Chapter 43

  Annika could barely feel her leg that had been hit by the killer’s bullet. The tourniquet had stopped most of the blood flow, but she had no sensation in her leg as she tried to escape. As she reached the mouth of the cave again, she could see the searchlights from two helicopters, and her hopes soared. Maybe she would be rescued from this nightmare after all. Alexey and the killer were nowhere to be seen, so she started to make her way down the hill, thinking the killer had fled. She just hoped and prayed that Alexey was still alive. Cold and exhausted, Annika finally reached the spot where she was struck by the bullet, and she stopped to rest. Sitting down, she felt something hard across the back of her good leg. She reached down, and her hand touched the cold, hard steel of the Beretta. Her fingers wrapped around the pistol, and she brought it into her lap. She then slid across the ground a short distance until she came to rest against the trunk of an old tree and waited for help to arrive. She didn’t have to wait long. A short time later, she heard someone coming up the hill. Annika sat motionless and held her breath!

  *****

  Ivan was furious; he could hardly see out of his left eye, and he moved his front tooth forward and backward with his tongue until he couldn’t take it any longer. He finally reached into his mouth, pulled it out by the remaining strand of flesh that held it in place, and tossed it into the brush. His whole body ached, and now he just wanted to kill the girl and be done with it, and then he would make his escape. He longed to just sit down with a bottle of good vodka and forget this whole night ever happened. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. He was a survivor and would find a way out of this. He always did. The lighting was much closer now. The rain hadn’t started yet, but it wouldn’t be long.

  Ivan reached the spot where he had shot the whore, or at least he thought it was the spot, and he looked around for his Beretta. The darkness was intense now. However, some of the light from the approaching spotlights touched the edges of the abyss like an apparition in a window on a dark and stormy night. Then, a lightning bolt struck close by, eliminating the night as bright as day and chasing the darkness away. Seconds later, a loud clap of thunder shook the ground and reverberated up and down the river. It was close. As Ivan looked around in the lightning’s afterglow, he saw something that made him smile. The whore was sitting under the tree just a few yards away.

  Ivan knew she couldn’t run, so he approached her slowly and taunted her. “There you are… my little fucking bitch,” Ivan said longingly.

  “Now…you will feel my knife. But first, I will need to get close to your face to see your reaction when I stick the blade into your belly and open you up."

  Ivan was surprised she didn’t move and strangely made no sound. He slowly moved toward her, relishing the moment. Only a few steps away now. Then, another lightning flash filled the night sky pushing back the darkness once more. But what Ivan saw this time stopped him cold in his tracks. From only a few feet away, the bitch had his Beretta pointed straight at his face.

  *****

  Annika was gripped with fear when she first saw the killer in the light of the first lightning flash. She sat motionless against the tree trunk, hoping he wouldn’t see her and move on. Then he stopped, got down on his knees, and started to search the underbrush and grass for what she knew was now in her hands. There was another flash of lightning, and it was much closer this time. Annika’s hopes were soon dashed when the killer raised his head and spotted her. Their eyes locked for just an instant, and she could see his smile. His face seemed to be covered in blood. He looked like something out of a horror movie.

  In the darkness, Annika gripped the pistol with both hands and raised it off of her lap. She had only fired a gun once. It was a shotgun. Alexey had taken her hunting, and she shot at a bottle on a fencepost. Despite his warning, she still remembered how the shotgun almost knocked her to the ground after she pulled the trigger. Annika didn’t like guns, and the experience left her disliking guns even more. But now she was pointing a gun at something much bigger and extremely more dangerous than a bottle. She knew that most guns had a safety mechanism and prayed that the gun would fire. As he approached, her hands shook. Then it happened. Another lightning bolt lit up the night sky and illuminated the killer’s bloody face. She screamed, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger over and over again, feeling the gun jump back in her hands every time.

