during an attempted arrest, I seem to recall. The other one escaped.”
“A burglary?”
“Entertainment.”
“Excuse me?” I felt something cold and hard form in my stomach.
“You heard me. Just fun and games. These Sova people will do things a normal person cannot begin to imagine. You couldn’t ask for better enforcers.”
“Enforcers?”
“They hire themselves out. If you need outside talent for a really dirty job, something violent and extremely bloody, you might hire a couple of Sova gang members.”
“Who hires them? Russian mafia groups?”
“Usually not. The mafia have some pretty brutal talent of their own.”
“Then who?”
“Certain oligarchs. Our newly minted Russian billionaires. They’re often in need of hard men. A few in particular are known to use Sova members.”
“Which ones?”
He laughed. “Nicholas, we haven’t even discussed a fee yet! First things first.”
He told me his fee, and after I stifled the impulse to tell him where to stuff his hard currency, I agreed to his usurious terms.
Then he said, “Excellent. Let me make some calls.”
65.
Dragomir was a fast learner.
This time he used the Wasp knife correctly. The young police officer didn’t even have time to turn around before the blade went into his side, lightning-fast, right up to the hilt.
He thumbed the button and heard the hiss and the pop.
Officer Kent sagged to the ground. It looked like he’d suddenly decided to sit right there in the middle of the yard, except that his legs sprawled awkwardly in a way that would be unbearably painful if he were alive.
But he died instantly, or close to it. His internal organs had expanded and frozen at the same time. His abdomen was swollen as if he’d suddenly developed a beer belly.
As Dragomir hoisted the body over his shoulders, he could hear the crackle of Officer Kent’s handheld radio.
66.
Diana and I met at the Sheep’s Head Tavern, a sorta-kinda Irish pub in Government Center right next to FBI headquarters. She’d told me she had to grab a quick dinner and then get back up to work. That was fine with me: I had a very long night ahead.
The outside tables were all full, so we sat in a booth inside. I saw a lot of old-looking wood, or new wood made to look old with random gouges and a lot of dark varnish. There were old pub signs on the wall and a carved wooden bar with Celtic lettering on the front and reproductions of old Guinness ads. There were a lot of fancy beers on tap, mostly American microbrews, some German. She was wearing a turquoise silk top and black jeans that somehow managed to emphasize her curves without looking totally unprofessional.
“I’m afraid I don’t have anything for you,” she said. “We didn’t turn up anything in the FAA’s flight log database.”
“How often is it updated?”
“Constantly. In real time.”
“And it’s complete?”
She nodded. “Private airports as well as public ones.”
“Well, it was a brilliant idea,” I said. “But not all brilliant ideas work out. Thanks for trying. Now I have something for you.”
“Bad news?”
“No. But I don’t think you’re going to like it.” I handed her Mauricio’s mobile phone in a ziplock bag.
“I don’t understand,” she said after looking at it for a few seconds. “What is it?”
I told her.
“You took that from his apartment?”
I nodded.
“Without telling me?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t trust Snyder.”
Her mouth tightened and her nostrils flared.
“It was wrong to withhold it from you,” I said. “I know that.”
She didn’t say anything. She just looked down at the table, face flushed.
“Talk to me,” I said.
Finally she looked up. “So was it worth it, Nick? You know we can never use that as evidence in court, right? Since you disrupted the chain of custody?”
“I don’t think the Bureau is going to be prosecuting a dead guy.”
“I’m talking about whoever’s behind this thing. There’s a reason we have procedures.”
“You always colored within the lines.”
“I’m a rules girl, Nico. Whereas you were never big on the chain of command, as I recall. You’re not an organization man.”
“The last organization I joined sent me to Iraq.”
“We both want the same thing. We just have different ways to get there. But as long as you’re working with me and the FBI, you have to respect the rules we play by.”
“I understand.”
She looked at me hard. “Don’t ever do this to me again.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. Now, at least tell me you got something useful out of it.”
I nodded. “His phone number and the only number on his call log, presumably the guy who hired him to abduct Alexa. One of my