Authors: Steve N. Lee
Tags: #Action Suspense Thriller
As they ascended the stairs, a stench like a men’s locker room greeted Cat. At the top, a shaven-headed man lounged at a reception desk watching music videos on a laptop. Another man sprawled over a green sofa with a pizza box resting on his immense belly.
Anxious, but wanting to be friendly, Cat smiled. “Hello.”
No one replied.
Jacek guided her into a hallway where discolored paint peeled off the walls due to damp. Along either side were five treatment rooms. All the doors were closed except the two at the far end. Cat thanked God she wasn’t a patient here with such awful accommodation and unfriendly staff. Still, if you had an addiction, poor help was better than no help.
Whimpering came from behind the second door on the right, like a tiny girl crying herself to sleep. Except, the tone of voice suggested it was not a child. A junkie suffering withdrawals, maybe.
Jacek entered the last room on the left and flipped the light switch. Under a low wattage bulb, the room hung in gloom.
“So maybe you clean and if good, is job yours. Yes?”
Cat gawked at bedding so stained it looked like someone had emptied a pot of goulash over it, a sink caked in grime, and a carpet so dirty she couldn’t tell its original color.
“Great.” Nothing would stop her making the money to save her mom.
“Okay cokey. Then—”
A gruff voice thundered down the hall.
“Oh, is Artur, big boss,” said Jacek. “I must to go.”
He left, shutting the door behind him.
Cat heaved a breath. She’d wanted work, but so much of it? She tramped to the closet to look for cleaning supplies, but it was empty. Neither were there any under the sink or the bed. Okay, she’d ask Jacek.
She marched to the door and reached to open it, but stopped dead.
There was no handle.
She checked the floor to see if it had dropped off. No. What the…?
Clawing her fingertips into the tiny gap between the door and the frame, she pulled. The door didn’t budge.
She braced herself. Heaved.
Her right index fingernail broke low down. She cursed, then sucked her fingertip.
Now what? She’d feel like a fool if she called for help only to find there was a knack to opening the door she’d been too stupid to spot.
She heaved again.
It was shut tight.
She knocked on the door. “Jacek, I’m sorry, but the door is stuck.”
No answer.
Okay, this was getting a little weird now. She glanced around at the room. The hairs stood on the back of her neck at being trapped in here much longer.
“Jacek.” She called louder. “Jacek, I’m stuck.”
Nothing.
Her heart pounded and she felt giddy as adrenaline surged through her body. She wanted to get out of here. She needed to get out of here.
Cat hammered her fist on the door. “Jacek!”
Even if he’d left, there were at least two other men. Why was no one helping?
She banged harder. Shouted louder. “Help. Please. Help.”
Finally, footsteps pounded down the hall. A gruff voice muttered in Polish.
She heard the handle at the other side turn. The door swung open.
A stocky man glowered at her. With wiry red hair and stubble on a weather-beaten face, he looked like an old seadog.
It wasn’t her fault she’d gotten trapped, but if he was the ‘big boss’, she better apologize to ensure she kept this job.
“I’m very sorry, but the door—”
His fist smashed into her face.
She crashed over backwards, cracking her head against the floor.
On her back, she stared up. Tiny lights twinkled in her blurred vision.
For a moment, she couldn’t think where she was or what had happened. The lights faded and the place came into focus. She tried to push up, but her arms gave and she fell back. As if she was drunk, the room spun and sounds slurred.
Her head so fuzzy, like a bystander, she watched the shaven-headed guy and the one with the huge belly grab her by the arms. They hauled her up.
In Romanian, she said, “Thank you.” Unsteady on her feet, she clutched the two men holding her and said, “Sorry, I’ll be okay. Just give me a minute.”
They held her suspended. Seadog grabbed her chin and twisted her head about, studying her.
The fog in her mind started to clear. Someone had punched her. Why? She hadn’t locked the damned door.
Seadog said something in Polish, then mauled her left breast.
With her arms pinned, all she could do was twist to try to stop him.
He slammed a fist into her gut.
She slumped forward, wheezing. Pain exploded in her stomach as if she’d been shot.
What was happening? Why were they doing this? Questions whirled in her mind.
She stared at the door. The open door. Pushing with all the might in her legs and arms, she made a run for it.
But they had her fast and clawed her back.
Seadog barked more Polish. The men holding her threw her onto the bed. Shaven Head grabbed her wrists and stretched out her arms over her head; his friend grabbed her ankles and pulled her legs out straight.
She kicked. A foot cracked the fat guy in the face.
Seadog hammered his fist into her midriff again.
The strike knocked the wind out of her. Her mouth opened, her lungs strained, her body cried out for air, but she couldn’t breathe. A high-pitched croaking sound was all that came out.
Then she felt it. And knew her nightmare had only just begun.
Seadog’s hand disappeared under her skirt. He grabbed her underwear. Yanked. Threw the torn white cotton panties across the room.
Rough fingers prodded and poked.
She flinched as course hands scraped over her delicate flesh like sandpaper.
Finally, Cat gasped a great breath. Energy surged through her once more.
She squirmed.
Twisted.
Jerked.
Her voice breaking, she said, “No, please. Don’t. Please.”
But Seadog clasped his hand around her throat and squeezed.
Once again fighting for breath, she could hardly move.
He climbed on top of her.
Oh God, no. Please. No. This couldn’t be happening. No, this happened to other women. Not to her. Please God, not to her.
She couldn’t see what he was doing, but she knew from the way he was moving – unfastening his trousers.
