•
Minutes later the two of them were on the open road. They were clear of the prison gates, and yet the silence remained.
“You won’t get me to talk,” Hightower said again.
Zoya turned to him. In English, with no Russian accent now, she said, “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. Usually I can’t get you to shut up.”
Zack cocked his head, and his eyes cleared in an instant. “Anthem? I’ll be damned.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t expect to see you here.” She kept driving. “Why the slap back there? That shit hurt.”
“Had to sell it, didn’t I?”
After a long pause, Zack laughed. “Nah. You wanted to get a free lick in, didn’t you?”
“You won’t get me to talk, either.”
They drove through the thick traffic. Zack squinted in the sunshine, the first he’d seen in days.
“How did you pull this off?”
“When I was with SVR I worked Caracas for a short time. Made contacts. One of those contacts is now in charge of SEBIN. I reached out to him; he was under the impression I was still affiliated with Russian black ops, contractually, anyway. Probably because I told him I was still affiliated with Russian black ops. I also gave him a bribe. My contact in SEBIN put the fear of the Lord into the warden, but I had to pay him just now, as well, to make sure it all went smoothly.”
“Where’d you get all that money?”
She turned to Zack. “The money came from Hanley.”
“Did you just get me in trouble?”
“I just got you out of trouble. Remember?”
“How much did Hanley have to pay?”
“One hundred thousand euros.”
“That’s it? Stingy bastard.”
“Actually, Matt Hanley didn’t offer a cent. I used his money without his knowledge.”
“Figures. Well, I owe you.” He reclined his seatback, closed his eyes. “Can’t wait to be outta here. Gonna take a few days on my back porch with a beer in my hand and my feet up.”
“No, you’re not. You’re going to Berlin. Now.”
Zack raised his seat again slowly. “What the hell’s in Berlin?”
“Court, and he’s got his hands full.”
“He’s in the field? I thought he was out of commish.”
“He should be. He’s not.”
Zack conveyed that he understood what she meant. “Fuckin’ Hanley.”
The Toyota rolled on to the airport in thick rush-hour traffic.
FIFTY-THREE
The three Russians in the safe house at the lake had been awake for hours, mostly drinking tea and perusing the news. Inna made breakfast for them all; it was something to keep her mind off the fact that Moscow hadn’t contacted them again after Maksim’s distress call the evening before.
Anya was on her laptop, waiting for a response to the query of the face she’d sent to Moscow over a dozen hours earlier.
Maksim, for his part, was in pain—his ribs and arm and hip throbbed. All his body parts functioned, some with more difficulty than others, so he still didn’t think he’d broken any bones, but deep purple bruising covered a large portion of his torso and arms, and he didn’t expect the pain to go away anytime soon.
Today Maksim seemed as sullen and moody as ever. He just sat on the back deck overlooking the water, smoked, and looked out over the lake. The bottle he’d walked in with the night before was on the kitchen counter, as yet untouched for the day, but Inna expected that to change soon.
At ten fifteen a.m., Inna opened the door to the deck. “Why haven’t they responded?”
Maksim just shrugged.
“It’s been ten . . . no, twelve hours. They should have at least communicated the exfiltration plan.”
“Nobody has called. What do you want me to do about it?”
“Call them back, or I will.”
The Russian man turned to his subordinate. “No, you won’t.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“It’s fine. We’re fine. We’ll be okay.”
“Tell Semyon that, Maksim.”
The assassin glared at her, and he was about to respond when Anya Bolichova leapt up from the sofa in the living room and opened the back door. “Both of you! Get in here!”
The other two did, then looked to her in surprise. She was the quietest, meekest, of the team. She never spoke with such authority.
“What is it?” Inna said.
Anya stared at her screen. “Der’mo!” And then she spoke more soflty. “I . . . I don’t believe it.”
“Well, we’re here. Are you going to talk?” Maksim asked, crushing out his cigarette in an ashtray on the coffee table.
She looked away from them, outside the window of the lake house, then back down to her computer.
“I heard . . .” Her voice quivered a