car wasn’t booby-trapped, wasn’t it?” said Shelley, and then returned his attention to the man on his right. “You’ve been played, Dmitry. We all have. How does it feel? Betrayed by your wife and now by your second in command?”
“This is not true, Dmitry,” said Sergei, his voice taking on a panicked tone.
In the distance was the sound of approaching sirens. The gun battle was only moments old but the cops were already on their way. Armed cops.
Shelley risked a sideways look at Dmitry, and saw the expression on the Chechen’s face, a mixture of anger and betrayal.
But no surprise.
“It is true, Sergei,” said Dmitry. As he spoke he shifted his aim from Shelley to Sergei. “You told Karen that you hated your brother. You told me that you hated your brother; that you had only contempt for his actions in Moscow. But you don’t hate your brother, do you, Sergei? You have his picture in your wallet.”
Over the way, Sergei’s face hardened and Shelley saw where the roots of his deception lay. He thought again of the old masters reusing their canvases. How the past stayed underneath all those layers, yet at some point would make its presence known again.
“Yes, Dmitry, you are right,” said Sergei. He had cast aside all pretense now. “And you were right before. Family is what matters. The Kravizes had their time. Now it is time for the Vinitskys to lead.”
Shelley’s bead on Sergei had never faltered. And so he saw what Dmitry did not: an almost imperceptible sideways movement of Sergei’s eyes as he indicated to Bennett. A movement that said, Kill him. Kill Dmitry.
Shelley’s finger tightened on the trigger, ready, knowing he had to fire before Sergei but also that he had to time it right, he had to be sure Bennett had shifted his aim or he would blow the back of Shelley’s head off.
The moment seemed to hang in time.
And then it happened.
All four weapons crashed together. Only Dmitry failed to find a target, his shot going wide. But Shelley’s round hit Sergei dead center in the forehead, blowing out the back of his head in a welter of blood and skull and brain matter, throwing him backward at the same time, Lucy crumpling safely to the deck. Bennett’s two rounds were clustered at Dmitry’s heart, opening holes in his T-shirt and sending him staggering back before he dropped to the tarmac.
And Sergei’s round hit Shelley.
He felt it like a heavyweight punch to the shoulder and threw out a hand to support himself as he was thrown back, twisting to the side at the same time, landing bodily on the ground.
How badly am I hit? came the thought. But his next instinct was to protect Lucy, and he pulled himself to his knees, raised his SIG to take aim at Bennett. Why hasn’t Bennett opened fire?
And then he saw why. Bennett stood in the same spot, Glock held loosely in his hand. He was looking down on himself to where a dark, gleaming patch of blood was spreading slowly across the groin of his navy suit trousers.
As Shelley watched, Bennett’s legs gave way beneath him, and he, too, sank to his knees so that they faced one another, both wounded by the same round—a round that had passed through Shelley’s shoulder and into Bennett.
The sirens were getting closer now.
“Drop it, Bennett,” said Shelley. His finger tightened on the trigger, and for a moment he almost . . . but no. His finger relaxed. “Drop the gun,” he said, but realized Bennett had no intention of discarding his weapon. Instead his head dipped, and he pushed the barrel of the gun into his own mouth. “Bennett, don’t,” started Shelley. “You don’t have to—”
But he never got to finish that particular sentence.
EPILOGUE
TWO WEEKS LATER Shelley and Lucy maneuvered their battered, injured bodies into the Saab, complete with crutch for Lucy, and made the drive from Stepney Green to the Drakes’ house in Ascot.
Arriving, they drew up in front of brand-new gates, where Shelley approached the keypad and out of sheer curiosity punched in Susie’s birthday for the code. No way would it still be the same, he thought. Not after all they’d been through.
The gate clicked and began a slow swing open. Shelley shook his head. “Fucking idiots,” he said, and rejoined Lucy in the car.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“‘Fucking idiots,’ you said. Not exactly the toughest bit of lip-reading in the world. Who on earth were you calling ‘fucking idiots’? Not our hosts, I hope.”
Shelley