The door to the small basement room opened, admitting Jamal and another man, so tall that he had to duck to enter the room.
“Salaam alaikum, Nasir,” the tall man began, a holy light shining from his blue eyes. He went on without waiting for the greeting to be returned. “Your brother informs me that you took up arms alongside our brethren in Lebanon against the Zionist aggressor. And yet, since you have come to America…you have ceased to pursue the holy jihad. Why?”
“Astagfirullah,” Nasir whispered, his eyes downcast in reverence. I ask forgiveness of Allah. “I have lacked opportunity.”
The tall man smiled, apparently satisfied by the answer. “Then may you have no more lack, my brother. Insh’allah.”
“There has been a…complication,” Viktor announced, taking his seat across from Korsakov at the kitchen table. His face was distorted with the anguish of being a bearer of bad news.
“What is it?” the assassin asked gently, reaching across to touch the boy’s fingertips. His breakfast was forgotten for the moment.
“This — from Yuri.” Viktor pushed the phone across the table, stroking his beard nervously. A text message was displayed on the touchscreen. FLIGHT GROUNDED IN CHICAGO. SNOWSTORM. ETA UNKNOWN.
Korsakov stifled an angry curse. Andropov was waiting on them. A snowstorm…it was what an insurance company might have called an “act of God,” but he didn’t believe in such superstition.
Neither did Andropov.
He looked up to see that Viktor was no longer paying attention to him. His face drained of color, he was looking off to the right, over Korsakov’s shoulder into the kitchen.
Danger.
The assassin’s head whipped around, but the only thing he saw was the slender form of Andropov’s young mistress maybe fifteen feet away, standing near the kitchen’s massive island. She was peeling an apple.
“I heard them,” Viktor murmured insistently, speaking Russian. “Heard him strike her, heard his voice raised — angry. Just like before.”
And then he saw it. Her left eye was swollen shut, a puffy, purplish bruise adorning her cheekbone.
Brutality had been part of Korsakov’s work for so long that he had ceased to even take note of it. When the girl had made her appearance moments before, his eyes had never made it as far north as her face.
Violence was quite simply a fact of life. As natural an act as the breaking of the eggs that formed his breakfast. But not for his young companion.
Just like before. “What did you say?” he demanded, turning back to face Viktor.
But the boy was gone. Gone…
Orange marmalade. On a generous slab of lightly toasted white bread.
Harry watched as Vasiliev shoved one end of the bread in his mouth, chewing with infuriating slowness. It was a tactic for the Russian, just one of his bag of tricks to keep his opponent off-balance. Opponent? Alexei viewed everyone as an opponent.
He shot a glance over at Han before addressing his question to Vasiliev. “I believe you said you had a plan?”
“Indeed.” Clenching the toast between his teeth, Vasiliev reached into his leather messenger bag and extracted a thin folder, tossing it across the table to Harry.
From the letterhead, the Cyrillic script across the top — it looked like an official FSB dossier. But all it contained was a single 8x10 surveillance photo, blown up and digitally enhanced. The face of an arrogantly handsome young man stared back from the print, no more than twenty, twenty-one at the most, his features undeniably Slavic.
“Nineteen,” the Russian announced, supplying the answer to Harry’s unasked question.
“His name is Pyotr, but he reportedly prefers the anglicized Peter.” Vasiliev sniffed audibly. “This generation, they have no appreciation for their heritage.”
“The point, Alexei?”
The older man reached for a napkin, wiping a smudge of marmalade from his lip. “You’re right — his first name is unimportant. His last name…is Andropov. Valentin’s son.”
And in that moment, Vasiliev’s “plan” became painfully clear, in all of its brutal simplicity. Characteristic of the Russian.
“No,” Carol interjected, her head coming up sharply. “No way.”
Vasiliev threw up his hands. “Americans — they always want results, but they rarely wish to dirty their hands in obtaining them. You want an omelet? You have to break some eggs. You want to find the man behind your father’s murder? This is the most linear path.”
Anger flashed from her blue eyes. “He’s also nineteen! He’s guilty of nothing.”
“Guilty?” He gave her an indulgent smile. “What do I look like — a judge? There are none innocent in this world. All due respect, Miss Chambers, but this is not your operation. Harry knows the truth of what I say.”
No. She looked over at Harry, silently begging him to deny it, to bring a stop to this.
One glimpse of his face and that hope died within her. He was nodding, the life — the love — she had seen earlier gone from his eyes. Replaced by…nothing.
“Alexei’s right.”
Darkness. Heat. Flesh against flesh, sweaty hands against his body. The whip coming down against his naked back.
Pain.
He was too exposed — had to find a place to hide. Couldn’t keep running. Had to keep running. The breeze fanned Viktor’s hair as he ran, his feet pounding against the the concrete of the sidewalk.
Darkness.
He reached into the pocket of his windbreaker, pulling out his cellphone. He ripped off the back panel and tore out both the battery and the SIM card, shoving them into the pocket of his jeans.
They would never find him now. They could never find him. His breath was coming fast, panic consuming him.
That voice. The harsh laugh.
He choked back a sob, all the memories flooding back. The dank smell of the basement, the harsh glare of the lights. Her screams. The crack of a bullwhip, blood spraying into the air.
He could still remember the wounded, pleading look in her eyes, laying there bleeding to death against the cold concrete.
Never again. A car was coming up on his right and he cast a panicked look over his shoulder.
No. It wasn’t his pursuers. Just a young man his own age, driving slowly down the street, the stereo of his sports car turned all the way up. Enjoying his day in the sun.
Viktor’s hand slid inside his unzipped jacket, fingers closing on the smooth polymer of his Glock, the gun that Korsakov had given him.
Korsakov. The only man he had ever trusted.
Fresh tears streamed down his cheeks, tears of grief and anger. He turned, running out into the road in front of the sports car, the gun coming free in his hand — a scream on his lips. “Out of the car! Out! Out!”
“Are you sure this is a bridge you want to cross?” Han closed the dossier, placing it on the table between them. The Russian had left thirty minutes before, to attend to his consulate duties. Apparently, being a law unto oneself was not limitless. His dark eyes lifted to meet Harry’s. “Kidnapping is serious business.”