He took a deep breath, running multiple scenarios through his head. They all ended the same way.
The Renault continued its relentless drive. They joined a highway. The weather worsened. Rain pelted the car. Streams of water ran down the windows. Windshield wipers swung rhythmically back and forth. The pain in Victor’s wrists intensified to a throbbing agony. The Israeli to his right continued to stare.
The woman in the passenger seat turned her head to look at him again.
‘By the way,’ she said, ‘thank you for the photograph. It’ll make a great souvenir. I look really good in it.’
Victor raised an eyebrow. ‘And they say the camera never lies.’
She smirked.
The driver said a word in Hebrew and the woman quickly turned back. She stiffened in her seat and said something. The driver nodded in response. Victor saw headlights approaching fast on the opposite lane. He immediately saw why it had caused a reaction. A police cruiser, lights flashing, siren’s wail beating back the sound of the weather, responding to a call.
The woman said something else, probably intended to calm herself as well as the two men. Victor inhaled and rocked his head from side to side to crack his neck. Ready.
He watched the woman’s head turn to the right to follow the car as it sped past. It was habit, human nature. Everyone looked when a cop car rolled by. Especially when there was something to hide.
The Israeli on the back seat looked too. Human nature. His gaze left Victor. Just for a second.
A second too long.
Victor leaned forward, raised his hands, hooked them over the driver’s head, and tugged them sharply back. The hard edge of the plastic strap dug into the bridge of the Israeli’s nose. Victor’s wrists covered his eyes.
The driver cried out in pain, surprise, and panic as he lost his vision. The Renault swerved as he took one hand off the wheel and pulled at Victor’s wrist. But Victor had two arms against one, leverage and the will to survive. He sawed the plastic strap deeper into the driver’s nose. Blood ran down his face.
The guy in the back and the woman in the passenger seat both yelled at Victor to let the driver go as they fought against the force of the swerving car. Victor, knees pressing into the seat and his wrists locked around the driver’s face, kept himself steady. They weren’t wearing seat belts either. He was.
Victor pulled backward harder, the plastic strap cutting deeper into the driver’s nose. The man yelled in pain and fear as his head was forced against the headrest. The Israeli in the back tried to keep the Beretta trained on Victor, but he wasn’t firing. Killing Victor was the last resort. He didn’t want to have to explain to his masters why their investigation had permanently ended, and with the car swerving, it wouldn’t take much to throw a shot off far enough to hit the driver instead.
The passenger turned in her seat. She had her own gun out and pointed at Victor. She had a better angle on him, but the swerving car was having more of an effect on her. She couldn’t keep still or her aim steady.
‘ Let go of him,’ she shouted. ‘ RIGHT NOW.’
Victor’s gaze flicked between her and the guy in the back. He felt the car slowing. Nails drew blood from his skin but he didn’t let go. The driver screamed in Hebrew. Horns sounded from other cars on the highway. They were nearing an exit. If the driver took it, they could stop the car. Then it was over. The driver couldn’t see, but one of the other two could call out instructions.
Victor wrenched his hands downward, shearing skin from the driver’s nose, hooking the plastic strap under his chin, and pulled them against his neck. Victor’s wrists pressed into the flesh either side of the driver’s throat. He choked.
The car swerved again. Harder. The woman fell across the stick shift. The guy in the back tilted Victor’s way, completely off balance. The Israeli reached out with his left hand, pressing his palm into the centre back seat to halt his fall before he got too close to Victor. Too late.
Victor released the driver, brought his hands back, grabbed hold of the Israeli’s wrist, wrenched him closer, let go, and smashed his right elbow into the guy’s face. Then twice more. The Israeli sagged on the seat, stunned and disorientated.
The passenger pulled herself back upright, swivelled her head in Victor’s direction. Her gun began to rise.
Victor grabbed the stunned Israeli’s right hand with his own two, heaved the arm up to tilt the Beretta in the correct direction as much as he could, and squeezed the guy’s finger down on to the trigger.
