Jeff Abbott - The Last Minute

I wanted to say, I killed Vadim. I killed your people in Bucharest. I set your prisoners free. But I don’t, because I want him to treat me as he does every other woman.

He keeps the gun in my face as he kneels over me. I knew this could happen, I knew it, and I stamp down the terror that rises in me like fire. He unzips my leather pants and orders me to wriggle out of them or he’ll kill Nelly. I obey him and the fear is hot and heavy in my throat.

‘Get out of the jacket. The shirt. Naked, now, bitch.’

Shaking, I obey him. The tile floor is cold against my back.

‘Don’t, Yaakov,’ Nelly murmurs. ‘Please don’t hurt my sister.’

He leans over and he slaps her hard. ‘I’ll do what I like and you keep quiet or she’s dead.’

Nelly snuffles, mouths at me. I’m sorry.

Yaakov Zviman kicks out of his pants. He is a big man, at least 6 feet 2, meaty armed, legs thick from old work, a hard, flat stomach. On the lower part of his arm I see a weird tattoo: a sunburst in the heart of a stylized number nine.

He slips off his shorts.

I force myself not to close my eyes. I lie still.

He pushes the gun against my throat, surveys my body with a hunger uglier than lust. ‘You look better than your sister, whore. Do you know how much you’ll fetch in Dubai? Less because I might cut out your tongue. But still. A sister act.’

He puts one hand on my throat, the other down at his naked groin. He positions himself and slides into me – and screams, an incoherent shattering shriek of pure agony.

This is my revenge.

I did the unthinkable: I clutched his hips, twisting, and his scream rose beyond human hearing.

He writhed, trying to pull out of me and away from me and then froze, realizing that the horrific pain was only getting worse.

He dropped the gun, cringing like a kicked dog, trying to curl into a protective ball.

I shoved him free of me and he howled like a wounded beast. I felt blood – his – on my thighs. Hanging onto his penis, covering most of it, clutching at it, was a piece of rubber, blood now soaking its edges.

I slam a kick into his torn groin and he folds, sobbing, shattered by pain. I grab the gun and level it at him. My hand is steady.

I hear running footsteps. The Russian bodyguard, tearing down the hall toward me, drawing his gun. I have an advantage because the hallway narrows his options, but the advantage will be gone in six seconds and I aim and fire, like I’m aiming at the painted figures on burlap in the dusty air of the old winery. A triangle, like Ivan taught me. I hurt everywhere but my hand stays steady as a wooden beam.

The Russian crashes to the floor. He doesn’t move or groan or keep living.

Zviman sobs, in hysterics, and clutches at his torn genitals. He huddles against a wall. ‘Get it off me, how do I get it off me!’ he screams.

‘Nelly,’ I say calmly, ‘is anyone else here?’

Nelly stares at the wreck of Zviman. ‘No.’

‘Go get your clothes. Then go wait downstairs.’ I’m using big sister voice now, no argument. ‘You don’t need to see what happens next.’

Nelly stares at the blood-smeared floor, at Zviman, curled into a ball. ‘How did you?’

‘Just do as I say. Here. Take this.’ I hand her my gun. She stares at it and nods. She hurries down the stairs.

I stand above Zviman. Sweat pours around the blond strip of hair.

‘Look at me, garbage,’ I say, using his own words. I quickly get dressed.

I wait for him to look up into my face. ‘It’s an inverted rubber, lined with little serrated metal razors. They dig into the flesh and they don’t let go. I got the idea from reading about deterrents to rape in Africa. Some women in South Africa make these to scare off attackers, or to mark them forever. You find the most interesting things on the web, you know.’

He gasps, sobs. He apparently is done with calling me names.

‘Now, garbage. You want the razors out of you, yes?’

He makes a mewling noise.

‘I can remove it without further harm. Where’s your laptop?’

Zviman gags and points down the hall.

Gun on him, I force him to crawl down the hall and sit up into a chair. Blood and bile cover him.

‘Disobey me, and I’ll twist the knife, so to speak,’ I say.

‘Whatever you want. Please… please… ’ He can hardly speak the words.

‘I want your bank accounts,’ I say.

‘What? Why?’ The agony whittles his voice to little more than a whisper.

‘Restitution. Give me access to the accounts or I’ll twist the device and no doctor will be able to save your dick. Do we understand each other?’

He nods, disbelief and fury and agony all contorting his face.

I open a web browser and he murmurs the web address for a major Cayman Islands bank. He spits out his login and password and I type them.

He has several accounts. I open balances on each. One holds seven million American dollars. In another, nine hundred thousand. In another, two million. The accounts in the bank total close to fifteen million US dollars.

‘That’s all I’ve got, the rest of the money goes back into the business. Please get it off me. Get it off me!’

‘Don’t be such a crybaby.’ It’s what I used to say to the children who whined, a million years ago, when I was a teacher. I push him out of the chair and do an e-transfer of funds into my own Cayman account, set up last week. I learned how to do it on the web. The Caymans are eager for business. I have set up instructions for that money, once deposited, to be instantly wired into a second account in Switzerland.

He will never find that money.

But I turn off the laptop, quickly strip out the hard drive, put it into my pocket.

‘You’re just a thief,’ Zviman screams. ‘Take it off me!’

‘No. The women you’ve abused, they get this money. It can’t make up for what you did to them but at least you won’t have it.’ Then I lean close and spit in his eye.

He cringes, rage and agony alternating on his face. ‘You said you’d remove this… ’

‘So I did. Well, I’m not a doctor. The only way I know to get it off… is to yank.’ I reach for him.

‘ No! No! ’ he screams, wriggling away.

‘Fine, leave it on, it’s a nice accessory. I’m sure the doctor will have to talk to the police, what with you being an assault victim.’

‘My people will kill you for this.’ He points at the tattoo of the sun inside the nine; blood dots the colors. ‘They will kill you for this, they will kill you a thousand times, bitch. You’re stealing their money, too.’

‘I’m not sure you will still have people, if you can’t pay them.’

I wish I had a camera for the shock on his face. He realizes without his money, he has no power. No empire. Nothing. I’ve burned him to the ground, Sam, and I am going to dance in the ashes. I even know which dance I will do.

‘Let’s do the twist.’ I reach for the device. He screams again and lurches away. Blood leaks out of the contraption.

‘No power. No hope. Knowing you’ve lost everything.’ My voice is a steel whisper. ‘That’s how my sister and those women felt. Now that’s you.’

He makes a broken sound.

I stand. ‘You probably want to get to a hospital. You’ll need to get the barbs loose from the flesh. It’s going to take multiple surgeries. I’m not going to kill you. You alive and hurting and ruined is infinitely more interesting to me.’ My voice is taunting now. I’d hurt him, I’d hurt him so badly. Every day would be a pain. Just like mine had been since Vadim walked into my classroom with his horrible images.

Gunfire. A scream downstairs. Nelly.

I rush toward the sounds, Nelly screaming my name and then a slicing boom of gun-thunder.