Willard‘s face was impassive. -None whatsoever, Doctor. He held out his hand. -Do I have your word?
Firth gripped the other‘s hand, which was firm and dry and somehow comforting. -I said anything, didn‘t I?
10
AS MOIRA LAUNCHED HERSELF out of the booth, she pulled the thumb drive out of the USB slot. By this time she‘d taken off through the coffee shop, down the narrow, dingy hallway that led to the toilets and the kitchen.
Turning left into the kitchen, she was engulfed by a surge of heat, steam, and raised voices. She was heading for the pantry when the delivery entrance at the rear burst open, and an NSA agent came through the doorway. As he did so, she pressed her thumb into the reader twice in succession even though the computer was still on. Then she threw it at him. He raised his arms reflexively to catch it and she raced into the small pantry cubicle. Kneeling, she pulled the ring on the trapdoor. As she was raising it from its mount flush in the floor, she heard the laptop‘s incendiary device explode. Shouts and the confusion caused by a fire in a confined space came to her as she slipped down the ladder, closing the trapdoor behind her. The device was a last-ditch security measure she‘d had her techs install in all Heartland laptops. Pressing the thumb reader twice while the laptop was on activated the device on a ten-second delay.
At the bottom of the ladder, she found herself in the basement, where bulk deliveries were stored. She felt above her head until she found the cord and pulled it. A bare bulb illuminated her surroundings in chiaroscuro starkness. She saw the metal doors leading to street level and opened them. There was a metal ramp used to slide the cartons of canned goods into the basement. She scrambled up this, bending almost double to hold on to the sides so as not to slip on the smooth surface. To do this, she had to slip the thumb drive, which she‘d been clutching for dear life, into her pocket. As she did so, the back of her hand brushed against what felt like a stiff card. Gaining the street, she found herself directly to the right of the entrance to the coffee shop, where people were piling out like boiling water. As she walked away she could hear the klaxon call of fire engines. She walked away from the melee, her hand in her pocket to check that she still had the thumb drive, and she felt again the presence of the card. Drawing it out, she saw that it had the EMS logo on it and Dave‘s name. Below, he‘d handwritten a cell phone number. Then she remembered him brushing by her and knew he‘d slipped her the card then. Any port in a storm, she thought. Flipping open the burner, she punched in the number.
Just then, glancing over her shoulder, she saw one of the NSA agents spill out of the entrance and she walked faster. But he‘d already spotted her and took off after her.
Rounding the corner, she put her phone to her ear.
— Yes? She was relieved to hear Dave‘s familiar voice.
— I‘m in trouble. She gave him her approximate location. -I‘ll be at Fort Myer Drive and Seventeenth Street North in three minutes.
— Wait for us, he said.
— Easy for you to say, she replied and raced around the corner onto North Nash Street.
Watching Maslov and his slope-shouldered Neanderthals climb back into their vehicle and head out, Arkadin suppressed a spasm of murderous rage. It was all he could do to stop himself from grabbing a semi-automatic off one of the stacks and spraying the vehicle with bullets until all four people inside were dead. Luckily, what was left of the rational part of his brain prevented him from making such a foolish move. He might feel better for the moment but in the larger scheme of things he would regret Maslov‘s premature demise. As long as the head of the Kazanskaya was useful to him he‘d allow him to live.
But not a moment longer.
He wouldn‘t make the same mistake with Maslov he‘d made with Stas Kuzin, the mob boss in Nizhny Tagil he‘d partnered with, then killed. In those days Arkadin was young and inexperienced; he‘d allowed Kuzin to live too long. Long enough to torture and kill the woman Arkadin was sleeping with. Of course, the young Arkadin hadn‘t considered what would happen in the aftermath of Kuzin‘s death and the death of a third of his depraved crew.
With the rest of Kuzin‘s murderers out for his blood he was forced to go to ground. Since they had all the avenues out of the city covered and had turned all the terrified citizens into informers, it was imperative to find a haven as quickly as possible, which unfortunately meant inside Nizhny Tagil, somewhere they‘d never find him, where they‘d never even think to look. He‘d shot Kuzin in the building he and Kuzin owned jointly, where Kuzin had his headquarters, where he kept the young girls Arkadin had swept off the streets for him. Of course, he found the perfect spot, one even Dimitri Maslov wouldn‘t have been clever enough to think of.
Abruptly Arkadin‘s mind switched gears to more immediate concerns. The phone call from Willard was very much on his mind as he walked back to where his Black Legion recruits were waiting for him outside the tents erected on the edge of the Azerbaijani plain. He‘d relied on that idiot Wayan, who had recommended Ian Bowles. Hiring Bowles clearly had been a mistake.
But now even Bowles was driven out of his mind as he addressed his troops. They were not nearly as well prepared for a coordinated raid as he‘d hoped. But then these men had been trained and used in solo missions. Many of them had been waiting for the orders to strap on their C-4 vests, infiltrate a market, a police station, or a school, and press the detonator. Their minds were already halfway to Paradise, and almost immediately Arkadin understood that it was his job as well as his duty as the head of the Eastern Brotherhood, the Black Legion‘s legitimate umbrella organization, to shape them into a unit, men who could rely on one another-sacrifice for one another if need be-without a second‘s hesitation.
The group of men-hardy, physically and mentally fit-stood arrayed in front of him, uncomfortable because he‘d ordered them to shave their heads and their beards, both of which were against both custom and their Islamic teachings. Not a one of them wasn‘t wondering how on earth they were going to infiltrate anywhere in the Islamic world looking as they now did.
One man, Farid, chose to voice their concern. He did it forcefully, believing he was speaking for the other ninety-nine recruits, not just himself.
— What was that? Arkadin‘s head snapped so hard a vertebra in his neck cracked like a rifle shot. -What did you say, Farid?
Had he known Arkadin at all, Farid would have kept his mouth shut. But he didn‘t, and there was no one in the godforsaken land to teach him. So he repeated his question.
— Sir, we‘re wondering why you ordered us to shave the hair that Allah dictates we must have. We‘re
