Golden Chariot Read online

  Tischenko pulled his knife from the sheath and touched the blade to her carotid artery.

  Charlotte tensed, waiting for him to cut her throat. Atakan’s words echoed in her mind. He likes a watery death. Tischenko would drown her, like Heather. That meant he intended on cutting her first, just not her throat. Charlotte closed her eyes and prayed to all the gods she’d die with the first slash.

  Tischenko moved the knife to her breast. He circled her areole with the blade tip.

  “If I cut this off, you will not die. If I cut your breasts off, you die, but it will be a slow death.”

  She refused to play along and turned her face. She wouldn’t show him how consumed with fear she was. Terror overpowered her. She began to shake. The tremors moved through her, too strong to control.

  He laughed and stood but didn’t put the knife away.

  “What music do you like?”

  The question was so out of left field, her mind went blank. She tried and couldn’t think of one group she liked. She struggled for an answer, somewhere in the recesses of her brain, she knew she had favorites. What were they?

  “Speak. You are no mouse.”

  “I...I...ah...”

  Think. She closed her eyes again and tried to remember what was on her iPod. “Cold Play, I like Cold Play and Collide and Enigma.”

  “All crap, except for Collide. I like their Chasing the Ghost album.”

  The same one she had on her iPod. Their mutual taste in music, however minimal, rattled her. If by a last minute miracle she lived, she’d delete Collide from her iPod straight away.

  The tip of the blade tickled the underside of her breast.

  Stall, play for time, anything to keep him from cutting your breasts off. “Who do you like?”

  “Jay-Z, Emigrate, and Metallica. Yes, yes, I know Metallica is ancient. I cannot help myself, I like them.”

  She’d heard of Jay-Z but not Emigrate. Everyone had heard of Metallica.

  “What’s your favorite song by Metallica?” she asked, to keep him talking.

  “Turn the Page.”

  Charlotte wasn’t a Metallica fan, but that song was the one she knew by the group and to her dismay, liked herself. “Are you kidding me? Turn the Page?”

  Tischenko ignored her question and walked over to a Sony CD player in a component stand in the corner of the room. He removed his gun belt with the auto. He rolled the leather belt neatly and laid it and the knife on a side table. He opened a cabinet above the player filled with CD’s. He spent no time searching for the one he wanted. He went straight to the third shelf, midsection. He removed whatever CD was in the first slot and inserted the new one.

  The first notes of Free Speech for the Dumb played. Charlotte was familiar with the Metallica song. Nick played it to death when it was initially released. The song was from Garage, Inc., a late nineties CD. The music took her back. She was a freshman at University of Chicago the year it came out. Nick was in his junior year and banged her history professor’s sexy, blonde aide. Charlotte threatened to kill him. Aides often graded the undergrads, like Charlotte’s essays. He knew that when he banged the aide, the idiot.

  I’ll never see Nick again.

  She pushed Nick from her mind and concentrated on the music. Turn the Page was the fourth cut. What would Tischenko do once the song ended?

  Painted scenes cleverly disguised two sets of double doors where he stood. The brass handles gave their true purpose away. One set depicted a common old world hunt scene, men on horseback chasing a frightened stag through the woods. David’s famous Leonidas at Thermopylae covered the other doors.

  She squinted as she eyed the second set of doors, thinking borderline hysteria had affected her vision. She was seeing right. Tischenko had replaced the Spartan king’s face of David’s creation with his own.

  Tischenko opened the hunt scene doors. From a cabinet behind them he took out a bottle of Putinka and a crystal glass. He filled the glass almost to the top.

  The hidden liquor cabinet crushed the hope she’d had that there was a way out through those doors. She assumed the second set concealed another storage unit. She glanced at the open windows with grim resignation.

  “Drink, if you like,” he said, sitting on the side of the bed again. He helped her to sit up enough to take a swallow without choking.

  She took several swallows. She’d drink the whole bottle, if he let her, to numb herself for what was in store.

