Victor had no information as to where in Budapest he was supposed to meet the broker, so if the woman asked him where he wanted to go Muir’s deception would fail at this early stage. But she didn’t ask.
She wriggled against the beaded seat cover to get comfortable while she waited for the heat to warm her hands, then released the handbrake, put the Saab in gear, and pulled away from the kerb. She glanced at him in the rear view mirror.
The taxi driver’s licence that hung from the dashboard stated that her name was Varina Theodorakis. It was a Greek name. The photograph looked exactly like the woman driving.
They followed the airport road around the short stay car park and joined the main highway to the city. Ferenc Liszt was about sixteen kilometres from the city centre.
‘Where are we going?’ Victor asked in German.
She glanced at him again in the rear view mirror and shrugged and shook her head, not understanding him.
‘Where are we going?’ Victor asked in Hungarian.
She didn’t look at him. ‘Speak English?’
He nodded. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Don’t you know where?’
‘Why would I ask if I already knew?’
She tapped the screen of a cell phone sitting in a holder on the dash. ‘The address is in the satnav. I don’t know the area.’
‘Who supplied you with that address?’
She glanced at him in the rear view again and said, ‘The company.’
Victor nodded back, as if her answer explained everything he wanted to know.
The woman kept the Saab at a conservative speed. She passed some cars. Others passed her. She turned on the radio and cycled through several stations until she stopped at one playing seventies dance music. She increased the volume.
It was louder than Victor would have preferred and he did his best not to listen to any music composed after the end of the nineteenth century, but he didn’t comment. He ran through the little intel Muir had on Kooi and the even less intel she knew about the broker. One wrong assumption or one piece of missing information about either could give him away.
After fifteen minutes the driver indicated and slowed to take an exit. She fidgeted in her seat, briefly stretching her back and shifting position. The satellite navigation system on the phone supplied her with directions but the voice instructions had been disabled. Victor could see the phone over the woman’s shoulder, but didn’t have a clear enough view to see the directions. She occasionally glanced at him in the rear view but he pretended not to notice.
They drove along quiet urban roads that passed through rundown neighbourhoods. The sky above Budapest was cloudless but light pollution hid the stars, if not the half moon. The mix of commercial and residential buildings slowly faded into industrial complexes. Alongside the road were factories and warehouses.
Victor said, ‘Pull over here please.’
‘What?’ The driver decreased the radio’s volume.
‘Pull over here,’ Victor said again.
‘We’re almost there.’
‘I’m going to throw up. Stop the car.’
She glanced at him in the mirror, then pulled over and stopped alongside the kerb.
As soon as the handbrake had been applied, Victor reached forward with his left hand and thumbed the release of the driver’s seatbelt. It was a standard three-point Y shaped belt, and with no tension on the spring-loaded retractor, the strap whipped across her torso. Victor caught the clasp in the same hand when it was near her sternum, pulled it up while his right hand extended slack from the belt feeder, wrapped the diagonal strap around the woman’s throat, hooked the clasp around the horizontal strap to lock the noose in place, and let go with both hands.
The mechanism reeled in the unfastened belt and the remaining slack was gone in a split second. The looped straps immediately tightened around the woman’s throat, and her scream became a gasp as her airways constricted under the considerable pressure.
She panicked. It was almost impossible not to when being strangled. She thrashed and bucked in her seat, clawing and pulling at the belt around her neck, but the centrifugal clutch inside the reel did exactly what it was designed to do and locked the belt against the rapid and jerky movements. She was too terrified to act calmly, but managed to jam some fingers of her right hand between the belt and her neck while her left hand went for the gun at her waist in a pancake holster that had been hidden by her baggy shirt.