CHAPTER 30
Nick wasn’t sure where he was when the car stopped. Tristan dragged him out of the vehicle and down some stairs into what felt like the garden level of a larger building. It was tough to say because he had a laundry bag over his head. But judging from the look of the sidewalk and the city sounds and the flight of below-level stairs, it was his best call.
Tristan pushed Nick over a threshold and walked him into a room that stank of cigar smoke. The hacker then whipped the bag off with a comical flourish, and Nick stared into the eyes of Sokolov smoking at his desk in a pleasant, rather smallish dark-wood-furnished office. The fingers on his left hand sifted through a cloisonné bowl full of sunflower seeds.
Ta-da, Nick thought grimly. He blinked against the glare coming through a set of French doors leading to a small green area. Got the garden-apartment part right, anyway.
“What is this?” Sokolov asked Tristan, looking at Nick like it made him want to throw up. Nick kind of wanted to throw up too, but that had as much to do with his wicked hangover as anything else.
Tristan looked a little confused. “You wanted me to get Nick. I got Nick.”
Sokolov shook his head in disgust. “Maybe we keep you on computers after this.”
“What did I do wrong?” Tristan protested. “I hacked his security, I snuck into his apartment, and I extracted the target without even waking up his girl. It’s perfect.”
“His girl.” Shit! Does that mean he has specific knowledge of Jane’s importance to me, or does he think she’s just some girl I slept with last night?
Sokolov spat sunflower-seed shells to the side and then sighed. “I did not think I needed to request dignity.”
“Dignity?” Nick and Tristan both asked at the same time.
Sokolov looked really put out, but he gestured to a lovely twiglike blonde creature with thick bangs and enormous eyes who was standing by the wall, and said, “Find this man a shower and some clothes.”
After Nick took a shower under the dead eyes of a guard, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere other than watching some guy clean his junk in front of him, and got decked out in black pants and a white shirt and a pair of plain-toe oxfords that looked straight from Sokolov’s catering-staff closet, he was returned to the big man in the same office. One part of him wondered if he was being dressed in funeral clothes for a reason.
“Put on a coat, Nikolai. We go for walk,” Sokolov said, gesturing to the duster the pretty twig held out to him.
Nick shrugged into the coat and followed Sokolov through the French doors onto what proved to be a small covered patio, complete with trickling fountain and risers full of shrubbery and potted flowers presented at three elevations. At the far end, peeking through chained iron doors, was the public street, where a black town car idled. “You wonder why you still so healthy?” the Russian asked. He took out a case and selected a cigarillo, which he lit.
“I try not think about it too much. I’m still looking for the money I didn’t steal from you.” Nick itched to confirm that Jane was being left unharmed, but he wasn’t going to do that—let on to his feelings for her. He still had a hard time believing that Sokolov would target her for real damage, but as Tristan proved, sometimes a man can’t control his underlings. Maybe Nick was just being naïve.
Sokolov puffed on his stick and exhaled with a sigh, the smoke escaping in a surprisingly elegant curl around his thick features. “I think Maksim is good friend. He makes suggestion I like.” The Russian eyed Nick like he was studying diamond facets through a magnifying glass. “You owe him two times now. Strange you owe him a marker when is from me you take the money . . .”
Once again, Nick had to wonder what sort of game Maks might be playing, but the conversation in Brighton Beach spoke for itself. He trusted Maks. He wasn’t lying. And he needed to hold on to that until there was proof that suggested otherwise. Yeah, I suspect I do owe him a marker. If I live long enough for him to call it in.
Sokolov coughed, producing that same old wet, labored sound of unhappy lungs. “So, I say to myself, a marker this big he should owe me, how does that get paid? And then I have my answer from Maksim. He say don’t kill you, take you for new team.”
Nick blinked, concealing the disgust welling up inside. “What?”
“How do you like to say?” He lowered his gun-shaped index fingers and thumbs to his waist and said in a really terrible American accent, “I own your ass, pal.”
“What do you mean?” Nick asked, thinking he knew exactly what it meant.
