Finally the soldier lowered the weapon to Dutch’s chest and waved it at the laptop. Dutch cautiously stepped over to the computer and bent down to turn the screen away from prying eyes while quickly typing in the password. He then turned the screen around to show the soldiers. They all leaned in and eyed the screen almost greedily and then Dutch did something completely unexpected. He snatched the laptop and lifted it high before bringing it down with all his might on the ground, smashing it into a dozen pieces. In the seconds that followed and without even looking up at the soldiers, Dutch fished around the parts until he found the CD, and tucked it back into his pocket. He then got to his feet again, his arms back above his head, staring defiantly at Yurik like he was double-dog-daring him to shoot.
The stunned silence that followed was palpable in a god-awful way. I’d stopped breathing and such a terrible foreboding crept over me while I watched the lead soldier raise his gun at Dutch’s head again, his finger already moving to squeeze the trigger.
Maks let go of me and stepped forward very quickly. “Yurik!” he said in a commanding voice. “If you shoot him, Vasilii will not be able to auction off the program. His patrons will demand a demonstration after all, and without Rick, we lose the password.”
I was trembling now as I knew that all Maks had to do was point to me and say, “She knows the password,” and Dutch’s life would be over. But he didn’t, and Yurik’s cold eyes suggested that he was thinking that over very carefully. Finally, he lowered his gun and began to turn away. I sucked in a ragged breath, completely relieved that the moment had passed, when all of a sudden, Yurik whirled back around and swung the gun viciously at Dutch’s face, striking him an awful blow across the cheek.
Dutch’s head snapped sideways and he lost his balance, falling hard on the ground amid the shattered pieces of the laptop.
It took every single fiber of resistance I had in me not to leap to Dutch’s side when he fell, and I can’t even fully describe the awful feeling of watching another woman go to his aid when Mandy dropped down next to him and attempted to stanch the flow of blood now gushing from his cheek.
“You son of a bitch!” I snarled, and Yurik turned to consider me, as if he was noticing me for the first time.
“Who is dis?” he asked Grinkov.
Maks’s eyes shot to me, his look demanding that I say nothing more. “She’s with me, Yurik.”
The soldier sniffed the air, as if smelling my anger and fear. “Tell her to shut her mouth,” he snapped. “Or I’ll do it for her.”
With effort I lowered my eyes. “My apologies,” I said through tight lips. “Maks, I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
Maks came back to my side and took me firmly by the hand. “We’ll discuss this later,” he said coldly.
I nodded and did my best to avoid looking at Dutch. It hurt too much to see him on the ground, bleeding and beyond my help. Yurik barked a few more orders to his men, and when I looked up again, I saw that he was handing Maks Des Vries’s gun while the other soldiers moved back to the Hummer. Yurik then got into the vehicle with the other men and took off without a backward glance.
The moment their SUV was in motion, I pulled out of Maks’s grip and raced over to the back of the limo where the chauffeur was standing next to the open trunk. “Do you have a towel or something I can give him to stanch the blood?” I asked desperately.
“Let me look in the front of the car, miss,” he said, and hurried to the front. I then began to dig through the bags to get to my own luggage for something suitable, but I had a hard time of it because several other bags were on top. Mandy’s suitcase was huge and still had the old tags on it. I pulled and tugged it out of the way—it was just like her to pack too many clothes—and then yanked aside another smaller suitcase that was right on top of mine. Pushing it to the side, I saw something that shocked me down to my toes. Sticking out of a side pocket of the other luggage was the top of my wallet. I pulled it free just to make sure, and there on the side was the small tear I’d put in it a year ago. “You son of a beast,” I whispered, eyeing Grinkov angrily while his attention was still on the departing SUV. The remaining bag had to be his, and I thought about what a fool I’d been to believe his story about finding me in the garage already unconscious. He’d been the one that’d struck me and taken my wallet, and I thought I knew why.
