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“I don’t know. They covered my eyes when they brought me in, but I don’t think there’s much. I didn’t hear many people talking. A woman brings me food. She looks like one of those unisex Bulgarian weightlifters. I can’t tell whether she wants to break me in two or have sex with me-or both.”

“Is there a way down from your room on the outside?”

“I’d need wings. They took the sheets off the bed so I couldn’t make them into a rope.”

“We’ll get you out in a way that doesn’t require flight.”

“You better. You got me into this.”

“No, you got yourself into it. I just gave you a rather complicated way out.”

An hour later Ninchenko and Gage were following a quarter mile behind Gravilov’s Mercedes as he and Hammer rode toward Dnepropetrovsk.

“It makes me a little nervous that he left Razor behind,” Gage said. “Guys like him derive sexual pleasure from their work. He may do something preemptive.” He glanced at Ninchenko. “What do you know about him?”

“Hammer recruited him for Gravilov in Chechnya at the end of the first war in ’96. He worked for warlords and maffiya. The rumor was that if he didn’t need to eat, he would’ve worked for free.”

“Why would he give it up?”

“Too many enemies at home and age, probably. He’s in his early forties now. But don’t underestimate him. Gravilov keeps him close because he believes Razor is still at the top of his game. And Gravilov’s life depends on him.”

“He sure looks the part, with his face twisted like that, his nose angling off to the side. When I saw him in London I felt like reaching out and straightening it.”

“Not a good idea. It would be the last thing you ever did with that hand.”

Gravilov’s Mercedes was already parked by the time Ninchenko and Gage arrived at a spot on the street with a view of the Grand Domus Hotel.

“I wish we had the van,” Ninchenko said. “We’re kind of exposed sitting here.”

Gage glanced over. “If anybody pays attention to us, feel free to kiss me. I won’t tell your wife.”

“I’m not married.”

“Good. I think Alla is looking for a new boyfriend.”

“It won’t be me. She’s already complained that she keeps picking the same type over and over, first her ex-husband and now Matson, and I don’t think I match the profile.” Ninchenko nodded toward the hotel entrance. “It looks like the wire transfer went through.”

Gravilov and Matson were walking down the hotel steps, preceded by the driver and followed by Hammer, carrying Matson’s luggage.

“We just need to babysit Matson until he gets on the plane,” Gage said, “then put our plan into effect to rescue Alla.”

“Which plan was that?”

Gage looked over. “I was afraid you’d ask that.”

CHAPTER 72

I n the early evening, Hixon One was reclining in his car listening to a motivational tape about how to succeed in small business and watching the entrance to Matson’s London flat. Rain was ticking lightly on the windshield. He cracked the window open as a defense against his damp breath condensing on the windshield and blocking his view. His eyes flinched when an occasional gust sprayed droplets through the gap.

He watched as a red cab drove toward him, then stopped in front of the building. Matson stepped out, dragging his luggage behind him. Hixon One saw him hand the driver a few bills, then wave off the change. As the driver rolled up his window Matson turned away, then spun back, knocking on the side of the cab. The cabbie rolled the window back down, listened for a moment, then handed something to Matson.

Hixon One sealed up his car, jumped out, and hustled across the street. As soon as the cab switched on its roof light, he raised his hand and whistled. The cab pulled over and the rear passenger door popped open. Hixon One got in.

“Bloody dismal out, eh?” the cabbie asked. “I’ll bet it’ll rain like this all the way through Christmas.”

“It’s good for the taxi business.”

“So they say. Where to?”

“St. James Square.”

Hixon One waited until the cabbie turned onto Knightsbridge for the long, straight run to Piccadilly. “Any good fares?”

“Mostly short, except for the last one, that American. But at least this shift will end with a good long ride tomorrow morning.”

“He reserved you?”

“And paid extra. For 8 A. M., all the way to Heathrow. I imagine he didn’t enjoy soaking outside of Paddington Station waiting for a cab earlier tonight.”

Hixon One rode the last few blocks to St. James Square in silence. He hopped out, waited for the cabbie to swing around the square and shoot out the other side, then hailed another taxi back to his car.

As Matson climbed into the cab in front of his building the next morning, Hixon One took up his position outside terminal one at Heathrow. An hour later, Hixon One trailed Matson from the curb to the British Airways first-class check-in. Hixon One bought a refundable ticket on the same flight and trailed Matson through the security checkpoint, then called Gage.

“He’s taking the British Airways 10:40 for San Francisco,” Hixon One said.

“Stay with him until he gets on the plane. I don’t want to take a chance of him escaping onto a flight somewhere else.”

“Why haven’t we heard from her?” Ninchenko asked himself aloud for the fourth time in an hour. Gage thought he heard more in Ninchenko’s voice than just concern for an operative.

It was 3 A. M. Gage and Ninchenko were stationed on the hill to the west of the dacha from where they could look down on the top of the menagerie, Alla’s window, the fountain, and the entrance to the mansion. Two of Ninchenko’s men, Maks and Yasha, had kept watch on Gravilov’s apartment until they were sure he and Hammer were in for the night, then took up positions in the bushes along the dacha’s fifty-yard-long driveway.

“Slava sounded nervous when I told him we may have to go in after her,” Gage whispered.

“He’s not looking for a war with Gravilov and he’s afraid what we’re doing here may start one.”

Gage’s phone rang. It wasn’t Alla.

“Graham? This is Viz. Scooby came through customs a minute ago. He’s in line for a cab, all fidgety, like a man on the run. Should I stay with him?”

“Just long enough to see whether he heads down to SatTek to get the low-noise software. A hundred says he goes home instead of paying the ransom.”

“No way I’ll take that bet. Not on that scumbag.”

Gage rang off and turned his attention back to the mansion.

“Alla thinks that all Gravilov left here are Razor and the androgynous one,” Gage told Ninchenko.

“No need to waste the extra manpower. It wouldn’t cross Gravilov’s mind that Matson would send someone to rescue her.”

Forty-five minutes later, Viz called to report that Matson’s cab had turned off from the freeway away from San Jose and was now heading toward Saratoga. “You were right, the little weasel went home.”

Gage spotted movement at the entrance to the mansion as he ended the call. Light from the interior illuminated Razor’s profile as he lit a cigar, the lighter flame giving his pale, distorted face an orange glow.

Ninchenko slowly shook his head.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Gage said. He then hoisted on his backpack and withdrew a semiautomatic from the waistband of his pants. “We’re way, way too old for this.”

“Don’t worry old man, my young helpers will be right behind us.”

“To follow us in or carry us out?”

Ninchenko laughed softly. “Probably both.” He then called Maks and Yasha and told them to seal off the entrance to the property.

Gage and Ninchenko snuck down the hill, their path through the forest intermittently lit by a last-quarter moon. Halfway down, Gage glimpsed Razor again, the glowing tip of the cigar in his left hand rising and falling. They paused and watched him pass behind the fountain in front, then work his way toward the pens and around the western wing of the house, passing under Alla’s window. He disappeared around the back and reappeared a few minutes later, walking around the eastern wing. He walked up the driveway, then back, and began another circuit.