James Patterson - Thriller - Stories to Keep You Up All Night

Bashkim tore at her underwear and rose up, wedging her legs open with his knee. A bloodlust burned in her. She'd get only one chance. The rock was in the air. Jane shoved her knee into his groin and screamed as she brought the rock down hard against the base of his skull.

He gasped, then was still. She rolled the inert body off of her, scrabbled up. Bashkim was unconscious. Bleeding. She looked at him and felt only a mounting need to zip up her jeans and flee.

She still held the rock, now slick with blood. Forcing her fingers to relinquish it took awhile. Jane panted shallowly, and the enormity of everything that had happened overwhelmed her. Leaning over a thornbush, she retched, cursing her weakness. She had to get to the border before night fell, stranding her. Already, the temperature was dropping. She knew the road below led to the frontier, but she had to stay out of sight. Prodding Bashkim's body with her hiking boot, she pulled out her passport, her money and his wallet. She also took a small black notebook with notations in Albanian and Arabic. Lastly she got the gun. She had never touched one before, but she knew they had safeties. She clicked it on and off a few times to familiarize herself with how it worked, then shoved the gun into her waistband. The cold metal felt reassuring against her skin. For two hours she marched uphill, crouching behind rocks whenever she heard a car. She didn't dare stop, terrified that her legs might lock up for good.

In the long gaps between vehicles, Jane kept her mind rigidly focused on the moment she'd hand the guard her passport and slip across to safety. She didn't see the olive-green truck that said STALIN until she was right above it, in full view of the road. The truck was parked and the young men from earlier were arrayed around, eating. Jane froze, then instinct kicked in and she darted off. With any luck they wouldn't follow. Instead, she heard excited voices, then the truck wheezing into reverse as it began backing up to a spot where it could turn off the highway and come after her.

Jane ran, adrenaline powering a burst of speed, her breath coming in great gulps of despair. She'd never outrace them. But she couldn't let them catch her. She'd seen the sporting look in their eyes, knew how the game would end. She had to hide before they came into view and hope they'd barrel past, consumed by the chase. She folded herself behind an insubstantial rock, praying the afternoon shadows would conceal her, and watched the truck bounce by just twenty feet away, ribald laughter erupting from within. Slipping from bush to rock, she followed them, until the truck turned and headed back to the road, figuring she had doubled back and they'd catch up with her before passport control. That meant she'd have to go cross-country. She was so weary but she forced herself to keep going. Another half mile and she reached the saddle between two summits. Below her stretched the water, dark and gloomy. Lake Ohrid. On the other side of the lake was Macedonia, and freedom.

She scanned the shore, looking for a boat, anything to carry her across. It was too far to swim. In the blue dusk, she made out a solitary figure mending a net. She heard the roar of the truck, the shouts of the Albanian men, and knew they had spotted her once more. But they'd have to follow the road's hairpin curves down to the lake, whereas she could plunge straight down the mountain. The lake stretched for miles, most of it unguarded. It was her only hope. She ran, dislodging avalanches of pebbles and dirt, sliding on her ass and once somersaulting head over heels to plow the ground with outstretched arms before righting herself and continuing her descent.

She could see the figure on the shore now. It was an old man. She felt the steel against her skin and knew she'd kill him if she had to. He watched her. As she drew closer, she saw a head of white hair, blackened teeth, a map of brown wrinkles. His face betrayed no surprise, as if deranged Western women tumbled down the mountain every day.

"Please," she said, sliding to a halt before him, scraped and bleeding. "You must take me across." She gestured to the other side of the lake. "I can pay. Valuta." She pulled out Bashkim's wallet, thrust greenbacks and euros and Albanian dinars at him.

"For you."

To her surprise, the fisherman shoved the money back at her. She panicked, screaming at him in fragments of four languages. Ignoring her, he shuffled to a bush and pulled out a rowboat that lay hidden underneath. An ancient, frayed rope lay curled inside. He began dragging it to the lake and she ran to help him, thanking him in every language she knew.

"But we must hurry," she said, looking over her shoulder to pantomime running and pursuers.

"Ska problema," the old man said. "No problem."

"Besa?" she asked. The besa was a solemn promise, or oath, handed down from feudal times. Albanians would die before violating a besa. But did the old ways still hold?

The Albanian side of the great lake was moving into twilight. The few houses clinging to the slopes had never known electricity. Across the water, the Yugoslav coastline sparkled in warm, inviting twinkles of red and yellow.

She helped him push off and scrambled in.

They were about a hundred yards out when the truck came bouncing across the side of the mountain, the men angry as a swarm of bees. Several had already loosened their clothing. They ran to the water's edge and waded in, firing. She and the old man ducked, bullets sizzling past, skimming the water. The old man grunted and kept rowing, the ropy muscles of his arms straining against his skin.

Jane had the gun ready, just in case, but the fisherman seemed oblivious to her, lulled by the repetitive strokes, the plash of the oars in water. The cries and shouts grew distant, then ceased altogether. The wind kicked up and she shivered. They were suspended in nothingness, floating between worlds. Then the lights began to draw nearer. She watched in greedy hunger as the resort hotels and vacation homes appeared in the twilit murk. Then she heard a scritch as the rowboat hit the pebbly bottom.

"Bravo Yugoslavia," the fisherman said. Again she tried to press money on him but he waved it away, then placed his hand over his heart. The besa fulfilled.

The old man helped her clamber into the icy, thigh-deep water. She waved goodbye and stepped onto the shingle, legs like jelly, and watched the rowboat already easing back into the inky depths. Then she hiked up to the nearest hotel, got herself a room and ordered cvapcici and rice from room service.

The knock, when it came, startled her.

"Who is it?" she called.

When a Slavic voice answered, she cracked the door and saw a waiter with a tray. She opened the door wider for the food and out stepped two men in windbreakers. Before Jane could slam the door shut, one of them had his foot inside. The other passed the waiter a bill. "Thanks. You can go now," the man said in American English.

They came inside and closed the door.

"You did very well, Jane," the first man said. "We were watching from this side, in case anyone made it across. You understand, of course, why we couldn't risk an incident in international waters."

"Who are you? How do you know my name?"

"It's safe to stop running now. Paul was online with us, right before the connection went dead. Why don't you tell us the whole story."

He turned to his companion. "Nick, please relieve Jane of her burden. It must have been so heavy. Where is it, Jane?"

But she had left the bags of white powder behind on a desolate Albanian mountainside, next to what she feared was a corpse. How could they be so stupid to think she'd cross an international border with millions of dollars' of heroin stuffed into a backpack?

Jane fingered the gun at her side and considered her options. She was a sensible girl. Not one of those high-strung ones that fell apart at the drop of a hat.