track of his pain in the swell of sudden fear, certain from her expression alone that she was about to pull the trigger.
“Remember me?” she asked. “Remember what you did to me?”
Zahidov stared at her, his vision still swimming with light and, now, with tears.
“Answer me,” she said, softly.
He nodded.
“Good,” she said, sounding satisfied. “Tozim remembered me, too, just before he died. Andrei, though . . . Andrei never had the chance before I killed him.”
She paused, to let her words sink in. The barrel of the gun was cutting into the roof of Zahidov’s mouth, and he felt his gag reflex trembling, and he was afraid what would happen if he couldn’t control it.
“Ruslan’s alive,” she whispered. “He wasn’t even in the convoy, you dumb fuck. You blew it, and anytime now, sweet little Sevya’s going to know you blew it, too. The President’s going to know you sent soldiers into Afghanistan to murder her brother, and that you did it without her permission. And what do you think she’s going to do?”
The urge to gag was unbearable, and Zahidov’s head came off the roof of the car involuntarily, and she slammed him back down with the gun. He couldn’t breathe, her figure blurring from the tears in his eyes.
“What do you think she’s going to do with an embarrassment like you, Ahtam? With someone as crude and stupid as you? You’re way past your expiration date, mate. What do you think she’s going to do now that she’s found a way to make peace with her brother?”
The spy, the British cunt spy, smiled at him then. She smiled.
Then she pulled the gun from his mouth, and at the same time, drove her right knee into his crotch.
Zahidov crumpled, pitching forward to the floor once more. This time he managed to get an arm in front of himself to cushion the fall.
“I don’t need to kill you, Ahtam. Do you know why?” The woman’s slightly husky voice came from above him. “Because your little Sevya’s going to do it for me. You’re already dead, Zahidov. You just haven’t stopped breathing yet.”
Then he felt his ribs threatening to break, and the little air he’d recovered fled, and the bright light consumed his vision a second time. This time it grew, and he heard the roar of a river, deafening in his ears.
When he came back to himself, he was on his side beside his car, still in the garage, still in darkness. He didn’t know how much time he’d lost, and, for a moment, he didn’t know how he’d come to be there, like this.
Then it came back to him, the pieces falling together, and he remembered the woman. He remembered the pain she’d given him. He remembered what she’d said, and he knew it had been true. Tozim and Andrei had failed, and Sevara did not abide failure.
Instead of proving Sevara wrong, he’d proven her correct. Worse—he wasn’t merely a thug. Now she had no choice but to see him as a dangerous and out-of-control one as well.
He pulled himself to the side of his car, then used the open door to struggle to his feet. Halfway up he had to stop, doubling over and emptying the contents of his stomach onto the floor and his shoes.
Zahidov caught his breath, ran the back of one arm across his eyes. He’d lost his glasses, he had no idea where they were. He wiped the tears and blood from his face, touched his leaking gums with the tip of his tongue. He hurt more than he’d ever before, not just his body, but his heart.
It was over between Sevara and him. Everything else crashing down, and the finality of that, more than anything, took root and sparked his rage. He could surrender to her and face what would happen next, or he could run.
He fumbled around inside the Audi, found his keys and his briefcase. He shut the door, staggering toward the stairs.
He would run. Leave the country, go far away. He had connections, he could disappear. Moscow first, Paris after. He would leave and recover and then, when he had the strength and the people, he would repay this British spy. He would repay her in kind, and he would make her wish with all her soul that she had pulled the trigger on him, and he would make her know what he’d done to her in the interrogation room at the Ministry had been a mercy.
He reached his apartment, moved to unlock the door, then realized the lock was broken and the door itself ajar. He pushed inside, then stopped cold, staring at the wreckage. His apartment had been tossed, as viciously and thoroughly as any search he himself had ever performed. The lock on his wine refrigerator had been smashed, the bottles shattered, and even the cabinet in the secret room had been opened, his weapons strewn across the floor, his money gone.
Zahidov felt the rage boiling through him, and he thought about all the things he should have done to the British spy when he’d had the chance. All the things he would do to the cunt if the opportunity ever came to him again.
He heard her voice again in his head.
Zahidov steadied himself against the broken gun cabinet, turning slowly, then sinking to the floor, the pain in his body momentarily forgotten. What had that meant? Sevara had made peace with her brother? Would she do such a thing?
And how? Would Ruslan be returning to Tashkent? Would Sevara allow him back into the government? Why would she? It made no sense; to do so would make her vulnerable.
Somehow, Ruslan was playing on his sister’s sentimentality, on her guilt. Somehow, Ruslan had convinced Sevara to return her nephew to him, and she had foolishly agreed.
He had to find out how.
He had to find out how, and when, and put a stop to it, once and for all. A stop to all of them, to Ruslan, and Stepan, and the British spy who had been so very, very stupid in leaving him alive.
CHAPTER 43
Uzbekistan—Tashkent—U.K. Chancery,
Commercial Section
28 August, 1034 Hours (GMT+5:00)
“He’s in motion?” Andrew Fincher asked Chace.
She flopped into the chair opposite his desk in the tiny office that served as the heart of Tashkent Station,
