He closed his eyes then, and sat there in silence, his lips trembling, hands balled into fists. Nimec looked at him a moment and then shifted his eyes to the wall, feeling somehow like a trespasser.
The pain he’s in must be indescribable, he thought.
“Roger, I want to go after Vostov, see where that takes us,” Blackburn said after what seemed a very long time. “But I need your permission to do it fast and dirty. And if it means putting a real hurt on the sonovabitch…”
He let the sentence hang in space somewhere between Russia and the west coast of America.
Gordian didn’t make a sound for another full minute. Then he nodded, more to himself than to anyone else.
“There’s to be no killing on our part unless it’s in self-defense,” he said. “I won’t sink to the level of these scum. And I want this done so the entire world can learn the truth.”
“I understand.”
“I know you do, Max. And I’m sorry for jumping down your throat.”
“No problem,” Blackburn said. “These are rough times for all of us.”
Gordian nodded again.
“I want to make sense of this,” Roger said, swallowing thickly. “I need for it to make sense.”
Neither of the other men said anything to that. Neither of them knew what to say.
Make sense?
Sitting there with his eyes fastened to the wall, still reluctant to look at Gordian, Nimec found himself wondering if it ever possibly could.
They came prepared for a siege.
They had a warrant, but nobody was expecting Nick Roma to open the door and stand quietly and calmly while they cuffed him and read him his rights.
They figured they were going to have to work for this one.
So they brought out all the good stuff — high-tech surveillance equipment and low-tech battering rams, full-body armor and tear gas grenades. Everything they could think of, and more.
They even had the SWAT team on standby.
They never expected to find the Platinum Club as silent as a tomb.
Or the door wide open.
But that’s exactly what they found.
“Dammit, the guy has snitches everywhere. He knew we were coming for him. He’s probably halfway to Russia by now.” The officer in charge, police lieutenant Manny deAngelo, flipped off his radio and pulled his gloves back on. He’d have cussed a blue streak, but it was too cold to waste the energy.
“Think it’s a trap?” one of the cops asked.
“Nah.” Manny sighed. “Nick’s smart, but nobody’s ever accused him of being subtle. But it wouldn’t hurt to be careful going in.” He signaled his men to move forward.
So they did. Cautiously. Two by two, in covering formation.
The warehouse was deserted, and it had been looted. Whoever had done it had left a mess behind, but not a single thing of value. They’d pulled the phones from the walls and busted open the canned drink machines to get at the change. They’d tagged the walls with graffiti — more than one gang had been here. Some of the spray paint was still wet.
Penny-ante stuff. And very recent.
It seemed Mr. Roma had enemies in low places.
“These guys better hope Roma’s outa here — he’s likely to cut their balls off if he’s still around.” Manny surveyed the wreckage with a jaundiced eye. “I wonder what they knew?”
“Yeah.”
They kept moving. The deeper into the building they got, the worse the damage was, probably because the street resale value of the missing contents rose as they got farther in. When they reached Nick’s office, it looked like it had been stripped clean by hungry locusts. But the hoods had left something behind.
“The chief isn’t gonna like this.” Manny looked down at Nick’s body, tumbled to the floor so somebody could steal the chair the man had clearly died in.
“I don’t know — seems to me Nick got what he deserved.” The cop gave a tight grin. “But I’m glad it’s your job to call it in.”
Manny had it right.
Bill Harrison was still in his office. It was close to midnight, and his desk was stacked so high with reports and associated materials that he’d need an archaeologist to get to the bottom of it.
The photos of Nick Roma at the crime scene occupied a prominent position on the top of the pile.
Harrison didn’t like it.
He’d wanted to put this man who had caused so much unbearable grief on trial. He’d wanted to confront him, along with all the other victims, and tell him what he’d done. Tell him about the nightmares and the pain and the loneliness.
He’d wanted to lock him away and watch the system slowly eat Nick Roma alive.
And then, only after he’d been through decades of it, Bill Harrison wanted to watch Nick Roma strapped down and killed.
But now it was too late for that.
Unlike most of his victims, Nick had died fast and easy. He’d probably barely had time to know it was coming.
Harrison was cheated of his revenge.
He didn’t like it at all.
He looked at the eight-by-ten glossies of the man who’d gotten away — permanently.
That’s when he heard Rosie’s voice, as clearly as if she were standing there beside him. “It’s better like this. Now you can get on with living.”
He turned to look around him. He was alone, not a soul in sight. Downstairs, the usual business of the city at midnight went on at a feverish pace. But here, there was nobody but him, and a voice that he couldn’t possibly have heard.
“Rosie?” Nothing. “Rosie!” Silence. The pain came crashing down again. But through it, he felt, for the very first time, a sense of peace. Rosie—had that really been Rosie? — was right on target. As usual.
His thirst for revenge was as destructive as the man in those pictures. It would tear him up, slowly eat his soul if he let it.
Instead, he needed to look for justice.
The people who did this needed to be stopped. They had to be caught and caged so that they couldn’t do it again.
Nick Roma wasn’t going to cause any more trouble in this life. Once the paperwork was filed, his case was over.
He’d not acted alone, of course. Bill Harrison wouldn’t rest until he’d gotten them all, one way or another.
But not for revenge. For justice. And to preserve the peace for all of the good people he’d sworn to protect.
That was his job, and he was going to do it.
He stood up, turned his back on his desk, and went to get his suit jacket and overcoat.
He had a daughter to go home to, and a life to put back together. He had a future. He owed it to his wife to make it a good one, to live the very best life he could without her.
He turned off the light and left, closing the door behind him.
Tasheya was waiting for him.
FORTY-FOUR
Minutes after leaving the television studio from which he conducted his nightly talk show broadcast, Arkady Pedachenko stepped into the backseat of his Mercedes and had his chauffeur take him to the exclusive Hotel National opposite the onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral. He was dropped off outside the front doors, strode through the chandeliered lobby with a familiar nod to the concierge and desk staff, and then took the elevator up to the luxury suite he had been reserving on a long-term lease for several years.
This was very much a matter of routine for Pedachenko, who would arrive once or twice a week, most often alone, to be joined by a dostupniey dyevochkia, or “easy woman,” in his rooms shortly afterward. The driver and hotel staff knew this well enough, but it was hardly regarded as scandalous behavior, even for a prominent politician. Pedachenko, after all, was unmarried, and his reputation as a playboy only enhanced his charismatic appeal to a public seeking Western-style youth and glamor, as well as a slight flavor of eroticism, in their leaders. Besides, Russians — particularly the upscale Muscovites who formed the core of Pedachenko’s following — valued the good life, and found it difficult to understand the sexual prudishness that seemed to have overtaken the United States. Let the man have his little adventures.