Free The Accident Man by Tom Cain Page A

enemy is my friend’?”
    “Yes, I understand.”
    “I think we should work on that basis. We’ve both been set up by the same people. Our best hope is to get to them before they get to us. So, they’re our enemy. I guess that makes us friends.”
    She raised her eyebrows, gave a little pout, and shrugged her shoulders. “Okay, if you say so, let’s talk about that. But first, prove to me that you are a friend. Get me a cigarette. There is a pack in my bag, Marlboro Lights.”
    He felt around in the bag, still keeping his eyes on her, until he felt the cigarette pack. He pulled it from the bag, flipped open the top, and shook it so that a couple of cigarettes poked farther out than the rest. Then he reached over, holding the packet close to her mouth.
    She leaned forward, feeling for the cigarettes with her lips, using her tongue to separate one from the rest. She slumped back against the bus shelter wall with the cigarette in her mouth.
    “Got a light?”
    There was a lighter in the bag. He put the flame to her cigarette. As she breathed in, igniting the tobacco, their eyes met, no more than a foot apart. She didn’t say anything, just let him feel the tension as her unflinching, disconcerting gaze held his.
    Several seconds went by before Carver realized he’d broken a basic rule. Their heads were so close she could easily have butted him, smashing his nose. He jerked back, as if evading a blow that never came. She didn’t move, just kept looking at him.
    “Do you still have the helmet?” he asked.
    “In the bushes, over there, with the leather jackets,” she replied, nodding toward a clump of greenery that lay between the bus shelter and the sewer museum’s ticket kiosk.
    “Here’s what we’re going to do. First we make them think that they’ve won. That means getting ourselves killed, the more publicly, the better. So…”
    Carver explained what he intended to do and what Petrova’s role would be. She nodded occasionally. Every so often she asked a question or suggested an alternative course of action. The hostility had ebbed, however temporarily, from her voice. Her tone was practical, functional, getting the job done.
    At the end he said, “What do you think?”
    “I think we have the same enemy and I think your plan has a chance of success. Beyond that, I don’t bother to think. I have only one more question.”
    “Yes?”
    “What is your name?”
    “Samuel Carver. Most people just call me Carver.”
    “Okay. Most people call me Alix. And now that we have been introduced, are you going to untie my hands?”
    Carver nodded, then pulled a pair of scissors from the same pocket the plastic cuffs had been in. He stepped behind Alix as she shuffled forward, making some space between her back and the shelter. Then he got down on his haunches and forced one blade between the plastic and Alix’s left wrist, making her wince as the metal and plastic dug in. Once he’d cut it free, he repeated the process on her other wrist. As he stood up and came around to face her again, she started to rub her lower arms, in an effort to restore circulation.
    Then she held out a surprisingly dainty hand toward Carver. He reached out and shook it, as if sealing their deal.
    “No, you fool,” she said. “I want you to help me up.”
    Carver chuckled edgily and Alix smiled back. For the first time there was a flicker of warmth, a hint of the woman behind that calculating facade. He pulled her back onto her feet, then slung her bag around his shoulder. She let out a pained sigh as she straightened her spine, then felt the small of her back with her hands.
    “Sorry about that,” he said. “You know, just business.”
    He regretted the crass words the moment he’d spoken them. There was bitterness in her short, humorless laugh, and when she glanced at him again her eyes had the battered vulnerability of a woman who’s no stranger to violence.
    “It’s never just business,” she said.
    Then she picked up her