36
Lev
The last thing a man should do before walking into his father’s house to end him is sleep, and I didn’t.
Between my visit with Ruslan and then Polina coming to my door, there wasn’t a chance in hell.
By six in the morning, I’m at the table in the main conference room with Tony’s satellite prints spread across one half and Boris’s team assignments across the other, and the two of them are moving around me like I’m a fixed point they’ve both decided to orbit.
The strike team assembles in the outer yard. I can hear the sounds of men preparing—weapons checks, radio tests, and the type of quiet that falls over professionals who know what the next few hours require.
Tony taps the northwest elevation on the print. “Guard rotation at the rear gate runs forty minutes, not thirty. We confirmed it last night through the relay.”
“My father changed it eight months ago after an incident,” I tell him. “He does that every time there’s a problem. Extends by ten minutes, lets it run for six weeks, then forgets about it and goes back to the original.”
“So it could flip back mid-operation.”
“No. He changed it in February. He won’t touch it again until summer.”
Tony makes a note and moves to the east corridor map. Boris circles the secondary staging point with a marker, and we work through the entry sequence one more time, not because anyone needs the repetition, but because repetition is what keeps men alive when the plan stops working and they have to improvise from memory.
Tony sets down his pen and asks, “The study on the second floor… Is that a private office or open access to the household staff?”
“Private. Only Gennady, Frol, and my father’s personal aide go in without being called. The aide is useless with a gun and won’t be a problem. Gennady will.”
“Where does he position himself during a breach?”
“He’s ex-military. He’ll go to my father first.”
Boris circles the eastern staircase on the map. “We account for him before the interior team reaches the second floor.”
“Yes,” I agree, and move on.
Ruslan comes in at half past five with a weapons case under one arm and the look of a man who has already made a decision and is preparing to defend it.
“I’m going in with you,” he states, setting the case on the end of the table.
Boris looks up. “You’re not on the roster.”
“I know that property just as well as Lev does, if not better. The hired guns tell me things they won’t tell the boss’s son.” He opens the case without waiting for a response. “You can’t afford to leave me behind.”
Boris looks at me. I give him nothing, because it’s not my call to make in this house.
Dmitri walks in at that moment, coffee in hand, and takes in the scene. Ruslan repeats himself, shorter this time, and Dmitri listens without interrupting.
“He stays at the perimeter,” Dmitri decides. “He doesn’t breach the interior unless Boris calls it.”
Ruslan accepts this with a nod that carries no argument, which is how I know he expected worse. Boris goes back to the map.
We spend the next hour locking down the final details. Tony pulls live satellite feeds from a mobile unit parked two kilometers from the compound. There’s a white panel van with a relay dish that looks, from the road, like any other telecommunications crew. He walks us through the current guard positions, cross-referencing them against the rotation I gave him three days ago.
“They match,” he confirms, and doesn’t add anything to it. Tony isn’t a man who narrates the obvious.
Boris places his teams at the four vehicle exit points, with two additional units covering the tunnel access behind the wine cellar. The tunnel is the piece that matters most. If my fatherdecides the front gate is done, that’s the route he takes. Three men, a driver, and enough of a head start to disappear into the city before anyone gets a vehicle turned around. Boris has six guns waiting at the other end.
At 7:15, I step into the corridor and dial Frol on a secure line. He picks up on the second ring.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” he snaps instead of hello.
