Private Wars

She opened the passenger door, reaching across the little boy to unfasten his seatbelt.

“Please,” Ruslan pleaded. “Leave him in the car!”

Chace finished unfastening the boy, caught him beneath the armpits, and swung him out of the vehicle. She set Stepan down on the rough sand, facing his father.

“Don’t do this!”

“Ota,” she told the little boy. She needn’t have said anything.

As soon as her hands left him, Stepan was off, a full toddler run, arms flailing, legs pumping, making straight for Ruslan. Chace straightened, watching the little boy as she pulled the Makarov from her pocket. She followed after him, slower, the gun in her right hand.

“For pity’s sake, Ruslan,” she said, “put the damn thing down.”

She thought she saw him consider it, saw the launch tube of the missile dip toward the earth once more just as Stepan reached him. The little boy threw his arms around his father’s legs, and Ruslan looked down at his son, then up at Chace, and there was no escaping the pain on his face.

“Put him back in the car! I am begging you!”

Chace continued to approach, shaking her head. From across the river, she could hear the Sikorsky, the echo of the rotors spinning up. She saw Ruslan’s head jerk to the right, hearing it as well.

“You have to decide what’s more important, Ruslan,” Chace told him. “Your son or your revenge.”

“She raped and murdered his mother!”

“And you’re about to murder his aunt.”

“Tell me! You tell me! Tell me that you wouldn’t have killed the man who murdered the father of your child.”

Chace brought the Makarov up, holding it in both hands, placing the sights high on Ruslan’s body, as far away from his son as she dared.

“I did kill him,” she answered.

He wasn’t looking at her now, looking instead past her, focusing on where the Sikorsky would rise into sight. The noise of the helicopter went from faint to suddenly much louder, and without needing to turn and look, Chace knew it was off the ground. The window was open for his shot, would only remain so for a few more seconds.

Ruslan looked down at his son, still clinging tightly to his legs, then to Chace. He hoisted the Starstreak back into firing position on his shoulder, turned his face to settle his right eye against the sight.

“You are the mother of a child,” Ruslan Mihailovich Malikov reminded her. “You will not shoot me in front of my son.”

“You’re wrong,” Chace said, and then she shot him four times in the chest.

CHAPTER 54

London—Camden—Chace Family Residence

1 September, 0033 Hours GMT

She’d sent a message from Mazar-i-Sharif before she and Lankford had caught the transport to Turkey, telling Val that she was on her way home, and that she hoped to see her and Tamsin in London on her return. It was a break in protocol to send any such communication while on a job, and if Crocker had known about it he’d have gone into fits, but after seeing Stepan back to Uzbekistan and returned to Sevara Malikov- Ganiev’s care, Chace didn’t really give a damn. They had the last Starstreak back and Ruslan Malikov was no longer a problem for anyone except perhaps his son.

If that didn’t make Crocker happy, Chace had no interest in performing whatever task would.

The little boy had looked at her with eyes devoid of any comprehension or soul when she’d pulled him from his father’s body. There had been no more tears and no more sobs, there had been no sound at all. There had been nothing because, Chace suspected, Stepan Malikov no longer had anything.

She told herself that he would forget, that he would recover, and on the plane to Frankfurt, Lankford tried to tell her the same thing.

Both of them knew it for the lie it was.

Her house was quiet and still and the lights were all off when Chace came through the door, and she wondered if Val had received the message. She shut and locked the front door behind her, hung her coat on the stand, dropped her go-bag at its foot. She would have to replace its contents, substitute clean clothes for the dirty, replace those things she had used.

Then she saw her mail piled neatly on the table beside the couch.

She checked in the guest room, parting the door just enough to confirm that Val was indeed asleep there, then made her way to the bedroom. She stripped, changed into pajamas, and then went to look in on Tamsin, finding her sixteen-month-old daughter awake and on her feet in her crib, waiting quietly in the darkness.

“Mama,” Tamsin said.

“That’s right,” Chace agreed, taking the child in her arms. “Mama.”

GLOSSARY