Revenge (David Shelley #1) - James Patterson Page 0,77

you’re not, Captain, but don’t you worry, we will get the rest of our money.”

“You’d need the passcode.”

“We shall get the passcode from you,” said Dmitry.

“You won’t.”

“You leave that problem to us.”

Shelley was about to draw—a heartbeat away from doing so—when something happened.

That something was Karen making her move.

CHAPTER 61

KAREN RAISED HER Beretta. For perhaps half a second Shelley considered reaching for his SIG at the same time, but there was no point in making these guys feel even more jumpy than they already were. One raised gun was enough. He needed to see how this played out. His hand stayed on the grip of his SIG.

“Shelley ain’t going anywhere. Nor is Susie Drake,” said Karen.

Dmitry looked at her. Her gun was pointed not at Susie or Shelley but at him. “Karen,” he said, managing to make the word sound like neither a question nor an exclamation of surprise, “what are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing, dear?”

“Well,” said Dmitry without apparent concern, “it seems to me that you are holding a gun on me. Holding a gun on me in front of my men. And, it seems to me, you are insinuating that you intend to stage some kind of coup? Is that right? Could that possibly be right?”

Suddenly Shelley felt like a bystander, somebody who had blundered into an unfortunate family dispute. He inched closer to Susie, adjusting his elbow so that their arms met.

“Karen,” continued Dmitry politely. “I’m afraid I don’t hold out much hope for your coup. Not only are you hopelessly outnumbered, but these are my people.” He waved an arm to encompass his men. “We are Chechens, Karen. I can assure you that counts for a lot more than your Regan family.”

Shelley shifted in order to look in both directions. What he saw was the men looking around at one another, each eyeing up their neighbor. None of them seemed to know where their loyalties lay. All was confusion, and he could capitalize on that.

“I have support,” Karen told Dmitry, “don’t you worry about that.”

“Oh, really?” Dmitry was looking around at his men. “Which of my men is loyal to you?”

“Men,” she called, countermanding his order, “don’t reveal yourselves.”

Could be clever, thought Shelley. On the other hand, it could be that she didn’t have the support she needed. Either way, nobody spoke, which Dmitry chose to interpret his way.

“We are Chechens, Karen,” Dmitry repeated. “We stick together.”

“Oh yes, I know that, Dmitry,” smiled Karen. “Family. It’s very important to you, isn’t it? You tend to get very worked up, don’t you, when family comes into things?”

“What are you trying to say now?” he said, but the look he wore was no more serious than polite puzzlement.

Credit to Karen, if Dmitry’s lack of concern bothered her she wasn’t showing it.

Why?

Because she had an ace, of course. An ally.

“Sergei,” she said, indicating with the gun.

Dmitry wheeled around to see that his lieutenant had also drawn his gun and was pointing it at him. His face fell. “Sergei,” he said, suddenly disconsolate, “my friend.”

If there was something of the pantomime to his performance, then it was lost on Karen. “Why don’t you tell Dmitry what we mean when we talk about family, Sergei?” she said.

His sidearm still trained on Dmitry, Sergei said, “The Skinsman. He killed my brother Ivan.”

“Yes.” Dmitry cast his eyes downward in apology. “Yes, I know this to be the case.”

Yet there was something about the way Sergei had delivered the news, and something about Dmitry’s subsequent reaction, that struck Shelley as even more odd. His eyes went to Karen, instinctively knowing that things had taken an unexpected turn where she was concerned.

Indeed, when she next spoke she sounded uncertain. “I’m sorry to tell you, my dear, that one of the men loyal to me has killed Dedushka this very evening. I gave the order with Sergei’s blessing.”

Once more Dmitry’s response took her by surprise.

He smiled.

And then laughed, throwing back his head and guffawing into the night as everybody looked on.

At last his mirth died. “No,” he said. “No, I’m sorry, Karen, but you don’t understand. It is I who gives the orders around here.” He raised his hand. In response, the two men at the Cherokee moved to the boot, opened it, and reached inside, struggling with something that took two of them to remove.

Shelley knew it was a body. He knew it was a body as soon as the boot was open. Out it came, covered in black plastic and badly