A minute after Vladimir and Katya departed, the long white tablecloth was gently tugged back. Alex slowly raised his head and looked around. A waitress and two waiters loitered by the kitchen entrance, bantering about the bad people who had fired guns and chased all the customers away. The waitress was in tears, traumatized. One waiter looked ready to faint or flee. Otherwise, the palatial dining room was empty.
Alex stood and glanced over at the table where Vladimir and Katya had been seated. No corpses littered the floor. There were no dead waiters, and from what he could detect, no wounded patrons bleeding on the expensive carpet. He nearly fainted with relief. The three shots he heard were warnings or misses. Probably frantic or angered bullets fired out the broken window, he decided.
"Are they gone?" Elena asked from under the table, almost a whisper.
"Maybe. It looks that way," Alex replied in a tone that conveyed half hope and half doubt. "Stay where you are another moment." He walked over to a waiter by the kitchen, a tall young man, considerably less fazed than the other two. He asked where the shooters had gone. Out of the building, he was informed-one dove out the window and disappeared and the other raced out of the restaurant, collected her evil pals, and dashed outside. Nothing more to worry about, Alex was assured. The bad people were gone. The concierge called the police. Any minute, the place would flood with cops.
Alex rushed back to the table, hefted the overnight bags over his good shoulder, and informed Elena and Eugene it was safe. Elena came out first and threw her arms around Alex, a hug she immediately lessened when he winced and groaned.
Then Eugene emerged, loud, upset, and furiously disoriented. He kept asking Alex why he had grabbed him, wrestled him under the table, pinned him down, and slapped a hand over his mouth. Alex tried leading him out of the room, but Eugene refused to budge until he had a reply, and it better be damned good.
"Long story. I don't have time to explain everything," Alex replied in a hasty effort to put him off, looking around and wondering what to do next. Open and shut, his plan had started and stopped at getting the killers out of the restaurant. Divert them, send them off on a wild-goose chase. Then he and Elena would make a speedy getaway in Eugene's Trabant.
But now, how was he to get to the Trabant in the parking lot without blundering into Vladimir and his people? And, he realized, if he left Eugene here, they might return and take their fury out on him. Eugene's yapping was growing louder. Alex waved a hand for him to calm down and attempted another explanation. "They kidnapped Elena and me, beat me silly, and forced me to sign over my companies. Now they're after your money, too. Let's go."
"My money?"
"Yes, Eugene, that's what I said."
"You know them?"
"We just met this afternoon. I don't want to get to know them better. Come on, we have to hurry." Alex glanced at the doorway to the dining room. He did not have time for these questions.
"Who are these people?"
"Eugene, please, shut up and help me. They're out there. Right now, they're combing the street, hunting for us. In a few moments, they'll figure out they've been hoodwinked and they'll be back. They're professional assassins. Are you listening?"
In the past two minutes, Eugene had passed from inebriated verging on tipsy to frightened out of his wits with Alex nearly smothering him under the table; he was finally settling on an emotion he could live with. Upset. Very, very upset. "Dammit, I'm not going anywhere. Why don't you just wait for the police?"
"Because they might be in on it. There's a very good chance they are. These people are unbelievably well-connected, better than you can even imagine, Eugene, and I can't… Listen to me, it's time to leave, now."
Eugene still looked angry and dubious-it was a lot to absorb-and Alex decided it was time to be blunt, and possibly a little deceitful. "It's not just Elena and me, they're hunting you, too. They want to kidnap and torture you, to force you to get your partners to wire the cash into my corporate accounts. They made me sign over the title to my companies, and now they want to steal your three hundred million, all of it. After that, they'll kill you."
Eugene suddenly felt nauseated. "They want to kill me?" he asked in a high-pitched voice. This was too much. He leaned back against a table and, drawing a few labored breaths, struggled to regain his balance; recapturing his composure was out of the question. He couldn't seem to think. He deeply regretted all those beers. How many was it? Eight? Nine? However many, the answer was: too many.
Alex placed a hand on his arm. "Yes," he said very quietly. "After they beat and torture you, after they steal all your money, yes, Eugene, yes, they intend to kill you."
Elena had been standing quietly, listening, and decided the time was right to throw her two cents in. Only shock would get this man moving, and she provided it. "Look what they did to Alex. Look at his battered face. Look, they nearly killed him, Eugene. They beat him for hours and burned him with an iron. That's what they'll do to you, too. Now, please stop wasting time. Do what Alex says."
With that, it finally sank in and Eugene offered the one response that felt appropriate at that moment. He vomited, a huge, boisterous gusher that splashed across the floor. He bent over, sucked in a few deep breaths, wiped the sleeve of his hand-tailored, thousand-dollar suit across his mouth and nose, then mumbled his first intelligent words of the night. "Get me the hell out of here."
Alex walked over to the same waiter he had spoken with earlier, politely explained what he needed, handed him the keys to the rented orange Trabant, and stuffed a hundred-dollar bill into his palm with the promise of another hundred the second the job was done. Vladimir raced down the long alleyway and fought to suppress his exploding anxiety. He should have caught up with them by now, he realized. By his calculation, after they fled the hotel, this was the only route Konevitch and his wife and their plump friend could've taken.
Even if Konevitch had faked the severity of his injuries, Vladimir was damn sure he was at least partially lame. He had personally slammed that chair across his leg. Had smashed it down with such pulverizing force that it splintered into pieces against Konevitch's muscle, tissue, and bone. It was a miracle Konevitch could walk; running was out of the question, he was sure of it.
