All three of these guys were yelling at someone just out of my view. I could barely discern the weak voice of what sounded like a seventy-five-year-old woman. A predicament had arisen. She was talking back at them, and things were getting extremely hostile. The old man shouted some foul words at her, then shouted something conclusive to his partners, then slapped the side of the van twice before scooting back over to kneel on my chest, holding a gun now, which he pushed against my temple.
“Keep your mouth shut,” he told me.
This was the first time in my life I’ve had a gun pointed at me. I became useless. Physically, mentally done. I knew—knew—I was going to die and it’d happen within a matter of seconds. I knew it. I could feel it. The back door opened up again and I could see the guy with the injured hand standing there—the fake cop—who the old man called Oleg. I couldn’t tell if he, Oleg, was getting cursed out by the old man or if he was just getting instructions but I soon understood that the three of them were yelling at a homeless lady. I could see her unwashed feet. She was sitting on the ground just outside the van, maybe directly in the way of their tires, and the guys were telling her to stop speaking. Oleg wanted to throw her into the water but the old man suggested something else and, whatever it was, the driver agreed to it, then Oleg agreed to it, then Oleg slapped the side of the van again twice, and I heard the old lady switch from arguing to pleading, to agonized begging, to outright screaming.
Horrific—you never forget the sound of desperation like that.
The van lurched forward several feet before Oleg slapped the side of the van again to have the driver shift to reverse and back up over the lady. They crushed her, the whole vehicle bumping up then bumping down, one, two, just like that. Then the back doors opened and they dragged me out and shoved me onto the pavement where I could see that the van had stopped on a narrow road underneath the main road, low down along the bank of the river.
“Take it,” the old man said to Oleg. “The photograph. Go.”
They were trying position me for a picture, wanting me to look like I was, what, maybe a hostage? I don’t know. They continued bickering about how to do whatever would come next, then abruptly stopped. I wasn’t sure why until we were all hearing it—a distant scooter was approaching us. I held my breath—Please, God, be a cop—Please be one—I’ll never think of them badly again—all of us going silent in anticipation, with me also starting to wonder if they were the type of people to kill cops. The scooter was just a regular scooter and sped by without slowing down, passing our van before disappearing around the bend. All that’d happened was they were delayed a half minute and I’d gotten a longer look at what part of the river this was. We were across from the backside of the Notre Dame—lit up from below, Gothic and imposing. These guys must’ve busted a padlock at a gate to get down here because no one else was around. With the scooter gone, they turned back to me. The old man then pressed the record button on his phone.
“Tell me what you saw.”
What? I stared up at him blankly.
He held it closer to me. “Talk for microphone. You say. Say!”
“. . . S-say?”
“Say what you are knowing.”
“I have . . . I have . . .” I was shaking. Hard. My eyes watering. These guys didn’t want anything from me. They just wanted me dead and this was the exit speech. “I have . . . I’m . . . I . . .”
“Finish him,” said Oleg. “He doesn’t know.”
The old man clicked the recorder off.
“Noooo!” I yelled.
The old man picked up a dirty piece of cloth from the ground and wrapped it around the muzzle of his revolver.
“Nooo!” I yelled out. “NOOOOO! NOOO! NOOOOO!”
He put the muzzle in my mouth.
“NNN—mmmmpppppphhhh.” I tried to fight it but the barrel’s invasion was merciless. All I could do was grab at it, grab at anything, and flail with Oleg quickly descending on me to lock up my arms in a bear hug from the side.
“Stay still,” said the old man.
“Now!” yelled Oleg.
My vision was flooded with tears so I couldn’t see well. Holding that gun away from me was all I knew in this world. Just keep that muzzle away from you no matter what. Oleg stood up and started kicking me in the ribs, once, twice, a third time, a fourth, while the old man tried to torque the gun back into the center of my mouth for a direct trajectory. I convulsed, trying to move away from them, turning myself down toward the concrete, pulling away as hard as I could.
