little. “I heard from headquarters. About the man in Sirena’s hotel room. They got a hit on his face.”
Sorokina instantly sat down. She knew from Bolichova’s countenance that this was going to be important. Maksim, on the other hand, lifted his bottle with the arm that wasn’t banged up, bit the lid off with his teeth, and spit it on the floor.
Before taking a drink he said, “Who was that bastard, then?”
“The same man was photographed two years ago. Near St. Petersburg. He was inside the home of Gregor Sidorenko.”
“The mafioso?” Sorokina said. “Two years ago? Was this before or after Sidorenko’s death?”
Bolichova hesitated again.
Maksim swigged the whiskey now; Inna couldn’t tell for certain if he even cared, though he was the one who had demanded the unknown man be identified.
When Bolichova didn’t respond to Inna’s question, she posed it again. “Anya. Was the man photographed in the house before or after the assassination of Gregor Sidorenko?”
Anya’s eyes flicked away from the screen and towards Sorokina. “It was . . . during the assassination.”
Maksim’s eyes narrowed now, and he slowly lowered the bottle in his hand. “Wasn’t Sidorenko supposedly killed by . . .”
His voice trailed off.
Sorokina had all the gravity in her own voice now that Anya possessed. “Da. Anya is saying that the person who you fought against yesterday . . . was the Gray Man.”
Maksim sat slowly on one of the sofas, brought the whiskey to his mouth just as slowly, and then took another single long gulp. When he lowered the bottle away, he looked down at it in his hand, then back to Sorokina. “He’s not real. The Gray Man is just a fantasy.”
“Is Semyon’s death a fantasy? You said yourself you’d never seen anything like this man.”
Bolichova sat back down at her laptop. “His name is Courtland Gentry. He is American. A private, freelance assassin.”
Inna answered with one distracted word. “Kiev.”
Anya said, “Nyet. Kiev was not the Gray Man. It was ten, twenty men. America’s Delta Force, something like—”
Inna shook her head. “It was one man. It was the Gray Man. I didn’t believe it then, but I believe it now.”
It was quiet for a moment other than another gulp of bourbon that went down Akulov’s gullet.
Inna turned to him. “Am I going to have to shoot that bottle out of your hand?”
He took it from his mouth. “I don’t believe any of this.”
She said, “Maksim. I told you Sirena would be working with someone else. I told you she was a formidable foe. I did not know how correct I was about both points.”
Maksim said nothing, so Sorokina stood. “I’m calling headquarters back. They will send another team, or two teams, or five damn teams. They will take care of it. We are in no condition—”
Maksim Akulov flung the bottle hard across the room; it hit the stone fireplace and shattered into a thousand shards, and brown liquid shot in all directions three meters away.
“Nobody is calling anyone! We have this situation under control!”
Inna shut her eyes a moment. “In what way are we exerting control?”
“Anya,” Maksim said. “Go take a walk.”
Bolichova didn’t have to be told twice. She slipped her pistol into her jeans and under her blouse, pulled her mobile off the table, and left the lake house, heading out towards the long driveway.
As soon as the door latched behind her, Inna said, “I am calling it in. I have to. At the very least, we need a replacement for Pervak. And sooner or later, Sem is going to be tied to the Bratvas, and the killings at the hotel and in the Tiergarten. They need to know what’s coming their way.”
“I will contact headquarters,” Maksim said.
She cocked her head. “Again, you mean. You called them last night, right?”
He just shrugged and looked out the window.
“You didn’t even call, did you?”
With a second shrug, he said, “I wanted positive ID on the man I faced before I decided if I was going to leave Berlin.”
Inna closed her eyes. “The man who bested you yesterday. You want to stay here so that he kills you tomorrow. Is that it?”
“Nyet. I was given a mission, and that mission is the only thing that matters.”
“Because that mission is what will lead you back to the Gray Man.”
He moved closer to Inna. Leaned closer still, his breath hot and rank in her face. “I will call Moscow, right now. I’ll say I want a stand-in for our dearly departed colleague, and I will say that