  *****

  There was a small muzzle flash and a sharp buzzing sound from the silenced Beretta, and Ivan still felt its stinging effects. The first slug tore through the top of his right ear, nearly taking it off, but the second and third missed entirely, with the slugs sailing harmlessly over his head. Ivan decided that discretion was the better part of valor and made a hasty retreat away from the scorned woman. He wasn’t going to stick around and take any more unpleasantries from the bitch and his Beretta. Several more lightning flashes later, Ivan scrambled up the hill and found the cave entrance purely by chance. A lightning flash illuminated the dark hole in the side of the cliff. After entering and traveling just a short distance, he turned around as Annika had done. He touched his ruined ear and vowed to kill both of the Czechs if he ever escaped the clutches of the police.

  Suddenly, he could hear men coming up the hill, and the searchlights from the choppers were now illuminating the cave entrance. He had no place to run or hide except for the cave itself. He didn’t mind the darkness. In prison, he was often locked in solitary confinement for various bad behaviors against other inmates and guards.

  Just before entering the cave, Ivan looked at the ground and found a long, narrow stick to use as a navigating device. He picked it up, broke it off at a more manageable length, and entered the cave. Ivans's progress was slowed by the uneven floor. He had only traveled twenty yards into the damp cave when any outside light disappeared, and he stood in complete darkness. He pulled out his cheap disposable cigarette lighter and spun the striker wheel. The small flame pushed back the darkness, although not far enough to fully reveal the size of the chamber he now stood in. He adjusted the flame higher, and it illuminated deeper into the cave.

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  The chamber was large and deep, with hundreds of stalactites that looked like dirty icicles hanging from the ceiling. Ivan walked further into the cave and looked at his surroundings while searching for a side tunnel. He passed numerous mounds that looked like giant ant hills but, in reality, were multi-colored stalagmites that had formed over thousands of years. He finally spotted a smaller side tunnel and entered it. The ceiling was much lower than the larger cavern, and he started to search for a hiding place. He stopped because something was sticking to the bottom of his shoes. He moved the lighter close to the ground and looked at the cave floor. There was something like mud on the ground, and it had a very nasty smell. A few seconds later, he knew the answer to its source. He put his lighter away, took out his Iridium Satellite phone, and powered it up. The glow from the screen was much brighter than the cigarette lighter, and he moved it in every direction, including up. Six feet above his head, the ceiling was literally covered with bats.

  Ivan hated rats. While at the boy’s prison, he would often wake up with them crawling over him while searching for food. Looking up, he saw these things as nothing more than flying rats. Now, he wished he had never entered the cave, but he had no choice. Then, as if things weren’t going bad enough, they suddenly got worse. All at once, as if in unison, they started to move out of the cave and into the night. Ivan was engulfed in a flurry of brown fir and leathery wings within seconds. He tried to cover his head with his arms but to no avail. The sheer number of bats forced him to the ground as he tried to escape the onslaught. Ivan finally crawled into a crevice in the wall where he was safe and waited for the flurry to subside. Ivan seethed as he looked at his clothes. He was covered from head to toe in bat guano from his dive to the cave floor in an attempt to escape the flying rodents. His ear hurt like hell, along with his mouth, nose, hip, and shoulder. He didn’t dare touch his ear or mouth because of the bat shit on his hands.

  Resting on the cave floor, he heard them coming. He couldn’t make out their words, but it was just a matter of time before they would find him. A few seconds later, he could see the light from their flashlights move along the cave walls like phantoms in the night. But armed men, not apparitions, were coming after him. Ivan powered up his satellite phone again and moved deeper into the cave. Then, his problems continued. After only traveling a short distance, his phone went dead. The battery was exhausted. He dug around in his pockets for his lighter, but it was nowhere to be found. He guessed it must have fallen out of his jacket pocket while trying to avoid the flying rats. Too tired to fight, and with only his knife as a weapon, he just sat down and waited for the inevitable. He would take his chances and hope for escape after he was treated for his wounds.

