If only Katya hadn't barked at him to rush out the window. Stupid bitch. Like a snot-nosed rookie, she panicked. Rule number one: be sure what you think you see is what you're actually seeing. They should've yanked back all the curtains and peeked under all the tables.
Oh look, it's Alex and his friends playing peekaboo; ha, ha, ha-bang, bang, bang.
How simple that would've been. How deeply satisfying.
But no, they fell for Konevitch's cat-and-mouse game, and the mouse won. It was terribly stupid. But this blunder was definitely her fault, not his.
No, on second thought, the real blame fell on Golitsin's stooped shoulders. He approved the plan in the first place to drag Konevitch to the hotel. Okay, yes, Vladimir had claimed it would be easy. But of course there were risks. The greedy bastard knew that, but he wanted more money, money, money.
Konevitch baited the trap and the old geezer bit with every tooth in his mouth. He had nobody to blame but himself.
The satellite phone suddenly rattled at his waist. After a long hesitation, he pulled it off his belt and stared at it, consumed with dread, a new and surprisingly unwelcome emotion for Vladimir. Probably it was Golitsin. He would not answer it, not under any condition. He would just let it bleep and bleep until the old geezer got frustrated and gave up.
The thought of trying to explain this muddle, of trying to justify and excuse his stupidity, of confessing that he had allowed Konevitch to escape, was sickening.
On the other hand, maybe it was Katya. Maybe she was calling to say she had caught up with them; maybe Konevitch and his short wife and fat friend were already decomposing in a dark alley and out of their hair. Maybe their troubles were over. Oh, how he longed to hear those words.
So which was it? The devil or salvation? The bastard or the bitch?
He pushed the receive button and placed the phone firmly against his ear.
Golitsin said without a breath of emotion, "Your twenty-five minutes are long over. I'm assuming you lost him."
Vladimir felt a rush of fear bordering on panic. The voice was cold, so totally flat. For a moment he said nothing. He just stood there, tempted to throw the phone and flee as far and as fast as his feet could carry him. Find a new life in India or Zanzibar, for all he cared.
What could he say?
Golitsin snapped, "Your silence confirms it, you cretin. You were outsmarted by a complete dilettante."
"I still made you a fortune."
"So what?"
"Hundreds of millions. Doesn't that count for anything?"
"No." Just no.
"He hasn't escaped yet," Vladimir insisted, trying to sound convincing. The echo of his own bleating in the earphone, loud and whiny, shocked him.
"Oh, I think we both know he is long gone," Golitsin whispered, and he was right. "He and my three hundred million. All gone. Vanished. And it's your fault, you incompetent dimwit."
Vladimir stared into the dark, overcast skies. The alley was narrow and empty: no pedestrians; no lost tourists wandering in confusion; not even a smelly wino sleeping it off on a dark door-stoop. Just him, just a dead man sniveling into a clunky satphone. A scatter of small shops lined both sides of the street, all of which were locked and shuttered. Rain was pouring down in heavy sheets. A few lights burned in the apartments over the stores and the flickering glow from television sets refracted off several windows. The gloom contributed to his quickly deepening misery. "I'm sorry," he choked, mangling the words he had never before uttered in his life. He tried again, more clearly, more unctuously repentant, anything to mollify the menacing voice on the other end. "Truly, sir, I am very, very sorry."
"Are you?"
"Yes sir. Sorry, sorry, sorry. "
"Well, sorry won't do, idiot. Sorry is for spilling coffee on my carpet. But losing three hundred million dollars? For letting Konevitch escape from under your nose? Just sorry?" Golitsin paused for a moment, then laid down the verdict. "When I am done with you, you'll learn the real meaning of sorry."
Vladimir reached into his waistband and withdrew his pistol. He took a deep swallow and said, "That's where you're wrong. You'll never get your hands on me, you ugly old bastard."
"Listen closely, moron. Wherever you run, I'll find you. You'll last days, long, terrible days, I promise that."
Vladimir laughed and the sound echoed down the alley and bounced off the walls, bitter and scornful. A few lights popped on. Concerned faces appeared in the windows over the empty shops.
"You think this is funny?" Golitsin hissed.
"Yes, I do. Absolutely. I'm laughing because I lost you all that money. Now screw yourself." Vladimir aimed the pistol at his left temple, held the phone right next to it, screamed, "Good-bye, asshole!" — and blew his brains down the dark alleyway.
9
The orange Trabant came to a screeching halt under the hotel's grand entryway, less than an inch from the steep curb. Alex, Elena, and Eugene scrambled through the rotating glass doors, looked both ways, then made a mad bolt for the car. Alex stuffed another hundred in the waiter's outstretched hand, mumbled quick words of thanks, and they squeezed and fought their way inside the car. The keys were in the ignition, the engine running. Elena climbed behind the wheel and punched the gas with gusto.
With an angry sputter the car lurched and coughed away from the curb, every bit as unsightly and underpowered as advertised. Only two years off the production line, it didn't look a day over a hundred. From bumper to bumper, nothing but peeling paint, dents, and vast patches of oxidation.
Alex couldn't have cared less. The car was perfect. Every rattle, every belch and spit from the perforated muffler was just perfect. Nobody would expect a man of his means to be seen in such a creaky monstrosity.
For five minutes they drove without anybody saying a word. The rain battered the roof. Alex hunched down in his seat to disguise his height; Elena inched up in hers, straining to disguise her lack of it.
Thirty minutes of sitting under the watchful gaze of wicked people who intended to kill them left them moody and edgy. They peeked through the rear window incessantly. They thought they saw cars on their tail and breathed with relief when the cars turned off. Elena zigzagged through narrow streets, going nowhere in particular. Just away from the hotel. Just as far as they could get from Katya and Vladimir and the other killers. At a red light at a large intersection, she finally asked Alex, "Where to?"
Without hesitation, he said, "Out of Hungary."
"Not so fast," Eugene offered in a newly concerned tone from the backseat. "Alex, you need to see a doctor before we go anywhere." Now that they were out of danger, his good manners were kicking back in. "You should see how you look. A concussion, broken bones, internal bleeding, who knows how serious the damage is."
"Not a good idea, Eugene. I told you, these people are connected everywhere. They're former KGB, for godsakes. You're American, you don't understand what that means."
"So tell me what it means."
"They used to rule these countries. They can pull strings you can't imagine. The moment they recover their senses, they might even put out an alert to the Hungarian border police. Our names, our descriptions, and probably some trumped-up charges to warrant our arrests. Getting out will be impossible."
Eugene and Elena sat quietly and stewed on Alex's warning. "In fact," Alex said after thinking about his own words, "it's safe to assume the alert's already out."
Another moment of silence, longer than the last one. A nationwide manhunt suddenly seemed like a possibility. Only a few years earlier this was a police state; they didn't have a prayer.