The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(95)

They sat facing each other, each of them pointing a gun.

Eli smiled, breathing regularly now, his manner calm and focused. “Fooled you. You always were too soft, Motek.”

Yael stared at him for a moment, her mind racing. Eli was right about her being too soft. But not today. She softened her face, and her voice. “Were you serious?”

“About what?”

She put her pistol down on the car seat. “Having children,” she said, sliding closer.

Eli glanced at the weapon, and his hard face relaxed for a moment. “Yes. Especially after last Friday.” His gun moved, barely perceptibly, but downward. “Come home with me.”

Yael instantly grabbed the grip in one hand, the muzzle with other, and twisted the weapon sideways. With the gun now free of Eli’s hand she rammed the weapon upward into his jaw. He slumped backward.

She opened the car door and pushed Eli out. He crumpled on the ground near Michal. She retrieved the second plastic cuff from her boot and jumped out after him. She bound his hands together, laid him on his side, and bent over Michal. The Israeli woman was shivering, her face contorted in pain.

The bullet had clipped her thigh and passed through the flesh, as Yael had intended. The wound was seeping blood but no artery had been severed. Michal’s bag lay nearby, a small black nylon rucksack, which Yael knew would include a medical kit. She looked inside and found a field dressing and a bandage. She stood over Michal, holding the dressing. “I remember you.”

“And me you.” Michal’s eyes radiated hatred. “The golden girl. The magician.”

“That’s me. And you, the late entrant, a few years older than the rest of us. Determined to show that you could keep up. Do you want this?”

Michal nodded, her face rigid with pain.

“Phone,” said Yael.

“It’s gone. It must have fallen out in the car. Look for it there.”

Yael said nothing and turned on her heel. A black handset lay on the road, and she picked it up. It was narrow and heavy, a special model she knew was made by an Israeli manufacturer. Protected by a biometric lock, it could only be opened with a combination of a fingertip and an alphanumeric password.

She glanced at Eli, who was still semiconscious. She rifled through his clothes until she found her iPhone and his telephone, an identical model to Michal’s. Then she stood up and walked back to Michal, whose face was pale and covered with sweat. Yael handed Michal her phone.

“Unlock it,” Yael ordered.

“Do it yourself.”

Yael showed Michal the field dressing in the palm of her hand, turned, and started to walk away.

“OK, OK,” shouted Michal.

Michal placed her right index finger over a pad on the front of the phone and tapped out a six-digit code. The handset lit up. She gave it to Yael.

Yael dialed 112. “I wish to report a shooting. One person wounded, another unconscious. Where are we? Hold on, I can give you the exact GPS coordinates.” She read a series of numbers from the screen. “Thank you. We need an ambulance, urgently. Please hurry.”

She put the phone under the car’s right front wheel and kneeled down by Michal. Yael pressed the dressing against the wound, bound it tight in place with a bandage.

“Played for a fool for a decade,” said Michal, her face contorted with pain. “How does that feel?”

Yael smiled. Beyond Michal’s agony and fury there was something else in her eyes. “Not as bad as unrequited love. Sharing extreme danger, hotels, bathrooms, meals, almost everything a couple does, except one thing. The thing you wanted most of all.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yes,” said Yael. “He did. And very well.”

Yael stood up. She placed Eli’s phone under the left front wheel and got into the driver’s seat. She looked in the side mirror. Eli was stirring, but there was no need to run him over. Just a quick back and forth across his feet, and Michal’s, would ensure that they would not be able to come after her for a long time.

Assuming that the car still worked. The vehicle had slowed right down by the time it hit the tree. The front bumper was bent inward but seemed to have absorbed most of the impact.

Yael turned the ignition key. Nothing happened. She tried several times more and eventually the engine started. She slipped the car into gear. It jumped forward and there was a crunching noise. She felt the wheels jolt as they crushed the phones. She saw Eli again in the mirror. He was definitely waking up now, puzzled as to why he could not move properly. The crunching noise continued. Yael swallowed, took a deep breath, and put the car into reverse. As she touched her foot to the accelerator, the car flew backward. She stared at Eli in the mirror and the look of disbelief on his face as the car raced towards him. A couple of yards from Eli’s legs she touched the brakes, yanked the steering wheel and skidded around him. She rammed the gearshift into first, spun the steering round again, and drove away as fast as she could.

The crunching noise was getting louder. She glanced in the rearview mirror to see smoke trailing from the exhaust pipe. She switched the radio on. A male voice was reading what sounded like the news. She could not understand the sentences but could hear the words “Freshwater,” “Kermanzade,” “Fareed Hussein,” and “Bessastadir.” Then she heard her own name, several times. A siren wailed in the distance.