In the clutches of evil IV

IV.

After a while the black car drove up to their vicinity, stopped. The driver remains seated in the car, engine still running. Martin immediately gets out from behind the tree and crosses to the dirt road leading along the forest. He walks towards the car, with David just a few metres behind him. When they are almost there, the driver gets out and motions with his hand for them to hurry. "Let's go guys, there's no time. I don't think they know anything yet, but when it starts they will be closing the roads, we need to be at our destination as fast as possible" he speaks quickly while opening the back door of the car. David jumps in the back and Martin sits in the driver's seat. Once they are all inside, the driver quickly turns the car around and puts the accelerator on full. He pulls up to the main road, turns off and drives as fast as he can. Straight to Prague. It's a fairly quiet journey, no sign of anything out of the ordinary. The lights slice the pitch-black darkness ahead of him and he speeds on through the silent countryside. It's almost midnight when they reach the outskirts of Prague. They drive further into the centre, the night streets almost empty, a few drunks occasionally staggering along the pavements and outside the closing pubs. They come upon an old road paved with carriage heads. After a moment of rattling, the carriage stops in front of a grey, three-storey apartment block. The driver parks and gets out of the car. The two quickly follow him, not wasting a second on the street. They round the corner and come to number 18. There the driver stops, takes his keys out of his pocket and opens the front door of the house. He then turns on the lights in the hallway and they walk up the old stone stairs to the second floor, where he opens the door of one of the apartments for them. The three of them then enter and David immediately goes through the entire apartment to familiarize himself with everything that is here. No luxury, but it's basically everything they need. Two old recliners, a radio, a bathroom, towels, some hygiene items. And what's more, there's clothes of various sizes in the closet. When they look at them, the driver who brought them here notices. "Yeah, well, we didn't know exactly how big you were, so we grabbed what we could", he says. David shakes his head to indicate that he understands and closes the cupboard with a gentle motion. After all, if their clothes grossly mismatched and made them look like clowns, they might as well go check in at the nearest police station. This lot have thought of everything. "There's been enough men today. I'm going home. If anything, Martin already knows", says goodbye to the new acquaintance and stranger and leaves the apartment. David immediately locks the door behind him and throws himself on the valet. Martin snoops around in the kitchen for a while and then goes to bed too. They both fall asleep quickly.

The raindrops falling on the window sill wake David up and he looks out and realises that it is just dawn. The sun was just beginning to break through the morning sky and the rain outside has stopped. A sliver of a rainbow is visible through the nearest tall neighbouring houses. It could be a nice day, he thinks. Glancing at the alarm clock on the nightstand next to her bed, she realizes it's just after six. He admits he hasn't slept much. He looks at the bed next to him, where Martin is lying. The still silhouette under the blanket suggests that he is still asleep. He rolls onto his other side, but can't fall asleep. His mind is racing. He tries to work out for himself what the best course of action would be. What and how they should do today. His energy is running high, his emotions are driving him forward. The fear, the omnipresent danger, the strangers around him, it's all eating away at his nerves in such a way that it's hard to keep his cool. It never ceases to amaze him how well everything is going and how, thanks to Martin, their plan is going perfectly. At least so far. Fantasy. That's when they tell someone. Unbelievable. She thinks like that for a moment when she hears Martin turning over in bed. "Whoa," he yawns at the top of his lungs and swings his legs over the edge of the bed and onto the floor. "What about you? Are you not asleep?", he glances at David who is facing him, watching him. "No, I'm thinking. Any chance you can get weapons?", he fires directly at Martin. He's just washing his eyes when the words startle him and he stops immediately. "Well I guess not mate, I don't have that kind of knowledge again. Who would risk getting us guns now?", he gets out of bed and goes to the bathroom. "You know for the transition, I thought", David manages to quickly add before the door slams behind Martin. I guess this isn't going to work, he finally thinks to himself as he goes into the kitchen to find something to eat. After all, he's been hungry since yesterday. "Eggs, rolls, butter, what more could you ask for? Haha! I'll make scrambled eggs, what do you say?", he says to Martin, who has now, after spending some time in the other room, wandered into the kitchen. "If you're going to make them, why not", replies Martin, who hasn't quite woken up yet and sits down heavily on a chair. Yesterday was a hard day. David doesn't wait for anything and starts cutting onions. "This will be different from the one from the prison, you'll see", he smiles. Moments later, the smell of foaming butter and golden onions slowly begins to waft through the kitchen. The smell of home. This is what David always loved about weekend mornings. When he was still living with his parents, they had a scramble every Saturday and Sunday morning. My mom was the best at it. She was the best. With a freshly cut slice of bread and black tea with sugar. "Good morning, dear listeners. As they say, in a healthy body, a healthy spirit! And so if any of you decide to exercise by the open window, we'll play a nice song for you." The sound of the radio just switched on disturbs David from his contemplation. It is Martin who is trying to see if he can pick up any message that would alert him to their escape. He tunes from one station to another, but there is no word of anything. "I guess they don't want to let it out so people won't be scared," he sums up the situation in his own way as he sits down at the table for his already prepared breakfast. He takes a bagel and bites into it with gusto. "Hmmm, good for you, brother", he mouths David's culinary masterpiece and devours one spoonful of eggs after another.

