In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(137)

He yanked his hand free and whacked her in the face with the hand that held the gun. “Snotty bitch,” he hissed. “You never learn.”

She reeled for a second, head ringing, but lunged to spit in his face as soon as she could see straight. He punched her in the belly.

She pitched off her chair and thudded to the floor on her side, gasping for air. Hazlett’s flushed face hung over hers, the sour tang of wine heavy on his breath. “We’re going for a drive. What Josef has in mind for you requires soundproof walls. Lucky you’re so tiny. You’ll fit perfectly in my rolling suitcase. Like a helpless little rag doll.”

She struggled frantically, kicking and flailing. Hazlett pinned her while Renato knelt down by her, grinning. He brandished a spray bottle.

“I love it when they go limp,” he said, with relish.

He squirted. She gasped, sputtered. His hideous face swelled like a balloon, distorting until it filled her entire field of vision.

Huge wings, beating. The harsh shriek of a raptor rending her ears, as it swooped down to rip and gouge and feed on fresh hot flesh.

And then, nothing.



The shotgun blast from the Saiga 12 that knocked out the lock on Pavel Cherchenko’s back door was deeply satisfying.

Sam swung open the ruined door. Grateful to the departed mafiya * Sveti had gut-shot yesterday for posthumously donating his shotgun and his sintered breaching rounds to the cause. Thank God he’d urged Sveti to take the new car. The old one was waiting for him, right where Sveti had left it, with its bloodstained arsenal still in the trunk. The shotgun really should have been part of the evidence collection.

Tough shit. He needed it more right now.

The house was dimly lit. No alarm went off, no one challenged him. He was almost disappointed. Putting a slug into someone’s chest would suit his mood. But the rats had abandoned the burning ship. After years in police work, he knew just how cruel people could be to one another, and it still chilled him to think of them leaving a kid locked in a basement to die alone in the dark. That was unfathomably cold.

He kept the gun at the ready as he kicked doors open, calling out, making lots of noise. He found a staircase leading down, and finally heard the kid’s muffled voice through the walls and doors.

“Here! I’m here!” Misha yelled.

At the foot of the stairs was a long corridor. The doors that opened off it led to storage rooms, a huge garage with multiple vehicles cloaked in canvas, and what appeared to be a data center full of computer equipment. At the end of the corridor was a door with a barred steel gate mounted on it. A jail cell for rebellious sons.

To think how he’d whined about his own tragic daddy issues.

“I’m here! In here!” The kid’s voice was high and trembling. The door rattled as he pounded on it.

“Stand back,” Sam instructed. “Way back. As far as you can.”

He heard scrambling footsteps. “I’m against the back wall now!”

Sam slid the last sintered metal breaching round into the shotgun, slid back the bolt. Boom.

There was a twisted hole where the lock had been. The door inside had a knob lock that yielded to a single violent kick, which ripped the stitches in his inner thigh. A flash of agony, and blood flowed, staining his pants. Fuck. Onward. He staggered forward into the dark hole.

The light did not go on when he flicked it. It was a storage closet, pitch-dark, with no ventilation. The stench of urine made his eyes water. What father would do this to his own child? It defied biology.

“Misha?” he called out.

The boy shuffled into the light, squinting. There were some bottles of water, a few packages of junk food lying on the floor. Nothing else.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “It’s Sam. It’s all right now.”

Misha covered his eyes with his arm to block out the light. “I did not think you would really come.” His voice quavered.

“Come on,” Sam urged. “We have to get out of here. Fast. Move it.”

Misha could not move faster than that dreamy shuffle. He flinched when Sam seized his upper arm. He was so thin. Nothing to him but bones and skin. As he lurched out into the corridor, Sam saw that he’d been badly beaten. Nose broken, both eyes blackened.

“Misha,” he said more gently. “You’ve been through hell and you’re all messed up, but I need your help, and I don’t have much time. Can you pull it together? Can you help me find that signal, for Sveti?”

Misha nodded. “I can do it,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll find her.”

“Then let’s get to it.” Sam got behind him, nudging him along.

Misha led the way, shaking off Sam’s helping hand.

“Where are we going?” Sam asked, as they climbed the stairs.

“My father’s study,” Misha said.

The study was a big, wood-paneled room with a huge desk of polished mahogany. A slim laptop sat upon it. Misha sat down in front of it and punched the keys, his pallid, discolored face eerily lit with the computer’s glow. His fingers were a chattering blur. Sam stared over his shoulder and ground his teeth, until he saw the map. An icon, blipping.

“She’s moving,” Misha said. “The Autostrada. Near Salerno.”

She could be in the trunk. Or joyriding with Hazlett in his f*cking Ferrari, scarf fluttering behind her, no clue about her mortal peril. “Here’s how this is going to work,” he told Misha. “Charge up that phone and sit down, because we’ll be on it nonstop until Sveti is with me. You don’t take your eye off that icon until I tell you that you can.”