revolver against the side of his head. I cocked the trigger.
“You ever see the top of a man’s head come off, Arkady?” I whispered. “I have. You never forget it.”
73.
Roman Navrozov owned the penthouse condominium in the Mandarin Oriental, with one of the great views of the city. He had been spending a lot of time in the city recently. He was trying to buy the New York Mets, whose owner had been hit pretty hard by the Bernard Madoff fraud.
He felt safe in the Mandarin, according to my KGB friend Tolya. There were multiple layers of protection and several entrances and egresses. The vigilant staff were only his first line of defense.
I was met in the lobby of the Residences by a slim, elegant, silver-haired man of around sixty. He wore an expensive navy pinstriped suit with a gold pocket square, perfectly folded.
He introduced himself as Eugene, no last name: an “associate” of Mr. Navrozov.
He reminded me of an English butler. Even though it was after midnight, and he knew I had just kidnapped his boss’s son, his demeanor was cordial. He knew I was here to transact business.
As he led me toward Navrozov’s private elevator, I said, “I’m afraid there’s been a slight change in plans.”
He turned around, arched his brows.
“We won’t be meeting in his condo. I’ve reserved a room in the hotel, a few floors below.”
“I’m quite sure Mr. Navrozov will not agree to that…”
“If he ever wants to see his son again, he might want to be flexible,” I said. “But it’s up to him.”
74.
Fifteen minutes later, the elevator on the thirty-eighth floor opened, and five men emerged.
Roman Navrozov and his small army of bodyguards moved with a military precision: one in front, one behind, and two on either side. These bodyguards seemed to be of a higher caliber than the cretins he assigned to his son. They wore good suits and curly earpieces like Secret Service agents wear. They were all armed and appeared to be wearing body armor. Their eyes briskly surveyed all angles of approach as they escorted their boss down the hallway.
Roman Navrozov was a portly man, not tall, but he exuded authority. He could have been a Vatican cardinal emerging on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to proclaim, “Habemus papam.” He had hawkish eyebrows and an unnaturally black fringe of hair around a great bald dome. He reminded me a little of the actor who played Hercule Poirot on the British TV series.
His thin lips were cruelly pursed in a regal glower. He wore a black blazer with one tail of his crisp white shirt untucked, as if he’d just thrown it on and was annoyed to be skulking around the halls of the hotel in the middle of the night.
When they were halfway down the corridor, the lead guard made a quick hand gesture, and Navrozov stopped, flanked by the rest of his entourage. Meanwhile, the first guard approached the door, weapon out.
He saw at once that the door was ajar, propped open on the latch of the security lock.
He flicked his hand again, and a second guard joined him, then the two moved swiftly into position on either side of the door. The first one kicked the door open, and they burst in, weapons drawn, in classic “slicing the pie” formation.
Maybe they were expecting an ambush. But since I was watching through the peephole in the room across the hall, they didn’t find anyone inside.
Then I hit a number on my phone. “Moving into position one,” I said when it was picked up.
“Roger that,” a voice replied.
The voice belonged to a member of my Special Forces detachment named Darryl Amos. While I was in flight, Darryl had driven into the city from Fort Dix, New Jersey, where he worked as a convoy operations instructor. He’d checked into a true fleabag on West Forty-third called the Hotel Conroy. If you look it up on one of the travel websites, you’ll find it described as the filthiest hotel in the city. Not long ago a maid had discovered a body under a bed wrapped in a bedsheet. The sheet was reused, though they did launder it first.
Then he waited for me, and Arkady Navrozov, in the alley behind the strip club.
Right now Darryl was babysitting Roman Navrozov’s son at the Hotel Conroy. I was fairly certain the oligarch’s son had never seen its likes before.
Satisfied that Navrozov’s men were simply doing their job—making sure their boss didn’t walk into