car accident.
The truck finally pulled ahead. Danny took his foot off the brake. The door to the building was on his right.
“Subject exiting building.”
There he was, just ahead on the right. He was short and rotund, not particularly distinguished looking. If you were Hollywood, he thought, and you were going to cast someone in the role of assassin mastermind, Dr. Nudstrumov wouldn’t be it.
Nudstrumov glanced over his shoulder as he began walking to his car. Danny got a glimpse of his face. He looked somewhat annoyed, not quite angry but not relaxed either.
The doctor kept walking, his chubby legs stroking quickly. A car on Danny’s left started to pull out into the aisle. Danny stopped, waiting for her to go — he’d pull in, then wait for the doctor to leave before following.
He looked back at the doctor. He was only a few meters from his car now. He had his keys in his left hand.
Suddenly the doctor seemed to spin to his left. Danny thought for a moment that he had recognized him through the car window somehow. Then in the next moment the right side of his forehead exploded, bursting into a red splatter of blood.
“Shit!” yelled Danny. “He’s been shot! Nudstrumov’s been shot!”
27
The first shot had been low, deadly but not instantaneous lethal. The second hit home perfectly, exploding Nudstrumov’s skull.
A thing of beauty.
But the Black Wolf knew he couldn’t stop to admire it. He had to move.
He pulled the rifle back, quickly folding the stock and dropping it into the box. He slapped it closed and picked it up. He already had his backpack on.
A person got out of the car across the street, near the lot where he’d shot the doctor. The Black Wolf saw him through the window from the corner of his eye.
He turned and focused.
A black man.
Familiar.
Familiar. He focused — narrowed his vision so the man was right next to him, features large in his brain.
He was very, very familiar. Yet he couldn’t quite identify him.
No time for that:
28
Danny leapt out of the car. His first instinct was to run to Nudstrumov, even though he knew it was too late to help him. He took a step, then dove to the ground, belatedly realizing that he, too, would be in the killer’s sights.
Or could be.
The shot had come from across the street. There was another building — several.
One of the rooftops.
“Danny, what’s going on?” asked Nuri.
“Somebody just shot the doctor. They must have been across the street.”
Danny jumped to his feet and began running.
“Where? Where?”
“From the roof, maybe. It had to be a rifle — the shot came down from above, and it was pretty high- powered. There’s no one in the lot that could have shot him.”
Danny crossed the street. There was no one nearby or in the cars, and the shot had definitely come from above.
He reached inside his jacket for his Beretta, then thought better of it. If the police responded and saw a man with a gun, they’d jump to conclusions — and shoot before asking questions.
There were three buildings, all butting up against each other. All three were five-story buildings. There were storefronts on the ground floor, offices and apartments above.
Would there be a fire escape?
He walked quickly to the end of the block, turned, then began to trot. An alley ran behind the buildings. He turned down it.
“Danny, where are you?” asked Flash over the radio.
“I’m behind the buildings across the street. Just east of the lot.”
“I’m turning down the side street now,” said Flash. “I’ll be behind you.”
“Good.”
The alley was lined with garbage cans and old cars. There were balconies on the right, fire escapes on the left. Two children were playing soccer at the far end, banging the ball against a rusted chain-link fence.
Danny looked up to his left.
How long would it take a shooter to get down from the roof or one of the upper apartments?
A minute, maybe two, assuming he planned it right. And these guys always planned it right.
But where would he have gone? No one had passed him. The buildings on the right, though only three and two stories, were packed shoulder-to-shoulder. To get past them you’d have to go through them. Or maybe over them.
He turned so he had the back of the building in view and sidled in the direction of the kids. Any second, the killer could appear over the side.
Danny put his hand near his gun, ready, just in case.
“I need words to ask the children if they saw someone,” Danny told MY-PID.
The computer spat out a phrase. Danny yelled it to the kids, but they didn’t react, too consumed in their game.
A window flew open behind him. Danny spun, dropped to his knee.
A head popped out. Danny grabbed his gun.
But it was a woman, yelling at him.
“What’s she saying? Translate mode,” Danny told MY-PID.
“Unknown. Repeat.”
“Give me the Moldovan for ‘Did you see anything?’ ”
MY-PID gave him the proper phrase. Danny yelled it up. The woman yelled back again, once more indecipherable.
“The words are unclear,” said MY-PID. “The language is not Moldovan. It appears to be a Russian dialect, but too distant to hear.”
The woman pointed upward. As Danny followed her gesture, a car pulled into the far end of the alley. It was Flash.
“The police are on their way,” Nuri said over the radio.
Danny looked around. There was a fire escape a few meters to his right. “I’m going to check the roof.”
“I’ll get your car out of there,” Nuri said. “Don’t stay too long.”
