The Greek smiled thinly. “I know about the e-mail to Jack Swyteck. I know about the one to Chloe Sparks. I know much more than you think.”
“Who do you think you’re fooling? You know about those e-mails because you’re the one who sent them.”
“See, you’re wrong already. I didn’t send them. I sold you the goods on Keyes before the election, and I kept my end of the deal. I have not breathed a word to anyone. It’s your secret now, not mine.”
“Well, obviously someone else is in on it, too. And they are going to ruin a very good thing if this becomes public knowledge.”
The server came by to offer coffee, but Madera waved him off, as if to say that he wasn’t staying long.
“Like I told you,” the Greek said. “I know who it is. And I can take care of that problem.”
“Who is it?”
“Not so fast.”
“You are so full of shit,” said Madera, and he started to rise.
“Wait!”
The Greek immediately regretted his tone. A little too desperate.
Madera lowered himself back into his chair, intrigued.
“Okay,” said the Greek. “I’ll tell you who it is. But first we need to strike a deaclass="underline" I’m the one who takes care of the problem.”
“You mean really take care of it?”
The Greek unfolded the cloth napkin at his table and wrapped it around his fist. It was an allusion to his signature-the homemade suppressor, a towel wrapped around the.22-caliber Beretta.
“I mean permanently,” he said.
“What’s that going to cost us?”
“Five hundred thousand.”
Madera scoffed. “You’re out of your mind.”
“That may sound high. But without me, you can’t even identify the threat. Think of it as your half-million-dollar investment in preserving the status quo. I’m throwing in the disposal for free.”
Madera considered it, and a decision came quickly. Almost too quickly.
“All right. Who is it?”
“Before I tell you, I want you to understand that I’ve set up a safety valve. If anything happens to me-even if I just mysteriously disappear-the truth about Keyes is going to be all over the newspapers.”
“Who is it?” said Madera, refusing even to acknowledge the threat.
The Greek drew a breath, as if to underscore the difficulty of his position. And it was difficult. In fact, it was the most painful lie he’d ever told. He raised his coffee mug to his lips and spoke over it.
“It’s my ex-wife, Sofia.”
“You told me she didn’t know anything.”
“That was two years ago. Things change.”
Madera showed no reaction, and the Greek tried to mask his own misgivings. He had gone to Sofia hoping to persuade her to meet with Madera and sell her silence. Over time, he probably could have convinced her to do it. But he didn’t have time. Her refusal to help had left him no choice.
Madera said, “You’re one lucky bastard. Not many men get paid half a million bucks to eliminate their ex.”
“I’m giving you five days to get me the money. I want it wire-transferred to my account in Antigua. Here’s the account number,” he said, as he slid a business card across the tabletop.
Madera didn’t take it.
The Greek nudged it forward. Madera still didn’t reach for it. He didn’t even look at it.
The Greek met his stare. “You’re not going to pay, are you?”
Madera was silent.
The Greek looked past Madera, and he noticed a man standing near the directory in the center of the courtyard. He seemed to be watching them. Instinctively, the Greek’s gaze drifted up toward the second level. Another man at the railing seemed to have his eye on them as well. The Greek knew in an instant that these men weren’t Secret Service agents.
They were part of Madera’s other world.
His pulse quickened, and he suddenly realized that putting Sofia at risk and not getting paid for it were the least of his worries. He had to make a break, but even at the peak of his training, he wasn’t sure he could have outrun three, four, or maybe more of them. From behind he heard the whine of an electric engine, and with a quick glance over his shoulder he spotted a mall security guard. He was driving a flatbed golf cart that was rigged to transport the handicapped.
Yes!
The Greek threw the rest of his coffee into Madera’s face, leaped to his feet, and grabbed the security guard as he rode past their table. A woman screamed as the guard tumbled to the floor and the Greek jumped behind the steering wheel. He put the pedal to the metal and brought it to full speed immediately.
The man on the second floor raced down the escalator. Two other men came running from a bagel shop. The Greek knew they weren’t going to shoot him in front of all these people, but if they caught him, they’d soon stuff him in the trunk of a car, never to be heard from again. He was a dead man if he didn’t get out-now.
He pulled a quick U-turn and sped toward the exit. Shoppers jumped out of the way as he blew past one storefront after another. The security guard and Madera’s men gave chase, but the electric cart was fully juiced and fast enough to have been an emergency-response vehicle. The Greek laid on the horn and drove as if he didn’t care how many people he mowed down. He rode it all the way to the Pennsylvania Avenue exit, ditched it at the door, and headed for the street at a full sprint on fresh legs. A taxi was at the corner of Twelfth Street. He pushed an old woman aside and stole it from her.
“Hey,” said the driver, “that lady was first.”
The Greek slammed the door shut and threw his wallet onto the front seat beside the driver.
“Take as much as you want. Get me out of here. Fast!”
The tires squealed, and the cab launched like a rocket. Through the rear window, the Greek saw Madera’s men huffing and puffing, cursing one another at the curb.
He was smiling, feeling smug and even a little full of himself over the getaway. But then reality hit, and the smile ran from his lips. The bottom line was that he still owed the Russians five hundred thousand dollars. And if there was one thing worse than having the Russians out to kill you, he had just found it.
Now it was the Russians and the Italians.
Chapter 30
The biscotti were selling like hotcakes. That was the noon report from Sofia’s nephew, the assistant manager at Angelo’s Bakery.
“Hot cakes should be so lucky to sell like my biscotti,” said Sofia.
It’s wasn’t bragging. Angelo’s was the go-to bakery in the neighborhood, but people drove miles out of their way for the biscotti, which had always been a point of personal pride for Sofia. The famous cannoli recipe was from her late husband’s family, a treat reminiscent of Old World Sicily with traditional thin crust and ricotta filling. The biscotti, however, were her own baby-her way of proving that a Sicilian baker could outdo the Tuscans on their own invention. Sofia came up with something completely new every week, from cranberry-orange-pistachio to vanilla-chocolate chunk. Her latest creation was a softer biscotti with tasty lemon frosting and a texture between a crispy cookie and crunchy biscotti. The secret ingredient was the leavening agent for a controlled release. Customers who hadn’t touched biscotti in years for fear of breaking a tooth were addicted.
“Any more of the amaretto cookies?”
It was one of Sofia’s regular customers, a tailor who had been making suits in the same shop across the street for thirty years. Sofia smiled from behind the counter.
“All gone, sorry.”
“Will you have more tomorrow?”
Sofia’s gaze had shifted back to the storefront window-and her attention shifted along with it.
“Sofia, will you make more tomorrow?”
She turned back to her customer, embarrassed. “What? Oh, sorry. Sure. I’ll hold you a dozen.”
“Grazie.”
“Prego.”
He left happy, and Sofia went to the window and pretended to watch him cross the street and disappear into his tailor shop. But her gaze wasn’t following him. She was focused on the midnight-blue Mercedes-Benz parked a few doors down on the other side of the street.