Jonathan laughed. “Really? Is that the best you can come up with? I guess you don’t remember that we’re the ones who kicked your asses when you were trying to kill an innocent couple.”
The prisoners continued to look exclusively at each other.
“Okay,” Jonathan said. “Let’s start with the obvious. Why were you intent on killing David Kirk?”
“Who?” Vasily said.
Jonathan sighed. “Oh, dear. This is going to be such a long night.” He shifted his gaze to the other prisoner. “How about you, Peter? Are you going to be this difficult?”
Pyotr shifted his eyes to the floor. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“Very well, then,” Jonathan said. “Let’s come at it this way. Why were you at the Eastern Towers Apartments this afternoon?”
“You don’t have to answer him, Pyotr,” Vasily said.
“He’s not the boss anymore, Peter,” Jonathan said. “Never again will be. You should feel free to answer if you want.”
“Say nothing, Pyotr.”
Jonathan kept his gaze locked on Pyotr. Vasily didn’t matter; that was the context. Just a chat between you and me, Pete.
“Peter, it will be so, so much easier in the long run,” Jonathan said. His tone had never sounded so reasonable. So kind. “I don’t like to see people get hurt. I am not like my little friend. While he may be a monster, I assure you that I am not.”
Pyotr cheated with his eyes, leaving their lock on Vasily’s face and shifting to evaluate Jonathan.
“Pyotr, don’t!”
Jonathan pointed to his own eyes. “Look here, Peter. Not at him. Right here. Right at my eyes. I’m telling you the truth. This doesn’t have to be difficult.”
Pyotr’s eyes shifted back over to Vasily. And they grew huge.
From his black side, Jonathan more sensed than heard Boxers shifting his weight. “Threat left!” he yelled.
Jonathan reacted as reflex, rolling from the stool to the floor. A half-second later, he was back up on his knee, his .45 drawn and gripped in both hands, ready to neutralize the threat he still hadn’t seen. Boxers hadn’t yet fired a shot, and that fact alone kept Jonathan’s finger off the trigger.
If he’d turned a few milliseconds later, Jonathan would not have seen Arc Flash deliver the full overhead swing of a sledgehammer onto Vasily’s left shoulder. The crushing blow landed squarely on the sweet spot where the clavicle, scapula, and the proximal condyle of the humerus met to form the shoulder joint. The bones splintered with a sickening crunch, and Vasily’s entire left side sagged from the impact. Somehow, the sound of shattering bone reverberated more loudly than Vasily’s guttural shriek.
“Aw, fuck!” Boxers yelled.
Jonathan’s stomach nearly emptied itself. “Arc Flash!” he yelled. “Jesus!”
Horne beamed with delight as he spun the sledge in his hand the way a drum major might flourish a baton.
“Like that,” Horne said. The effort left him short of breath. He pointed the sledge at Pyotr, an extension of his arm. “Aren’t a few answers worth not having that happen to you?” He emphasized the point by tapping the white flash of bone that protruded from the ruined shoulder, triggering another scream.
Pyotr vomited into his own lap.
Jonathan hadn’t yet broken his aim. “Put that down, Arc Flash. For Christ’s sake.”
Horne grabbed the back of Vasily’s chair and jostled it. Vasily howled like a wounded animal.
“Stop!” Boxers boomed.
Horne turned to face the Big Guy full on. He stepped out in front of Vasily, his arms held wide, cruciform. In the bright light, blood shimmered on the sledge’s head.
“What are you going to do, Big Guy? Shoot me?” he pivoted a quarter-turn to his left to address Jonathan. “How about you Scorpion? I’m all the way over here and you’re all the way over there. Are you going to separate my soul from my body just because I break a few bones?” He emphasized the last word with a golf swing that brought the face of the sledge through the face of Vasily’s right kneecap. An erection showed through Horne’s trousers.
He turned back to face Boxers. “All right, Mr. Snake Eating Delta Operator. What are you going to do? Decision time. Either shoot that thing or holster it.”
“Big Guy, don’t,” Jonathan said.
Boxers had a long history of treating rhetorical challenges as real. Jonathan didn’t want to deal with the Horne’s corpse. Not tonight. “Disengage,” he commanded.
When he didn’t hear sounds of appropriate movement, he looked back to see Boxers thoroughly committed to a shooter’s stance. Eight feet away, Horne’s entire being screamed, Shoot me.
“Hey, Big Guy,” Jonathan coaxed. “He’s a shit, but he’s on our side.”
Boxers hesitated for maybe a second, and then let go of his 417, letting it fall against its sling. “This isn’t right, Scorpion,” he said. “We don’t do this shit.”
You knew you’d crossed a moment in the space-time continuum when Boxers was the conscience of the group. What was done was done. Arc Flash’s tactics were disgusting, but they were already in play. This wasn’t the time to put righteous indignation in the way of collecting valuable information.
Jonathan slipped his Colt back into its holster and resumed his seat on the stool.
Everything about Pyotr had changed. He was three shades paler, he was drenched in his own nastiness, and though it was physically impossible, he looked ten years younger and ten pounds lighter. By any measure, that meant he was ready to talk.
Jonathan cleared his throat. “So, what’ll it be, Peter? The easy way or the hard way?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“This is bullshit,” David said. He and Becky sat together in his room. For the past couple of hours, they’d been biding time by doing nothing. So far, this Scorpion guy had been true to his word, up to and including the nice old black lady who’d seen to their every need.
“There’s been a lot of that today,” Becky said. “Which part are you finding particularly bullshitty?”
“It’s stupid to trust my future — my life — to people I’ve never met before,” he said.
Becky stewed on that for a few seconds. “I can’t disagree entirely,” she said. “But give credit for the fact that we’re alive because of them.”
“I thought you were against all of this,” David said.
“I don’t have a clue what I’m for or against anymore, David. Everything I’ve ever known, everything I’ve ever been — all of my accomplishments, such as they are — don’t mean anything anymore. Maybe I’m just grasping at straws. Pretending that I still have choices.”
“Here’s the thing,” David explained. “When I met with Grayson, he gave me the name and address of a guy in Lake Ridge — it’s in Prince William County — who he said should be able to give us some information.”
“A guy. Which guy?”
“His name is Billy Zanger. He’s on the president’s staff.”
“President of the United States?”
“That would be the one.”
“You want to meet with a staffer of the president of the United States?”
Hearing the question asked with such incredulity gave him pause. “He’s been bought and paid for by Grayson. Or so Grayson says.” The bought-and-paid-for line didn’t even raise an eyebrow.
“Why is Grayson sharing his sources with you?”
David gave her the thirty-second précis of his chat.
When he was finished, Becky cocked her head. “What, exactly, would you ask him?”