  Tischenko moved to a chair across the room. Sinking into it, he closed his eyes, resting the vodka on his thigh.

  Charlotte lay still for a few minutes. Then, careful to make no noise, she wriggled her wrists. She tested the restraints to see if she could free one hand. The window was a desperate move, likely to fail. But, at this point, she had nothing to lose.

  “Stop. You cannot escape. Even if you could, the only way out is the window. The fall will break your ankles,” Tischenko said, without opening his eyes.

  He was right. It was useless to fight anymore. Charlotte stopped. She remained quiet, letting him have his moment of peace, hoping the inevitable wouldn’t happen.

  But, it did.

  Tischenko listened to the entire CD then got up and turned the player off. He came to the bed again, this time sitting farther down, near her hips. He brought the knife with him.

  “You thought I slept. You were wrong. I was thinking.” He ran the blade over her abdomen, from one hipbone to the other. “Your lover, Atakan, and I have crossed paths a number of times.”

  “He’s not my lover.”

  “Really?” Tischenko looked genuinely surprised. “Then he is stupider than I thought. No matter. I’m going to do something special to you. A message from me to him.”

  His face brightened as he talked. “When they find your body, Atakan will know I not only had you, but left my brand, M.T.”

  A new wave of terror had her begging.

  “Please, please, I’ll do anything you want. Anything. Please, I beg you, don’t brand me, please.”

  Tischenko’s dimples deepened with his laugh. “Of course, you’ll do anything I want. What sort of bargain is that? It is both ridiculous and insulting.”

  He jabbed the point of the blade into the flesh beneath her hipbone.

  “You think me so crude as to use a hot iron on you. Not my way. Besides, the smell of burning flesh offends me.”

  She didn’t dwell on how he knew the smell.

  “I prefer to carve my initials on you.”

  The shock of the pain didn’t register at first. A reprieve of a few seconds before the intense burn followed by an excruciating, sharp pain shot through her central nervous system.

  He sliced straight down then brought the tip to the top of the cut and piercing the skin again, he sliced down and to the right.

  The beginning of the M in Maksym.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Atakan’s eyes shot to the second floor. Charlotte’s scream traveled to where he, Iskender, Ates, Halim, and the Ukrainian police hid. He searched the open windows trying to pinpoint which window it came from.

  “She’s still alive,” Iskender said low.

  “For now.”

  Cengis and Erten manned the observation posts. Atakan positioned them in trees at the southwest and northeast corners of the compound. Each had an unobstructed view of the two sides.

  Atakan adjusted the bone mic on his helmet. “Update me, Cengis.”

  “They’re in no hurry. Fifteen minutes on the nose for the men to make one complete round of the interior perimeter.”

  Atakan pressed the button on his watch and checked the time on the luminous dial. “Cengis, Erten, regroup with us.

  “How many entrances?” he asked when the two joined them in the woods.

  “Only one that I saw,” Erten said, “the main entrance.”

  “Only one that I observed,” Cengis said, storing his night vision goggles. “In the rear.”

  Atakan turned to Halim who’d app
lied his camouflage paint in the van on the road to Tischenko’s. “Ready?”

  Halim nodded and removed the blocks of C-4 from his case. “I need a partner to assist.”

  Careful to keep the detonation cords straight, he stacked the explosive packs into two piles. Then, he filled the front pockets of his jacket with the blasting caps, initiator, and the double-sided tape.

  Cengis volunteered to assist. “Tell me what to do.”

  This was the first time Atakan was involved in a Ministry field operation that used explosives. He never thought the occasion would arise in their work. He had great respect for bomb experts. He listened closely as Halim explained the procedure.

  “We always have a backup breaching charge. You will place the secondary device.” Halim had Cengis hold two blocks of C-4 in his hands and demonstrated how to set the charge.

  “Stick the tape to the back side and then space the blocks evenly in a rectangular pattern. Tie them together with the attached cord, loop the ends and attach the blasting caps.

