cage. Razor grabbed and hugged Gage like a punch-drunk fighter, then gouged at his back with the knife. Gage’s body told him he was being hit, while his mind told him he was being stabbed. He dropped to the ground and wrapped his arms around Razor’s knees, then rolled, twisting him from his feet, his arms flailing as he fell. Razor’s legs kicked and shook but his torso flopped like a rag doll along the ground. Gage heard him grunt, then felt the spasms of his body’s uncontrollable jerking until it finally went limp. Gage yanked Razor’s lifeless left arm behind his back, then saw that his head lay propped at an awkward angle. Gage pushed it to the side and saw the knife handle and half of the blade sticking out of the dead man’s neck.
A window exploded, followed by Alla’s screams.
Maks and Yasha ran up as Gage picked up Razor’s gun. He pointed toward the front of the house, and they followed him inside. He signaled for them to secure the first floor, then he snuck down the long foyer toward the back of the house until he reached a closed door. He pressed himself against the wall beside it, pushed it open, then dropped to a crouch and ducked his head forward into what turned out to be the kitchen. He spotted Ninchenko’s legs to the left and a stocky body curled in a pool of blood on the opposite side of the room, a nearly bloodless bullet hole centered in the man’s forehead.
Gage crawled toward Ninchenko, propped against the stove, eyes closed. Ninchenko struggled to raise his gun hand in response to the sound of Gage’s movement.
“It’s me, amigo,” Gage whispered, then pressed Ninchenko’s hand back down. He saw two holes in Ninchenko’s jacket, one below his left shoulder and one in his lower chest.
Ninchenko opened his eyes a fraction, then tilted his head upward toward Alla’s room. Gage nodded, then pushed himself to his feet.
Gage met Maks and Yasha in the foyer. He waved them toward the kitchen, saying Ninchenko’s name.
Alla screamed again as he ran up the stairs.
He followed the screams up the next flight and toward an open door at the end of a hallway. Gage peeked around the doorjamb. Alla stood on a chair in the far corner, swinging a lamp at a squat woman in a tracksuit who was grabbing at her.
“ Nakonec! ” Alla yelled, looking across the room at Gage.
An androgynous, slug-shaped woman turned toward the door. Alla swung the lamp high in the air and brought it down on the top of the woman’s head and she crumpled to the carpet.
“Finally!” Alla repeated, this time in English, then jumped down from the chair and kicked the woman in the ribs.
Gage ran over and pulled her away.
Alla struggled against his grip. “Let me go.”
“We don’t have time for you to get even. Ninchenko’s hurt.”
Gage tied the woman’s hands with the lamp cord so she couldn’t get to a phone to warn Gravilov when she regained consciousness, then they dashed down the stairs and to the front of the mansion, where they spotted Yasha easing Ninchenko into the backseat of a car. Maks ran from the direction of the menagerie carrying Gage’s backpack and bolt cutters, and Razor’s knife.
Gage and Alla got in on either side of Ninchenko in the backseat while the others jumped into the front. Gage unbuttoned Ninchenko’s jacket, then reached inside, pressing a palm against each wound.
Maks called ahead to the hospital as they sped through the countryside. By the time they neared the city limits, Ninchenko lay slumped in the seat, motionless, his skin ghostlike in the dashboard lights.
CHAPTER 73
A white-coated doctor waited in the darkness just off the grounds of the Dnepropetrovsk Clinical Hospital. Maks stopped the car and handed a roll of bills to the doctor, who then followed the car to the emergency entrance.
The doctor snapped orders in Russian, then spoke softly to a nurse as he walked into the hospital. Gage and Alla followed behind as orderlies lifted Ninchenko onto a gurney and raced him down a grimy pale green hallway into pre-op. They watched through an open door as his clothes were cut off and he was rolled into the operating room.
“What did the doctor tell the admitting nurse to put in the record?” Gage asked Alla.
“That Ninchenko was in a car accident. Internal bleeding.”
Gage leaned back against the wall as an elderly couple shuffled by, carrying clean sheets and towels and containers of food. Bleary eyes spoke of a long journey on Soviet-era streetcars and of a hospital too poor or too corrupt to meet even the most basic needs of its patients.
“What happened outside of the dacha?” Alla asked.
Gage shrugged, then looked over. “Let’s just say Razor gave his life for the greater good.”
She smirked. “Self-sacrifice didn’t seem to be his game.”
“I think he surprised himself.”
“You surprised me,” Alla said. “I had no idea you were coming until the phone vibrated the second time.”
Alla fell silent as a nurse passed by, then said, “Stuart wasn’t coming back, was he?”
Gage shook his head. “And we needed to move in before Gravilov figured that out.” He turned away from the wall to face her. “I didn’t tell you before because I was afraid you’d panic and try to take them on yourself.”
Alla stepped forward, pulling Gage’s shoulder farther away from the wall.
“What’s that?” She ran her fingers over red smears on the paint, then showed them to Gage. “This is blood.”
Alla pulled Gage around until his back was to her.
“He slashed you. Can’t you feel it?”
She reached up with both hands and grasped his collar, pulled his coat down, and dropped it to the floor in one motion. Blood on his shirt circled the wounds.
“It just feels bruised,” Gage said, reaching around to probe his back. Alla pulled his hand away.
“Wait here.” She strode down the hallway, returning a minute later with a pouting nurse with a large mole on her cheek, who led them to an examining room. Gage removed his shirt, then the nurse cleaned the wounds.
“How bad is it?” Gage asked.
“They’re about two inches across and about a quarter-inch deep,” Alla said. “It looks like he was stabbing at an angle.”
Alla spoke with the nurse in Russian, then said, “She wants to stitch them.”
Gage reached into his wallet, withdrew a twenty-dollar bill, and held it up. “Tell her I want a new needle, unopened surgical thread, and a course of antibiotics. German.”
Alla translated.
The nurse smiled, accepted the money, and left the room. She returned a few minutes later and laid out the items for Gage’s inspection. Both the needle and thread were sealed in plastic. She opened the box of antibiotic tablets to show they hadn’t been tampered with.
“O-kay?” she asked in English.
Two hours later, the doctor emerged from the operating room wearing a bloodstained smock. He and Alla conversed briefly in Russian near the swinging doors. After he walked away, Alla turned toward Gage with a quick smile and a thumbs-up.
“What did he say?” Gage asked as she approached.
“The first thing was that he wanted to know when he’d get the rest of his money.”
“And?”
“We’ll need to bring in clean sheets and more money for syringes, IVs, and the rest. He’ll give us a list of the food that will have to be brought in.”
Gage glared at the doctor’s office door. “At what point did he mention Ninchenko’s condition?”
“Only after he said that he’ll take care of paying off the nurses and that he’ll be in his office for the next half hour waiting for the cash.”
