Last Snow

EIGHTEEN

“WHO’S HUNGRY?” Jack said as they entered the echoing Arrivals hall at Simferopol North Airport.

“I am,” Alli said immediately. “I’m starved.”

“Good, so am I.” Jack led them over to a crowded cafeteria-style coffee shop with food that looked as if it had been prepared last week. Nevertheless, they loaded up their plates, paid for the food and drinks, and took their trays to the lone empty table near the checkout, a location lousy for a peaceful meal but ideal for watching passengers as they stumbled off their flights.

They dug into leathery pirogi, cabbage rolls, and pungent kovbasa, washed down with glasses of cherry-red Crimean wine. While he ate Jack kept one eye on the waxing and waning stream of humanity. From the other side of the table Annika watched him. He knew what she was thinking: If they were hungry why not just go into Alushta, where they’d have their choice of restaurants with food better than what they were eating now? She said nothing, however, doubtless waiting for him to provide an explanation.

“Karl Rochev, the last person Berns visited before he left Kiev for Capri, was tortured and killed on the grounds of Magnussen’s estate,” Jack said.

Annika shrugged. “The evidence seems straightforward. Both Rochev and his mistress were killed with sulitsa, the antique Cossack splitting weapon. Magnussen is a collector of antique Russian weaponry, including sulitsa. Magnussen just ordered replacements for his sulitsa. Ergo, he killed Rochev and his mistress. It couldn’t be simpler.”

“It isn’t simple at all,” Jack corrected her. “Did whoever killed Rochev and his mistress also kill Senator Berns in Capri, or order his death? If so, then we’re dealing with a conspiracy of international proportions and unknown dimensions. Some of what we know is fact and some of it is supposition or deduction, however you want to look at it. Either way, at this point, before our investigation goes any further, we have to ascertain what is fact and what could turn out to not be supposition at all, but rather the product of imagination and invention and, therefore, a dead end or, worse, an erroneous conclusion.”

Annika stared at him with a baleful look. “And how do you propose to find out? Ask Magnussen himself?” She gave a short, derogatory laugh.

It was now just over an hour after they had sat down, and the next flight from Kiev had arrived, spilling its passengers out onto the concourse. Jack’s eye was drawn to a well-built man with reddened hands who had stopped to light a cigarette with the haste of an addict. He wore his hair in the same rumpled way he wore his cheap, shiny suit. Everything about him shouted Russian bureaucracy, but without the accompanying dullness. Instead, he emanated something toxic—the odors of fear and death congealed into a gluey substance that lodged in the folds of his neck and made his cheeks shiny as a wax effigy.

Jack, who absorbed and analyzed all these intangibles in less than a second, answered her in what at first appeared to be an enigmatic manner: “Who do you think that is?”

Annika shifted her gaze while she admonished Alli. “Don’t stare, for the love of God.”

Alli obeyed, albeit with a pout.

“There’s a man who just came in from Kiev,” Jack explained in a low voice. “It looks as if he’s trying to find someone by showing what might be photos or sketches to airport personnel.”

“Christ, I know him.” Annika, worrying her lower lip, had turned back. “That’s Rhon Fyodovich Kirilenko. He’s an FSB homicide detective. The man’s a fucking bloodhound. What’s he doing here?”

“I think he’s after us,” Jack said.

“But how? It’s the Izmaylovskaya who is after us. We killed Ivan Gurov and Milan Spiakov, two members of the grupperovka family.”

“Unless Kirilenko is Trinadtsat.” Jack turned to her. “You told me Trinadtsat was composed of members of the Izmaylovskaya and the FSB.”

“Not FSB, per se,” Annika corrected. “Batchuk’s people, who could be FSB, but are also likely to be Kremlin apparatchiks, interior ministers, secret services, who the hell knows who he’s recruited.”

“That certainly doesn’t rule out your friend Kirilenko.”

“He’s not my friend,” Annika said sharply. “I hate his guts.”

“Part of a long line, I gather.” Jack nodded. “Look, he’s heading toward the airport facilities.”

“I wonder what he’s up to?” Annika said.

“Let’s find out.”

Jack rose, and the others with him. Staying within the clots of people, they followed Kirilenko as he entered a corridor with doors on either side. Hanging back, they saw him open a door on the left, halfway down the corridor, and as he went inside, they hurried along toward it.

“He’s gone into the CCTV control room,” Annika said.

