Plan B by Joseph Finder

Author:Joseph Finder
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-07-11T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

Benito had hired a private medical evacuation flight, an air ambulance run by a jet charter company in Barcelona. They made all the arrangements, preclearing passports with the Guardia Civil at El Prat Airport, in order to expedite matters. When there’s a medical emergency, the Guardia Civil can be extremely cooperative.

Benito helped us board the converted Learjet 35, which was equipped with a flight stretcher and IV equipment and was staffed by a small medical team, a paramedic and a nurse, even though I didn’t need them. The nurse, a young man, and the paramedic, a young woman, were both Spanish. Benito explained to them that I had the patient stabilized and would supervise her care. They seemed a little put off that their services weren’t required, but they obediently took seats in the aft section of the plane and watched sullenly, with nothing to do, clearly wishing they’d brought something to read or a Sudoku book or a deck of cards or something.

Benito gave me a quick embrace and a backslap. “You have my mobile number,” he said. “If you ever need my help again…”

I nodded and thanked him.

We were airborne twenty-five minutes later, en route to London. I sat next to the stretcher, where Svetlana was strapped in, face up. Her A-shirt had come up, exposing her belly, and I couldn’t help glancing.

What I saw sickened me.

Her abdomen was crisscrossed with raised red welts that looked like they’d been made by a rawhide whip or maybe an electrical cord. I could see that the long welts extended to her lower back, and probably to her buttocks as well.

She’d been beaten, savagely and repeatedly.

But the beatings weren’t recent. Some of the welts were deep red and had begun to fade. Some of them had turned into angry new scars. There were also bruises that had gone yellow and blue and purple, indicating that they were several days old, probably more than a week.

She’d barely been a prisoner at Soler’s house for forty-eight hours. These beatings had been administered long before that.

After a while Svetlana began to stir and make little noises. Her eyes came open briefly, then closed. Her face went through a series of expressions. She wrinkled her nose, frowned. Then she made a heaving, retching sound. I was there just in time with a kidney-shaped vomit bowl and a cool washcloth.

“Hey,” I said softly a few minutes later as I released her from the gurney’s restraining straps. “Feel any better?”

She sat up and glared at me. Her eyes looked a little out of focus.

“That’s probably just a reaction to the sedative,” I said. “I’m sorry we had to do that, but you weren’t exactly cooperating. You were scared. I can’t blame you.”

“Where…where am I?” she asked in English with a strong Ukrainian accent.

I told her my name again. “Your father hired me to get you out of Soler’s house.”

“You say you work for my…father?”

“I don’t work for him. I was hired by him to do this one job.

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