When the last bite has passed in their guts, they go to the cupboard. They start picking out things that would fit. Eventually, everyone chooses their own. All in all, it's going well. No big deal, but that's not the point. It's about blending in, not standing out, not being conspicuous. That's all it's about. They can play spa dancers later. I don't think it should be a problem with the gold they took. It's time to sit down at the conference table and get to work. David closes the kitchen door, so that not a word leaks into the hallway of the apartment, or rather the hallway of the house. There are some things you just have to be quiet about. When they sit down opposite each other, David begins. "Let me paint it for you. The house is standing here. There's the village, the woods beyond, then nothing for three hundred yards, just a road in the woods and then a crossroads. We take a left and it's actually a dead end, that's where it ends, that's where the house is at the end. Lonely, but very lonely. A couple of outbuildings to go with it. You'll see. I'd go round the back. There's a huge garden with apple trees, the fence is broken. So we'll go straight on from the crossroads through the woods, stop at the roadside. Then we just cross the road to the other side, there's a forest path. That's how I went last time. It runs alongside the buildings and takes us to the back, where we turn left to get to the fence at the back of the garden. We'll go through there and we can walk quietly up to the house. There's the barn at the back and the house twenty yards beyond that. I'll show you what to do there, it's no use talking about it now." David has finished speaking and, still bent over the paper, raises his eyes to Martin. He just stares at the sketch he has just made and says nothing. Then he leans his left elbow on the desk and starts rubbing his chin. It is obvious that he is thinking a lot about what he has just learned. His gaze finally breaks away from the paper after all. "I need to ask you some more questions," he says as he holds the sketch close to him and holds out his hand, indicating for David to hand him a pencil as well. "I was wondering if we could go through this place too", he says slowly in a calm voice, scribbling something on the plan. "Here, you know, if there's an escape route or if there's woods or something afterwards. And also how far is it from Prague, or what village is it?", he scribbles something on the paper and hands it back to David. "Well, like this. The forest back there is very big then. There to go on some more road, in the dark. I don't think that's a very good idea", David tears his eyes away from Martin and finally looks at the sketch. But Martin hasn't drawn anything on it. It said something else entirely. "STB! Don't tell the village! They know about us. Probably a wiretap in the apartment. Ask me out now!" David farted. When he looked at Martin, the latter was giving him a direct glare. Lips pursed, forehead furrowed and eyes closed so that they were only two small slits. Then he opens his mouth, lips moving distinctly, but not a sound comes out. David echoes - "come on, speak", his hands clasped together as if in prayer, making it clear to Martin to speak, so that if anyone is listening now, they won't realise what's happening here. Martin's now wide open eyes act as an exclamation point. David can't stand the look and moves out of the way. His eyes are now ticking from side to side. For a moment he doesn't know what to do, then he tries to find anything suspicious around him. He bends down and looks under the table. Then he just nods his head from side to side in incomprehension, and then just one spasmodic "Come buy tobacco with me" comes out. "I'm not going, don't be silly, it's a risk, we can't do that now", David twirls his hands in front of him as if imitating a grinder..perhaps to get David to keep playing? He'll understand. "Oh shit, it's Prague. Here we go out on the street, walk a few hundred meters at most, buy some cigarettes, go back. Nobody will bother you here. Don't you feel like going for your first walk in freedom? Do you want to go over the hills when you're already fucked up?", he rolls his eyes, his arms outstretched and his expression uncomprehending, showing that he doesn't understand what's going on. "Alright, let's go", David is the first to get up from his chair and walk out of the kitchen.

