Rasputin's Shadow

36

Jonny waited a few minutes to make sure the agents were gone, then he hurried back into the bedroom and changed.

As he emerged into the living room, his aunt came back in. She looked at him sternly.

“You stay here,” she said. “Police is one thing, but FBI? We don’t need that kind of trouble.”

Jonny placed a consoling hand on his aunt’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, ee-mo. I’m only going out to get some air. I need to clear my head. Besides, if I stay here, I’ll just have Ae-Cha pestering me about Jachin. Again.”

It wasn’t a total lie, but the thought of it pained him. He didn’t know how he was going to tell his cousin that her boyfriend-her intended, as far as she was concerned-was dead.

He managed to suppress the ache in his heart enough to give his aunt a half-wink, then he hurried out, leaving the woman with a stoic expression lining her face.

He took the stairs up two flights and unlocked the door to his apartment. He stepped around the glass table, scowled at the sofa as he remembered inviting Sokolov to sit there when he first came to the Green Dragon, then went into the bedroom. He raided his stash and pulled out a Sig 9mm auto. He checked its magazine, tucked it away in the small of his back, then opened the window and climbed out onto the fire escape.

He rode the metal stairs up to the roof, moving quietly, aware of potential surveillance in the alley down below. Once there, he walked across the roofs of two other buildings before taking the stairwell of the third back down to the street. He paused in the building’s front doorway and glanced out, made sure no one was watching, then stepped out into the night.

Even that late, there was still enough life on the sidewalk for him to not stand out. He turned a corner and headed for the heliport parking lot four blocks east of him, down by the river. He knew several of the watchmen who worked there, and they had an arrangement regarding discretion and the erasing of CCTV footage that often came in handy that he kept alive using crisp hundred-dollar bills. Tonight, he’d need one of the motorcycles he kept there. And as he made his way there, he realized that his aunt was probably right. Business was good. His position in the gang was solid. The last thing they needed was heat. And for what? A crappy old heap? It made absolutely no sense. But then again, Jonny had always listened to his instincts, and right then, his instincts were telling him that there was more to this van than one would assume from looking at it. Taken together, Sokolov’s insistence and his evasiveness, the hard-core nature of the bastard who took him, Daphne’s surprise at the vehicle’s existence, and those weird heavy-duty ear protectors all pointed to something more.

He just didn’t know what.

It was enough to persuade him that he had to get the damn meat wagon and take it somewhere quiet so he could look at it properly. Maybe even take the whole thing apart if he needed to. Luckily, he had lied to the feds about where he’d left the van. Not through luck, actually. It was more like second nature.

A second nature that was kicking into gear and baying for blood.

KOSCHEY WAS DUMBSTRUCK.

The eye drops had done the trick. Just as they had many times before.

Sokolov had told him everything. And it was way beyond what Koschey had read in the brief the general had sent him.

As he sat there facing Sokolov, he felt exhilarated. The man sitting across from him was a bona fide genius. Not in the sense that people used it these days. Koschey hated that. It was a term that was grossly overused, especially in the West. Everyone was a genius there when, by any reasonable standard, they were not even remotely so. But Sokolov certainly was. And what he’d achieved made Koschey’s head spin.

It also fired up his own brand of creativity in all kinds of ways.

There was huge potential here. Opportunities to be exploited. Plenty of them. Taking Sokolov back to Russia, back to his superiors, as per his assignment-maybe that was no longer the best play.

He needed time to think. To plan. To strategize. He knew that this was the opportunity he’d been waiting for. This was his chance to even the score. To make things right. To slam down his two-faced comrades in a way that they’d never forget.

Sokolov had handed him something unique. Something that could achieve all kinds of things for all kinds of people. People who would be willing to reward such achievements very, very generously. People Koschey knew and had done business with in the past.

The best part was that right at the moment, no one else knew what he had. Sokolov had guarded his secret well. Not even his wife knew about it. The Americans certainly didn’t know about it. And the general and the select few back at the Center and the First Directorate who knew about Sokolov’s work were way behind the curve. Decades behind. What Sokolov had achieved back then was already staggering. What he’d done with it since was nothing short of astounding. Koschey reveled in his handlers’ ignorance. His contempt for them only bloomed when he imagined them back in Moscow, at the Center, all smug and self-important and drowning in corruption while being clueless about what he had just uncovered.

Which meant he had a free hand. A free hand for the foot soldier to turn into the kingpin.

But before anything, there was a major hitch he needed to address.

He could see Sokolov’s eyes flagging-subjects who’d been administered SP-117 fell into a prolonged, deep sleep after their interrogations. And he needed one more piece of information from Sokolov before he allowed him to drift off.

He reached out and clasped Sokolov’s chin tightly in his hand, forcing him to focus on him.

“Tell me more,” he told Sokolov, “about this ‘Jonny’ and where I can find him.”