Private Moscow (Private 15)

They continued discussing Yana and speculating about her fight-fixing investigation. After forty minutes, they reached the MKAD, the outer beltway, and joined it heading west. The rush-hour traffic had eased up, but the highway was one of the main routes to the airport, and was always busy. The winter storm had only made things worse.

They turned off at junction 79, and drove along a narrow furrow that had been plowed between two cliffs of frozen snow to join the slip road.

Out of nowhere, a truck appeared alongside them, tearing through the snow, spraying it everywhere.

“Hold on,” Leonid said, the instant before the truck side-swiped them.

The Lada spun into the drift to their right and careened wildly out of control before coming to a sudden halt when it crashed into the metal safety barrier. The airbags popped and Dinara’s training kicked in.

Move, she thought, keep moving.

Everything was white, and her head was pounding, but she reached for the handle and pushed the door open. Her senses returned and she saw a gang of men in ski masks emerge from the back of the truck that had hit them. The men ran toward her, and one held a gun, but it wasn’t pointed at Dinara. She turned to see Leonid emerge from the battered driver’s side of the Lada, and realized he was the target. His head was bloody and he took two faltering steps before the masked gunman shot him three times in the chest.

Leonid fell back into the thick snowdrift and Dinara’s world spun as she registered the full horror of what was happening.

Gloved hands grabbed her and she tried to fight them off. As she struggled against the three men who were dragging her away, she caught the cuff of one of their gloves and saw a tattoo she recognized. It was a snake wrapped around a dagger, and she had last seen it on the wrist of one of the fighters who’d been sparring in the ring at Grom Boxing.

“Help! Help me!” Dinara shouted to the onlookers, who’d started to emerge from the line of cars backed up behind the crash.

The gunman brandished his pistol. “Stay back,” he yelled, and no one argued with him.

How had I not noticed the truck? Dinara asked herself as the strong men dragged her toward the waiting vehicle. The gunman jogged behind her, and she stared into his eyes, swearing they would witness her revenge.

CHAPTER 40

DINARA GLANCED OVER her shoulder to see a female driver yelling at other onlookers.

“Stop them! What’s the matter with you? Help her!”

“He’s got a gun,” a nearby motorist shouted back.

No one was going to help her and Dinara couldn’t blame them. There were two masked men waiting by the back of the truck and three hauling her toward them. There was a driver and an accomplice in the cab, and then there was the shooter, the man who’d killed Leonid. This was a formidable, organized group. If she was to escape, she would have to save herself.

Dinara lashed out, kicking the man immediately to her left. She caught him in the shin and he let go of her. She swung her fist at the man to her right, but he dodged it, and she heard rapid footsteps crunching in the snow, and felt the muzzle of a gun pressed against her temple.

“Be good,” the gunman said.

The man she’d kicked slapped her, and took hold of her arm. She looked at him defiantly, memorizing another set of eyes that would one day look upon her revenge.

The gunman took the muzzle away, and the men continued pulling her toward the truck. She wanted to scream with grief and anger, but she refused to give her assailants the satisfaction of seeing how much they’d hurt her, so she stayed grimly silent.

The gunshot shocked Dinara and startled the men holding her. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing when the gunman went down with a bullet wound in his leg. Then she looked round to see Leonid standing there, seemingly back from the dead, with gun drawn. Dinara was astonished, but this grim-faced Lazarus seemed unaffected by his journey to the other side, and carried on with his dirty work.

Leonid shot the man to Dinara’s left, and the bullet hit him in the leg, almost exactly where she’d kicked him. He fell away, moaning and clutching the wound. Another shot hit the man to her right in his left arm, and Dinara pulled free of him as he cried out in pain.

The gunman was hauling himself up, and Dinara lunged for him and wrestled him for his weapon. As they struggled, Leonid rushed over and delivered a heavy pistol blow to the head, knocking the gunman out cold.

Leonid grabbed Dinara. “Come on!”

They started running as one of the masked men retrieved the pistol from the unconscious gunman and opened fire. The bullets hit the wreckage of Leonid’s Lada as he and Dinara dashed behind it.

“Keep going,” Leonid said, dragging Dinara on toward the safety barrier.

They jumped the metal rail, sailed through the air and hit a steep snow-covered bank. Dinara couldn’t stop herself; she tumbled forward and rolled down the steep slope. She was dimly aware of a mass of arms and legs falling beside her.

Dizzy and disorientated, she finally came to a halt near a copse of trees and helped Leonid to his feet. They ran for cover as bullets chewed the trunks of the surrounding trees. They ducked behind a large elm and peered up at the slip road.

A couple of the masked men were eying the tree line.