City of Ice (40 page)

“Please,” she whimpered, her voice scarcely audible. “Don’t.”

She hadn’t eaten since lunch on the ship.

They’d left her alone in the dark for hours. Faint light leaked in where the pipes came through the bulkheads and across the ceiling. Enough for her to see the rat walk and sniff her. She remained there through the night, unable to sit, and in the morning the captain of the ship visited and she was weeping and she asked him, “Are they going to kill me?” and he waved his forefinger at her as if this was her fault, and he promised, “Not kill you on my ship,” and she did not know if this was good news or a death sentence. The captain seemed angry about it all. He led her to the latrine, but they came back afterward and he handcuffed her again.

That night the captain had her moved to a state-room, where she was locked in but not shackled, she could drink water, and the next day she promised not to make a scene and was driven from the docks in a BMW, through the security gate, and down the highway to a Hell’s Angels’ compound and fortress deep in the countryside known as the Eastern Townships.

They gave her an apartment of her own.

But they did not feed her that day either, and it was now the middle of the night.

The man she knew as Jean-Guy walked in and stood off to one side, apart from the others, as though he had some ceremony, a ritual, to perform there. He wasn’t wearing biker colors like the others. He never did. He was always a snappy dresser. He wore a beige suit and a salmon shirt. She glanced at the others, and they observed her without expression and their bellies hung out and their chains made noise when they shifted their weight and a few carried knives. They wore rings and medallions and tattoos and pieces of bone in their vests. Their hair was long and shaggy, their beards a
mess. The men looked at her with drippy eyes as if stoned and they reeked of gin and armpit stink and Jean-Guy crossed his hands like a funeral parlor director, in beige, and stood off to one side. He seemed to be waiting.

Under her breath, Julia implored, “Please, no.”

He came in then, the Czar. Impeccably attired, as if he used the same tailor Jean-Guy did, except that he wasn’t wearing a jacket. He had on a crisp white shirt and his trousers were pressed, she noticed that. He wore a black tie loosened at the collar. As when she’d first met him on the ship, before he’d handcuffed her to a pipe, Julia was struck by the hardness to his eyes, by the fullness of his lips. This time she also noticed how sharp were his cheekbones, and in this light his ears appeared to droop lower than normal. Perhaps it was the ears that made his whole head seem out of trim, odd. She figured he was in his mid- to late forties. The Czar picked up a chair from the modest dining set, and Julia feared he’d smash it over her head. She was flinching, edging down in the bed. Turning the chair around, the man sat in it backwards at the foot of the bed, resting his forearms and elbows on the ladder back.

She wanted to get a look at his eyes. She wanted to find a measure of humanity there.

“We call you the banker’s daughter. There must be joke about that.”

She edged up slightly under the covers, trying to get her body beneath her. She was fully clothed. “She was only a banker’s daughter.” Her voice trembled. She heard smelly fat men breathing as though standing upright was a strain for a few of them. “But all the men took a loan.”

“They told to me you had sense of humor.”

“Who noticed? Nobody I met—” She was trying to be brave here.

“Shut up. We are not this time having conversation.”

Julia froze on the bed, her heart erratic in her chest. She fought the impulse to beg. The tall man looked like he could crack her in two by thinking about it.

The Czar said, “You did good to us, Heather Bantry. Money your father moved is good money. Is most beautiful money, yes? Clean money. You impress me. Police no have power to move money like this.”

She covered her mouth with her hands and breathed heavily.

“The last days are hard on you. We need to know this thing. Is she soft like marshmallow? Or is she hard enough? What we do to you is not so bad. But we do to you worse than police do, worse than woman’s prison. You survive us. That’s good. That shows to me you are not marshmallow. How did you get so strong, Heather Bantry?”

She hardly had a voice. “I’m not so strong,” she protested. Selwyn had taught that she couldn’t be. Strength was suspicious.

“Do you know who is in room, Heather Bantry?” the Czar asked from his chair. “You are here with famous men called Filthy Few. You know why they called that?”

She shook her head no.

