The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [162]
What would Gunnar Gobb tell his guests in the morning, when all the damaged cars would be revealed? A plague of locusts perhaps . . .
she almost smiled at the thought.
Crouching by the rear wheel—petrol tank side—of the Mercedes, Stevie quickly drained the lighter fluid from two lighters into the balled-up fabric, then shoved it on the top of the wheel. She fired up the third of Henning’s lighters and set fire to the fabric. It burned slowly but steadily. Satisfied, she wriggled herself back to the parked Jaguar.
Suddenly it went quiet. The shooting had stopped. Stevie poked her head cautiously up over the bonnet and came face to face with one of Orlikov’s men. The man, with his boiled brown eyes, raised the tip of his gun and pointed it at Stevie’s forehead.
‘Ne dvygatsya.’
Stevie didn’t think she could have moved, even if she had wanted to. The grenade-launching Kalashnikov had snap-frozen her legs.
The man radioed in. ‘Got her.’
The hair rose on Stevie’s scalp. Got her? But they couldn’t have sent all these men after her, could they? What about Dragoman?
Then, to her horror, she saw the letters GROM under the man’s collar.
The Russian word for thunder, it also stood for the GROM Security Company, the Kremlin’s private army, manned by former KGB special forces soldiers of all kinds. They were a quasi-private organisation that served the federal government exclusively and were not bound by the constraints and laws of Russia’s official armed forces. They could be dispatched without the permission of the president.
GROM had been sent by the siloviki, there could be no doubt now. Stevie prayed Anya would have the sense to stay hidden where she was, and that Henning would stay with the girl. The order came back over the radio.
‘Kill her.’
Stevie had run out of time. Her eyes turned to the man’s gun.
On a Kalashnikov, the safety catch can’t be released while the finger is on the trigger. This meant a precious two seconds—finger off, release safety, reposition finger—before fire. Providing of course that the gunman has been trained to keep the safety on.
Stevie knew the PLO were, but Russian Spetsnaz—she could only hope.
Two seconds.
Her small body filled with adrenaline.
Before she could blink a huge ball of fire shot up into the night. The petrol tank, heated by the burning nurse’s uniform, had caught fire and the lovely Mercedes was incinerated in seconds.
Stevie crouched down then shot forward, her hands clenched in a double fist, straight for the assassin’s groin.
The man stumbled. Henning leapt from behind the car and grabbed him in a headlock, pulling him down. Stevie scrambled up and grabbed her knife, holding the point half a millimetre from the man’s right eye.
He was clearly shocked.
That was the beautiful advantage of being a girl, thought Stevie, no one ever expected you to fight so dirty.
Henning searched him quickly, taking away his other gun, his boot knife, his radio. In the man’s pocket he found a photo of Dragoman, and one of Stevie, taken in St Moritz.
‘It’s rather good, actually,’ he said, handing it over to her.
It had been taken in the Suvretta House, the day before the polo match—Stevie remembered, she had been wearing her pearl earrings.
There was a huge explosion in the west wing of the sanatorium and Stevie guessed Dragoman and his men were battling Orlikov there.
They had to move fast.
Henning raised his fist and elbowed the man hard and sharp in the temple. He crumpled and lost consciousness.
Stevie, rather stunned, stared up at Henning. ‘Since when do librarians punch like that?’
Henning fumbled with the car door. ‘Libraries these days are much more rowdy. Students are not what they used to be.’
Stevie scrutinised her friend for a moment, noting his bloodshot eyes. ‘How many vodkas did you drink with Heini, Henning?’
‘Enough that perhaps you should drive.’ He threw her the keys.
The three escapees leapt into the Jaguar and sped out.
‘Lucky you parked cavalry rules,’ said