“What does that mean?” Alli asked.

“He’s going to look at the closed-circuit video tapes of arrivals and departures,” Annika said.

“I’m willing to bet he has photos of us.” Jack rubbed his jaw meditatively. “We must have been picked up on the cameras at Zhulyany Airport in Kiev.”

Annika took an involuntary step back. “Which means he’s recognized me and has photos of the two of you.”

“Alli’s disguised,” Jack said, “but do you think he knows who I am?”

“Doubtful,” Annika said. “But even so it won’t take long for him to discover who you are.”

Jack eyed the closed door. “Then we’ll have to stop him from finding out.”

DENNIS PAULL had been staring at his computer for nine hours straight, scrolling through one restricted database after another in search of a chink in the cabinet members’ red, white, and blue armor. His bladder was full and he felt as if all the low-grade mozzarella he’d consumed had congealed in the pit of his stomach like a bocce ball. Pushing himself away from the screen, he rose and stumbled into the bathroom to relieve himself.

When he returned to his battle station he saw that a new piece of information had popped onto his screen. He’d just used his cursor to copy it when it vanished. Switching windows, he brought up a new Word document into which he deposited—he hoped, he prayed—what he’d snagged off the database. An instant later two lines of enciphered words appeared on a field of pristine white, followed by an echelon code Paull knew belonged to General Atcheson Brandt.

For a moment he stared at the gibberish, trying to place the cipher pattern, which seemed familiar to him. Then he had it: It was a particular NSA cipher used exclusively for Eyes-Only interdepartmental communications on its cell phones.

Switching to another Firefox tab, he logged on to the Department of Homeland Security site, then, using his proprietary ID code, accessed his department’s algorithm database. Once there, he fed the two lines of enciphered text into the algorithm engine, hit the Enter key, and sat back, waiting for the database to find the algorithm that would decipher the message Brandt had just sent.

While he waited he thought about the choices he’d made in his life, the people he had had to befriend, rely on, depend on, even though he knew that at some point, if the opportunity arose, they would betray him or denounce him in order to advance their own career path. With the possible exception of Edward Carson he was surrounded by a pack of sharks all too eager to take a chunk out of him the moment they smelled blood in the water, or even before, in some cases. And yet he’d gone ahead and forged these alliances, even, when the occasion demanded it, putting himself in these people’s debt. He forced himself not to see what he didn’t want to see, what would otherwise stop him from doing what had to be done in order to rise to his position of power within the current administration.

Was there nothing people like General Brandt wouldn’t do to gain power, he asked himself rhetorically. Was there really no line that these people—he among them—wouldn’t cross to keep accumulating power?

A moment later he had his answer. The two lines of gibberish were replaced by the deciphered text: XEX ANNIKA DEMENTIEVA AND JACK MCCLURE.

Jesus, he thought as he ran a trembling hand through his hair. Jesus Christ. At first he thought it must be a mistake, perhaps he inputted the encrypted text incorrectly, so he sent it back through the department’s algorithm engine, careful to get each letter right. The same message came back at him like a punch in the solar plexus.

It couldn’t be, but there it was in front of him in black and white. “EX” meant that General Brandt had put out a sanction—an immediate death sentence—on the subjects. The “X” prefix meant “use all available methods at your disposal.”

“KIRILENKO MUST have been with the team that surrounded us at Rochev’s dacha,” Annika said.

“What a joke,” Alli said. “He must think we killed Rochev’s mistress. That’s why he’s coming after us.”

Jack and Annika stared at her. “It’s no joke,” they both said, more or less at once.

They were still in the mouth of the corridor leading to Airport Services. Jack was looking around for security personnel who were sure to be patrolling the area, while Annika kept an eye on the door to the CCTV control room through which Kirilenko had disappeared not five minutes ago.

“There’s no doubt he’s looking for us,” Annika said. “And, as Alli pointed out, now we’re suspects in three murders.” She shook her head. “There’s no help for it, we’re going to have to terminate him.”

“What?” Jack spun around. “Are you crazy? We can’t attack an FSB officer.”

“I didn’t say attack.” Annika’s carnelian eyes never looked harder. “I said terminate.”

“As in kill?” Alli said.

“Yes, dear. We have to kill him in order to save ourselves.”

“I won’t hear of it,” Jack said.

