“No time!” Ace bellowed. “If we don’t stop his bleeding in the next five minutes, he’s dead!”
Ozzie didn’t argue, simply grabbed Rusty’s right arm and slung it over his shoulder while Ace did the same thing with Rusty’s left. Both men strained and groaned as they hauled Rusty to his feet.
“For the love of Captain Kirk, you’re one heavy sonofabitch, you know that?” Ozzie tried to insert a little levity into the situation.
“Always chose needs over wants,” Rusty said, or rather slurred. His tongue felt thick. He was pretty sure his eyes were open, but his vision had tunneled until all he could see were two pinpricks of light. “I mean, I wanted to look like a Calvin Klein underwear model. But I needed cheeseburgers.”
“This guy takes a bullet to his gut,” Ace muttered, “and suddenly he’s a stand-up comedian.”
When they took a step forward, Rusty knew he couldn’t make it. The pain was too intense, and every second that he fought unconsciousness only prolonged his misery. Figuring he’d said all he needed to say, figuring he’d ended his life on a good note, he fell into the waiting arms of oblivion.
Chapter 26
Chisinau, Moldova
“Turn ’round! Take that side road!” Grafton slapped the back of Richie’s seat when the small receiver in his hand let out a weak, sick-sounding beep. He immediately regretted the move when pain shot up the length of his arm.
He was fairly certain he’d cracked a knuckle when he punched the dumpster in the alleyway. And then he’d made his situation worse by keeping his hand balled into a fist all evening long. It was either that, or punch something else again.
And who could blame him? Even though Benton had called every hour on the hour to assure him that, according to the satellite readings, Sonya was still smack-dab in the center of Chisinau, and even though Grafton and Charles had had Richie zigzagging all over the godforsaken city in a methodical grid search, until this moment they hadn’t heard a single thing out of the receiver, and his rage and panic had been getting the better of him.
No…not panic. He never panicked. But in the elapsed time, his mind had conjured up a million things Angel and Sonya could be doing.
Had they found a way to ring up their old cronies inside the law enforcement or Intelligence communities to pass along what they knew about him? Had they been comparing notes so they could present their evidence as a united front?
Richie carefully pulled onto the shoulder of the road before engaging his hazard lights and slowly backing up. A lorry blew by, the driver laying on the horn and making Grafton’s already frayed nerves shred a little more.
Neither Sonya nor Angel have mobiles, he assured himself, going over the same lines of logic he’d been mulling for too many hours now. I took those from them. Of course, that doesn’t mean they haven’t purchased prepaid burners or found a pay phone or an internet café…
Still, it would be their word against his. And there was nothing, nothing to prove he’d ever been in Moldova. If he could find Angel and Sonya and do away with them, hide their bodies where they’d never be found, he could easily pay any number of people to swear he’d been in St. Ives this entire day and there’d be no one left alive who’d be willing to naysay him. Any evidence against him that Angel and Sonya might have passed along? Rubbish. Nothing but two disgraced people looking to bring a well-respected businessman to his knees because…
Because they were trying to extort money from me!
Yes! That was the piece of the puzzle he had been missing. That would be his explanation for anything Sonya or Angel said.
I can get out of this mess, he convinced himself. I just need to find that backstabbing bitch and that murderous bastard and—
Beep!
His thoughts cut off when the receiver in his hand came to life again. “Where does this road lead?” he asked Charles, who kept track of their search area by using a GPS app on his mobile.
“Here in a bit,” Charles said, studying the glowing screen, “the road forks. If we go left, we’ll end up at a church. Right and the road dead ends at some place called…” He scrunched up his face and sounded out the words like a primary school student first learning how to read. “Circul Arena Mica.”
In the hours Grafton had spent with Charles, he’d learned the man was far more brawn than brains. Typical for a bodyguard type, he supposed. But annoying, nonetheless. If it weren’t for Benton’s hourly phone calls, he might have died from conversational tedium.
Richie, though an excellent driver and a man Grafton had kept on his payroll for nearly fifteen years, wasn’t one for small talk. Probably due in no small part to Richie having worked for the Brindle crime family in London before coming to work for Grafton. The man knew the consequences of loose lips and, as such, appreciated the sound of silence.
“Take a left at the fork in the road,” Grafton told Richie.
“Why left?” Charles asked.
“Because you said the church is to the left. Maybe Angel thinks he’ll Quasimodo this thing.” At Charles’s stupefied expression, Grafton sighed. “Quasimodo was the Hunchback of Notre-Dame. He took sanctuary in a church to escape the townspeople who thought he was a monster.”
Charles blinked, trying and failing to make the connection. How trying. “Angel might be hiding out in the church while waiting for a way to escape the country.”
“Oh.” Charles nodded dumbly.