“You pack up from Hudson Kings, kiss Rothgar’s ring, and say good-bye. Sokolov is forming team now.” Vlad stubbed the butt of his cigarillo out on the garden wall so violently Nick heard the man’s fingernails scrape against brick. “I own Nick Dawes. I own his skills. He works for me now. And if he says no, I kill him. No more Maksim goodwill to keep Nick Dawes above water.”
“Is Maks on this new team of yours?” Nick asked, pretending to be suspicious about the Russian merc as he watched Tristan lurking sullenly in the background.
Sokolov’s face turned sorrowful. “Alas, no. My comrade seems to be, how do you call it? Lone wolf. Da. But is okay with me, since he turned down Hudson Kings and Sixth Ward before. Too picky. No offense taken. Is very good offer for you, Nick. I think we already have good mission protecting Russians targeted by Hudson Kings.”
Oh, fuck. Not good. Not. Good. Sokolov had figured out it was the Hudson Kings that were running the missions to bring Russian sleeper agents down. Or maybe he was just fishing. If he really had it figured out, then he also knew that Nick was part of the team that had brought down Sokolov’s girlfriend, Anya Gorchakov.
Nick forced himself to look blank. He wanted to call Roth. Hell, he wanted to call Jane, who’d probably already figured he was a no-show for breakfast by now. “You lost me,” Nick said, hoping he looked realistically confused.
“Nyet. The opposite. Finders keepers,” Sokolov said.
“I’m not following,” Nick said. “What’s my other option?”
Vlad Sokolov stared at Nick. That annoying, jolly sarcasm wasn’t showing on his face anymore, and Nick suddenly missed that look. Because now he looked like a hard man with soft hands who watched others shovel his dirt. “You give me twenty million dollars with interest, I feel much better, is good, but there is still problem. Damage still done. Reputation is . . .” Sokolov jiggled one spread palm in a “so-so” gesture. “I build good team, prove good missions, make money, fix reputation.”
The idea of Nick leaving Rothgar for Vlad Sokolov was so ridiculous it took all of Nick’s control not to laugh in the man’s face. What he really needed to do was get out of here so he could warn Rothgar that Sokolov, at minimum, suspected the Hudson Kings were breaking covers of the top Russian sleeper agents in New York.
He made a show of being conflicted but thinking about it. Finally, he said, “I need to talk to Rothgar about leaving his team. If you don’t want him to retaliate, I’ve got to lay some groundwork.”
“Not tonight, Nikolai. Tomorrow back to Rothgar. Tonight, we drink to agreement.” He gestured to the black car at the curb. “Have hazing. Nyet. That is not right word. ‘Initiation.’”
Nick had the distinct sense that Sokolov’s version of initiation did not involve cosmopolitans or confetti. “I’ve got someone waiting on me who will think it’s pretty weird if I don’t show.”
Sokolov looked Nick straight in the eye. “I take care of my team; I take care of their loved ones. She will wait too long, but she will be safe. Is okay. I know many girls for you.”
Nick stopped breathing for a moment. He knows about Jane. “Loved ones.” He’s figured out she’s more than a fish sitter. He saw the fledgling dream of the lightness and joy Jane had brought into his life slipping away. “Can we do this in an hour?” he asked, really wanting to say, “I really don’t want to leave that girl alone in my bed. I want her to open her eyes and see me still there next to her.”
“Into the car, Nikolai,” Sokolov said, gesturing for the guards to open the iron gates. Sokolov walked down the path beside Nick. The driver opened the back door of the town car and gestured with a gun for Nick to get inside.
Nick climbed in, the Russian got in beside him, and the car pulled away from the curb.
Jane, I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up, Nick thought, staring out the window into darkness punctuated by neon lights. I’d give anything to have you in my arms right now.
“Tonight, we make sure you join team. Tomorrow, you go back to Rothgar. Just one thing, Nikolai. Is all good, you do what I say, I protect Jane MacGregor as if my own family. You act like bad dog, you tell Rothgar more than ‘I quit,’ maybe I won’t kill you. Maybe I kill Jane MacGregor instead.”
If Nick thought that was bad, apparently there was a kicker.
Sokolov took a labored breath, a gurgling whistle made worse by all the smoke he’d inhaled. “Maybe you also say to Rothgar, Sokolov knows he took Anya away,” the Russian added. “So, I take one of his.”