Also that short wife and flabby American banker were accompanying him. Vladimir was a fitness fanatic, a former Spetsnaz soldier who spent long hours in the gym buffing his superb condition. He had been sprinting, nearly full-speed, for four, possibly five minutes now.
He slowed to a hesitant trot, then an angry stomp for a few yards before he came to a dead halt in his tracks. He was breathing heavily. No, this definitely did not add up. He stole a quick glance at his watch: six minutes.
Six minutes.
A gimp, a fatty, and a small woman-a woman!-no way were they a match for his speed. It simply wasn't possible, he concluded with excruciating insight.
He quickly reviewed the possibilities. It was a simple process of elimination; exactly the arithmetic he should've use six minutes before, he now knew. One, had they leaped out the window and run away in the other direction, the team posted outside the entrance would've seen them and blasted away. Two, had they instead exited through the lobby and out the hotel's front entrance, either of the two teams by the entrance would've bagged them. Open and shut.
There was, however, a third possibility. The least physically demanding possibility for a wounded man, as he thought about it-the most likely possibility, he realized with an ugly curse.
If only Katya hadn't barked at him to rush out the window. Stupid bitch. Like a snot-nosed rookie, she panicked. Rule number one: be sure what you think you see is what you're actually seeing. They should've yanked back all the curtains and peeked under all the tables.
Oh look, it's Alex and his friends playing peekaboo; ha, ha, ha-bang, bang, bang.
How simple that would've been. How deeply satisfying.
But no, they fell for Konevitch's cat-and-mouse game, and the mouse won. It was terribly stupid. But this blunder was definitely her fault, not his.
No, on second thought, the real blame fell on Golitsin's stooped shoulders. He approved the plan in the first place to drag Konevitch to the hotel. Okay, yes, Vladimir had claimed it would be easy. But of course there were risks. The greedy bastard knew that, but he wanted more money, money, money.
Konevitch baited the trap and the old geezer bit with every tooth in his mouth. He had nobody to blame but himself.
The satellite phone suddenly rattled at his waist. After a long hesitation, he pulled it off his belt and stared at it, consumed with dread, a new and surprisingly unwelcome emotion for Vladimir. Probably it was Golitsin. He would not answer it, not under any condition. He would just let it bleep and bleep until the old geezer got frustrated and gave up.
The thought of trying to explain this muddle, of trying to justify and excuse his stupidity, of confessing that he had allowed Konevitch to escape, was sickening.
On the other hand, maybe it was Katya. Maybe she was calling to say she had caught up with them; maybe Konevitch and his short wife and fat friend were already decomposing in a dark alley and out of their hair. Maybe their troubles were over. Oh, how he longed to hear those words.
So which was it? The devil or salvation? The bastard or the bitch?
He pushed the receive button and placed the phone firmly against his ear.
Golitsin said without a breath of emotion, "Your twenty-five minutes are long over. I'm assuming you lost him."
Vladimir felt a rush of fear bordering on panic. The voice was cold, so totally flat. For a moment he said nothing. He just stood there, tempted to throw the phone and flee as far and as fast as his feet could carry him. Find a new life in India or Zanzibar, for all he cared.
What could he say?
Golitsin snapped, "Your silence confirms it, you cretin. You were outsmarted by a complete dilettante."
"I still made you a fortune."
"So what?"
"Hundreds of millions. Doesn't that count for anything?"
"No." Just no.
"He hasn't escaped yet," Vladimir insisted, trying to sound convincing. The echo of his own bleating in the earphone, loud and whiny, shocked him.
"Oh, I think we both know he is long gone," Golitsin whispered, and he was right. "He and my three hundred million. All gone. Vanished. And it's your fault, you incompetent dimwit."
Vladimir stared into the dark, overcast skies. The alley was narrow and empty: no pedestrians; no lost tourists wandering in confusion; not even a smelly wino sleeping it off on a dark door-stoop. Just him, just a dead man sniveling into a clunky satphone. A scatter of small shops lined both sides of the street, all of which were locked and shuttered. Rain was pouring down in heavy sheets. A few lights burned in the apartments over the stores and the flickering glow from television sets refracted off several windows. The gloom contributed to his quickly deepening misery. "I'm sorry," he choked, mangling the words he had never before uttered in his life. He tried again, more clearly, more unctuously repentant, anything to mollify the menacing voice on the other end. "Truly, sir, I am very, very sorry."
"Are you?"
"Yes sir. Sorry, sorry, sorry. "
"Well, sorry won't do, idiot. Sorry is for spilling coffee on my carpet. But losing three hundred million dollars? For letting Konevitch escape from under your nose? Just sorry?" Golitsin paused for a moment, then laid down the verdict. "When I am done with you, you'll learn the real meaning of sorry."
Vladimir reached into his waistband and withdrew his pistol. He took a deep swallow and said, "That's where you're wrong. You'll never get your hands on me, you ugly old bastard."
"Listen closely, moron. Wherever you run, I'll find you. You'll last days, long, terrible days, I promise that."
Vladimir laughed and the sound echoed down the alley and bounced off the walls, bitter and scornful. A few lights popped on. Concerned faces appeared in the windows over the empty shops.
"You think this is funny?" Golitsin hissed.
"Yes, I do. Absolutely. I'm laughing because I lost you all that money. Now screw yourself." Vladimir aimed the pistol at his left temple, held the phone right next to it, screamed, "Good-bye, asshole!"-and blew his brains down the dark alleyway.