The suppressed clack was loud inside the car. The bullet caught the driver in the side of his ribcage, halfway between his armpit and hip. The car swerved again as the woman fired, throwing her aim. A hole blew through the back window. Pebbles of glass struck the back of Victor’s head. Wind and rain rushed inside.
The Renault careered into the other lane, hitting an SUV side-on. The force pushed Victor against the door to his left and he lost his grip on the Beretta. It dropped into the foot well behind the driver’s seat and between Victor’s feet. The dazed Israeli fell against him. Metal shrieked against metal. The driver groaned.
Horns blared. Other cars swerved out of the way. The woman grasped the wheel, one hand keeping the Renault from crashing while trying to retrieve her own gun, dropped in the impact, with the other. The guy in the back grabbed at Victor, who threw a sideways head butt into his already bloodied face, took hold of his jacket and shoved him between the front seats and into the woman.
Her hand was forced away from the wheel and the car swerved sharply. Tyres squealed against wet asphalt. Victor tried to grab the Beretta in the foot well but didn’t have the room with his legs in front of him and in the way. The driver slumped across the wheel, his weight turning it to the right this time. The woman seized the steering wheel again, this time with both hands, heaving it back to straighten the Renault out.
The Israeli between the seats twisted himself around and punched at Victor. The guy’s position was bad, and they didn’t connect with enough force to slow Victor down. He released the seat belt and drove his right elbow into his attacker’s stomach, then again, fingers locked together, left arm adding to the strength of the right. The Israeli gasped and doubled over. Victor hurled him on to the back seat, grabbed the driver’s headrest for support, swivelled in his seat, and kicked the Israeli in the neck while his head lolled back. Victor felt the larynx crush beneath his heel. The Israeli choked and grasped at his throat.
Without his legs in the way, Victor reached down into the foot well. The woman in the passenger seat saw what he was doing, let go of the steering wheel and scrambled for her own weapon lying between the slumped-over driver’s thighs.
Victor’s eyes locked with hers.
With no one holding the wheel, the Renault swerved erratically, causing the Beretta to slide around in the foot well, evading Victor’s stilted grasp. Rain lashed the back of his head. The woman pulled her gun out from between the driver’s legs as Victor felt cool metal in his fingers, grabbed the Beretta, lifted it up in both hands.
He watched as the woman brought her arms back to get the trajectory. She had to make half the distance he had.
He fired first, without aiming, squeezing the trigger rapidly, gun below seat level, angled upwards.
Nine millimetre bullets tore through the transmission box and the passenger seat and hit her in the thigh and hip. She screamed and flailed backward. Victor kept firing, increasing the angle, bloody bullet holes appearing in her stomach then chest. The gun fell from her fingers.
The car swerved right again. A horn blared. Victor saw oncoming headlights glimmering through the raindrops on the windshield. He swivelled back around and pushed his feet into the foot well. With his bound hands, he reached over his left shoulder and snatched the seat-belt buckle.
The sound of the horn’s continuous blaring and rubber screeching on wet asphalt filled Victor’s ears. He pulled the buckle across his torso. The lights glowed brighter, closer. He pushed the buckle into the clasp and heard it click in place.
The sudden collision sent Victor hurtling forward. The seat belt locked against him. The breath shot out from his lungs. His head smashed into the headrest. He heard metal screech and crumple. Glass shattered.
He fell back into the seat and grimaced. The driver lay limp against the steering wheel. The Israeli in the back had broken the passenger seat in the crash and lay slumped against it. He made slow, sucking breaths. Blood glistened across his face and streamed from his chin. The woman’s body was crushed beneath the seat. Her unblinking eyes stared at Victor.
He coughed and unfastened the seat belt. He used the Beretta to smash out the cracked window next to him, pulled himself through the opening and dropped down on to the cold and wet road surface.
He hauled himself to his feet and staggered away from the car. The Renault had crashed head-on into a