Tears ran down the sides of Cat’s head while she gagged and spluttered for air.
His rough fingers poked at her crotch again. Then something else prodded there.
Her stomach churned, her innards heaving like someone had reached down her throat to drag them out. If she’d had anything to eat that day, she’d have hurled it all over herself.
She twisted her hips. Struggled to rip her arms free. Struggled to kick out. Struggled to break free. But she could barely move.
Then…
Oh, God, he was in her. He was in her. HE WAS IN HER!
In the bar, Tess cradled a bottle of beer while sitting with her back to the wall so she could see the restroom doors, and the front and rear exits. She’d picked up this awareness technique in Shanghai from Sergei, her ex-Spetsnaz lover, who’d taught her the finer points of handling a gun. He’d always insisted on sitting in a spot from where he could see everyone’s comings and goings so no one could sneak up on him. Awareness had become a key element in Tess’s combat strategies.
Sergei would’ve liked this bar – black wooden beams from a bygone age, a wall of majestic crests emblazoned with castles and lions and warriors, and ale strong enough to stand a spoon in. It was how she’d always pictured the Russian bars he reminisced about.
She took another sip of beer and watched a group of boisterous young men walk in. Automatically, she scanned each one, deciding how she’d put them down if she had cause to – break the fat one’s knee, gouge the small one’s eye, punch the tall one in the throat, and, hey what the hell, just go crazy and have fun with the last one.
Awareness again. When violence was such a big part of her life, she had to be constantly aware of her environment, and who and what filled it. Unless she’d lost interest in breathing.
But she hadn’t been looking for trouble tonight. No, all she’d wanted was a quiet drink at the end of a busy day. However, just because she wasn’t looking for trouble didn’t mean she wouldn’t find it. Especially when the couple next to her were just begging for it.
At the next table, a young couple coiled around each other like mating snakes. In between dental inspections with their tongues, they swigged the occasional mouthful of beer and chatted in English – he fluently; she with a struggle. Tess had singled them out the moment the guy had opened his mouth and spoken to his Polish girlfriend. Yes, they couldn’t have made better targets if they’d painted bull’s-eyes on their backs.
From Tess’s eavesdropping, she guessed he was early twenties, but because of his baby face, she’d bet he had to regularly produce ID in bars back home.
His girlfriend was even slimmer than Tess. Yet had bigger breasts. Much bigger. In fact, too big. In Tess’s vainer moments, she dreamed of going up a cup size to a C, but this girl? Hell, if Tess had boobs that size she’d marry the first chiropractor she came across.
The boyfriend stood up. “Come on.”
He pulled his girlfriend by the hand to drag her out of her seat, but she stayed put.
She spoke with an accent as thick as she was pretty, “One beer more.”
Her sentence sounded awkward and slow, as if the words really shouldn’t be anywhere near each other. It was always the same for Tess when she learned a new language – she always came off sounding like a broken robot. And it never got any easier, no matter how many languages she learned. Maybe if she did it for the love of learning, it would be different. But that wasn’t the case. She’d had no choice but to learn to talk to people in their own language. It was the only way to acquire the tools she needed to do what she had to do when she finally made it back to the States.
The boyfriend tried again. “Come on. We can come here again tomorrow.” He tugged gently on her arm.
“Is early.”
“It’s not. It’s nearly half-one.”
She shrugged as if she didn’t understand and said something in Polish.
He showed her his watch.
She threw her arms up. “Is very early.”
“Please.” The word was long and drawn out, like a little boy begging his mom for another cookie.
She rolled her eyes, but then smirked at him. “Okay.”
They meandered out arm-in-arm.
Tess waited a few moments, then followed.
The couple sauntered through the Old Town’s main square, the sheen of rainwater on the cobbles glistening with the reflection of the street lights. They laughed and spoke pidgin English, often using phrases out of context which obviously meant something special only to them.
Tess hung in the shadowy arches of the Cloth Hall’s colonnade. With her straight dark hair, black gloves, black jeans and black leather jacket, the darkness engulfed her with ease.
By day and well into the evening, the square pulsed with activity, most of it concentrated in the outdoor seating of the bars and restaurants that encircled the square and, to a lesser extent, around the Cloth Hall which sat in the square’s center, a colonnade of nineteen arches down each of its sides.
At this time of the night, most family-oriented establishments had closed for the day, while the bars hidden up alleyways and secreted in the backs of buildings blazed into life for the city’s party animals.
Tess waited. Her targets weren’t in the optimum position for a strike yet. Maybe they never would be. Unless the situation changed, she’d lurk out of sight. Hidden. A nobody. Doing nothing. Nowhere.
The couple ambled toward the end of the square, passing Saint Mary’s Church, its two giant towers gazing down on them like world-weary gods.
Tess slunk through the colonnade, shrouded in darkness.
As the couple neared a narrow street leading away from the square, they argued playfully over which country produced the best beer. The boyfriend insisted it was his because they had more variety, while the girlfriend insisted it was hers because theirs were stronger.
Tess slipped out of the arches and followed them down Florianska Street, clinging to the shadows.
The designer stores and global food chains lay deserted and darkened. Ahead loomed the thirty-three-meter Gothic tower that was Saint Florian’s Gate, guarding Krakow as part of the city walls as it had for centuries.
Carefree, the couple ambled down the sidewalk, while Tess lurked in the darkness in which she spent so much of her life. The couple seemed to be heading straight for the archway that sliced through the tower and led to the narrow park which surrounded the Old Town. But the archway didn’t only lead to the park…
The Barbican. A perfect location for an attack.