“I’ve found a towel,” the driver said, and I jumped with a little squeal. Ramming my wallet back into the pocket where it came from, I turned and forced a smile, then took the towel and raced over to Dutch, who was being helped to his feet by Maks and Mandy. “Here, Rick,” I said, handing over the towel. Dutch placed it on the side of his cheek and winced.
We all waited for him to stop the bleeding, and I ached to reach out and comfort him, but I didn’t dare. Finally he nodded that he was ready to get out of the cold and we moved over to the limo, where the driver had all the doors open.
Inside, Dutch and Mandy took up the seats facing the back of the car while me, Maks, and Eddington took up the seats facing the front. Once the driver had shut all the doors and got in, Maks placed an arm around my shoulders and handed Des Vries’s gun to Dutch.
Dutch stared at it for a moment, his eyes moving angrily from Maks, to the gun, to me . . . and then he lifted it out of Maks’s palm and aimed it right at his face.
I held my breath, but Mandy squeaked and backed away from Dutch to plug her ears and close her eyes. “What the fuck, Maks?” Dutch growled.
Grinkov stiffened slightly next to me, and I looked sideways at him to gauge his reaction. His face revealed nothing but calm, cool, and collected, but next to him I did notice that Eddington had shifted his arm across his middle, and I had no doubt the butler was packing and reaching for his own gun.
“My apologies, Rick,” the Chechen said blithely. “I believe your reputation precedes you.”
“My reputation?” Dutch snapped, and the gun in his hand inched closer to Maks’s face.
“Vasilii doesn’t trust you,” Maks said. “And after that stunt you pulled in Palestine, can you blame him?”
I had no idea what Maks was talking about. Dutch was far more familiar with Des Vries’s background than I was, but something caught me off guard and I focused quickly on Maks’s energy. He was bluffing. I wiggled the index finger of my left hand out of Maks’s view to gain Dutch’s attention and his eyes darted to it, then back to Maks. “What stunt in Palestine?” he snapped, and I could have sagged with relief that he’d read the warning signal correctly.
Maks smiled slyly. “Forgive me,” he said. “I meant the stunt you pulled in Dubai.”
I thought he might be referring to the arms deal that went south with the Arab sheikh, and Dutch must have assumed so too because he dropped the gun slightly and asked, “Is Sheikh Omar attending the auction?”
“He is.”
Dutch put his gun back in his holster. “That’s going to make things tricky,” he said. “Omar and I have issues.”
“Yes,” Maks agreed. “And Vasilii will be forced to keep the peace until the auction is concluded, but he’s already demonstrated where his loyalties run, Rick, and they seem to be leaning toward the man with the money.”
Dutch wiped the rest of the blood off his cheek with the towel. “You’ll run defense?” he asked Maks directly.
“I’ll do what I can,” Maks said, leaning in and lowering his voice so that the driver could not overhear. “Which is why I told Yurik that Ms. Carter is with me. If Boklovich suspects that she is your business partner, he will assume she knows how to access the disk. And I have little doubt that Vasilii will use any advantage he has to get what he wants.”
I remembered how Grinkov had insisted I stay away from the meeting between him, Dutch, and Boklovich. “So you knew he’d react this way,” I said accusingly. “You knew that Boklovich would pull something like that even before we came here.”
“I knew it could go either way,” he admitted, and his energy suggested he wasn�
�t lying. “Which was why I arranged for Rick to meet with Boklovich last week without you. I had hoped that as well as that meeting had gone, that Vasilii would extend us a level of trust, but Boklovich is nothing if not unpredictable, which is why you would do well to keep on your toes, Rick, and pretend that you have only just been introduced to my companion, Ms. Abigail Carter.”
Dutch’s face was unreadable, but I knew he detested the idea of the new ruse being forced upon us. I wanted to try to make it easier on him, so I said, “It’s fine, Maks. And I appreciate you doing your best to protect our interests and our lives. We’ll play along just to get through the auction.”
Mandy, ever the self-preservationist, asked, “Mr. Grinkov? Can I be your girlfriend too?”
Dutch rounded on her furiously and she did a great job of cowering in her seat, shivering and muttering apologies. Once she’d settled down again, Maks asked Dutch, “I’m assuming she doesn’t know how to access the software?”
