They were out there now, running for their lives.
Katya came to her senses and screamed at Vladimir, "Go out the window and find them. I'll get the others."
A response was a waste of time. He raced for the hole in the window and dove through, crashing hard on his knees on the concrete sidewalk outside. A loud curse exploded from his lips. The pain was sharp and intense. But his fury at being made into a fool hurt worse. He pushed himself to his feet, extended his pistol arm, spun on his heels, and scanned the surroundings.
Not a soul. Not out on the street. Not in the side parking lot. And not along the front of the hotel.
Alex and his party had vanished into the evening.
The hotel entrance was to his right and guarded by a pair of his men, making it unlikely, if not impossible, that Konevitch fled that way. He gripped his pistol hard and limped off in the other direction. There would be no warning this time. No second chance. He endured the pain from his bleeding knees and kicked it up to an all-out run.
Katya raced to the pair of thugs who were still seated by the restaurant exit, quietly congratulating themselves that they weren't in charge of this mess. When Golitsin learned about this screwup, heads were going to roll, literally.
She shrieked at them to follow her and went and collected the pair by the hotel entrance, then the two bored watchers outside. She ordered two of them to trail Vladimir before she set off, accompanied by the other four, in the opposite direction.
She signaled for the men to spread out, and issued one stern instruction. "Blow them to hell," she hissed.
8
A minute after Vladimir and Katya departed, the long white tablecloth was gently tugged back. Alex slowly raised his head and looked around. A waitress and two waiters loitered by the kitchen entrance, bantering about the bad people who had fired guns and chased all the customers away. The waitress was in tears, traumatized. One waiter looked ready to faint or flee. Otherwise, the palatial dining room was empty.
Alex stood and glanced over at the table where Vladimir and Katya had been seated. No corpses littered the floor. There were no dead waiters, and from what he could detect, no wounded patrons bleeding on the expensive carpet. He nearly fainted with relief. The three shots he heard were warnings or misses. Probably frantic or angered bullets fired out the broken window, he decided.
"Are they gone?" Elena asked from under the table, almost a whisper.
"Maybe. It looks that way," Alex replied in a tone that conveyed half hope and half doubt. "Stay where you are another moment." He walked over to a waiter by the kitchen, a tall young man, considerably less fazed than the other two. He asked where the shooters had gone. Out of the building, he was informed-one dove out the window and disappeared and the other raced out of the restaurant, collected her evil pals, and dashed outside. Nothing more to worry about, Alex was assured. The bad people were gone. The concierge called the police. Any minute, the place would flood with cops.
Alex rushed back to the table, hefted the overnight bags over his good shoulder, and informed Elena and Eugene it was safe. Elena came out first and threw her arms around Alex, a hug she immediately lessened when he winced and groaned.
Then Eugene emerged, loud, upset, and furiously disoriented. He kept asking Alex why he had grabbed him, wrestled him under the table, pinned him down, and slapped a hand over his mouth. Alex tried leading him out of the room, but Eugene refused to budge until he had a reply, and it better be damned good.
"Long story. I don't have time to explain everything," Alex replied in a hasty effort to put him off, looking around and wondering what to do next. Open and shut, his plan had started and stopped at getting the killers out of the restaurant. Divert them, send them off on a wild-goose chase. Then he and Elena would make a speedy getaway in Eugene's Trabant.
But now, how was he to get to the Trabant in the parking lot without blundering into Vladimir and his people? And, he realized, if he left Eugene here, they might return and take their fury out on him. Eugene's yapping was growing louder. Alex waved a hand for him to calm down and attempted another explanation. "They kidnapped Elena and me, beat me silly, and forced me to sign over my companies. Now they're after your money, too. Let's go."
"My money?"
"Yes, Eugene, that's what I said."
"You know them?"
"We just met this afternoon. I don't want to get to know them better. Come on, we have to hurry." Alex glanced at the doorway to the dining room. He did not have time for these questions.
"Who are these people?"
"Eugene, please, shut up and help me. They're out there. Right now, they're combing the street, hunting for us. In a few moments, they'll figure out they've been hoodwinked and they'll be back. They're professional assassins. Are you listening?"
In the past two minutes, Eugene had passed from inebriated verging on tipsy to frightened out of his wits with Alex nearly smothering him under the table; he was finally settling on an emotion he could live with. Upset. Very, very upset. "Dammit, I'm not going anywhere. Why don't you just wait for the police?"
"Because they might be in on it. There's a very good chance they are. These people are unbelievably well-connected, better than you can even imagine, Eugene, and I can't… Listen to me, it's time to leave, now."
Eugene still looked angry and dubious-it was a lot to absorb-and Alex decided it was time to be blunt, and possibly a little deceitful. "It's not just Elena and me, they're hunting you, too. They want to kidnap and torture you, to force you to get your partners to wire the cash into my corporate accounts. They made me sign over the title to my companies, and now they want to steal your three hundred million, all of it. After that, they'll kill you."
Eugene suddenly felt nauseated. "They want to kill me?" he asked in a high-pitched voice. This was too much. He leaned back against a table and, drawing a few labored breaths, struggled to regain his balance; recapturing his composure was out of the question. He couldn't seem to think. He deeply regretted all those beers. How many was it? Eight? Nine? However many, the answer was: too many.
Alex placed a hand on his arm. "Yes," he said very quietly. "After they beat and torture you, after they steal all your money, yes, Eugene, yes, they intend to kill you."
Elena had been standing quietly, listening, and decided the time was right to throw her two cents in. Only shock would get this man moving, and she provided it. "Look what they did to Alex. Look at his battered face. Look, they nearly killed him, Eugene. They beat him for hours and burned him with an iron. That's what they'll do to you, too. Now, please stop wasting time. Do what Alex says."
With that, it finally sank in and Eugene offered the one response that felt appropriate at that moment. He vomited, a huge, boisterous gusher that splashed across the floor. He bent over, sucked in a few deep breaths, wiped the sleeve of his hand-tailored, thousand-dollar suit across his mouth and nose, then mumbled his first intelligent words of the night. "Get me the hell out of here."
Alex walked over to the same waiter he had spoken with earlier, politely explained what he needed, handed him the keys to the rented orange Trabant, and stuffed a hundred-dollar bill into his palm with the promise of another hundred the second the job was done. Vladimir raced down the long alleyway and fought to suppress his exploding anxiety. He should have caught up with them by now, he realized. By his calculation, after they fled the hotel, this was the only route Konevitch and his wife and their plump friend could've taken.