  “Questions?”

  “What about the tubing?” Cengis asked.

  “That’s my job. I’ll roll the tubing out and trigger the primer.”

  “Where do you want us when this thing goes off?” Atakan eyed what he judged an advantageous place. “The closer to the breach, the better.”

  “I understand your reasoning. But for your safety, you must position yourselves further down from the blast site.”

  “How far down? Can we at least sit at the base of the wall?”

  “Almost to the corners and no, you must leave a minimum space of a meter-and-a-half between you and the wall.”

  It wasn’t the answer he wanted but Atakan didn’t argue.

  Halim described the initial effects for them. “The debris blows inward, and then there’ll be a momentary funnel effect coming out. That is immediately followed by a strong shock wave which travels outward the length of the structure.”

  “How much time do you need?” Atakan asked.

  “Maybe as little as three minutes, five on the outside to set both the breach charges and run the spool.”

  Charlotte screamed again, fainter this time.

  “Make it three.”

  Halim nodded.

  “I’ll countdown from five seconds and signal you to go,” Atakan told him. “I’m setting the time from when his men round the northwest corner.”

  “The explosion should eliminate the perimeter men. If it doesn’t,” Atakan pointed to the two regional policemen, “you engage. Once you’ve neutralized them, remain outside and secure the area.”

  “After we’re through the breach, how do you want us to split up?” Demcuk asked.

  “We’ll all hit the rear. Inside, Ates, Iskender, you and I, will take the upstairs. The three of you,” he motioned to Halim, Cengis, and Erten go with Captain Mazur and clear the first floor.”

  Atakan turned to Erten. “Resume your position on the northeast corner. Stay on the ground. When you are able to see the exterior light at the opposite side lit tell me. The clock starts then.”

  The men crouched down parallel to the wall and put their safety goggles on and unslung their rifles except for Halim and Cengis. They squatted at the foot of the wall waiting for Atakan’s signal.

  Erten made a downward slicing gesture with his hand. Atakan began his countdown for Halim to see, five fingers, four, three, two, one, then he raised his closed fist.

  Halim and Cengis slapped the clay-like fracture charges in the rectangular pattern, quickly tied the detonation cords for all the packets together. “For a multiplier effect,” Halim had told Atakan.

  Halim unrolled the explosive tubing the fifty meters to the tree line and readied the primer.

  Atakan lit the dial on his watch, timing the moment when the perimeter men would pass.

  “Now,” he whispered into the bone mic to Halim.

  The second charge wasn’t needed. The first one blasted a section of the wall apart wide enough to drive the van through.

  Atakan expected exposed rebar to slow them entering the breach, but little protruded. For once, cheap Russian construction served a purpose.

  The regional police went first. One broke right, the other left to setup protective cover as the men came through the breach. Atakan ran past ignoring the muzzle flash from the ground. Behind him, there was a series of muffled rounds as a policeman killed Tischenko’s man who’d survived the blast.

  Yelling came from the house as they approached. Atakan fired a short burst of rounds into the lock, shattering the mechanism. He kicked the door and the team poured into a long hall and split again.

  Atakan took the stairs two at a time. On the first floor, long bursts of gunfire came from the rear of the house.

  On the second floor, Atakan, Iskender, and Demcuk worked together clearing the rooms finding no sign of Charlotte or Tischenko.

  Atakan started down the hall to a room with large, double doors. One of Tischenko’s men stepped into the corridor in front of him. Iskender and Atakan fired simultaneously.

  Shouts from the ground floor announced the second team had secured that level.

  Where was Tischenko?

  Atakan and Iskender kicked the double doors which had been dead bolted. No Tischenko. But, he’d found Charlotte. A blood trail ran from her hip to the bed, a circle of red staining the sheet.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Charlotte didn’t know who attacked Tischenko’s place. It sounded like a bomb went off close. A horrendous amount of gunfire followed on the heels of the explosion. Assault rifles from the quick bursts. Tischenko jumped up. Sheathing his knife, he ran to the window and swore. He hurried to the side table, grabbed his gun belt and left through the David doors.