“Then we’re doomed.” Annika indicated the door with her chin. “Unless we put him six feet under, I promise you this sonuvabitch won’t stop until he’s either killed us or dragged us back to Moscow in manacles.”

A look of pure terror distorted Alli’s face. “Jack—”

“If not for us, then for the safety of the girl,” Annika pressed her point. “For so many reasons, we can’t allow anything to happen to her.”

Jack shook his head. He knew she was right, but he wasn’t willing to give in just yet. “There’s got to be another way.”

“I’m telling you there isn’t, we’ve got to do it now while we have the chance,” Annika said urgently.

As if to underscore her anxiety, the door to the CCTV control room opened. They shrank back into the shadows as Kirilenko emerged, his face marred by a smug look that told Annika everything she needed to know.

Without another word to either of her companions, she sprinted from the shadows and, while he drew out his cell phone, she delivered a vicious blow to his kidneys, wrapped her crooked arm across his throat, and with astonishing power, jerked him backward off his feet.

GENERAL ATCHESON Brandt was the last person Dennis Paull had suspected of treachery—so much so, in fact, that in nine hours of eye-watering work he hadn’t yet gotten around to shining his investigatory spotlight on Brandt or his life.

Paull had finally quit his room, reeking of human sweat and the peculiar odor of heated electronics. It was two thirty in the morning and he was walking down the hallway of the Residence Inn, looking for the cigarette vending machine he’d noticed when he’d checked in. In these days of universal smoking bans, cigarettes were hard to find, never mind an old-fashioned vending machine that sold them. Nevertheless, there was one here, crouching on a brown carpet whose pattern failed to hide stains even steam cleaning couldn’t get out.

He hadn’t smoked in twenty years, but the pressurized developments of the last half hour had caused his old craving to reassert itself. He’d tried to fight it, but it was no use. Like most vices, once it lodged in your mind it couldn’t be denied.

Slitting open the pack, he tore the filter head off a cigarette, then lit it with a match from a pack thoughtfully provided with his purchase. He used the key card to his room to open the side door to the parking lot, went out into the chilly night. It had rained sometime while he’d been working and the concrete walkway was slick and wet; cars gleamed in the security lights. The hum of traffic from the highway was reduced to the inconstant hiss of occasionally passing cars on their way to or from mysterious errands. What were people doing up at this hour, he wondered. Whatever it was he doubted they had the weight of the world on their shoulders as he did.

The smoke, deep in his lungs, calmed him, or at least gave him the illusion that he had time to make a decision. The night was quiet, not another soul stirring in all of the Residence Inn, though as he looked up at the facade he could see lights on in several rooms, a reminder that insomnia lurked like a ghost here as everywhere.

He smoked the cigarette down to the end without coming to a decision. His mouth felt dry and stale, but he ripped off the filter on another cigarette, stuck it between his chapped lips, and lit up. With the information he had on General Brandt the road before him forked in several directions. He could inform the president, but that would surely distract him, in the process derailing the delicate negotiation process with President Yukin. He could call Jack and warn him, which again would expose his knowledge of the General’s treachery. McClure was a good friend of Edward Carson’s—they knew each other long before Paull himself met Carson. Therefore, Jack could be counted on to inform the president ASAP even if Paull begged him not to disturb Carson until the crucial accord was signed.

As Paull walked up and down the walkway, growing colder and colder, he realized that he was on the horns of a serious moral dilemma. How could he allow Jack to remain uninformed about the sanction? How could he allow the U.S.-Russia accord to be disrupted? He had no doubt that General Brandt was insane. He had determined that his own self-interest was paramount, anyone who threatened it was to be terminated. He could call Edward and tell him what he’d discovered, but he had no solid proof and the call would only serve to muddy waters that were already fouled.

Grinding the second butt beneath his heel, he scrabbled in the pack. He was going through cigarettes as if they were Tic Tacs. Well, why not, considering the behemoth he was confronting. The fact that Jack had somehow become a clear and immediate danger to Brandt was of less concern to Paull than why Jack was threatening the General’s self-interest.

What the hell was the General up to? And then he remembered a bit of the conversation he’d had with Edward Carson in the presidential limo following Lloyd Berns’s interment. The president had complained that Brandt had been pushing to sign the accord. Why would he do that, Paull asked himself. Of course the General was one of the primary supporters of the current rapprochement with Russia. In fact, Carson had leaned heavily on the General’s advice for why to engage Russia and how. But Brandt was smarter than to advise the president to elide over minor details Carson wasn’t comfortable with, especially with the Russians.

