suite over, anyone would be able to identify the sound as having come from a firearm.
Still, he spoke into the earpiece, calling his team watching the cameras from the monitors back in 401. “Status?”
Inna replied. “The hallway is clear. Doors to 403 and 407 remain closed.”
“Ponial.” Understood. He turned his attention back to the woman.
“Now, Sirena. Let’s deal with you.”
* * *
• • •
Zoya looked down at Ric Ennis’s body, then back up to the brain matter streaming slowly down the wall. Finally she turned her attention again to the assassin in the room service attendant’s uniform. She forced her voice to remain calm as she spoke. In Russian she said, “You’re . . . Maksim.”
“Da,” he replied. “And you’re the traitor.”
“Tell yourself that if it helps you sleep.”
“Nothing helps me sleep, beautiful. Turn around,” he ordered.
Zoya’s back was to the open floor-to-ceiling window, and a concave metal railing a meter and a half in height just outside gave it the feel of a tiny balcony.
She did not turn around and face it, however.
She said, “You have a small pistol with a large silencer. You would have shot me between the eyes as soon as you came through the door if your rules of engagement allowed this. You have to make this look like I killed myself, don’t you?”
“Clever girl.”
“And how will you explain the extra body?” She motioned to Ennis, lying in a heap to Maksim’s right.
Maksim said, “I don’t have to. That’s the very awkward job of the surviving relatives of both yourself and Mr. Ennis. Honestly, I don’t envy them.”
Zoya took a slow breath, then lifted her chin. “You’ll need my help to make it look right.” She stared down the pistol. “Good luck with that.”
She was one hundred percent faking her self-assurance; she was terrified, and saw few, if any, options. But she needed to stall until she could find some sort of an opening, and while she and Maksim were talking, he wasn’t in the process of murdering her, so she wanted to keep this dialogue going until an opportunity presented itself.
A moment later, however, it seemed the stalling would be coming to an end.
Maksim spoke to his colleague standing closer to the kitchen. “I have a new idea. Toss her out the window.”
“Der’mo,” she said.
FORTY-SIX
Court Gentry placed one booted foot directly in front of the other, then shuffled another step. It was slow going, but finally he made it past the windowsill outside Zoya’s bedroom and back onto the narrow ledge. The larger living room windows were another twelve feet ahead, and moving at the pace he’d been going since leaving his own window, he figured he’d be exposed up here on the fifth floor for another thirty seconds.
He couldn’t tell the status of the living room windows yet, since they opened inward and his face was pressed up against the warm stonework of the building’s facade.
The amphetamines in his bloodstream managed to spike his adrenaline even more than a narrow walk on a sixty-foot-high ledge would have done on its own, and the feeling of helplessness up here shot pangs of anxiety through his mind.
He pressed his face tighter against the wall, scraping his cheek, and he told himself, not for the first time, that he should have become an accountant.
And then he took another shuffle-step closer to the window.
* * *
• • •
Semyon Pervak holstered his weapon under his arm, covered it with his jacket, and then moved forward, closing on the target. He was careful not to cross in front of Maksim’s pistol; he knew Zakharova would dive for the handgun she’d dropped on the floor if she saw even a moment’s chance, so the big Russian knew better than to give her any opportunity whatsoever. He stepped around the food cart, approaching her from her left side, and he spun her around roughly, twisting her right arm behind her back.
She fought back, and it took all his strength to overpower her.
“She’s a strong one,” he said to Akulov.
“If you’re not stronger, I’ll throw you out the window,” came the reply.
Semyon Pervak began pushing Zakharova from behind, towards the opening five stories above the street.
“Nyet!” she screamed. She started to scream again, but the big man’s hand slammed hard over her mouth and face, bloodying her nose in the process while he all but gagged her. This done, he used his other hand to shove her forward.
The Russian woman fought him hard for each step, but slowly she lost ground, her