Ivana just shrugged. And then put the iPod down on the couch.
“It’s worth a lot to me. A lot of money. I’d be happy to share that money with you. And your friends.”
She didn’t seem enthused by the prospect. Mark wondered whether she’d even be able to keep extra money if he gave it to her. Or whether she was searched after each assignation.
“I have to ask my boss,” she said. “Maybe he can ask the other girls.”
“OK.”
“So you want me to go now?”
“Will you bring your boss?”
She shrugged.
“Yes. Please. See if anyone is interested in making money. One thousand dinars to the person who can tell me where to find this Saudi man.”
Ivana stood up. As she was leaving, Mark said, “Are you OK? Do you need help?”
She just walked out the door.
His question had been stupid, Mark thought, as he waited in the empty room. Of course she wasn’t OK, of course she needed help. The problem was, the kind of help she needed wasn’t the kind of help he was prepared to give. Or maybe even could give.
He imagined she’d been lured away from a bleak life in a small village with the promise of adventure and money — waiting tables in some fancy restaurant halfway across the world — only to discover, once she got there, that the people who’d promised her the world had been lying.
Mark considered just handing Muhammad over to the Saudis and instead trying to do something to help Ivana.
It was a silly idea, he knew. The world was drowning in pain, more than any individual, or even any single nation, could deal with. Whether it was kids losing their mothers, or girls being sold as sex slaves, or the millions that died of hunger every year, it was futile to react to every suffering individual just because you happened to witness their pain. If he knew about the widespread existence of a particular atrocity and had done nothing to help stop it before, then why should seeing a real-life example of such depravity make any difference to him?
It shouldn’t.
Dammit, thought Mark. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, trying to refocus his thoughts. You’ve got your brother and Muhammad to deal with. And you’ve got very little time. Put this awful place out of your mind and concentrate.
But concentrating on his brother and Muhammad didn’t do him any good either; until he got intel on the Saudi, he was stuck.
Five minutes later, the door opened and a tall blond man with a crooked nose entered the room. He wore black jeans and a silk short-sleeved collared shirt that he’d left open at the neck, exposing a gold necklace. Behind him stood a tank of a man who wore a sport coat that did a poor job of hiding the bulge of a pistol holstered under his left arm.
Typical, thought Mark. These Russian mafia guys were caricatures of themselves. He’d dealt with them in Azerbaijan, in Georgia, in Kyrgyzstan. No matter what country they turned up in, the front men were always the same. Young and aggressive, with just enough life experience to be good at being an asshole, but not enough experience, or education, to be good at much else. He studied the guy with the gold necklace. He had small eyes and teeth that — while not rotten — could have benefited from some orthodontia. As a pimply fifteen-year-old kid growing up in the slums of Moscow, he would have been pitiful. As a guy in his mid-twenties, pimping in Manama, he was easy to detest.
Mark stood up.
“Sit down,” the pimp ordered in Russian.
Mark remained standing. “Did Ivana tell you what I need?”
“I said sit down.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather stand.”
The pimp glanced behind him and nodded. The bodyguard was older than the pimp, and looked meaner. Mark detected a spider tattoo on the man’s neck, possibly indicating that he was, or had been, a thief. There were also tattoos on the guy’s hands and fingers.
The bodyguard closed the distance between himself and Mark in a few swift strides.
Mark saw the punch coming but didn’t counter it; he wasn’t there to get in a fight. He did turn, so that the blow grazed the top of his head instead of hitting him right in the nose, but the guy was strong and the punch still did real damage.
Mark blacked out for a second as he fell back into the couch. The pimp walked over and slapped him hard in the face.
“When I say sit, I mean sit.”
Mark hated having his head hit like that. He’d already taken a lot of physical abuse over the years. He didn’t want to wind up like one of those punch-drunk boxers who’ve taken too many hits and wind up losing their minds at fifty. On top of all that he was tired, pissed to hell at the Saudis for what they’d done to Rad, and bitter about not having helped Ivana or anyone else escape from this loathsome place.
He rubbed his head. “You didn’t need to do that. All I need is a little bit of information. And I’m willing to pay a lot for it. I’m asking to do business with you. You’re a businessman, aren’t you?” He tried to affect a submissive attitude, but he was too pissed off to pull it off.
“You come here,” said the pimp. “You buy a beautiful girl. One of my best. And then you reject her. You are a fucking faggot?”
Mark pulled out his iPod. “I’m just looking for information about this man.”
He extended the device to the pimp, who smacked it out of Mark’s hand.
“Dude. I’m not here to fight.” Mark’s voice had an edge to it now. “I’m here to make a deal.”
“Are you police?”
“No.”
“Good.” The pimp slapped Mark hard again on the face. Then he turned to his bodyguard. “Beat up this piece of shit, take his wallet, take all his money, find out who he is, and then throw him in the trash.” The pimp turned back to Mark. “If I ever see you here again, I’ll kill you. I don’t care who you work for or why you are here. We don’t give out information about other clients. Understand?”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to—” Mark stood up again as the bodyguard approached. He put his hands up as he backed away. “Hey, hey, hey! I’ll just leave! You don’t have to—”
Mark wasn’t a big guy, but he’d always been fast, and willing to fight dirty.
He started backing up into a corner, as though scared, but as soon as the big Russian’s hand came up, Mark jabbed his own fist right into the bodyguard’s throat, aiming for the windpipe in the hopes of collapsing it. A half second later he kicked the guy in the balls, jabbed a thumb in his eye, reached for his shoulder-holstered pistol, saw in that split second that the safety was off, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet traveled up into the bottom of the bodyguard’s head and out through the back of it, splattering blood, bone, and brain onto the carpet and the wall directly behind them.
Without pausing for even a second, Mark raised the pistol — a Makarov, he noted — aimed for the pimp’s head, and said, “Nyet.”
The pimp froze, but Mark had seen his eyes dart toward the door.
“You go for that door, you’re dead,” Mark warned. He spoke with authority. The pretense of fear was gone.
Mark could hear the pimp’s breathing. It had turned loud, as though he’d just finished sprinting down the street and was trying to catch his breath. He was staring intently at Mark.
Mark was breathing heavily himself. His gun hand was rock steady, but his mind wasn’t.
He’d acted out of instinct. His fight-or-flight reaction had kicked in and the verdict had been fight. But had he really needed to kill the guy? There had been other options. What the hell was wrong with him?
Get off the shrink couch, he warned himself. You’re in a dangerous place. Just act.