Blackburn looked at him a moment and then punched him hard in the sternum, pivoting toward him as he connected, putting his full weight into the blow. Shovel Chin sagged to his knees, grimacing. He heaved twice and then threw up all over his coat.
Still watching him peripherally, Blackburn saw the thug with the mustache stick a hand into his coat. He whirled and drew his Glock, shoving its barrel into the thug’s throat, cocking its trigger. Mustache’s hand froze under his lapel.
“Get your hand out where I can see it,” Blackburn said. “You understand?”
The guy nodded, a fearful, bolting look in his eyes. His hand appeared from inside his coat. Scull hurried over and patted him down, reached under his lapel, extracted a Glock pistol, and shoved it into the right hip pocket of his jacket.
Blackburn glanced at the third man. The guy hadn’t budged from where he’d been standing when they got out of the car. He shook his head quickly back and forth as Blackburn’s gaze fell on him, then put his hands up in the air.
“No trouble,” he said. “No trouble.”
Scull frisked him, found his gun, and pocketed it, shoving it somewhere inside his jacket.
Blackburn screwed the bore of his gun deeper into Pencil Mustache’s throat.
“Help your komerade to his feet.”
The gangster did as Blackburn asked. The three of them stood there, trembling.
Blackburn gestured again with the gun. “All three of you, I want you to walk slowly and quietly into that bathhouse. If you make a sound that I don’t like, you won’t live long enough to regret it. We’ll be right behind you. Now move!”
A moment later, all of them were headed down the sidewalk. Shovel Chin was still unsteady, and had vomit dripping from his chin.
They pushed through the door of the bathhouse and a kind of stewy, humid warmth spilled over them. An attendant peeked his head out of a doorway. A moment later he pulled his head back and quietly closed the door.
Scull looked around and started opening likely-looking doors. Halfway down the corridor he found what he was searching for. A closet, stacked high with towels and cleaning supplies. He pushed the gangsters inside, whispering a chilling promise of what he’d do to them if he should hear a sound from this closet in the next hour or so. Then he closed the door, shutting them in, and propped a chair against the knob. They’d be able to break out eventually, of course, but not without making lots of noise — and they’d be too scared to do that for a while.
“Come on,” Blackburn said to Scull.
The sauna was on their left toward the back. They could hear groans coming from inside it. A man, at least two women. Blackburn nodded to Scull and reached for the door handle, pulling open the door to release some of the steam. The Smith & Wesson was in his free hand.
Yuri Vostov was naked. So was the woman on his lap, her back against his rolling middle, his hands on her belly. And so was the second woman with her head between both their thighs. The three of them looked up from the bench in shock and bewilderment, jumping apart as they saw the armed man in the doorway.
Scull pulled a couple of towels off hooks on the wall, tossed them to the women.
“Good-bye,” he said, cocking his thumb over his shoulder at the steamroom door. “Da svidaniya!”
They got out in a hurry, the towels draped haphazardly around their bodies.
Vostov started pushing up from the bench.
“Hold it.” Blackburn raised his palm, training his gun on Vostov. “You sit right where you are.”
Vostov’s small, flat eyes skipped between Blackburn and Scull like stones off the surface of a pond.
“Who are you?” he said in English. “What is it you want from me?”
Blackburn moved closer to him, his gun still aimed steadily in his direction.
“You’re going to tell us who ordered the bombing in New York,” he said. “Right now.”
“Are you mad? How would I have any idea—”
Blackburn shoved the gun between Vostov’s legs.
Hard.
Vostov flinched in pain. His back seemed to slide up the tile wall behind him.
“Tell us,” Blackburn said, and cocked the hammer of his nine.
Click.
Vostov looked down at himself, wattles forming under his meaty chin, and drew a ragged breath. His eyes bulged.
“Are you CIA?” he said. “My God, this is criminal!”
Blackburn rammed in the gun. Vostov mewled and cringed, tiny rosettes of color forming on his cheeks.
“CIA won’t blow your balls off,” Blackburn said. “I’m about to. Unless you talk.”
“Please…”
“You’ve got three seconds,” Blackburn said. “One. Two…”
“Pedachenko,” Vostov said, and swallowed. “It was Arkady Pedachenko. And others from outside this country.” He swallowed. “Look, take the gun away from there, I’ve told you what you want to know.”
Blackburn shook his head, his mouth a tight seam.
“No, no you haven’t,” he said. “In fact, you’ve only gotten started.”
FORTY-SIX
Vladimir Starinov strolled along the shore dressed in a light windbreaker, sweatpants, and sneakers, staying just above the tide line, salt-tinged semitropical breezes slipping over his cheeks like a warm caress. His cocker spaniel trotted along behind him, bounding over the talc-white sand, chasing incoming and retreating wavelets, occasionally snatching straggles of seaweed from the surf, shaking them in its jaws in an antic flop of ears and fur, and then tossing them back where he’d gotten them. It was a clear, gorgeous night, coppery partial moon over the water, stars glimmering in the sky like diamonds scattered randomly over a black satin jeweler’s cloth.
Starinov felt at peace. For the first time in much too long. At peace. Many miles to the north, he knew, the cruel deceits of winter still prevailed, and the threat of national hunger threatened to sweep over the Russian population like a whirlwind. Here, though, there was a respite, a caesura, from the unrelenting martial rhythms of leadership and political survival.
Sometimes, he mused, life in the Kremlin was like being caught in some colossal machine, one that was running down and down beyond control.
Now he paused, hands in his pockets, looking out over the water. Perhaps a third of a kilometer off, he could see the running lights of a small boat moving slowly across its surface, almost like a snail on smooth, dark glass.
“So, Ome,” he said, leaning to scratch his dog’s head. “There’s more to my existence than trouble, you see? Here we can think, and remember that there’s a purpose to our struggles.” He looked at the grinning expression on his dog’s face and had to chuckle. “Or do you neither know nor care what I’m prattling about, baby angel?”
The dog swiped at his hand with his tongue.
Still smiling, Starinov turned and looked back across the dunes at his cottage. Pale yellow lights glowed in its beachfront windows. Barely visible in the darkness, he could see two members of his guard detail standing watch outside, their outlines still and straight. Ah, how they fretted over his insistence on these solitary walks. But there were times when a man needed to be alone.
He stood there at the water’s edge a few more minutes, watching the boat ply its lazy track to some unknown port of call, and then decided to head back inside for some tea. Perhaps he would read a little before going to bed. At any rate, it was getting late, and he was feeling pleasantly tired.
“Come,” he said, clapping his hands to get the spaniel’s attention. “We don’t want to make our guards any more unhappy with us than they already are!”