“These famous men, they go on television news. You should know them. They can to you be friends. Everyone he made his name killing some bastard for our business. What you think, Heather Bantry?”

She could not find her voice, her breath, a thought.

“I was told to me you got a mouth on you, yes? I want to hear what you say. Do you feel yourself honored, banker’s daughter, to be with famous men?”

Julia managed a squeak. She tried again. “Yes.”

“You should not sleep with clothes on. Take clothes off to me.”

Fear overwhelmed any notion of modesty. She undressed and felt dizzy and hardly realized what she was doing, out of touch with herself, each button a challenge.

“I like woman who strip slow,” the man in the chair said, and the others in the room laughed.

The Angels were enjoying this part.

“But I tell to you, I don’t have all night,” the man said.

“Please,” Julia pleaded.

“Shut up,” the Czar said. “Come. Hurry. We have seen before bodies.”

She undressed more quickly then, as though her fear had been grafted onto the task at hand. She was awkward on the bed and felt dizzy and the terror had entered her in a way that spared her panic, put her apart from herself, distant from anything that might transpire. When her clothes were off she pulled them back over herself to cover her nakedness and hid behind her knees.

A biker ripped her clothes away.

He felt through her garments, checking again for a wire that was not there.

The man stood and gazed upon her. He seemed remarkably tall as she looked up at him, fit and muscular, a welcome change from the big bellies in the room, and from this perspective she had a clear view of the scar that ran under his jaw. He lifted his chair again and this time moved it farther away from the bed and turned it around to face her. All his moves, she thought, were deft, controlled. “You to us have done good service. We wish to you be rewarded, Heather Bantry. Is that good news to you?”

She had to concentrate to nod. Her pulse beat at a ferocious pace.

“We use your father for us, yes? He is man with talent. Now it look like,” the man said with a shrug,
“you must remain yourself attached to your father. I talked to him. He is hopeless case. Always around and around in a circle in his head. Who can keep him straight? You, it seem like. So, banker’s daughter, you have talent too. That is good. We like this. You make your father like normal person.”

Just like Selwyn said.
“It’s no problem. I’ll work for you. It’s not a problem.”

“Yes, no,” the man said. “We demand somebody working for us to live to high standard, yes? You understand?”

Julia nodded.

“We ask to you initiation, Heather Bantry. This way, we are knowing you are one with us.”

She nodded again but did not comprehend.

“Good. What should I do to you? I could give you to Filthy Few.”

Julia whimpered, she couldn’t help herself.

“I agree. That hard on you. You might not survive. These men not gentle men. We want you in the end alive. We want to you be happy to us. We want also you to fear us, this be sure. You are afraid, banker’s daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Good. But not enough. I have your attention?”

“Yes.”

She did not know what she was answering to anymore.

“Pick her up. Bring her to me. I want her attention.”

The men grabbed her then, and Julia cried out in a staccato burst of screams followed by quick gasps as she was lifted from the bed, raised up in the arms of the men as a mere twig. Her hair was pulled back and she was bent forward, her legs and arms held by others and she was presented to the man in the chair spread-eagled above the floor, in flight, face downward, her
limbs wrenched, now motionless and silent and pulled taut.

They brought her body forward, above the man sitting in the chair.

He reached between her legs and pulled on her hair there.

Then they pulled her back. She could smell the Czar’s breath, his lips were that close to her, under her. “Now I have your attention, banker’s daughter? I not hurt you. We want to you be happy here. We your friends now. We protect you. Probably you marry one our boys. First you must fear us, banker’s daughter, you must understand we can to rip you apart, most painful way, deliver you to death so slow, with great screaming and much blood. Go against us, banker’s daughter, I see to it myself we tear your arms off one by one and you drink your own blood. That you can imagine, Heather? Imagine it. See yourself to drink blood that pours out of your arm we cut off. You go mad, Heather Bantry, from things we do to you, I see this happen, you go mad before you die, then you die and is not a merciful death. Some of these men, they prefer chain saw, is their favorite way. These men they
are
hell’s angels, Heather Bantry, they do their work with passion. They rip you apart so bad, so slow, they tear down your body so slow, Heather, you will die first from the madness they do.
Do you understand to me?
”

The shout hit her with the impact of a punch, and she collapsed inside herself, wildly trembling, and Julia felt vacant, hollow, as though her own self had fled and all that she was at that moment was skin and fright and the terror her bones knew suspended above the floor.