  Defeated and tired, Ivan longed for a bottle of vodka even though he knew the liquid would burn his ruined lip and mouth. He had been beaten before when he first entered the youth prison, although that was a long time ago. He had killed many men, women, and even some children since then. He had been in fights with every conceivable weapon a person could imagine and had always come out on the winning end. Not this time. He’d been beaten by a couple of teenagers.

  As Ivan was pondering this, when a flashlight hit him in the eyes.

  “Well, well…will you look at this sorry fucking mess? Don’t you fuckin move!” the voice said mockingly in Russian.

  *****

  Ivan was handcuffed and put in leg irons. He was escorted down the hill, where the two helicopters were waiting on the ground just off the river. He was hastily ushered past Alexey and Annika, who were embracing each other as a medic was attending to her leg. He didn’t even look their way.

  No one wanted to touch the prisoner due to his filthy condition and smell. He was placed in the Bell 412 on the seat opposite Jesse and Ken and shackled in. Ken and Jesse looked at the man who, by all accounts, was a very dangerous man. He was a sight to behold. His clothes were filthy. His ear was bleeding down the side of his head, and his hair was matted down with blood and bat guano. His lip was full of dried and fresh blood, as was his nose and left eye. He also appeared to be bleeding from the wounds in his shoulder and hip. And on top of all that, his front tooth was missing.

  "So this is the great Ivan Rakov, professional hit man, assassin, and raper of women and children. God, you look like and smell like shit. What, you couldn't handle a couple of teenagers? You must be slipping, Ivan. Are you getting too old for this kind of shit?" Ken said, mocking the man.

  Ivan had to learn English in his profession, and he understood every word.

  "Who the fuck are you…you prick, fucking asshole?" Ivan's words sounded slurred because of his missing tooth and swollen lips; however, Ken had no trouble understanding the deranged man.

  Ken got in his face and said, "I'm your worse fucking nightmare, you dumb fuckin Russian jerkoff."

  Ivan's response was to spit in Ken's face and accuse his mother of being a moral degenerate in Russian.

  Ken looked at Jesse and said, "Can I please?"

  Jesse put on a stern face and shook his head. "He's not our prisoner, Ken."

  Ivan now spit in Jesse's face and then started to laugh. "Whoever you are, you're both a couple of fuckin pussies."

  "Now, can I?" Ken asked again with a grin.

  Jesse looked into Ivan's eyes, and then slowly nodded his head.

  The response was quick and painful.

  Ken’s right fist caught Ivan coming forward, about to unleash another verbal tirade. The jackhammer punch from the former Golden Gloves light heavyweight was so quick that Ivan didn’t even see it coming. The blow caught him flush on the side of his face, and Ivan’s head was instantly filled with stars.

  “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but that is assault, and I am going to sue you, big black ass,” Ivan said as he spit out blood from his busted lip.

  Ken looked at Captain Gorvan, who had been watching with more than a little amusement. He smiled and said, “I didn’t see a thing.”

  *****

  Ivan was taken to a hospital and was treated for his wounds, and pumped full of antibiotics to fight off infection. His clothes were incinerated.

  Waking up, he found himself shackled to the bed with an armed guard at the end of the room, sitting in a chair. The room was obviously intended for criminals. Iron bars covered the single small window. There was no television nor any pictures of any kind on the drab gray walls. He looked over at his bed stand and found nothing he could use as a weapon. He felt his face and found that his lip, nose, and eyebrow had been stitched up, and his ear was covered in a bandage. His mouth was so dry it felt like a parched wasteland. He reached for his water glass but found it only contained ice cubes with some water in the bottom. Pain shot through his lips when he placed it in his mouth. The small amount of water was not enough to quench his powerful thirst, but it was amazingly wonderful. He pulled out an ice cube and placed it into his mouth. This simple little cube had a calming effect that he couldn’t quite understand.

  The guard noticed him stirring and got up. He walked over to Ivan and whispered something in his good ear, then the guard placed a call from a disposable throwaway cell phone. It hurt for Ivan to smile, but he did despite the discomfort.