  She didn’t understand the words the first two men yelled as they rushed into the bedroom and fanned out. The third man moved forward but said nothing. From their appearance, they were military. Their faces were heavily painted. Two wore the same black uniforms and one wore a similar uniform but with different insignias. They were geared up like a SWAT team or military special ops unit.

  Russians were the logical choice. Tischenko probably screwed Mother Russia over in some way. Now, they were coming after their old comrade.

  What about her? Naked and spread-eagled, she was helpless. She’d read the horror stories about the Russian army’s atrocities against women and children in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

  The lead man stared at her for a few heartbeats. He slung his rifle and pulled a knife from his boot and approached.

  She had her answer. What Tischenko did was nothing. The Russians had all the time in the world to hack at her. She yanked at the ropes. She twisted, her torso, hips and legs, lifting only the limited inches the restraints allowed. She sank down into the mattress and looked away. The bed dipped as he sat next to her. She felt his body heat and stiffened. She whimpered, anticipating the new pain. It was a pathetic, kicked puppy sound.

  “Charlotte.”

  She froze. Her imagination was playing tricks. Fear does that. She heard the voice she wished to hear.

  “Charlotte.”

  She turned to see the face that belonged to another’s voice. The man held the knife in his right hand and pushed his goggles onto his helmet with the left. His features were obscured behind green and brown paint, but she saw past the camouflage now.

  “Atakan?”

  “Who else?” he asked, cutting one wrist free, and then leaned across her to cut the other free.

  “I thought you were Russian.”

  “I won’t ask how you came to that deduction.”

  He cut the ropes from her ankles as the other two men moved to the foot of the bed.

  “Where is Tischenko?” the second man asked.

  “The wall paintings conceal hidden doors.” Charlotte sat up, hugged her knees to her chest and pointed. “I think he escaped to a basement level. I heard him hurrying down stairs. Be careful. He’s armed with an auto and a
knife.”

  They pivoted and locked onto the doors with the hunt scene.

  “Not those, the Hot Gates, the David copy,” Charlotte told the one with the same uniform as Atakan.

  “The Leonidas at Thermopylae?”

  He’d spoken with a Turkish accent. Charlotte guessed he worked for the Ministry like Atakan and knew the painting.

  He did a double take at Tischenko’s version of Leonidas as he rushed through the doors.

  “Who is he?”

  “Iskender, one of my unit in Istanbul.”

  Cengis and Halim entered the room with Mazur behind them. Atakan grabbed a blanket that had slid to the floor and covered Charlotte.

  “Follow Iskender and Demcuk, they’ve gone after Tischenko.” Atakan gestured to the open doors.

  Charlotte began to shake. She clutched the blanket’s satin binding and hung her head, ashamed at her lack of control. She tried to repress the reaction and compose herself, but the tremors wouldn’t stop.

  Atakan wrapped his arms around her. He didn’t speak. He just held her as she shook.

  “I’m sorry. I’m acting like a baby. It’s so stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid. You need to let the emotions out.

  “No. This is silly to be so upset. He’s gone. I’m safe now.”

  “Yes, you are safe. You are also still a crazy woman. Do American universities not teach psychology and human nature? Emotional trauma requires release. A sane woman would cry.”

  The shaking began to ease and Charlotte pulled back. “I don’t cry,” she said with as much authority as she could muster.

  Her hair was wet with perspiration and stuck to her cheeks and forehead. Atakan smoothed it from her face. “I know I’ll regret asking, but why?”

  “My mother always said, crying is only acceptable when you’re in terrible physical pain. Crying is for people who don’t have the ability to express themselves any other way.”

  His brows dipped into a slight frown. He looked like he wanted to comment, but he stayed quiet.