She was gasping for air.

“Hold her,” the man in the chair instructed, and he got up. Someone was knocking on the door.

The Angels tightened their hold on her body and pulled her head up and back, stretching her neck so that she stared at the ceiling, and they spread her limbs more obscenely apart so that she hovered, stomach-down, a skydiver in steep descent. Whispering drifted in from the hall, and she feared this too. Every sound shook her, and she could not regain herself.

The man returned. He sat in his chair again, the top of his forehead just under her face.

Waist-high above the floor, she was squirming in the arms of eight vile men.

“Put her down,” the tall Russian said.

The men who held her threw her over backwards onto the bed.

The ceiling flew by.

Julia bounced on the mattress.

The Czar was standing now, pacing.

“Go under blankets if you afraid be naked,” he said.

She took his words as being instruction and did so.

“Heather Bantry, no harm to you comes. No harm to your father also. But you working to us now, your old life is over. You be rich. You be happy. Never you cross us. You understand this?”

She nodded.

“Good. We having problems. Police try infiltrate our organization. This cannot be tolerate, not permit.”

The man removed his tie and began to unbutton his shirt. She believed he’d rape her and the others would too and the revulsion made her nauseous and she wanted to tell him,
My name is not Heather Bantry! I am not who I am! Let me go!
Her body involuntarily convulsed and stiffened, and the man displayed his chest.

“This is Eight-Pointed Star, Heather Bantry. Is emblem my organization.” Swirls of red and black ink. Snakes and daggers. Eight sharp points radiated from the center star tattoo on his left breast. His chest was
divided down the center by a surgical scar. “We now work with organizations throughout world, with the Angels in America and Scandinavia, in France and in Germany and the Netherlands.” His accent had vanished. He spoke perfect English. “We have our brother organizations around the world. This is the Eight-Pointed Star, Heather, symbol of the Russian Brotherhood, of our power and unity, and of the coming together of our Families and Brotherhoods. You will wear a tattoo like this. Without all the detail—you’re only a hang-around—but the Star will protect you. No Hell’s Angel will hurt you while you wear this Star. Half the world will fear you. You will wear this star upon your breast, Heather Bantry. I’ll arrange for the tattoo tonight. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Do you accept?”

Selwyn?
“Yes.”

“That is first part of your tribute to us. The second part is this. Anyone who comes into our organization now, who gets close to us, must do one thing no cop would ever do. You will do what we ask?”

She moved her eyes around the room. And nodded yes.

“You accept your initiation?”

She nodded.

“Good. A cop’s been causing us trouble. He’s to be dismissed. Jean-Guy is working on a present for this cop. He’s a master. He’ll train you how to plant the device, show you how to push the button. That can’t be so hard. This cop will be dismissed, and you’ll do the kill. Understand?”

She nodded.

“Accept?”

She nodded.

“Say it!”

“Yes,” Julia Murdick said.

“Will you kill the cop to us?” He reverted to his fake accent again.

“Yes.”

“Say it!”

“Yes,” she answered more loudly.

“Tell to me what you do, banker’s daughter. Tell to me!”

Her voice was faint, the room quiet to accommodate the sound.

“I will kill a cop for you,” she said.

“You bomb him? You explode him to bits?”

“I will bomb him. I will explode him to bits.”

“You’ll blow up his ass?”

“I’ll blow up his ass.”

“This is good. I want you to be one of us, Heather,” the man said. “I’m not from this country, but I respect the customs of every land. Where I live, where I come from, where I was trained, we do not blow people up just to kill them. But here it’s a custom of the Angels. We respect their customs, yes?”

“Yes.”

With a nod of his head he signaled the others out.