However, his restless mind was turning over the question of paramount importance at the moment because there was a clear-cut decision to be made: To warn Jack or not to warn Jack, that was the question. And the answer hinged on morality and self-interest, one of which was clear-cut while the other was nebulous, open to interpretation of every kind. He wasn’t like Edward, whose enduring sentimental feelings for family and friends was both a weakness and a blinder to the harsher aspects of reality. Paull understood the truth that the president refused to acknowledge: The notion of morality was a squishy subject, never more so than nowadays when there were mountains of information, factoids, and electronic data to sift through that provided a multitude of reasons for making or not making a decision. There were always extenuating circumstances, hidden explanations coming to light like corpses in a river appearing at the first spring thaw. Nowadays there were any number of ways to make a decision understandable, credible, acceptable, convincing.

All of which led him to one inescapable conclusion: He needed to pursue the inquiry into General Brandt’s sanction without informing anyone, not the president, not Jack. His own self-interest was and must remain paramount. He had no other recourse now, none at all.

“WE DIDN’T kill Rochev’s mistress,” Jack said, waving the CCTV photos he’d found. “She was dead when we found her.”

Kirilenko, disarmed and bound to a chair with lengths of electrical flex Annika had found in a nearby utility closet, said nothing. They were in a spare office Jack had discovered, reluctantly but needfully, because they had an unconscious body that required a quiet place to rest and come around, which Kirilenko did when Annika slapped him sharply across the face. Now there was a red blotch there like a congenital wine stain. The space was a standard office with a desk, table, several wooden chairs. A filing cabinet stood against a wall. Old-fashioned venetian blinds obscured the single window.

“We went to the dacha looking for Karl Rochev,” Jack continued. “We wanted to talk with him, that’s all.”

Kirilenko, maintaining his silence, ignored Jack and Alli completely, his baleful gaze fixed on Annika leaning nonchalantly against a wall, her arms crossed over her chest, watching him like a hawk inspecting a snake.

“When we didn’t find him there we decided to leave, and that’s when we ran into your people.”

Kirilenko continued to glare at Annika, but with a smirk that made Jack think he was privy to information vital to them.

Apparently Annika thought the same thing because she came off the wall and smashed her fist into Kirilenko’s jaw. Blood spattered onto his suit lapels and his lap.

“That’s enough,” Jack said, grabbing hold of her right arm, which she’d already cocked for another blow.

“Someone had to knock that smirk off his ugly face.”

“And you’d be just the one to do it, eh?” Kirilenko said as he spat a thick wad of pink spittle onto the bare concrete floor. “Wild, short-tempered, out of control—in sum, a classic rageaholic—all the reports were right about you.”

Annika, pulling away from Jack, lunged at him with her head. “If by that you mean I’m impossible to control then you’re damn right.”

Alli interposed herself between the two, forcing Annika to look at her, not Kirilenko, and so throttling down on her anger level. After a moment of cooling Annika put a hand on her cheek and nodded her thanks.

For the first time Kirilenko looked at Jack. “What I can’t work out is why you’re with this very dangerous creature. She’s a murderer.”

“We’re all murderers here, Kirilenko,” Annika said.

“What about the girl?”

Jack leaned in beside Annika. “Leave her out of it.”

“Too late,” Kirilenko said. “From my point of view she’s as culpable as either of you.” He jerked his head away from Annika’s bared teeth. “She’ll pay the same ultimate price you two will, that’s a promise.”

Annika stood back, hands on hips. “You see, what did I tell you? There’s only one way to deal with a man like him.”

“Yes, by all means kill me,” Kirilenko said. “It’s the only way to stop me from taking you in, or killing you for your crimes.”

“We’ve committed no crimes,” Jack said.

“That’s what they all say.” Kirilenko shook his head. “Once, just once, I’d like to be surprised, but, no, you murderers are as sadly alike as crows.”

“There has to be another way,” Jack said, ignoring him. “It’s simply a matter of finding it.”

“Good luck with that,” Annika said. “I don’t know about you but I don’t plan to be here when security comes around to check all the vacant rooms.”

Jack took her by the waist and half dragged her into the far corner.

“Let’s stop this insanity,” Kirilenko said softly, conspiratorially to Alli. “Untie me and I’ll make sure you won’t be arrested or incarcerated.”