Which was exactly what she needed.
Katarina.
Out of nowhere she marched up and decked the shit out of the driver. She’d come from the guy’s blindside and swung her motorcycle helmet at his head, swinging at the soft side of his skull so that upon contact, his legs buckled and dropped him straight to the ground. And she didn’t stop. Before his body even finished tumbling down, she straddled him, raised her helmet up high, then with both hands swung down on him full force into the center of his face. Shattering him. The guy didn’t even whimper—he went from squirming to zero. Inert. Gone. Instantly. And she was already coming for Oleg, who was now getting up. It was all that fast. Two and a half seconds had elapsed—maybe—since her arrival—it couldn’t have been more. She was dealing with Oleg while I still had the old man tangled up in a wrestling match for his revolver, soon believing that my fight-or-flight strength would overcome his aging musculature, yet this guy had fingers like granite, and instead of trying to pry me away, he began crushing my hands tighter inside his fiendish grip, mashing them against the metal of the muzzle, while, from my sideways view, I saw Oleg pick up a rock to square off with Katarina right before she swung her helmet at him. He dodged, then lunged for her, which led to their entanglement as they both fell to the pavement. Now the four of us were all on the ground going at it and I’d gained nothing on the old man.
At best, I was delaying him. His face eventually came to hover over mine menacingly. You could see that this guy didn’t care what would happen to him. He wanted me dead and had no concern for any damage he might incur. Marks, scars, fractures, torn flesh—he didn’t care. You couldn’t tell if he was wincing in pain or smiling. Both rows of his crooked, wet, gray teeth gleamed in the dark. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d leaned down and bitten me.
“POLICE!” I couldn’t think of the French word for help so I shouted for the cops. It took me all this time to think of doing it, which didn’t amount to much volume with the old man’s weight directly against my chest. Plus, nobody was around. The sun had set and the big van eclipsed us from anyone’s view. The random people on the far bank a quarter mile away could neither see us nor hear us. “POLICE!” I yelled again.
Oleg was strangling Katarina with his one good hand—his legs around hers in a scissor lock. It was ghastly what a real street fight looked like—hardly the dance of two Hollywood heroes taking turns punching. This was ugly, clumsy, sloppy, dirty, barbaric. Our sounds were inhuman.
Katarina’s body was losing vigor, losing leverage, until, abruptly, with no buildup, Oleg lost the battle.
Done.
His mouth slurped its last breath.
Just like that.
I couldn’t see how it happened. I’d seen no indication she’d even been gaining the upper hand on him, yet, bottom line, she choked him out before he choked her out, apparently outlasting him through sheer will. She quickly got up, grabbed her helmet, and walked over to us, to me, to the old man—who was totally unaware of her presence—and stoved the side of his head in, instantly rendering him unconsciousness as he slumped down directly on top of me.
Also done.
She took a moment to catch her breath, then knelt down near me. I could barely recognize her—every part of her skin had reddened—her veins pulsed—her hair was a wreck—knuckles scuffed—blood dripping, hands shaking, sweat and saliva gleaming everywhere. “Can you stand up?” she said.
I wasn’t able to speak. I was just . . . gawking at her.
“Can you stand up?” she said again. She reached down.
I wanted to tell her that if she was going to get me out of here with a torn-up back, the maximum effort I could make would be to take several steps and lie across the back of her scooter—wherever it was—assuming it was her that’d ridden by. But she wasn’t reaching for me. She was reaching for the old man.
“Can you?” she said.
She’d waited for him long enough in her opinion and grabbed him by the scruff and dragged his wobbly body toward the back of the van, where she started to load him in. I got up onto my hands and knees, semi-crawling to make my way over to her to help her shove the rest of him upward. It was a serious effort, but we finally got the guy in there, then she picked up her helmet and tossed it into the back, looking over at the other two guys, then looking over at me. “We won’t kill them here.”