“You think I’d share that with her?” he snapped, as if that were the dumbest idea he’d ever heard.
Maks smiled. “No,” he said. “Of course not.”
Dutch moved his jaw in a way that suggested he was testing its soreness. When he lifted the towel away from his cheek, I could see the awful gash and bruise already forming under his right eye. The only saving grace was that now his face would be even more battered, which would make it harder to distinguish him from the real Rick Des Vries. “You might want to wear your sunglasses,” I told him, while Mandy looked on with those big scared eyes again. “It’ll help cover up that gash.”
The limo made a sharp turn at that point and I had a chance to stare out the window. We approached a short drive and a set of large iron gates guarded by two men dressed in fatigues and carrying assault rifles. The limo was stopped and the soldiers opened our doors to have a look inside. After checking our names against those on a clipboard, they waved us ahead.
The gates opened slowly and I waited tensely in the limo, knowing that beyond the gates was a prisonlike fortress that we’d be hell-bent escaping from. I took in as much as I could about the security, just in case.
The gates themselves were attached to a ten-foot-high masonry wall with nothing in the way of foliage nearby to gain purchase and give one a boost up. All the trees were centered closer to the drive leading up to the main house, while along the wall armed soldiers patrolled.
As the limo moved ahead, I could see that mounted to every other tree lining the drive were cameras with high-tech video surveillance. I assumed that around the entire perimeter of the house the security was the same, and that no one got in or out without one of Boklovich’s men knowing about it.
The house itself was a bit of a surprise; massive in scale and shaped in the neoclassical style, it had at its center a large rectangle topped with an equally large dome, flanked by twin wings three stories high. The exterior matched the gray of the walls with white shutters and Greek columns lining the front entrance.
Beautiful well-tended gardens decorated the front of the estate, where multicolored tulips and lilies bloomed beautifully. Given what I knew about the dangerous days to come, the setting was somewhat off-putting, a beautiful facade thrown over a ticking time bomb.
The limo stopped and the driver jumped out to open our doors. We climbed out and I looked about with sharp eyes, my adrenaline still pumping from all that had happened since we’d gotten off the plane. Immediately I noticed that a large, rotund man in a tan-colored suit stepped out of the front door and observed us with a pleased keenness I could associate only with a crocodile’s smile. At his side stood Yurik, his posture stiff and predatory.
The rotund man lifted his hands in welcome and spoke in Russian to us. Maks moved to my side and firmly took my hand, while Dutch put his arm around Mandy and held her close.
Maks returned the greeting to the man I assumed must be Boklovich, and we inched closer to the several steps leading up to the front terrace. I noticed in passing that Eddington and the limo driver were busy unloading our bags, which only reminded me again that Grinkov had been the one to attack me in the parking garage and steal my wallet while pretending to have his butler find me after I’d been “mugged.”
I stiffened a little next to him, thinking that I needed to get Dutch alone to tell him, but Maks must have detected the shift in my demeanor because he only gripped my hand more tightly to keep me firmly at his side.
Boklovich waited for us to come up the steps to him, and he greeted Maks warmly with a kiss on each cheek, then moved his fat ugly face to me and gripped my shoulders to have a better look at me. “Hello,” I said without a hint of warmth.
Boklovich turned to Maks and asked him a question in Russian. Maks nodded and said something back, which made the two men laugh. I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the translation. “Velcome!” Boklovich said to me, the volume blasting my ears. “So, you are Maks’s new gurlfriend, eh?”
Boklovich’s accent was thick and heavy, just like the rest of him. “It’s nice to meet you,” I replied. “Thank you for having us.”
Boklovich laughed like I’d said something funny before he pulled me to him and kissed first my right cheek and then the left. He then let me go so suddenly that I had to catch myself from falling. Next, he turned his attention to Dutch and Mandy.
