A couple of attractive hotel waitresses will serve snacks and vodka to distract the guards waiting in the hallway. While they’re eating and drinking, Anton will excuse himself to take a piss and disappear. As soon as Mina is out of sight, Ilya will hit the expert with a dart, and I’ll shoot Dimitrov. The idea is to sedate the expert to immobilize him and prevent him from alarming the guards. With the silencer, the guards outside won’t know what’s going on until it’s too late. Mina will get onto the balcony. Ilya will climb up, and we’ll lift her with the rope to the roof. Then I’ll join them, and the three of us will make our way outside, where Anton will be waiting with our getaway car.
It’s a good plan. It’s as good as foolproof. But something can always go wrong. I don’t like that Mina will be involved. Risking her life has a strange effect on me. It makes the thought of locking her up in that tower all the more appealing. Admittedly, she’s a crucial part of the plan. Without Natasha Petrova, there is no plan.
This morning, before Anton and I had left, I told Ilya about my reservations.
“I don’t like it,” I said, “that Mina’s life will be at risk.”
Ilya tried to reassure me. “She’s not just any woman. She’s one of us. She can handle herself.”
True. She’s not just any woman. I said so myself yesterday in the bathroom when I cornered her. I meant it differently, though. She means something to me, something I can’t name. It’s not the feeling I have for Ilya. It’s more than responsibility and brotherly love. It’s a sense of belonging, of having found the female version of my soul.
Yes, a soulmate. That would’ve been a fitting description if I hadn’t captured her like a bird in a cage. Mina may not be a willing yang to my yin, but she’s mine. I claimed her that night in the alley when I pressed her up against the wall, and I’m keeping her.
No matter what it takes.
“Then we agree?” Anton asks, pulling me back from my thoughts.
“This girl,” the agent says. “She better be as good at disguising as you say, or your plan will blow up in your faces. If Dimitrov suspects for one second—”
“She’s good.” I finish my espresso. “You can take my word for it.”
Mina will have to disguise the two hotel staff members posing as us, as well as herself. We’ll have to do it in a different location. Maybe an apartment nearby. Ilya is already looking into it.
“What’s the timeline?” the agent asks.
Rising, I adjust my jacket. “Three weeks.”
He gets to his feet and shakes my hand. “Text me the date and time. Everything will be ready.”
Anton sees him out. When he gets back to the lounge of the hotel suite we rented for the meeting, I’m reading the email from our hackers about Petrova’s whereabouts. She has a charity ball scheduled in Austria in two weeks’ time. Then the opening of a new art gallery in Vienna. After that, she’s planning a vacation in Spain to work on her tan. It looks like Natasha Petrova will be making a deviation in her traveling plans. She can definitely work in a secret visit to Prague before hitting Puerto Banús.
By the time the paparazzi catches her on camera, sipping champagne with Antonio Banderas and Nicole Kimpel on their luxury yacht in the glamorous port, Dimitrov will already be dead.
19
Mina
Every second counts. I give Ilya about an hour before he realizes I’m not coming back. That means I have a one-hour head start. Ostrava is more than a three-hour drive away. That gives me four hours before Yan gets back to Prague. By then, I’ll be well on my way. As long as I’m on the move, I’ll maintain a four-hour advantage.
When we drove to the old town, I paid attention to our surroundings, so now I go straight to the electronics store and buy a cheap burner phone. In a quiet alcove, I dial a secure number.
Gergo picks up immediately. “Mink?” He only uses my professional name in the unlikely event that the secure line, a number only the two of us use, is compromised.
“My grandmother would like to invite you for tea,” I say.
“A visit is long overdue. When is a good time?”
“Can you come over at five-thirty?”
“Shall I bring some Earl Grey?” That’s code for weapons. “I’ve recently been to Russia. I stocked up. I know your grandmother doesn’t like the British kind.”
“That’s considerate but not necessary. See you there.”
I cut the call and dump the phone in a trashcan before flagging down a taxi.
“The train station, please,” I tell the driver.
In less than thirty minutes, I’m on the train and on my way to Budapest, the last of Ilya’s money spent on a ticket.
Sick with nerves, I put out of my mind what Yan will do to me when he finds me and focus on my plan.
Get to Budapest. Take care of my grandmother’s future. Warn Gergo.
It would’ve been a piece of cake to slip into a restaurant, nick a steak knife, and cut out the tracker in the bathroom, but I need the money Yan promised me for the job. I need to provide for Hanna, to make sure her needs will be met when I’m no longer around.
At least that’s what I tell myself. I’m not reluctant to leave Yan. I can’t
