Conviction

a bit, boss.”

Hansen ignored the sarcasm. He knelt before Ivanov and helped him to his knees. “Are you Adrik Ivanov?”

“Yes, I’m Ivanov. Who are you? What do you want?”

“We’re looking for a man,” Hansen said. “An old friend of yours named Sam.”

“I don’t know any Sam.”

“Yes, you do. He’s been here.”

“No one’s been here. I work alone. I came on at six o’clock and haven’t seen anyone since—”

Hansen cut him off: “You owe some people money.” “Hey, no! I paid them two months ago.”

“Maybe so, but the people we’re talking about don’t keep paper records. They prefer computers. Computers can be hacked, records changed. Are you understanding me?”

“No. What are you saying? Computers… what computers?”

“Tell us what we want to know or we’re going to make it so you owe a lot of people a lot of money.”

“You can’t do that.”

“We can. And we will. You got a visit tonight from an old friend,” Hansen repeated. “Tell us what he wanted.”

Fisher knew Hansen was bluffing; he knew nothing. Still, the authority in his voice left little room for doubt.

Ivanov shrugged and spread his arms in bewilderment.

Hansen pointed at Valentina and said, “Make the call. Let’s start him out at three hundred thousand rubles. What is that, about ten thousand dollars?” He looked at his companions for confirmation.

Noboru nodded and said, “Yeah, ten thousand, more or less.”

Valentina got out her cell phone and started punching numbers.

Ivanov cried, “Yes, okay, fine. He was here.” “When?” Hansen asked.

“About an hour ago.”

“What did he want?”

“He was hurt. Something wrong with his ribs. He said he needed someplace to sleep… ” Ivanov’s voice trailed off. He sighed with just the right amount of solemnity.

Attaboy, Fisher thought.

“Go on,” Hansen said.

“I gave him the keys to my apartment.”

Hansen spent the next five minutes firing questions at Ivanov — was Fisher armed, did he have a car, was he alone? — until seemingly satisfied that he’d wrung the Russian dry of information.

“You can forget about this visit,” Hansen told him.

“Believe me, I will. What about—”

“If you cross us, I’ll make the call. You’ll have every Russian mobster in Odessa looking for you. Understand?”

“I understand.”

Hansen nodded to the others, and they began heading toward the door. Hansen went last, taking a moment to help Ivanov to his feet. “Stay off the phone, too.”

“Yes… yes…”

Hansen headed for the door.

Come on, Adrik.

“Hey, you’re Hansen, aren’t you?”

Hansen turned back. At the door, the others did as well.

“What?” Hansen said with some edge in his voice. “What did you say?”

“He told me to give you a message.”

“What?”

Ivanov glanced toward the others. “In private.”

Ames barked, “That’s crap! What the hell is this? Hansen—”

“Quiet.” Then to Ivanov: “Tell me.”

Ivanov shook his head. “He told me, only you. Listen, I’ve known Sam a long time, and, to be honest, he scares me a lot more than you scare me.”

Ames chuckled. “Well, dummy, in about fifteen minutes good old Sam is going to be dead or tied up in our trunk. If you got an ounce of brains, you’ll—”

Hansen interrupted. “Everyone outside.” Ames started to protest, but Hansen shot him a glance. Fisher couldn’t see his face, but clearly it worked. Ames snapped his mouth shut and filed out with the others. The door banged shut.

“What’s the message?” Hansen asked.

From the rack, Fisher fired once, sticking a dart in the side of Ivanov’s neck. Even as he fell, Fisher adjusted his aim to Hansen. To his credit, Hansen exercised the better part of valor, discreetly raising his hands above his head.

Without looking around Hansen said evenly, “Hey, Fisher.”

* * *

“Hi, Ben,” Fisher replied.

“I guess this is what you’d call a rookie mistake.”

“Mistakes are mistakes. They happen. How you handle them is what counts.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. What are we doing? What’s this about?”

“Carefully, pull out your SC and lay it on the floor.”

Hansen did so and was about to slide it away with his foot when Fisher stopped him. “Too noisy, Ben. Nice try, though. Interlace your fingers and place them on your head. Take ten steps forward.”

Hansen didn’t move.

“I won’t ask again. I’ll just dart you and this will turn ugly before it’s started.” Hansen paced forward the ordered number of steps. “Now turn and face the office.” Hansen complied. “On your knees, ankles crossed.”

Once Hansen was in position, Fisher climbed down the rack ladder and came up behind Hansen, stopping ten feet away. Hansen turned his head and said over his shoulder, “You’ve been a pain in my ass, you know.”

“Sorry about that. It was necessary.”

“Is that what you want to talk about? That there are extenuating circumstances? That you didn’t really kill Lambert?”

“No, I killed Lambert. He asked me to.”

“Bull. You’ve been jerking us around for weeks — you, Grimsdottir, and Moreau — but as far as I’m concerned, you’re a run-of-the-mill murderer.”

“You sound angry, Ben.”

“Damn right I’m angry. You’ve run us ragged. Five of us, and we never even came close.”

“You came close. More times than you know. You almost had me in Hammerstein.”

“No, I didn’t. You pushed me into a split-second, no-win scenario, and you knew I’d hesitate.” He chuckled. “You know what gets me? I don’t even know how you…” Hansen turned his head back forward and his voice trailed off.

Even as Fisher was doing it, taking that natural step forward to catch the tail end of Hansen’s words, alarms went off in his head. Mistake. Hansen had started the conversation, built some animosity, then injected some amiability and piqued Fisher’s curiosity with the trailing sentence.

A well-laid trap, Fisher thought, as Hansen levered himself upright and spun on his heel, instantly cutting the distance between them by seven feet. Fisher brought the SC pistol up, but the motion of Hansen’s lead arm, coming toward him in a flat, backhanded arc, told Fisher it was too late. The shot would go wide. The knife Hansen surely had concealed in his fist, its blade tucked against his inner forearm, was a half second from his throat. Fisher resisted the impulse to backpedal or duck. It would be what Hansen expected, and Fisher couldn’t afford to find himself in a protracted, noisy wrestling match with the young Splinter Cell. It was a fight he couldn’t win, especially when the rest of the team rushed back in to investigate the commotion.

Instead, Fisher took a quick sliding step forward, his right hand coming up to block Hansen’s knife arm, while