cowering. You could see the corner of a bed next to him, its coverlet a hideous shade of orange.
Then you could see the barrel of a gun, with a long sound suppressor screwed onto the end, move into the frame and touch the side of the guy’s head. His eyes started moving wildly. He was trying to shout, but nothing was coming out except high, screeching, muffled sounds.
His father glanced at the screen, then away, as if someone tiresome were trying to show him an unfunny YouTube clip.
He sighed. “What do you want?” he said.
76.
“Simple,” I said. “I want Alexa Marcus released immediately.”
Navrozov breathed softly in and out a few times. His eyes had gone hard.
A few minutes ago he’d regarded me with something approaching admiration. Now he recognized me as a threat. I could see the predator instinct come out. He looked at me the way a wolf stalks his prey by staring it down, his body rigid.
“Is this a name I should recognize?”
I sighed, disappointed. “Neither one of us has time for games.”
He smiled mirthlessly, a flash of long sharp teeth.
“Where is she?” I said. “I want exact coordinates.”
“When I hire a man to do a job, I don’t look over his shoulder.”
“Somehow I doubt that. Guy like you, I bet you know exactly where she is and what they’re doing to her.”
“They don’t know who I am, and I don’t know who they are. Much safer this way.”
“Then how do you communicate with them?”
“Through an intermediary. A cutout, I think is the term, yes?”
“But you have some idea where they are.”
A shrug. “I think New Hampshire. This is all I know.”
“And where is your cutout located? Don’t tell me you don’t know that.”
“In Maine.”
“And how do you reach him?”
He replied by pulling out his mobile phone. Wagged it at me. Put it back in his pocket.
“Call him, please,” I said, “and tell him the operation is over.”
His nostrils flared and his mouth tightened. It rankled him, I could see, to be spoken to that way. He wasn’t used to it.
“It’s far too late for that,” he said.
“Tell your men to close the door,” I said. “Tell them you want privacy.”
He blinked, didn’t move.
“Now,” I said.
Maybe he saw something in my eyes. Whatever the reason, he gave me a dour glance and rose from the chair. He walked to the door, spoke in Russian, quickly and quietly. Then, pulling the security latch back, he let the door shut and returned to his chair.
“Cancel the operation,” I said.
He smiled. “You are wasting my time,” he said.
Now I tapped a few keys on the laptop, and the video image began to move. Then, hitting another key to turn on the computer’s built-in microphone, I said, “Shoot him.”
* * *
NAVROZOV LOOKED at me, blinked. A slight furrow of the brow, a tentative smile.
He didn’t believe me.
On the laptop screen there was sudden movement. A scuffle.
The camera jerked as if someone had bumped against the laptop on the other end. Now you could see only half of the kid’s body, his shoulder and arm in the white duck fabric of his Posey straitjacket.
And the black cylinder of the sound suppressor screwed onto the end of Darryl’s Heckler & Koch .45.
Navrozov was staring now. “You don’t think I will possibly believe—”
Darryl’s hand gripped the pistol. His forefinger slipped into the trigger guard.
Navrozov’s eyes widened, raptly watching the image on the screen.
Darryl’s finger squeezed the trigger.
The loud pop of a silenced round. A slight muzzle flash as the pistol recoiled.
Navrozov made a strange, strangled shout.
His son’s scream was muted by the duct tape. His right arm jerked and a hole opened in his upper arm, a spray of blood, a blotch of red on the white canvas.
Arkady Navrozov’s arm twisted back and forth, his agony apparent, the chair rocking, and then I clicked off the feed.
“Svoloch!” Navrozov thundered, his fist slamming the desk. “Proklyaty sukin syn!”
A pounding at the door. His guards.
“Tell them to stand down,” I said, “if you’d like to discuss how to save your son’s life.”
Enraged, face purpling, he staggered out of his chair and over to the door and gasped, “Vsyo v poryadke.”
He came back, stood with folded arms. Just stared at me.
“All right,” I said. “Call your cutout and tell him the operation is over.”
He stared for a few seconds. Then he took out his mobile phone, punched a single button, and put it to his ear.
After a few seconds, he spoke in Russian, quickly and softly.
“Izmeneniya v planakh.”