“Mikhail, if the FBI is listening—” Alexei says.
“Shoot him anyway.”
The gunshot is impossibly loud in the small office. The impact sends me flying backward against the wall. I crumple tothe floor, shallow, sharp gasps of air expelling from my lips. I look down at my hand on my chest, sticky and wet with blood spreading through the fabric.
But I’m still conscious. Still breathing.
Still alive.
“Finish him,” Volkov says.
Alexei raises the gun again.
My vision blurs and I see three guns pointed at me now. An icy numbness creeps up my legs. I can’t move, can’t speak. My eyelids droop.
The office door slams open and an FBI tactical team in body armor runs in with automatic weapons.
“Federal agents! Drop your weapons!”
Alexei spins toward the door, gun still in his hand. Bad choice.
The tactical team doesn’t give warnings twice.
I struggle to keep my eyes open while EMTs work on me. The recording device is still transmitting. I can hear Morrison’s voice through someone’s radio, coordinating the arrest.
“Sir? Sir, can you hear me?” the EMT asks.
I try to answer but nothing comes out. My mouth won’t work. Bright flashes of light explode behind my eyelids.
“We need to move now. He’s losing too much blood.”
The world tilts as they lift me onto a stretcher and run me out of the place. I can’t see or hear anything clearly.
“Is there someone you want us to call?” I hear the question, but the voice sounds far away.
I try to think of an answer, try to form words, but darkness creeps in from all sides.
The last thing I hear before everything goes black is Morrison’s voice: “We got them, Christensen. We got everything.”
Then…nothing.
THIRTY-FOUR
tate
I stare downat my gear bag, trying to figure out how the fuck I’m going to get through tomorrow night’s game.
Vancouver. Second period, 14:23 remaining. Quick glove save that goes wide.
The instructions from Petrov keep looping through my mind. I’ve been practicing the motion in my apartment…diving for a shot that I’ll deliberately miss by inches, making it look like I stretched for it but came up just short.
It should be easy. One mistake, one goal, fifty thousand dollars.
Instead, it feels like I’m selling my soul.
My phone buzzes with a text from Mark.
I shoot off a response, but before I can hit send, a breaking news headline flashes on the television screen.
