that would have caught this entire event.
He jogged through the darkness and thought about what had just happened. He hadn’t intended to kill the man; he’d been certain that he could have remained stealthy all the way up to when he would have clocked him with his pistol and temporarily taken him out of the equation, as Sorokina had requested.
But the man had turned suddenly in Pervak’s direction, almost as if he’d received warning that someone was creeping up behind him. The man was fast and strong, and the instant he saw the man try to draw his gun, the big Russian realized he’d have to stop him from doing so, by either nonlethal or lethal means.
And when the man in the dark got his hand on the weapon, Pervak went lethal.
One shot into the upper chest, from a range of less than two inches, and the shadow dropped his weapon and went still.
Semyon trained his CZ on his victim’s forehead, and he stood and kicked the man’s HK pistol out of reach. He quickly knelt down, fished through the man’s clothing, and finally pulled his wallet off the ground where he’d dropped it.
As he raced through the park now he thought of the wallet, still in his left hand. He’d just slowed and begun looking through it when his phone began to ring.
“Yeah?”
“What happened?”
“I killed him.”
“I told you to—”
“Yeah, well, he went for his gun. He was in comms with someone else, I think. Maybe Zakharova? She warned him.”
Sorokina was clearly hoofing it, as well; her voice was breathless as she spoke. “I was with Zakharova. She didn’t communicate with anyone.” Then she asked, “Did you hear the glass smashing to the east?”
“I can barely hear you. Did you forget I just fired a pistol?”
“Are you clear?” she asked, and Pervak had had enough of Inna Sorokina.
“You take care of you, I’ll take care of me. I’ll be back at the Adlon in the morning. Have Maksim ready. Zakharova won’t be sticking around long after tonight.” And then he hung up, focusing his attention on the wallet in his hands, hoping to get some idea who he had just killed.
He pulled the German license from the closed billfold and saw that the man’s name was Noah Fischer. Then he opened the billfold fully, and saw credentials identifying Noah Fischer as an officer in the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. The BfV. German domestic intelligence.
Shit, Pervak thought.
The Krauts are after Zakharova, as well.
FORTY
Court made it to Dr. Kaya’s flat just after eleven, and he rang her call button, then waited for her to buzz him in. After a minute he buzzed again, but she appeared in the darkened lobby and unlocked the door herself. As soon as she saw him, she took him by the arm without speaking. There were other residents returning home at the same time, but she put him in an empty elevator and stepped in behind him before anyone saw him.
When they began their ascent, she said, “I won’t ask you what happened to your forehead. That, I can treat with ice. But you have a fever, a bad one, I can tell by looking at you.”
With discomfort in his voice, he said, “I can tell by being me.”
“As soon as we get into my flat, I want you to lie on the settee.”
“What’s a settee?”
“It’s the couch you used three years ago.”
“Right.”
“I’m going to give you a course of IV antibiotics and some pain meds. I also have something for energy, but you’ll want to wait till morning to take—”
“First I need a place to make a phone call. In private.”
“Look at you, you’re about to pass out.”
“I already did pass out, so I guess I’m well rested.”
She looked at him like he was insane. “You’re anything but well—”
“It’s a joke. Please, a five-minute phone call and then I’m all yours.”
When they got off on her floor she led him up a flight of wooden stairs, and then onto the roof of the building. There were a few plants and chairs there for the residents, but this late at night, it was empty and quiet.
The young woman left him alone, and he called Brewer using his Signal encryption app.
She answered, he gave her his ID credentials, and then he said, “Zoya and Ennis had a two-man team on them tonight. She went to her room, so I followed one of the men when he started a tail on Ennis. He made me, we got into it, and