Blast

Ilya Bushmin

An elusive gang is terrorizing the city. Criminals are kidnapping one prominent businessman after another and putting collar bombs around their necks. The deadly device is equipped with a camera and radio transmission; it cannot be removed or blocked, and the victim has no chance of escape. If the businessman does not pay the gang the ransom they demand, the blast will blow his body to smithereens…

Blast

Ilya Bushmin

© Ilya Bushmin, 2016

© Susan Welsh, translation, 2016

ISBNВ 978-5-4474-0966-1

Created with intellectual publishing system Ridero

Prologue

When aВ butterfly hit his dirty windshield with aВ disgusting squish, Jerry shuddered. He reflexively turned on the wipers and pulled the washer knob, before remembering that the windshield wiper tank had been empty for aВ week. Once again he made aВ mental note toВ fill it, knowing full well that he would forget it again. Jerry took aВ sip from his beer can and, belching loudly, switched the radio toВ another station.

The dirty pickup made its way along the night road toward the city, the dim light ofВ its dusty headlights illuminating the pavement ahead. The city lights ahead were almost impossible toВ make out through the dirty windshield. But somewhere inВ the east there was aВ glow: Soon it would be morning.

There was some kind ofВ ridiculous comedy program on the radio. Through the wheezing old speakers he could hear aВ girl laughing, with an amazingly vile, squeaky voice:

“What? Don’t you know, a wedding in Vegas is no joke! That’s a real wedding!”

“That was funny when you weren’t even born yet, you idiot,” Jerry grumbled, belching again, and tried another station. The old speaker coughed out country music. Nodding with satisfaction, Jerry – a corpulent, bearded man under 50, almost as unkempt as his truck – reached for the beer.

His pickup drove past a brightly lit construction hypermarket that had opened a few years ago, three miles outside the city. He had heard on the radio that the city government had quarreled with the county over this site, since a hypermarket would be a tasty morsel for both of them. In the end, the city won and the city limits were formally extended along the highway to the hypermarket. Then the suckerfish, as Jerry called them, started to appear – smaller shops for construction supplies, eateries, offices of construction firms. But life in these prts was in full swing only in the daytime; in the pre-dawn hours it was as deserted as a cemetery. Only the street lights, devouring hundreds of dollars for nothing, and emptiness. And Jerry’s lone pickup truck crawling toward the city.

Taking the last swig, Jerry crumpled up the can, tossed it onto the back seat, and reached for another beer. With his peripheral vision, he thought he noticed some movement ahead.

He frowned, squinted, trying toВ peer through the dirty windshield.

Fifty yards away, to the right along the ramp to some sort of office or construction goods store, a shadowy figure was running, discernible against the brightly lit building. The shadow waved its arms and seems to be shouting something – Jerry thought he heard a voice over the blare of the music.

“What the hell?”

He slowed down a bit and craned his neck, trying to make out what was going on. A man was careening toward the road, waving his arms. The dim headlights showed him running to the curbside. A suit, tie, face contorted, eyes wide from horror. Over the wheezing of the music, Jerry clearly heard the cry: “Help!”

Screaming and waving with one hand, the man seemed to be grabbing at his throat with the other. Jerry frantically glanced from side to side (where’s his car, for crying out loud? Is this a trap? How did he get here?). He tried to gather his wits, decide whether to slow down or drive past. The man was just ten yards ahead when Jerry suddenly noticed, in the dim light of the headlights, his gleaming metal collar. A circular pipe a couple of inches thick. Jerry looked in amazement a