The noise will keep Pyotyr from hearing Yakov turn the key in the side door and charge in. We’ll be shooting from three different directions. There’ll be so much disruption, Pyotyr won’t know where to turn first. Plus, all those people will be in the way, screaming, panicking, interfering with his aim.
“ When I picked up the cell phone Pyotyr lost, I also found his spare magazines. They must have been in the same coat pocket. Without enough ammunition to fight all of us, what chance does he have?”
“ You don’t want Brody and his family injured?” Mikhail asked.
“ On the contrary. They can’t be allowed to tell the police anything. I want them all dead. Except the baby. We can’t attack until we know where the baby is.”
The coppery odor of the nursemaid’s blood filled Kagan’s nostrils. He watched Yakov draw his thumb across the cash in the thick envelope he’d taken from the woman’s corpse.
Andrei held out his hand.
“ What?” Yakov asked.
“ Our clients might want the bribe money returned to them,” Andrei said. “Give it to me.”
“ And if they don’t remember to ask for the money?”
“ Then the Pakhan will want his cut.”
Surprising Kagan, it was Viktor who spoke next, not Yakov. “Always the Pakhan,” the gangly newcomer said, holding the baby.
Andrei ignored him. “Yakov, I want the envelope.”
With a sigh, Yakov gave it to him.
“ After the Pakhan takes his cut, I’ll divide the money evenly,” Andrei promised.
“ We’ll make sure you do.” Viktor tightened his grip on the squirming baby.
Andrei turned toward him. “You’re new, Viktor. You’re still learning how things work here, so I’ll make an exception just this once. But never challenge me again.”
Viktor’s eyes became fierce. “Yakov challenged you also. Give him shit, the same as you do me.”
“ Yakov challenged me? I don’t think so.”
Viktor glowered. “Whatever you say.”
“ Now you’re getting the idea. Whatever I say.”
The baby whimpered in Viktor’s arms. The sound-and the helplessness it conveyed-stirred something in Kagan.
“ Give the package to Mikhail,” Andrei said.
“ But I can handle it,” Viktor objected.
“ It doesn’t like you. Do as we rehearsed and give the baby to Mikhail before you make it cry.”
Kagan watched Andrei step close to the baby and concentrate on its small, unhappy face. An odd emotion seemed to cross Andrei’s own face, a feeling he apparently found so unusual that it baffled him. As Viktor gave the struggling baby to Mikhail, Andrei shook his head, giving the impression that he forcibly subdued the unfamiliar emotion. He stuffed the envelope into an inside pocket of his ski jacket, then pressed the microphone that was hidden under the ski-lift tickets on the jacket.
“ This is Melchior. We have the package. We’re leaving the store. Two minutes.”
Viktor and Yakov opened the bedroom door and checked to make certain the hallway was deserted before stepping out of the room. They put their weapons in their coats and motioned for Mikhail to follow with the baby. Kagan and Andrei went last, concealing their pistols, making sure the door was locked behind them.
As they’d rehearsed, Kagan hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob. The television continued to murmur in the suite, the elderly man’s voice still maintaining that he was Santa Claus.
They went down the curved staircase and walked along the carpeted hallway, passing the desk where the receptionist had greeted them before Mikhail had killed her.
Viktor opened the security door that isolated this exclusive group of rooms from the rest of the hotel. Keeping Mikhail and the baby in the middle, the group passed the elevator, opened a fire door, and went down a harshly lit concrete stairwell. As they descended, they took off their latex gloves and put on their outdoor ones.
The baby’s whimper echoed amid their scraping footsteps.
“ This is Melchior. One minute till arrival,” Andrei said to his microphone.
Three floors down, they reached the street level. Here a security camera was aimed at the corridor. They kept their heads down and tightened their two-one-two formation, partially shielding Mikhail in the middle so the camera couldn’t see the baby in his arms.
Through a glass door-the side exit from the hotel-Kagan saw snow falling past murky streetlights. Warmly dressed people walked past the window. Beyond vehicles parked along the curb, a dark van suddenly stopped.
I can’t do this, Kagan thought.
That afternoon, for a long time, he’d knelt in the nearby cathedral and stared at a manger scene, trying to tell himself that his controllers were absolutely right, that the innocent lives he’d saved were all that mattered. “Bring me home,” he’d begged them in dead-drop messages during the past three months. Sometimes he’d managed to slip away from Andrei and risk phone calls. But there had always been some reason his controllers couldn’t bring him in. He was too well placed, they’d insisted. No one could ever hope to penetrate the Russian mob so deeply. If he disappeared, the Russians would realize he was a spy, making it more dangerous to try to infiltrate another operative into the heart of their organization.
“ Then fake my death,” Kagan had urged them. “The Russians won’t suspect I was a mole if they think I’m dead.” But his controllers had talked of new rumors, about plastic explosives, hand-held missiles, and biological weapons being smuggled in via ports controlled by the Odessa Mafia. They’d reminded him of all the innocent lives he had an obligation to save.
Meanwhile, he’d obeyed the Pakhan’s orders to burn homes, break arms and legs, yank out teeth, and beat up women. More of his soul had disintegrated.
Viktor and Yakov stepped from the hotel and looked both ways, staring at pedestrians in the shadowy snowfall. With a nod, they signaled to Mikhail to carry the baby outside. Andrei and Kagan followed.
Kagan’s cheeks felt cold. His stomach felt colder.
Too much, he thought. No more.
The group passed between snow-covered cars parked along the curb. Headlights glowed in the street. Reaching the van, Viktor pulled its side door open. Yakov scrambled in. Mikhail approached with the baby. Andrei and Kagan followed.
The baby squirmed in Mikhail’s arms.
I wanted to make the world better, Kagan thought.
The baby cried. Mikhail held it with one arm while using his free hand to grip an armrest in the van and climb in.
“ Don’t drop it,” Andrei warned.
I wanted to fight the kind of men who made my parents afraid for so many years, Kagan thought.
The baby struggled as Mikhail sat next to Yakov opposite the side door.
And now I’m no different from the people I set out to fight.
Kagan let Andrei climb in next. With the middle seat occupied, Andrei was forced to squeeze toward the seat in the back.
I’ve beaten. I’ve tortured. I’ve killed, Kagan thought. But by God, this is one thing I won’t do.
He leaned into the van, as if to reach for an armrest and climb all the way in. His heart pounding, he pointed in feigned alarm.
“ What happened to the baby? It’s bleeding!”
“ What?” Mikhail asked. “Where?” He opened his arms to examine the child.
Kagan grabbed it, surged back from the open door, felt Viktor behind him, and swung. Something tugged violently at his coat, but only for a moment. With both arms gripping the baby, Kagan focused on his right elbow. He pivoted with such force that when the tip of the elbow struck Viktor’s nose, he felt the bones crack. They shattered and propelled inward with such power that Kagan knew they’d pierced Viktor’s brain.
Hearing shouts of alarm coming from the open van, he charged up the street, veered between cars at the curb, reached the sidewalk, and shouted for pedestrians to get out of his way. All at once, his left arm jerked, then became numb.