“You’re the one who’s incarcerated,” Alli said, “and it’s you who’s trying to bargain.”

She took a step toward Kirilenko, who was grinning at her like a monkey. He seemed sure he had taken the proper measure of her.

“I won’t be incarcerated forever and when I—”

“You think I’m the weak link, that you can somehow terrify me, but I’m not afraid of you.”

“Alli,” Jack said sharply, “please put your ear to the door. If you hear anyone coming let us know.”

“You should be.” Kirilenko clacked his teeth together like a chimpanzee or a crocodile. “If you don’t listen to me I swear I’ll bite your head off.”

“Alli . . . ,” Jack warned.

Alli, staring down Kirilenko, spat into his face, then she turned and, crossing the small room, obediently put her ear to the door.

“You asked for it,” Jack said to the Russian in a mocking voice, before turning back to speak in low tones with Annika. “You’re not going to kill him, that’s out of the question. Besides, he knows something.”

“What if he’s simply pretending he knows something?”

“What if he’s not?”

But Jack’s attention was now divided. He was watching Alli, who had come away from the door in the wake of their conversation. She had begun to walk back toward Kirilenko.

Annika, becoming aware of Jack’s growing agitation, turned to watch. “What the hell is she doing?” she said under her breath.

“Alli, get away from him,” Jack said sharply as he strode toward her.

But before he could get to her, she waggled in front of Kirilenko’s face the cell phone she’d scooped up from the corridor floor as the others were dragging his body in here.

“It’s you who should be frightened,” she said. “I have your life in my hand.”

Jack pulled her back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You missed this,” she said to Jack as she proffered the phone in the palm of her hand.

“This girl has balls,” Annika said with a laugh, “you have to give her that.”

Jack, noting the sour look on Kirilenko’s face, wondered whether Alli was onto something. He was about to pluck up the cell, when he changed his mind. “Check it out yourself,” he said. “You earned the right.”

Alli hesitated, looking as if she didn’t quite believe him. Then, seeing no contradiction in his expression, she flipped it open. She spent a few minutes scrolling through different menus before she apparently came upon something of interest. Reversing the screen, she showed Jack and Annika the grainy photo of the three of them as they emerged from Rochev’s dacha.

“Mine is the only face identifiable,” Annika said, peering closely at the image.

Alli zoomed in on a portion of the photo. “Look at what you’re holding.”

“The sulitsa,” Annika breathed.

“What the hell is a sulitsa?” Kirilenko still had the remains of his own blood and Alli’s spittle on his cheek. “What did you use to kill Ilenya Makova?”

“At last we know her name,” Jack said, taking the phone from Alli.

“I didn’t kill her, none of us did,” Annika said. “As Jack said, we found her with this thing—this antique Cossack splitting weapon—sticking out of her—”

“I don’t believe you, Annika Dementieva.”

“—so deeply she was impaled to the mattress.”

Kirilenko moved his head from side to side. “I know you.”

“The fuck you do.”

“I know people just like you, I know you killed her.”

Jack pushed his way past a seething Annika and said to the Russian, “Listen to me because I’m only going to say this once. Annika is intent on killing you and I’m now inclined to agree with her.” He adjusted Kirilenko’s ugly tie so that the knot bit into his Adam’s apple. “Against my better instincts I’m going to give you this chance. Tell us what you know.”

“And then what?” Kirilenko said. “She’ll kill me anyway, I see the look in her eyes.”

“She won’t kill you if you answer my questions.”

Kirilenko laughed. “You think you can stop her?”

“Yes,” Jack said softly and slowly. “I do.”

The Russian peered into Jack’s face with his weary gaze. “Fuck you, Americanski. Fuck you and your entire decadent fucking country.”

FOLLOWING HIS numerous night visits Dyadya Gourdjiev had slept uneasily until noon. He dreamt that it had been raining for days, possibly weeks, and his apartment was developing cracks in the poorly constructed ceiling, around the cheap aluminum window frames. As a result water was leaking in from so many places it was impossible to caulk or patch them all. As soon as he dammed one up, two appeared in its place.