Mandy was clinging to Dutch like a scared kitten, but Dutch stood straight and tall without a hint of fear. “Richard,” Boklovich said, shaking his head as if Dutch were an errant schoolboy. “Yurik tells me you give him leetle bit of trouble earlier, eh?”
“Vasilii,” Dutch replied coolly, running his finger along his injured cheek. “You should have told me to bring my boxing gloves.”
Boklovich laughed heartily and curled his hand into a fist before chucking Dutch under the chin playfully, then grabbing him by both arms to pull him into the same kiss-on-the-cheek routine. Dutch didn’t flinch in the slightest, which made me so dang proud.
“You will come in and have drink!” Boklovich announced. “We will make truce and talk terms. If you want ice for your face, we get that too.”
Dutch nodded and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his sunglasses, putting them on in front of both Boklovich and Maks, which I thought was very smart. They wouldn’t suspect anything if he wore them around inside, and the glasses were large enough that they hid much of his face quite well.
Once we were inside, Mandy and I were subtly shepherded away from our partners and guided by two members of Boklovich’s staff, who helped Eddington with our luggage up to the second floor. Here I was shown into a suite of rooms including a nice-sized parlor and one large master bedroom. Eddington was told that the servants’ quarters were at the other end of the house, and the two attendants told us that they would take Mandy to the room she would share with Dutch, then be back to collect the butler and show him to his quarters.
The moment they left, Eddington got right to work unpacking Maks’s things. “Would you like me to unpack for you, Ms. Carter?” he asked politely.
“No,” I said, thinking there was no way I wanted him to rummage around in my things and discover the syringes or the pens. “I’ll take care of it, Mr. Eddington, thank you.”
He gave me a curt bow and continued to hang up Maks’s clothes in the closet, while I moved out into the sitting room and sat down. There was no television in here, which I found a bit odd. No radio either. Just a small library of books all written in Russian.
Swell.
I sat on the couch and waited for Eddington to finish. I couldn’t wait for him to leave so I could search out Maks’s things and find my wallet. I fully intended to take it back, if only to send him the subtle message that I was totally on to him. I also needed to talk to Dutch and tell him what I’d learned. I figured Maks had stolen my wallet because he wanted to run a background check on me, and I could only hope that if he actually did, the fake Canadian driver’s license the CIA had set up for me would hold up under closer scru
tiny.
Finally Eddington was done and about two minutes later there was a knock on the door, which he answered. The two attendants were there to pick him up and take him to his quarters, and he left with a polite, “Have a lovely afternoon, Ms. Carter.”
The moment he was gone, I ran into the bedroom and pulled open the closet. Grinkov’s luggage was stored there in the corner and I moved over to squat down next to it and rummage through the pockets. My wallet had been removed, but in one of the bottom pockets I found my stun gun and I pulled it out with a little, “Aha!”
At that moment I heard the door to the room open, and I had a moment of panic as I shoved the stun gun back into the pocket of the luggage, pushing the bag into the corner again before getting quickly to my feet.
Maks was already standing in the doorframe when I turned around. “Hello,” I said casually. “I was just about to unpack my things.”
Maks’s expression was unreadable, but I thought I detected something like suspicion there. “Please,” he said with a casual wave of his hand. “Don’t let me keep you from your task.”
I flashed him what I hoped was a relaxed smile and moved to the edge of the bed where my own luggage was resting. As I unzipped the top, I asked, “How did drinks go with Vasilii and Rick?”
Maks continued to watch me from the doorway and I had to force myself to keep my movements slow and calm. “Vasilii does not trust your business partner,” he said, getting right to the point.
I eyed him over my shoulder. “That was pretty obvious at the landing strip.”
Maks nodded. “Yes. But it seems his mistrust is based on something else altogether.”
My radar gave a small ping of warning. “Like what?”
“There is a rumor,” Maks said, stepping into the room. “One that he shared with me after Rick had been taken to his quarters.”
I inhaled and exhaled purposefully. I knew that Maks was scrutinizing my every move, watching to gauge my reaction to this supposed rumor. “Does this rumor involve me or Rick?” I asked, refolding a sweater just to keep my hands busy.
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