“I can give you three million reasons, all of them recently deposited to my bank account.”
“So, you lied to me for three million.”
“You lied to me, too.”
Emma was stunned. “I did what?”
“You almost got me killed. The guy I stole the stuff for says it won’t work.”
“Fuck him!” shouted Emma angrily.
“I don’t think you’d enjoy that,” offered the Saint.
She eyed him through a mist of outrage. “You’re right, I’d rather it was you!”
Emma made a signal, and three Russian police were suddenly all over him, snapping on handcuffs.
“You don’t know what you’re dealing with, Dr. Russell,” insisted Templar.
“The tables have turned,” declared Emma triumphantly.
Her triumph was short-lived. In the next second the cops handcuffed her as well.
“Yes, they have,” concurred Templar. They were dragged from the coffee bar, through the lobby, and out to an awaiting paddywagon.
Separated from her purse, Emma begged for her medications.
“My heart pills, please. You must leave me my pills!”
They ignored her and tossed them both into the wagon.
The door slammed shut and the van roared off.
“They didn’t give me my pills,” lamented Emma in the dark.
“They didn’t have them, I do,” stated Templar softly. “I palmed them in the bar, pocketed them while they frisked you.”
The van took a corner and the two prisoners collided into each other.
“Oh, God!” cried Emma. “My heart...”
“Which pills? Which pills?”
“The little ones in the vial, the nitros...”
Templar painfully repositioned himself, contorted, and plucked the small brown bottle from his pocket.
“I’m getting out a nitro, take it easy....”
Emma was not taking it easy.
“Just turn around, you’ll be fine. Kneel, eat it from my hand.”
The van swerved and Emma toppled to the floor.
She sobbed. Her chest hurt.
“Emma! For God’s sake, find me! Take it!”
She crawled on the cold steel floor toward his outstretched palms. She wrapped an arm around his well-trousered leg and put her open mouth into his hand as if giving it the kiss of life. Her tongue found the tiny nitro tablet and she took it.
She allowed herself to loosen her grip on Simon’s leg, feeling the distinctive nitro rush move up through the top of her head, taking her chest pain with it.
The paddywagon hit a bump, and she fell backward on the floor. Templar threw himself down next to her. The light flashed in through slanted vents as the van swerved around another corner, and she saw Templar tearing at his shirt with his teeth.
“What are you...”
“Emma... can you see under my arm... a tiny pouch of scar tissue...”
Awkward with the handcuffs, but he raised his left arm.
“Inside is a rod, about three centimeters long. Can you see it?”
Not easy in the dark, but she could just make it out — a smooth, hairless ridge just beneath the hollow of his underarm.
“Pull it out with your teeth.”
“I’m so sure,” objected Emma.
“They’re taking us to Ivan Tretiak. His ambitions fill cemeteries. Trust me: You’d rather put your nose in my armpit.”
She didn’t trust him, but she believed him. She buried her pert nose in his perspiring pit.
The paddywagon accelerated, swerved, spun around several more corners, entered the compound of Ivan Tretiak, and pulled up on a ramp leading below the mansion.
It was Ilya who awaited the van, eager to take custody of the prisoners. He impatiently tapped his walking stick as the first cop climbed out of the cab.
“The two came very quietly,” said the cop. He grappled with his keys and prepared to open the van.
Tretiak joined them, beaming.
“Open the door, quickly. I want to see the prize catch of the day!”
The door opened. Empty. Almost empty — two sets of open handcuffs and a length of chain.
Tretiak grabbed Ilya’s walking stick and whacked the cop over the head. The sound of cracking skull was loud, wet, and unpleasant. The cop did not hear it. He was dead before the first splatters of blood stained the van door.
The second cop froze where he stood, and Ilya looked in admiration at his father. Dad was always a man of decisive action.
“Close the city!” yelled Ivan Tretiak. “Kill him and bring her to me!”
“Yeah,” added Ilya, and he felt powerful saying it.
3
Templar and Emma ran down the walkway of an ice-slick tunnel. The walls were plastered with posters of Tretiak as a Christ-like messiah. A police car streaked by, and Templar dragged the bedraggled Emma into an alcove, where he pressed against her as if they were lovers.
When their lips parted, she spoke. “Kiss me again.”
Another cop car approached from the opposite direction and slowed to watch them kiss.
“Why are they after me?” she asked, her breath merging with his.
Templar held her close. “Tretiak, the guy who hired me to steal your formula, owns this city — cops and all. We’re going to have to convince him he’s got everything he wants from you.”
Emma pressed against him with unexpected assertiveness. “What do you want from me?”
He kissed her again.
“Are the cards everything?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And the formula will work?”
“No.”
“Make up your mind.”
She broke the embrace and leaned against the tunnel wall.
“I still have to figure out the right order. But I am not going to give it to him.”
“Emma, he’ll find you — he found me and that’s a hard thing to do.”
She looked him over. She was attracted, but not trusting. Not yet.
“I found you, too. It wasn’t difficult, don’t fool yourself. You have what Inspector Teal called ‘criminal pride,’ and it’s what makes criminals get caught — they get sloppy or egotistical or both.”
He put his arm around her. “Am I that sloppy?”
“You left behind a sketchbook filled with your poetry and drawings.”
Templar felt an authentic smile light up across his face. “I did that on purpose, that wasn’t sloppy.”
“Oh? What was it, then?”
“Ego,” admitted the Saint, and she actually laughed.
Together, they made it quickly to Moscow’s massive railroad station. Fifteen tracks served this travel center, and thousands of Russians passed through daily. While waiting to board, travelers could purchase Peach Vodka in a can and chocolate bars from numerous competing vendors.
Considering the early hour, Templar and Emma found the station surprisingly busy.
“Where are all these people going?” asked Emma.
“Probably to their country cousins’ where they can chop wood to stay warm,” ventured Templar, and he was probably right.
Vlad, the third leg of the triad death squad, was assigned this venue. He saw Templar and Emma enter, and made a quick call on his cellular phone.
While Vlad informed Ilya of the couple’s location, Templar opened a storage locker and pulled out passports and money.
“How much time do you need to finish your formula?”
“I need a kiss,” replied the nervous Emma.
“Concentrate. Concentrate. How long?”
“I can’t say for sure,” she stammered, “anywhere from two hours to—”
“Good,” interrupted Templar. “Just enough time for me to get the passports together for us to get married.”
Emma was incredulous. “Married?”