Up close, Neill could see that Coluzzi had suffered a gash on the forehead as well as a broken nose. He was a mess. “I’m guessing our mutual friend told you my name.”
“Is it Ledoux or Riske? I’m confused.”
“Do you have my letter?”
Coluzzi pointed at the sky. “Airmail to Moscow.” He coughed, expelling a wad of bloody phlegm.
“At least I’ve earned a consolation prize.”
“I don’t suppose you’d care to split it? We make a good team. Next time, though, tell me the rules in advance.”
“You have your six hundred thousand euros. Or, rather, you did.”
“It was the money you were after all along, not the letter.”
“It’s more complicated than that. Let’s just say I knew who I was dealing with.”
“I’m glad I didn’t disappoint you.”
“Only a little. You could have killed Riske.”
Coluzzi sighed, a mistake he rued as well. “How are we going to settle things?”
“Get me my money. Then we’ll talk.”
“I can’t,” said Coluzzi. “Knee. It’s ruined.”
“Up,” said Neill, not buying it. “On your feet.”
Coluzzi forced himself to his good knee, then attempted to stand. He managed, just, and wobbled unsteadily. Neill motioned with the pistol for him to walk. Coluzzi took a step and collapsed to the ground, moaning unpleasantly. Neill grabbed his leg below the kneecap. With thumb and forefinger, he squeezed. Coluzzi cried out.
“You really are hurt,” said Neill.
Grimacing, Coluzzi sat up, rubbing his knee. One hand moved slowly toward his ankle. His fingers tugged at his pant leg. The stiletto flashed through the air, its razor-sharp blade angling for Neill’s fleshy neck.
But Neill saw it coming. He caught Coluzzi’s wrist, stopping the blade a breath from its target. He stared at Coluzzi, tightening his grasp, slowly turning the wrist backward on itself. Coluzzi clenched his jaw. His body began to shake. Still, he said nothing. Neill wrenched the wrist violently, snapping bone and tearing cartilage. The stiletto fell to the ground. Coluzzi cried out. Neill cuffed him with the butt of his pistol for good measure.
“Is the truck unlocked?” he asked, and when Coluzzi refused to answer, he asked again, with menace.
“See for yourself.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Neill walked to the rear of the truck and put a foot on the bumper, reaching a hand to the roof, and hauling himself up onto the side of the truck. He remained prone, as the first police cars entered the aerodrome. One after another, they made a sharp right turn and drove pell-mell to the far end of the field, where Borodin and Ren had engaged in their version of the shootout at the OK Corral. Finally, the sirens died off. He watched as the officers poured from their cars and surveyed the scene. Not one glanced in his direction.
He scuttled crab-like to the cargo door. It opened outward and he lowered himself into the rear bay. It was more cramped than he had expected, with a bench and an enclosed container to accept deposits. He noted how stuffy the air was, how stale and sour. The thought of spending an eight-hour day trapped in such unpleasant confines made him claustrophobic. But that was another man’s fate.
Neill picked up the suitcase, guessing its weight to be close to forty pounds. He saw that there was no combination and that it was unlocked.
Ten million euros.
How long had he waited?
The idea had come to him years before. He had grown tired of this life. He was doing an all-star’s job for a journeyman’s wages. The world was an expensive place and there was money to be had. At some point, between all the cars he’d never drive, the suits he’d never wear, the meals he’d never eat, and the women he’d never screw—out there between Belgrave Square and Rodeo Drive—he decided he wanted a piece. A government salary wasn’t going to cut it. And so he’d set about planning.
He’d started his career as a Russia hand. He’d been a young man when Reagan had visited Red Square as a guest of Mikhail Gorbachev. He’d been in the room when his superior had suggested making a pass at the young KGB officer shipped in from Dresden, along with a hundred others, to populate Red Square. The First Gulf War broke out barely eighteen months later and he was transferred to the Middle East desk. Off he went to Kuwait and an assignment with the Special Activities Division. Russia was a memory.
But over the years, he’d heard whispers about “their man” in Moscow. Whatever the Agency was doing, it worked. From 1990 to 2000, Russia went from being the “main enemy,” a vaunted military power and feared rival, to the closest thing to a failed state. The old USSR broke up into a dozen pieces, most of which—not coincidentally—hated one another. What remained of Russia proper was ruled by the greediest bunch of plutocrats since Nero and his violin had plundered Rome. And presiding over this wholesale pillage was “their man in Moscow,” Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. First as a bagman for the mayor of Moscow, then as an assistant to President Boris Yeltsin (who else could have slipped Yeltsin the bottle of vodka he was forbidden during the fated visit to Washington, DC, when he escaped the White House in his pajamas and was found wandering down Pennsylvania Avenue at three a.m. singing “The Internationale”?), and then as president of Russia himself, a position he had held, on and off, for two decades.
At some point the Agency lost its man, which was par for the course. Putin accumulated too much power, too much money. He decided to be his own man. No one minded much. Russia needed a strong hand. Worse than a dictator was a weak democracy. The West required a reliable bulwark against the Chinese hordes. It also required an enemy with sharp teeth and a set of claws. Of late, however, he had grown too headstrong. It was decided he needed to be reined in. No one suggested replacing him. God, no. Just a slap on the hand to remind him who was “daddy,” to use the vernacular.
