“I don’t care about your client, I care about my job, and my job is to maintain order in this building, and your flowers are causing chaos.”
Pavel looked at his team and then back at the security guard. “Can I at least make a phone call?”
The security guard shrugged. “Make all the phone calls you want, but those flowers are not coming inside.”
Pavel walked back to the van with shaking hands and pulled out the card that the florist had given him. The card with the direct number for the client.
He dialed and waited.
The phone rang twice before a deep voice answered. “Yes?”
“Mr. Ivanovich, sir, this is Pavel from the flower shop, I’m at your wife’s building but security won’t let me in, they say no more flower deliveries are permitted.”
Silence on the other end.
Pavel’s palms started to sweat.
“I’m very sorry, sir, I tried to explain that I had a job to do but they wouldn’t listen, and I don’t know what to do, and I really don’t want to disappoint you, sir, because the florist told me that you’re a very important client, and—”
“Pavel.”
Pavel stopped talking.
“Yes, sir?”
“You have four hundred roses in that van?”
“Yes, sir, four hundred roses, fifty sunflowers, and thirty peonies.”
“And you’re telling me that you cannot find a way to get them to my wife?”
Pavel looked at the building and then at the security guard who was watching him with crossed arms.
“The security guard is very firm, sir.”
“I don’t care about the security guard.”
“Sir?”
“I care about my wife receiving her flowers, and if she does not receive her flowers, I will be very disappointed, and you do not want me to be disappointed, Pavel.”
Pavel had never met Mr. Ivanovich in person but something about the calm, quiet way he spoke made Pavel’s blood run cold.
“No, sir, I definitely do not want that.”
“Good, then find a way in, use a back door, use a window, climb up the fire escape, I don’t care how you do it, but those flowers will reach my wife’s desk by 9 AM, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent, I look forward to hearing about your success.”
The line went dead.
Pavel stared at his phone and then turned to his team of three drivers who were waiting by the van.
“We need disguises,” he said.
Thirty minutes later, Pavel and his team approached the building from four different directions.
