Yulana joined him at the table and set down both shot glasses.
“Okay, so we drink when we come back,” she said.
“You stay here. Wait for one hour after I leave. Then take a taxi out to that hotel across from Domodedovo Airport. I’ll join you there for breakfast with Kala.”
“No. I’m coming with you.”
He stopped his preparations and gazed downward. He didn’t want her to come with him, because he didn’t want her to die.
“Your government thinks I’m a spy, so they will not help rescue my daughter,” she said emphatically. “They won’t even help you move against Popov. And the Russian police won’t help rescue Kala, either. Popov is too powerful.”
“I have the element of surprise, so this should be easy. You’d just slow me down,” he said, avoiding her gaze.
“Like I have slowed you down until now?” She touched his arm.
“This is different.”
“You are a poor liar. You don’t even need to go, do you?”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“Your friends will stop the information theft in Las Vegas. Five hundred strands… not good, but not the end of the world. And if you want to kill Popov, you don’t need to invade his fortress; you told me yourself he takes breakfast at the same hotel every week. You are only going for one reason: to save Kala.”
He didn’t answer and wouldn’t meet her eyes. He picked up an ammunition magazine, but she tore it out of his hand and pulled him into her arms. Her lips insistently found his, and for many long moments they lost themselves in hot desire. Then he broke off the kiss and looked into her mesmerizing eyes.
“I’ve got to go.”
“We have got to go.” She said it as an absolute.
“Yulana, I… I don’t want you to be… injured.”
“You don’t want me to get killed, is what you were thinking. But I won’t allow you to change the game on me now. We are both in this until the end!”
He looked into her eyes, searching them to measure her resolve. “It won’t be like Sandia. People are going to die. Lots of people.”
She picked up a glass of vodka from the table and downed it. “Do I have to find my own gun again, or will you give me one this time?”
He looked at her for a long beat and could see it was useless to try to dissuade her from coming. “If you really want to do this, then you’ll be carrying a lot more than a gun.”
Scaling a three-story Russian neoclassical building on Nikolskaya Street is doable, as long as you’re a hardened, well-trained special operator. Even though he carried over seventy pounds of gear in a backpack and distributed on his body, the many hand- and footholds, outcroppings of cement blocks, window ledges, drain spouts, and conduits made the climb possible. Not easy, but possible.
In the darkness at 04:33 A.M., Kit made it to the roof of a building three doors down from Popov’s headquarters. In a city known for its wild nightlife, the street had finally quieted down around four o’clock.
His gunshot wound hurt like hell, and physical exertion exacerbated a migraine’s symptoms. Bennings promptly threw up. He felt like crap-on-a-stick, and part of him wanted to just sprawl on the roof and call it a night. But that line of thinking lasted about three seconds. He blinked his eyes, trying to focus as he looked over toward Popov’s lair.
Since there was no space between the buildings, the approach would be straightforward. Using low-light binoculars, Kit spotted the two rooftop guards in a fifteen-foot-tall cement tower topped by a cupola. Popov had turned the classic architectural feature into a security post.
Kit silently eased off his backpack and left it on the neighboring roof. He then crept up to the tower, where the guards sat inside on high stools, smoking, chatting, and listening to Russian pop at a low volume. Kit sprang into the room and slammed the butt of a marine KA-BAR knife into the skull of the biggest guard. The other guard, a thin guy, was too shocked to even speak, and Kit swung the other way, catching him in the jaw with the butt of the knife and knocking him down. He then pounced, pressing the supersharp blade against the guard’s throat.
“Help me and you will live. Do you understand?” asked Kit in Russian. The adrenaline now pumping into his system helped him concentrate.
“Da.” The man was so frightened he could barely speak.
“The three-year-old girl, Kala Petkova—which room is she in? Which floor?”
The thin man hesitated, and Kit pressed the knife harder against his skin.
“Second floor. In a private room across from Popov’s suite. She has a nanny in there with her. Room number is eight.”
“If you’re lying, you’ll pay with your life.” Kit lifted him to his feet and pulled him outside. “Let’s take a little stroll on the roof. You will explain to me, floor by floor, room by room, where everything is in the building. Do that, and I won’t kill you.”
The man nodded. Kit guided him out of the tower, and they began to walk a grid pattern on the roof.
“The computer servers. Where is the room with the computer servers?”
The man led him to the northeast corner of the roof. “Here,” said the guard. “A corner room.”
“Right under here? On the third floor?”
“Yes. Right below us here.”
Yulana had never been to Popov’s building before, and there was some risk she might be recognized by the men who had accompanied her when she met and married Bennings just a few days previous, although it now seemed like a lifetime ago.
So her hair was up in an asymmetrical ponytail, and a baseball cap rode crooked and low over her forehead. Bright red lipstick and heavy eye makeup altered her looks but didn’t change the fact that she was perfectly gorgeous. She wore boots and blue jeans, and the backpack straps tugged mightily at her shoulders due to the heavy load inside. She held a red silk flower on a long stiff stem and stumbled on the deserted sidewalk on Nikolskaya Street as if she were drunk. She stopped in front of the iron gate under a stone archway leading to the rear of Popov’s building. She tried to light a cigarette, but her lighter (courtesy of Kit’s tinkering) wouldn’t light. She could see the gate guard from the corner of her eye watching her.
Yulana threw the lighter on the ground, then pretended to notice the guard for the first time.
“Do you have a light?”
“Da.”
She staggered slightly as she approached the closed gate. The man’s massive hand reached through the bars and flicked his lighter. Yulana grasped his hand as if to steady it as she still held the flower, then touched her cigarette to the flame. She looked into his eyes and could tell he liked what he saw.
After slowly releasing his hand, Yulana exhaled sensuously. She stared at him for several beats.
“Big night?” he finally asked.
“Small night.” She took a long drag and stroked the flower blossom against her cheek. “I need six thousand rubles. Now.”
“Don’t we all?” joked the guard.
She slowly reached through the bars and touched his chest. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
The guard cleared his throat. She then moved her hand down to his belt buckle and gave it a wiggle.
“One thousand.”
“Four thousand,” she said.
“Fifteen hundred.”
“Take a look at my face and say you won’t pay two thousand.”
He looked hungrily. “Okay, two thousand.” He clicked a remote control and the doors silently swung open. She eased inside and then the gate closed.