"Markov. His office is closed. I sent Pasha to his home address. Wife says he left at six this morning with a briefcase and didn't say where he was going."
"Six this morning."
"Before Sadie's shift."
The timeline is tightening. Viktor's lawyer left home at six. Lev dropped Sadie at the clinic at eight. Between those two hours, the pieces were already in place. Transport near the alley, the men inside it. All arranged before she finished her breakfast.
I was sitting in the study interrogating Alexei about money while the real play was happening twelve miles away.
My phone rings. I look at the screen. A number I don't recognize.
I answer.
Nothing. Dead air for five seconds, then the click of a disconnection.
I stare at the screen. The number is a burner. Prepaid. It won't trace to anything.
"He's testing," Dmitri says. He saw the call. He's reading the same playbook I am. "He wants to know if you'll pick up."
"He knows I'll pick up."
"Then he's measuring your response time. How fast you answer. How your voice sounds. Whether you're rattled."
Viktor is probing. Feeling the edges of my composure the way a man tests ice before stepping onto it. He'll call again. Probably within the hour. The first call is the announcement. The second is the terms.
Between now and then, I work.
"Pull the CCTV from the laundromat next to the clinic," I say. "And any traffic cameras on that block. They had to approachfrom somewhere, and they had to leave. I want the route. I want the plates."
"On it." Dmitri is already texting. His thumbs move fast, precise, the rhythm of a man who has been coordinating operations from the back seat of moving cars for fifteen years.
The front door opens. Lev walks in.
He's pale. His hands are in his jacket pockets and his shoulders are drawn up around his ears the way they get when he knows he's walking into something he might not walk out of. He sees me standing at the foot of the stairs with the Makarov in my waistband and my shirt still carrying the faint spray of Alexei's blood, and his step falters for a fraction of a second before he corrects it.
"Pakhan."
"Sit down."
He sits on the bench in the hall. I remain standing.
"The street outside the clinic," I say. "This morning. Tell me every vehicle you saw."
Lev swallows. His eyes go up and to the right, accessing memory, and I watch his face for the small tells that distinguish recall from fabrication.
"A blue Honda on the corner. Old model, dented rear quarter panel. Two cars at meters, a silver Audi and something dark, maybe a Camry. A delivery truck pulling away from across the street."
"What about the alley? The staff entrance to the clinic."
"I didn't look at the alley, Pakhan. I pulled up to the front."
"The front." I keep my voice level. "You pulled up to the front, and she walked around to the side entrance. Alone. With thirty feet of alley between the sidewalk and the door. And you drove away."
His mouth compresses into a thin line. He knows. He knows what those thirty feet cost.
"Was there a van?" I ask. "Or a truck? An SUV? Something big enough to hold multiple men and a captive?"
He's quiet for long enough that I feel Dmitri shift behind me.
