Chương 3
They drove past the public levels and descended through a second metal gate. Fluorescent lights flickered over concrete walls. The vehicle stopped beside a freight elevator.
Viktor got out first.
Clara stayed in the seat.
He held the door open.
“No.”
“Clara.”
“You know my address. You know my mother’s schedule. You knew my brother left the apartment. You watched a man get shot at my job, and now the suitcase that this key probably opens is gone. I’m not going anywhere else with you until you tell me what Aleksandr was carrying.”
Viktor glanced at the garage entrance. He seemed to measure time the way other people measured money.
“The ledger records twenty-three years of payments, properties, political favors, police contacts, union contracts, judges, shell companies, and murders ordered by Aleksandr’s son.”
“Mafia boss.”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Mikhail Petrov.”
“And Aleksandr is his father.”
“Yes.”
“Why would his father steal the ledger?”
Viktor rested one hand on the vehicle roof.
“Because Mikhail ordered a child killed.”
Clara waited.
Viktor’s voice remained controlled, but something behind it had changed.
“The child survived. His mother did not. Aleksandr decided his son had become a man he could no longer protect.”
“You work for Aleksandr.”
“Yes.”
“So you protected Mikhail too.”
“For years.”
The admission sat between them without defense.
Clara stepped out of the SUV.
The private medical suite upstairs had no sign on the door. Inside, the air smelled of antiseptic and burned coffee. A nurse in navy scrubs examined a cut on Clara’s temple and removed a sliver of glass from her hair. Clara kept her hands folded around the key.
Viktor stood near the window, speaking quietly with Sergei.
Tomas arrived ten minutes later with blood soaking the sleeve of his suit. The bullet had passed through the flesh above his elbow. He sat on an examination table while the nurse cut away his shirt.
Oleg entered behind him.
He was broad-shouldered, darker-haired than the others, with an expression that seemed carved into place. His suit jacket was torn at the back. He put a deformed rifle round on a stainless-steel tray.
“They disabled the rear tire, boxed us against a delivery truck, and came from both sides,” he said. “Professional. They knew which door held the case.”
“Tracker?” Viktor asked.
“Removed before the bridge. We found it beneath a taxi.”
“Faces?”
“Covered.”
“Vehicles?”
“Motorcycles were stolen. Van plate false.”
Clara looked at Oleg. “Did you see who took it?”
“A man. Medium height. Gray helmet.”
“That narrows it down.”
Oleg’s eyes settled on her. “I apologize that our failure was not more informative.”
It was almost humor, except no one smiled.
A wall-mounted television showed morning traffic without sound. On the lower corner of the screen, a banner reported an armed incident at a neighborhood diner. The aerial image showed flashing police lights around Manny’s building.
Clara watched officers string yellow tape across the entrance where she had worked for six years.
Her phone was still inside, probably under broken glass. Her tips were in the locker. Her jacket hung in the kitchen. The diner’s insurance company would ask questions. Manny would blame her because fear required an address, and hers was easy to remember.
The nurse pressed gauze to Clara’s temple.
“Any dizziness?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“I was shot at.”
“That counts as a yes.”
The nurse taped the gauze in place and moved to Tomas.
Viktor set the secure phone on the counter. The screen remained black.
“Call Aleksandr,” Clara said.
“He will call when the line is secure.”
“He told me to look in my apron. He knew where the key was. He knows what it opens.”
“He may not be conscious.”
“He looked conscious enough to involve me.”
Viktor turned toward her.
“You helped a wounded stranger when he told you not to. You called an ambulance when he ordered you not to. You refused to abandon his bags. Aleksandr places value on disobedience when it serves conscience.”
“He put a key in my pocket without asking.”
“Yes.”
“And then people shot through a window beside my head.”
“Yes.”
“Stop saying yes like that makes it acceptable.”
“It does not.”
The secure phone vibrated.
Viktor answered. This time no image appeared, only a distorted voice.
“Is she safe?”
Aleksandr sounded weaker.
Viktor glanced at Clara. “For the moment.”
“The key?”
“She has it. The second case was taken.”
A pause followed. Clara heard a machine beeping on the other end.
“Then we have very little time,” Aleksandr said.
Clara stepped closer to the phone.
“What does the key open?”
“Clara.”
“You knew my name before I told you last night.”
“I saw it on your name tag.”
“You knew where I lived.”
“I did not.”
“There are pictures of my mother.”
“Those were not taken by me.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No,” Aleksandr said. “It is not.”
Viktor placed the phone on speaker.
Aleksandr took a shallow breath.
“The second suitcase has a false base. The key releases it. The ledger is beneath the lining.”
“Why put the key on me?”
“Because someone close to me has been giving Mikhail information. Anyone who left with the suitcases could be searched. No one would search a waitress who had already been dismissed as irrelevant.”
Clara looked around the room at the four bodyguards.
One of them was bandaged and pale. One had lost the suitcase. One watched the door. Sergei stood near the television with his hands folded behind his back.
“You used me as a hiding place.”
“Yes.”
The old man did not soften it.
Clara almost respected him for that. The feeling made her angrier.
“Did you know they were watching my family?”
“I suspected they would begin after the diner.”
“You suspected.”
“I intended to retrieve the key before morning.”
“But you disappeared.”
“I was taken.”
“By your son?”
“By someone who wants my son frightened.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
May you like
“Who?”
Aleksandr was silent long enough that Viktor looked at the phone.