He awoke entirely unrefreshed. As he lay staring up at the ceiling, spider-webbed with cracks, he knew what must be done. Hauling himself out of bed he padded to the bathroom and with some difficulty relieved himself. Then he shaved his cheeks pink with a straight razor, carefully brushed his hair, dressed in a neat suit and tie in the best Western style, and ate his usual breakfast of black coffee, toast, butter, and Seville orange marmalade. He chewed slowly and thoughtfully. He felt like the root of a tree, the years fallen on him like the rusty leaves of autumn. He washed the dishes and cutlery, stacked them neatly in the drainboard, dried his hands on a dish towel.

In the closet next to the front door he extracted the things he needed, including his lambswool overcoat and soft cashmere scarf in the signature Burberry plaid, which he wrapped around his neck, making certain his throat was well protected against the strong April wind. Shrugging on his coat, he opened the door, went out into the corridor, noting that the bloodstain, now a dark, almost purple brown, had not yet been cleaned up. Everything continues to slide downhill, he thought, to erode, to sicken, wither, and die.

He met no one in the elevator, but as he saw the charming widow Tanova coming in from the street with an armful of groceries, he smiled, holding the elevator door open for her. She returned his smile, thanked him, and asked him over for tea and her homemade stollen later in the afternoon, an invitation he accepted with genuine pleasure. The widow Tanova had lived almost as long as he had, she understood the nature of life, what was important and what must be let go. She was someone he could talk with, confide in, commiserate with, mourning the losses they had suffered. Also, she had great legs—stems, as they said in the old black-and-white American films he still adored.

Waiting until the elevator and its comely occupant were on their way up, he crossed the now deserted lobby and, pulling open the heavy front door, stepped out onto the yellow-brick stoop. He drew a breath of the chilly air deep into his lungs as he glanced both ways along the street. There were no pedestrians and few moving vehicles. But there was the car, just as he’d expected. He saw it immediately, a gleaming black Mercedes—in their supreme arrogance these people felt no need for discretion, vigilance, foresight, or even tact: last night being a perfect case in point. There were two men sitting in the front seat, flamboyant as every member of the Izmaylovskaya learned to be. Like a fucking cult, Dyadya Gourdjiev thought.

Having looked this way and that he strolled away from the car on the opposite side of the street, then crossed the street and turned back. When he was abreast of the vehicle he stopped and tapped on the driver’s window. The driver, startled, slid down his window in reflex. Even before the window was fully down Dyadya Gourdjiev had his Glock out. He pumped two bullets into the man on the passenger’s side as he was reaching for his pistol, then shot the driver between the eyes.

At once, sliding the Glock into the deep pocket of his overcoat, he sauntered away with jaunty insouciance. It was as if with each step several years had melted off him until, at the corner, he had been resurrected into the strong young man he’d once been.

As he turned the corner he began to whistle “Dva Gusya,” the old folk tune his mother used to sing to him when he was a child.

ANNIKA PRODUCED Kirilenko’s gun, which, as a member of the FSB, he was allowed to carry on all modes of public transportation. Aiming it at him, she cocked the hammer back. At that moment, the cell phone in Jack’s hand began to burr.

“Whoever’s calling you, will have to wait,” Jack said, “possibly forever.”

“It’s not his phone,” Alli said. “I checked.”

“Whose phone is it?” Jack said, staring at it.

Alli took the phone out of his hand, manipulated several keys to access the SIM card information. “A man named Limonev.”

Annika took a step forward. “Mondan Limonev?”

Alli looked up at her. “You know him?”

She nodded. “I know of him. He’s said to be a contract killer for the FSB.”

“A despicable lie put about by anarchist enemies of the FSB,” Kirilenko said sourly.

But Jack, studying his face, saw a different answer the Russian was afraid to voice, or possibly in the course of plying his profession he had come to believe the lies he uttered every day.

Annika came to stand beside Jack. “Limonev is also rumored to be a member of Trinadtsat.”

Kirilenko’s upper lip curled in a sneer. “Now that’s simply laughable, especially since I very much doubt this Trinadtsat exists.”

Limonev’s cell had received a text message, not a call. “Well, now,” Jack said, concentrating hard on reading the two words in Cyrillic, “this is an interesting development.”

He showed it to Annika, who laughed and said, “Jesus, these people eat their own.”

“I’d like to show it to you,” Jack said to Kirilenko.

The Russian remained stone-faced. “I’m not interested.”

“No? But you should be. It proves everything Annika has said.”

Jack held the screen in front of Kirilenko, who managed to hold down his curiosity for all of thirty seconds before his eyes slid back. They fastened on the text message, which consisted of two words:

TERMINATE KIRILENKO.