toss of her head, Tess gestured to the little girl for her to go the way she’d been heading. “Go.”
The girl just stood gawking.
Michal shouted something in Polish again.
“Go away,” Tess said with more urgency.
Still the girl remained frozen to the spot.
Twisting around, Tess shouted at the girl, “Run!”
The little girl screamed and then hightailed it down the alley shouting, “Tata! Tata! Tata!”
Tess turned her attention back to Michal, but because of the distraction of the girl, she’d unconsciously relaxed her hold on him.
As he wriggled to break free, she heard a telltale click as metal flicked into place.
He lunged at her with a switchblade.
She leapt back and the knife sliced harmlessly through the air.
When facing an armed attacker, if a person couldn’t flee outright, it was rarely wise to retreat as they’d gained nothing – the attacker was still able to attack and, having seen them retreat, had had their confidence boosted. However, when facing a blade, retreat could sometimes provide more counterattack options by increasing the number of angles from which a person could strike back.
Sensing he had the upper hand, Michal smirked. He slashed again. And again.
Each time, Tess shuffled back and let the knife slice nothing but air.
Because she was acting as bait, she’d had to remove her steel forearm guards, and no matter how slimline it was, she could never have looked alluring in her bulletproof vest. All she had now was her armored gloves. While they didn’t only have metal across the knuckles, but a strip down the side of the hand, plus a section across the palm, a wildly slashing blade was difficult to deflect using such tiny surface areas. No, it was best to bide her time.
There was one good thing about a confident opponent – with just a little extra boost, confidence quickly turned into overconfidence.
Michal glared at her. He felt his nose with his free hand, then looked at the blood on his fingers.
He sneered. “I going to cut you, bitch. Then I going to fuck you.”
He pretended to lunge at her and then laughed. He feigned stabbing low down. Then another slash high up. He laughed again, like a playground bully enjoying tormenting a younger, smaller child.
Yes, overconfidence was a skilled fighter’s best friend.
Michal stabbed at her stomach. It was sloppy, lacking the wild fury of his early attacks because he was so sure he could easily kill her.
Tess blocked his knife arm with her left forearm while her right hand darted at his throat. The arc between her thumb and forefinger smacked into his windpipe.
He gagged, his mouth dropping open and tongue distending.
Tess snaked her left hand between his knife arm and his body, levered that arm up, and clasped his shoulder – immobilizing him with an armlock.
Making him struggle for breath, Tess had shocked him out of attack mode and into survival mode. She easily swung him around and slammed him into the trunk of his car.
With his face squashed against the black metal, his breathing rasped. Blood ran down the trunk and over the Mercedes emblem.
With her free hand, she stripped the blade from his weakened grasp. She stabbed it into the top of the trunk. Left it standing there.