roof light, he raised his hand and whistled. The cab pulled over and the rear passenger door popped open. Hixon One got in.
“Bloody dismal out, eh?” the cabbie asked. “I’ll bet it’ll rain like this all the way through Christmas.”
“It’s good for the taxi business.”
“So they say. Where to?”
“St. James Square.”
Hixon One waited until the cabbie turned onto Knightsbridge for the long, straight run to Piccadilly. “Any good fares?”
“Mostly short, except for the last one, that American. But at least this shift will end with a good long ride tomorrow morning.”
“He reserved you?”
“And paid extra. For 8 A. M., all the way to Heathrow. I imagine he didn’t enjoy soaking outside of Paddington Station waiting for a cab earlier tonight.”
Hixon One rode the last few blocks to St. James Square in silence. He hopped out, waited for the cabbie to swing around the square and shoot out the other side, then hailed another taxi back to his car.
As Matson climbed into the cab in front of his building the next morning, Hixon One took up his position outside terminal one at Heathrow. An hour later, Hixon One trailed Matson from the curb to the British Airways first-class check-in. Hixon One bought a refundable ticket on the same flight and trailed Matson through the security checkpoint, then called Gage.
“He’s taking the British Airways 10:40 for San Francisco,” Hixon One said.
“Stay with him until he gets on the plane. I don’t want to take a chance of him escaping onto a flight somewhere else.”
“Why haven’t we heard from her?” Ninchenko asked himself aloud for the fourth time in an hour. Gage thought he heard more in Ninchenko’s voice than just concern for an operative.
It was 3 A. M. Gage and Ninchenko were stationed on the hill to the west of the dacha from where they could look down on the top of the menagerie, Alla’s window, the fountain, and the entrance to the mansion. Two of Ninchenko’s men, Maks and Yasha, had kept watch on Gravilov’s apartment until they were sure he and Hammer were in for the night, then took up positions in the bushes along the dacha’s fifty-yard-long driveway.
“Slava sounded nervous when I told him we may have to go in after her,” Gage whispered.
“He’s not looking for a war with Gravilov and he’s afraid what we’re doing here may start one.”
Gage’s phone rang. It wasn’t Alla.
“Graham? This is Viz. Scooby came through customs a minute ago. He’s in line for a cab, all fidgety, like a man on the run. Should I stay with him?”
“Just long enough to see whether he heads down to SatTek to get the low-noise software. A hundred says he goes home instead of paying the ransom.”
“No way I’ll take that bet. Not on that scumbag.”
Gage rang off and turned his attention back to the mansion.
“Alla thinks that all Gravilov left here are Razor and the androgynous one,” Gage told Ninchenko.
“No need to waste the extra manpower. It wouldn’t cross Gravilov’s mind that Matson would send someone to rescue her.”
Forty-five minutes later, Viz called to report that Matson’s cab had turned off from the freeway away from San Jose and was now heading toward Saratoga. “You were right, the little weasel went home.”
Gage spotted movement at the entrance to the mansion as he ended the call. Light from the interior illuminated Razor’s profile as he lit a cigar, the lighter flame giving his pale, distorted face an orange glow.
Ninchenko slowly shook his head.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Gage said. He then hoisted on his backpack and withdrew a semiautomatic from the waistband of his pants. “We’re way, way too old for this.”
“Don’t worry old man, my young helpers will be right behind us.”
“To follow us in or carry us out?”
Ninchenko laughed softly. “Probably both.” He then called Maks and Yasha and told them to seal off the entrance to the property.
Gage and Ninchenko snuck down the hill, their path through the forest intermittently lit by a last-quarter moon. Halfway down, Gage glimpsed Razor again, the glowing tip of the cigar in his left hand rising and falling. They paused and watched him pass behind the fountain in front, then work his way toward the pens and around the western wing of the house, passing under Alla’s window. He disappeared around the back and reappeared a few minutes later, walking around the eastern wing. He walked up the driveway, then back, and began another circuit.
Hooves thumped as Gage and Ninchenko continued down the hillside until they reached the rear of the pens. They stopped moving, but more of the animals alerted to their presence. Bird wings fluttered. Gage sensed the sniffing of a hyena, nose pressed into the chain-link fence three feet away. A wild pig snorted, then scraped at the ground as wolverines began to pace. A slight breeze off the river brought them the smells of fresh straw, dirt, and the odors of animal waste.
Gage looked up toward Alla’s window, hoping her phone was on vibrate, then pressed “send.” The phone rang four times, then stopped. A low-wattage light flashed in Alla’s room. He called again, let the phone ring once, then disconnected.
They waited until Razor completed another circuit and walked up the driveway, then Gage signaled for Ninchenko to head toward the rear of the mansion. As Ninchenko crept forward, angling past the western wing and around to the back, Gage set about to create enough chaos to keep Razor away from the house long enough for Ninchenko to slip in and rescue Alla without engaging in bloodshed that would provoke the gang war Slava wanted to avoid.
Gage shoved the gun under the waistband at the small of his back, then slid off his backpack, removed bolt cutters, and worked his way along the front of the pens. In the darkness, he nearly stumbled over a rake. He felt for the lock on the antelope pen, then carefully slipped the jaw around the shackle and pressed the cutter arms together. The cheap Ukrainian metal parted in silence. Gage twisted the lock free, opened the gate, then moved on. He passed on the wild pigs, then opened the peacock and deer pens in turn.
Gage waited for the animals to realize they were free, but they didn’t catch on, so he worked his way back past the antelope pen and retrieved the rake. He felt the length of it. It was heavy like a medieval pike, with a dozen clawlike steel tines. He slipped inside and side-stepped along the fence until he spotted two moonlit eyes fixed on him. A slight breeze disturbed branches above, then moonlight fell on four more eyes and horns pointing skyward. The eyes followed Gage as he tried to sneak behind them, then disappeared into blackness as they turned away from the moon. Gage glimpsed the silhouette of a set of horns, guessed where the rump was, then gave it a whack. The startled antelope led a charge of the four-member herd away from Gage. Using a double-handed grip, he swung the rake in wide arcs until all of them found the open gate.
But the delay had been costly. As Gage followed the charging animals into the gap between the front door and the fountain, he spotted Razor running down the driveway-and Razor spotted him.
The antelopes scattered, leaving Gage without cover and facing Razor, now crouched six feet away with a semiautomatic in his hand. The expression on Razor’s face suggested puzzlement, rather than fear or rage, as if it didn’t make sense to him that the Matson he’d observed had it in him to organize a rescue.
Razor pointed his gun at the rake and then at the ground, signaling Gage to drop it. Gage bent forward as though in submission and slowly lowered it. Razor’s head snapped to his right at the sound of thudding feet in the woods, mistaking the running of panicked animals for more attackers. Gage yanked the rake upward, catching Razor’s wrist with the tines. The gun spun free. Razor neither recoiled nor dived for it. He simply reached under his coat and emerged with a Russian combat knife.
Gage didn’t think he could get to his gun before Razor got to him, so he kept him at bay with the rake. He heard the crash of Ninchenko kicking in the back door, then the rat-tat-tat of an automatic weapon, followed by two gun blasts, then a third.
The war Slava had hoped to avoid had begun.
Razor charged inside the arc of the swinging rake. Gage ducked, then threw an uppercut at the man’s twisted nose. Razor’s hands involuntarily rose to his face. Gage crouched and threw a right cross into the base of his rib
