“I told you to play the raconteur with someone else,” she said. “We have urgent business to discuss.” Her cheekbones suddenly appeared to sharpen. “I haven’t heard from Korut. He was supposed to contact me two nights ago.”
“Can you try to get in touch with him?”
“The members of my band don’t spend their nights in the comfort of expensive hotels, with telephones at their bedsides and fax service at the push of a button,” she said, with a single quick shake of her head. “The surroundings in which they sleep are far more Spartan.”
He gave her a hard look. “How concerned should we be?”
“Not too, yet. He could be on the move and feel it’s unsafe to communicate. That’s happened before. But we’ll have to wait and see.” She paused. “He’ll get a message through to me if he’s able.”
Pedachenko kept his eyes on her face.
“Well, 1 don’t like it,” he said. “In view of the failure at the satellite station—”
“It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been in charge of the operation instead of Sadov. You should have waited for me.”
“You may be right. Certainly I’m not inclined to argue. The important thing now, though, is for us to rectify our mistakes.”
“Your mistakes,” she said. “Don’t try that psychological ploy with me.”
He sighed and moved closer to her. “Look, let’s dispense with the antagonism and talk straight. I have another job, Gilea.”
“No,” she said. “We’ve gone far enough. The minister, Bashkir, has been set up for a fall and Starinov will follow him into the pit. Just as you planned.”
“But there’s the possibility someone’s stumbled onto us. You know it as well as 1 do. That incident at the headquarters of the New York gangster, the rumors that it was somehow connected to UpLink. And then the resistance at the ground station…”
“All the more reason to keep a low profile,” she said.
He expelled another sigh. “Listen to me. Starinov has notified the Ministry that he’s going to be at his cottage outside Dagornys for the next several days. I’ve been there before and can tell you it’s particularly vulnerable to assault.”
“You can’t be serious about what you’re suggesting,” she said. But her eyes had suddenly brightened, become razor sharp, and her lips had parted a little, showing the upper edges of her front teeth.
“I’ll pay anything you ask, make any arrangements you wish for your safe haven afterward,” he said.
She stared into Pedachenko’s eyes, her tongue moving over her lip, her breath coming in short, rapid snatches.
A second crawled past.
Two.
She stared into his eyes.
Finally she nodded.
“I’ll take him,” she said.
FORTY-FIVE
There were three men in dark suits, widebrimmed fedoras, and long gray overcoats hanging around outside the bathhouse when the Rover pulled up in front of it.
“Will you take a look at them?” Scull said from the backseat. “It’s like they’re fucking play-acting at being gangsters.”
“They are and they aren’t,” Blackburn said, glancing out the front passenger’s window. “In some ways, I really don’t think these monkeys can distinguish reality from what they’ve seen in old-time American gangster flicks. But you have to remember that every one of them is packing a weapon under his coat.”
“You guys want me to come in with you?”
This from Neil Perry, who was behind the steering wheel.
Blackburn shook his head.
“It’d be better if you wait here, in case we need to take off in a hurry,” he said, and halfway unzipped his leather jacket. Scull could see the butt of his Smith & Wesson nine in a shoulder holster underneath it. “I don’t think they’ll give us much trouble, though.”
Perry gave him a small nod.
Blackburn looked over the seat rest at Scull.
“Okay,” he said. “You ready?”
“Been ready for days,” Scull said.
The two men exited the car and strode across the sidewalk. It was a sunny day and a few degrees above freezing, warm for Moscow in winter, but despite the relatively moderate weather the street was nearly empty, and business was slow in the trendy shops along
The hoods closed ranks as Blackburn and Scull approached the bathhouse entrance, blocking their path to it. One of them, a tall man with dark hair and a large shovel chin, said something to Blackburn in Russian.
Shovel Chin repeated what he’d said, motioning the two Americans off. Out the corner of his eye, Blackburn noticed another of the men edging forward, opening the middle button of his coat. He was shorter than the first one and had a mustache that looked as if it had been traced over his upper lip with an eye pencil.
“I just told you I don’t speak Russian,” Blackburn said, and started forward.
Shovel Chin bumped him back with his shoulder.
“I tell you again in fucking
Blackburn looked at him a moment and then punched him hard in the sternum, pivoting toward him as he connected, putting his full weight into the blow. Shovel Chin sagged to his knees, grimacing. He heaved twice and then threw up all over his coat.
Still watching him peripherally, Blackburn saw the thug with the mustache stick a hand into his coat. He whirled and drew his Glock, shoving its barrel into the thug’s throat, cocking its trigger. Mustache’s hand froze under his lapel.
“Get your hand out where I can see it,” Blackburn said. “You understand?”
The guy nodded, a fearful, bolting look in his eyes. His hand appeared from inside his coat. Scull hurried over and patted him down, reached under his lapel, extracted a Glock pistol, and shoved it into the right hip pocket of his jacket.
Blackburn glanced at the third man. The guy hadn’t budged from where he’d been standing when they got out of the car. He shook his head quickly back and forth as Blackburn’s gaze fell on him, then put his hands up in the air.
“No trouble,” he said. “No trouble.”
Scull frisked him, found his gun, and pocketed it, shoving it somewhere inside his jacket.
Blackburn screwed the bore of his gun deeper into Pencil Mustache’s throat.
“Help your
The gangster did as Blackburn asked. The three of them stood there, trembling.
Blackburn gestured again with the gun. “All three of you, I want you to walk slowly and quietly into that bathhouse. If you make a sound that I don’t like, you won’t live long enough to regret it. We’ll be right behind you. Now move!”
A moment later, all of them were headed down the sidewalk. Shovel Chin was still unsteady, and had vomit dripping from his chin.
