Cassidy said, “Wait. I just—”

Belyakov kept talking. “Still, I’m not worried about myself. What does the information prove? That I have offshores? People would think me mad if I didn’t, and I can move the money from my foreign banks into new accounts by the end of the day, certainly before anyone can access them and clean me out. So don’t worry about me, Terry. I’m not your biggest problem.

“Your biggest problem, however, is the other names on the list. I know who some of your other clients are, and they are the types who express their displeasure . . . harshly.”

Cassidy did not respond to this. Court imagined the man squirming as he thought about the names from the Russian mob tied to account numbers, all information now in the hands of the CIA.

Belyakov said, “The Bratva will come for you, Terry. You must know this.”

Apparently, he did not, because he said, “Don’t be ridiculous. I am just a solicitor. A middleman. I was robbed, not my bleedin’ fault. I just need to get the iPad back and then that will put everything right.”

Belyakov laughed loudly over the microphones hidden in the room. “If you didn’t keep that file as a security blanket you wouldn’t be in this fix, and you wouldn’t have the Bratva after you.”

“Look,” Cassidy said. “You could reach out to your . . . our . . . friend.”

“For what purpose?”

“He has influence over the Bratva. He can calm them down. And if he can’t, he has all the protection I need. You know he could get a dozen guns around me in an hour. The real deal. He has connections in Moscow. Hell, he could probably get Spetsnaz over here to help me.”

In the Mercedes outside, Court cocked his head. Behind him, Fitzroy spoke softly. “The mastermind.”

Court nodded. “Chernny Volk.” The Black Wolf.

Belyakov said, “Terry, it will surprise you to learn this, but the person who stole the client list from you last night was none other than our friend’s daughter.”

In the Mercedes, Court looked up, out the window towards the Red Lion Club. “What?” he whispered in amazement.

CHAPTER 44

   Back inside the tony members-only club, Terry Cassidy said, “What? He has a daughter?”

“Da, and she’s CIA.”

The solicitor gasped.

Belyakov added, “I just found out about it myself. He just found out she’s alive and working with the Agency. I don’t understand it all, but I know she is a danger to his work, and to my livelihood.”

“Bloody hell,” Cassidy said.

“He met with her an hour ago, and now he’s holding her prisoner. He recovered the iPad, but there is no way of knowing if the information has already gotten out to CIA. We have to assume it has.”

“What are we going to do?”

“You, Terry, are going to do nothing but take a vacation. Somewhere far away. Get lost, it’s your only chance to stay alive.” Belyakov’s voice lowered. “I am Russian. I know what the Bratvas are capable of. You do not want to be here when they decide they are angry with you. There are no half measures in their revenge.”

“Yes. Yes, of course, Vladi. You are right. I’ll leave today.”

“No, you’ll leave now. Let’s exit the club together; I have a security detail outside. You’ll ride with us; we’ll get you back to your flat, but then you are on your own.”

* * *

• • •

   Court Gentry was a flurry of movement in the driver’s seat of the limo. As Fitzroy watched from his seat behind, he saw his former contract assassin take off his chauffeur’s cap, pull a Glock pistol from his hip, and then quickly grab a long, black suppressor from a bag next to him and spin it on the threaded barrel.

“Whatever you’re planning, lad, I think you need to—”

Court finished screwing on the barrel. “You still know how to drive?”

“Of course I do.”

“When I get out, you will get behind the wheel. I want you to floor it in twenty seconds, just race across the street and pick me up right in front of those two Range Rovers. Keep your head down.”

“No, Court. We can get to Cassidy at his house, where he doesn’t have a gang of Russian bodyguards standing around next to—”

“I’m not going after Cassidy. I’m going after Belyakov.”

Court pulled a black mask out of his pack and put it on top of his head like a cap. He did not pull it down over his face, but he readied it to do so.

“Not with six men protecting him, you aren’t,” Fitzroy pleaded.

“Fuck that, Fitz. Did you hear him? Zoya’s dad is the Black Wolf, and he grabbed her. He’s a deep-cover asset, former head of GRU. He sounds like a scheming prick, dangerous to Zoya and dangerous to the U.S., and I bet that rich prick who’s about to come through those doors can lead me to him.”

Court did a press check to make sure his weapon had a round in the chamber, pulling back the slide and touching the casing itself, then dropped the magazine to ensure that it was fully loaded before snapping it back in and holding his gun in his lap.

“Lad.” Fitzroy spoke slowly and softly from the back. “I haven’t been in anything like this in thirty years. Not sure I’ll do you much good.”

“If you can turn the steering wheel and punch the gas, you’ll do fine.”

Court then reached for the door latch, taking a slow settling breath as he did so.

Terry Cassidy and Vladimir Belyakov walked out the front door of the club and descended the steps to the sidewalk. Belyakov motioned for his bodyguards to move on to the Range Rovers while he slowed with Cassidy, taking a moment to speak with the younger Englishman alone. Court observed it all from across the street, where he quietly opened the car door and climbed out, his weapon shielded behind his right leg. He stood on the sidewalk, not forty feet away, watching the two men behind the crowd of security. He started to cross the street, pulled the mask down over his face, and prepared to lift the pistol and shout out in Russian that any one of the four guards or two drivers who drew on him would catch a bullet between their eyes if they moved, but a white cargo van raced by in front of him, causing him to leap back to avoid getting run down.

The van slammed on its brakes, the tires squealed, and Court immediately heard the sound of what seemed to be at least three AK-47s firing fully automatic.

Court yelled to Fitzroy, just now climbing out of the back of the black Mercedes to get behind the wheel.