Moments later they are both slipping on their shoes in the hallway. Neither says anything. David looks through the peephole in the door, but the hallway is empty. He also looks at David, who doesn't seem to notice him now, doesn't want to. This is totally fucked up, he then says to himself as he unlocks the door and walks out of the apartment with no small amount of apprehension. Martin steps right behind him. They lock the apartment and walk down the stairs. When they come out onto the street, there are still few people on it. Martin takes the initiative. He looks around for a while to see which way they will go and finally decides to go where he thinks the housing is denser."Let's go, there will be more shops, I'm sure there will be tobacco", he says, and without waiting for David, he takes the first step. David jogs over and now they are both walking side by side, looking around the street. After a few seconds of silence, David can't stand it. "What the fuck is going on! How do you know what you're saying about them!" Martin walked on without responding. With his head down, he was more aware of the sidewalk he was walking on than the surroundings as such. "Calm down, speak calmly, don't throw your hands around. I'm sure someone is watching us now. Just don't look around and try to act normal. You seriously think they're going to put me in a cell with you and then some magical uncle will suddenly and completely by chance show up, help us escape and we'll get an apartment on top of it? Naive! It's their whole operation. They just want to get their hands on the gold, you fool. They forced me. We weren't even supposed to leave the apartment. I should've gotten it out of you in the apartment and not come out at all, except to the house. That's why the scene. Do you know how freaked out they're gonna be now? Just stay calm or we're both fucked and way in the back I tell you," Martin's waterfall of words continues. "I did the math very well. If they didn't break you with that long solitary, they made a deal with me to get it out of you. And then when you told me about your plan, I...well, just as they called me in for the interrogations, I snitched. I had to. The driver from the jail, the other guy who drove us to the apartment, the apartment itself, it's all them, you know? They already knew there were other stashes somewhere. Someone must have let them in. So the Estebians devised a plan to get it out of you by trickery, which I was to do. In exchange for a lesser sentence. Well, they'd give you another slap on the wrist for escaping, continuing to commit crimes and so on. What do you want to hear? That the water closes behind you, and someone else gets a big pat on the back and an extra flush? And that at least some of that gold will end up going to someone else? The plan is brilliant. They're anything but stupid. You've been fucked all along, you just didn't know it. That's why it all went so smoothly. We're in their clutches. We're just two idiots, puppets in their puppet show. When they use us, they won't care about our fate. Which will still be better for us than the other way around, believe that. No more, no less." David tries to process the torrent of information that is hard to believe. He's trying to sort it all out in his head. Absolute shock, perhaps helplessness, resignation, despair, it's hard to find a word that accurately describes his feelings right now. "So what do we do now? If you wanted to sink me, we wouldn't be here talking right now. So what's your point?", David's tone of voice was bitter and reproachful. However, in the meantime, they slowly walked up to the newsagent, which was right on the corner. "Come with me", Martin invites him and with a typical jingle of the bell, he opens the door of the newsagent's. Inside it smells pleasantly of a mixture of fresh tobacco and daily newspapers. David has always liked to smell new books. Similarly, newspapers or magazines had their typical smell for him. But this memory only hit him for a few seconds. He nervously began to look around him, and while Martin was buying cigarettes, he looked out the window and guessed people on the sidewalk. It's the one in the coat. Or those two standing on the opposite corner? Or maybe the woman smoking and now stopped right in front of the shop? Or maybe they all belong to them! He didn't know what to believe and what not to believe anymore. "Hello!", he is pulled away by the voice of Martin, who hands him cigarettes in his outstretched hand. David takes the packet in his hand and takes one of the cigarettes out for himself. He puts it in his mouth, but doesn't light up. "Well?", the cigarette bounces between his lips. Martin leans towards him and says in a low voice, "I have a plan! But you have to trust me. We still have time. Together, maybe we can do it. I'm not such a bastard that I'll get five years less and help those whores. And then what, then they'll take me down for something else? No, hop or skip, buddy. It broke me today. There's nothing good waiting for me here anyway, that's why we're in this together now" Martin pulls away from David in a gentlemanly manner and offers to walk out the door first. He descends to the second of several stone steps, already much worn, that lead from the newsagent's to the street. He pauses, lights a cigarette, and then takes a mighty puff into his lungs. They may have picked him up by now, who knows what will happen. I'm in deep shit. He thinks to himself, and exhales a heavy cloud of smoke like it's the last time he'll ever see it. The cloud of smoke is floating all around him now, and he notices that the woman standing outside has disappeared somewhere in the meantime. They make their way back, back to the apartment. Yesterday a safe house of desperadoes, but now most certainly a den of state security. The guard dogs would be happy to escort them to the house, he didn't doubt that for a second.