Page 95 of Frozen Heart
69
RADIMIR
The panel closedand I was in blackness again. I wasted precious seconds getting my phone out and turning on the flashlight, then ran to the wall and felt the wall panel. It was smooth, painted metal like all the others: if I hadn’t seen it open for Spartak, I wouldn’t have even known itwasa door. I pushed on it like he did, but it refused to open: he must have locked it from the other side. My plan was falling apart: I hadn’t bet on him having a secret escape route. I’d glimpsed stairs behind the door, leading down. I had to get downstairs and find Bronwyn,now,or he’d escape with her and—my stomach flipped. I didn’t want to think about what he and his men would do to her.
First, though, I had another problem. The last of Spartak’s bodyguards had been fumbling with his phone, trying to get his flashlight on so he could see. But now I’d turnedmineon, he was going for his gun instead?—
There was no time to turn my flashlight off. I dodged, and covered my phone with my jacket, and we were in darkness again. A shot rang out and I felt a bullet hiss past me, horribly close.
I ran for where I thought the noise had come from, hoping to shoulder-charge him. But instead of whacking into him, I stumbled on and on...and then suddenly had to pull up short, arms windmilling, when I felt a breeze in front of me: I’d very nearly run straight out of the hole in the glass wall and gone plunging to my death. I stood there shaking and sweating for a second, trying to figure out where the bodyguard was. Then he slammed into my side, and we crashed to the floor together, rolling and struggling in total darkness.
Broken glass crunched under me. Then he punched me in the face, and I reeled, dazed. Another punch from the other side and now I was barely conscious: I couldn’t avoid them, couldn’t even see where they were coming from…
Bright white light suddenly washed across us. I could see the man straddling me as he looked up in surprise...and then there was a shot, and he fell backwards off me. Alexei stepped into view, just as coolly professional as I remembered him all those years ago.
I nodded my thanks, and something passed between us. My throat tightened, thinking of all the times I should have called him, over the last decade, all the times I could have made things right, and didn’t.
He reached down and offered his hand, and I took it gratefully. “He took her,” I told him as he hauled me to my feet. “Downstairs somewhere.”
Alexei stepped over to the hole in the glass wall and looked down at the scene below, shining the flashlight on his gun so we could see. It was total panic down there, hundreds of people, mostly drunk or on drugs, crushed together in total darkness. The stairs and balconies would be even worse. And Spartak’s men would be everywhere, looking for us. “Is not good,” Alexei summarized.
“I know,” I said softly. The plan had been to grab Bronwyn and run: we should be gone by now. “But we’ve got to find her.”
Alexei nodded and handed me a gun: a pistol with a flashlight attached, the same as his. I took a deep breath...and we set off into the darkness.
70
BRONWYN
The stairs were metal,like a fire escape, and only big enough for one person at a time. They were incredibly steep, too, almost a ladder. There was a handrail but with my hands cuffed behind my back, I couldn’t use it. One slip and I was going straight to the bottom, however far down that was. It was terrifying: I tried to go slow so I could keep my balance, but Spartak kept getting impatient and pushing me from behind, making my heart jump into my mouth as I stumbled and teetered. My legs were already worn out from climbing up to the top of the nightclub and after a few minutes of the downward climb, my joints were screaming.We have to reach the first floor soon.But we didn’t. The stairs went on and on until I could barely stand.
We finally emerged through a steel door...but not into the nightclub. I stopped and stared.
It was a hallway, the walls were bare brick and the floor concrete. There were lights overhead, but they were all off: the power was out down here, too. And for some reason, no one was using the flashlights on their phones. The only light came from a few security guys who were running around with flashlights. In the beams I saw people wearing one-piece disposable coveralls,hairnets and masks. Through a doorway, I could see what looked like a massive chemistry lab, with glass flasks bubbling over blue flames. And through other doorways I could see people standing at long conveyor belts scooping tinysomethingsinto bags. For one crazy moment, I thought we’d come out in a candy factory.
Then one of the workers pushed a trolley past me loaded with bags and I saw what they were full of: pills.Spartak’s drug factory.It was hidden beneath his nightclub: that’s why no one had ever found it. But...wait, Spartak had been dealing drugs for years. There were dozens of workers here: not one of them, in all that time, had ever let slip that this place existed?
A security guard ran past me and his flashlight lit up another room, just for a second. I saw bunk beds. And then it sank in that all the workers I was seeing were women, and they all looked terrified.They’re trafficked!Probably from Russia.That’s why they don’t have phones.I looked around in horror: we were in a cellar, no windows.Jesus Christ, how long is it since some of these women saw sunlight?
While I’d been gazing around, Spartak had been busy. He was rounding up the security guards, making sure they had guns and leading them towards a door. He’d looked terrified upstairs, when he’d faced Radimir one-on-one. But now he was surrounded by soldiers, he was back to his arrogant self. “You all come with me,” he told them.
“What about her?” one of the guards asked, nodding at me.
Spartak grabbed my wrist and pulled me down the hall to a storeroom full of barrels of chemicals. He opened my handcuffs for a second, then recuffed me with the chain around a pipe. “You stay down here,” he told Liliya, giving her a flashlight. “Keep an eye on her.” He turned to the posse of guards he’d assembled. “Tell the door staff not to let anyone leave. He can’t get out of the club. We’ll hunt him down!” And they set off down the hall.
Fuck.I wrenched at the handcuffs, but they didn’t give at all. My heart was hammering. Radimir would be searching for me, but he’d never find me, not down here. Spartak and his men would find him and then…
I pulled at the handcuffs again. “Come on,” I begged, my voice tight with panic. “Please!”
71
RADIMIR
“I don’t see her,”muttered Alexei.
We were on the second-floor balcony and it was a horror movie. The dark was making some people panic and they were running, tripping on the stairs and going down, and other people were tripping overthem.Then there were the people who thought the best idea was to sit down and huddle until the lights came back on. They blocked the balconies and caused more accidents. The nightclub had already been over-full when the lights went out and now everyone was trying to get downstairs, creating a crush. Alexei and I were having to shove our way through and use our guns to scare people back.
I looked down onto the first floor, sweeping my flashlight over the crowd.Jesus.It was a heaving, claustrophobic sea of scared people. The panic was spreading and any minute now, it would turn into a stampede. Plus, the first floor would be full of Spartak’s men. We’d managed to avoid them in the dark until now but that wouldn’t last.