This was basically the fire escape staircase, and fire marshals don't like to see a lock or a bolt, but Boris must have told them, 'Look, boys, there are a lot of people who want to kill me, so I gotta lock myself in.' Or he removed the doors when the inspectors came around.
I let Viktor go first and I followed. The door at the bottom of the staircase was also locked, and Viktor used his key to open it.
We entered the small room with the security camera, then Viktor unlocked the door to the hallway, and I followed him through the red curtain and into the restaurant.
Well, I thought, the security was good, but too much depended on human involvement and two keys-one for the elevator and one for all the steel doors. Also, the door to Boris's apartment had to be bolted manually. Boris needed a code padlock for all the doors between the outside world and him, plus he needed easier access to his security monitors.
There may have been some security features that I didn't see, such as a panic button, or maybe a safe room, but the real bottom line with personal security was vigilance and a large-caliber gun.
Viktor escorted me through the restaurant, which was half empty now, and I said to him, 'Someone wants to kill your boss. Keep your head out of your ass.'
He didn't reply, but he nodded.
'You got a gun?'
Again, he didn't reply, but he tapped the left side of his jacket.
I suggested, 'Work on your pronunciation.'
Anyway, I skipped the bar and Veronika and walked out the rear door. It was almost midnight, and the boardwalk and the beach were nearly deserted.
If I'd been followed by my surveillance team, it was now that someone would approach me. And if I'd been followed by Khalil's team, this was as good a time and place as any for Khalil and Corey to meet.
I stood there for a minute, but no one seemed interested in me.
I walked to the front entrance of Svetlana where a few cabs were parked.
On the way back to Manhattan, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, I again had the thought, reinforced by Boris, that Asad Khalil was indeed planning something big for his finale-something that would please his backers and get him another line of credit for his next mission-and all that stood between him and that big climax to this mission was Boris Korsakov and John Corey.
So, yes, Boris was right; it was about us-him, me, and Asad Khalil. And it was about the past following us, and catching up with us.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The taxi from Brighton Beach had let me off in my underground parking garage, and also left me forty bucks poorer, which is cheap for life insurance.
I'd taken the freight elevator up to my apartment, and no one from the surveillance team seemed to have noticed my absence. I didn't want to get these guys in trouble, so I'd be certain to never get caught leaving home without them.
Anyway, it was now 7 A.M. Wednesday morning, a short seventy-two hours since Kate and I had woken up in the High Top Motel in Sullivan County, excited about jumping out of an airplane. Little did we know, as they say, how exciting it was going to be.
I didn't have anything specific planned for the day, reminding me that the problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you're done.
I did take the opportunity to go through my daily dozen exercises, being motivated not by vanity but by health concerns, meaning in this case, I needed to be in good shape if Khalil and I got into a wrestling match. Boris was right-Khalil's attacks were up close and personal, and if you could survive the initial surprise assault you had a chance to turn it around. This was why Kate was still alive.
As I was getting ready to visit Kate at Bellevue, my cell phone rang and it was Paresi. I answered, 'Corey.'
Captain Paresi inquired, 'What did you do last night?'
Uh-oh. Time to come clean. I said, 'I visited Kate in the hospital.'
'I know that. What did you do afterward?'
Time to come clean. 'I was driven home.'
There was a silence on the phone, then Paresi said, 'The surveillance guy in your lobby, Ramos, reported that he called your apartment phone and your cell phone and also had the doorman buzz your intercom, but you didn't answer.'
Time to really come clean. I replied, 'I was dead to the world by ten P.M.' Or was I having a vodka with Veronika? I asked, 'What did Ramos want?'
Paresi replied, 'Nothing. Just a commo check and a situation report.'
Bottom line here, Paresi had no evidence that I'd actually gone out, so I got a little huffy and said, 'Captain, I'm a cop-not some Mafia informant who needs watching twenty-four/seven-'
'Your life is in danger, Detective Corey.' He added, 'You have agreed-'
'I didn't agree to sleep with my surveillance guys.'
There was a silence, then Paresi said to me, 'All right.' He informed me, 'As it turns out, we know where you'll be tonight.'
I didn't reply, and I didn't ask.
He continued, 'But first, some housekeeping. Gabe's funeral and that of his wife and daughter was yesterday. It was a private religious ceremony, but we will have a memorial service for him and his family sometime next week if possible.' He added, 'Depends on what happens.'
Right. Depends on our own funerals. I said, 'Okay.'
Paresi asked me, 'How is Kate?'
'Well enough to get out of the hospital, but Walsh is keeping her there, and neither of us is happy about that.'
He replied, 'She's safer there, and you're better off not having her home.'
I didn't respond to that and said, 'There's something you need to do-have a death certificate issued and recorded in Sullivan County ASAP, and have the Catskill Medical Center alter their records accordingly.'
'Okay… if you think someone would actually be checking on that.'
'Let's assume that Khalil is obsessed with his confirmed body count.'
'All right. Will do.' He asked me, 'Have you received or recalled anything I should know about?'
This was basically my last chance to come clean about Boris, and I'd weighed the pros and cons of reporting my contact with Boris Korsakov. Boris, however, had correctly determined that I was acting on my own, and he'd asked me for a week of no police or FBI interference-a week to see if Khalil attempted to whack him on his protected turf at his nightclub. Boris's purpose, of course, was to silence Asad Khalil forever, though I didn't really care what Boris wanted-he wasn't running this operation. But his best interests might coincide with mine. This was a tough call.
'John?'
'I'm thinking.'
On the other hand, Boris may have sobered up by now, and smartened up, and he might call me and say he'd changed his mind and please send the police to protect him. Or for all I knew, Boris, the devious KGB man, might now be hightailing it to Moscow with his wife-or the French Riviera without his wife. I wouldn't blame him if he did.
'Hello? John?'
I replied, 'I can't think of anything.' I changed the subject and asked him, 'Has Special Operations seen anything unusual at the bad guy safe houses?'
'No.'
'Are we trying to find any other safe houses that we don't know about?'
