The Lost Labyrinth

II

Zaal sat sideways in the driver's seat with his back against the door, the better to keep an eye on Nadya. Late afternoon sunlight refracted through the tinted glass and laid a blurred rainbow on the steel briefcase. All that money! He let his mind drift off on a fine daydream: strutting in expensive clothes down some Riviera waterfront to the larger of his yachts, while beautiful women ignored their men to throw him admiring glances.

'How much is in there?' asked Nadya.

Zaal returned reluctantly from his reverie. 'None of your business.'

'He must trust you a great deal.'

'Yes. Because he can.'

'Still. It's an awful lot of money.'

Zaal laughed and shook his head. 'You think I'm crazy? Do you have any idea what he'd do to me?'

Nadya shrugged. 'He wouldn't be able to do anything to anyone, not from gaol.'

'If they ever put him there.'

'They'll put him there, all right,' replied Nadya. 'Don't you get it yet? Your friend Edouard blabbed. The police are going to be waiting for you when you board your plane. This is the last bit of freedom you'll enjoy for thirty years.'

He gave the noose a little admonitory tug. 'Be quiet.'

'Mikhail murdered Edouard,' insisted Nadya. 'You didn't. Your friends didn't. He did. But when he goes down, he'll have all the money in the world for expensive lawyers, to bribe judges and intimidate jurors. He'll make it seem he's the innocent one, that you guys pulled the trigger. The police won't care. The more the merrier, as far as they're concerned. Think about it. You're risking the rest of your life for a psycho. You think he'd do the same for you?'

Zaal licked his lips. There was truth in what she said. But Mikhail scared the hell out of him. All the Nergadzes did. 'They'd come after me,' he said.

'Not from where they'll be. Our president has been praying for the Nergadzes to screw up this badly. You really think he'll let this chance go? He'll stamp down hard and keep on stamping until there's nothing left.'

'I'll believe that when I see it!' scoffed Zaal, giving her noose another little reminder. 'Even if they could put the whole family away, it wouldn't stop them having money, it wouldn't stop them from having influence, it wouldn't keep them from their revenge.' He gave a dry laugh. 'Believe me, I know what they're like.'

'They can't take revenge unless they find you first. And they won't, not if you're smart. There must be millions in that briefcase. You can buy yourself a new identity, a new life. Live like a king, or rot in a six-foot cell. It's just a question of whether you've got the balls.'

'I'd be dead before I got out of the parking lot.'

'Not necessarily,' said Nadya. 'Not if you had some way of distracting him. Something that he'd have absolutely no choice but to take care of first.'

'Like what?' asked Zaal.

'Like me,' said Nadya.