Malina checked her watch and said, “We have to hurry. The guard will be making his rounds soon.”
Ivan frowned. “How do you know all this?”
“You think we’re working alone? We have friends, Ivan. All over the world. Always remember that.”
“Yes, but…”
“Just hurry up. We need to get inside the train before the guard comes.”
But as they stepped over a set of tracks and headed into the narrow passageway between two parked trains, the silhouette of a man appeared several yards in front of them.
“You!” he shouted. “Stop right there. Who are you?”
A beam of light cut through the darkness and lit up their faces. Ivan jerked to a halt, but, to his surprise, Malina did not. Instead, in a single, flowing motion, she took a step forward, slipped her backpack from her shoulder, and produced a pistol from inside, firing two shots in quick succession, the sound dulled by the attached silencer.
Ivan heard a groan as the guard’s flashlight fell to the ground. Malina sprang forward, stepping over to where the man now lay. Without hesitation, she fired another shot into his head.
Oh, Jesus. She just killed him in cold blood.
Malina turned to Ivan and shone her miniature flashlight at him. “It had to be done,” she said. “I couldn’t let him radio for help.”
Ivan stood there, unable to move, his legs trembling. Killing a train full of anonymous people from a remote location was a notion he could view in the abstract, but killing a man up close and in person was something else altogether.
The buzz in his stomach began to rise toward his chest and throat, carrying with it the chicken chow mein he and Malina had eaten for dinner. She must have sensed his dismay, because she moved toward him, her light still in his face.
“Pull it together, Ivan. Can you do that for me?”
He knew she had the gun in her other hand and wondered if she would use it on him. Swallowing bile, he nodded, vigorously, but couldn’t make himself speak.
“You need to pull it together, all right? Put the suitcase down, very carefully, and help me move him inside.” She gestured to the line of subway cars on their right.
Ivan nodded a second time, stooped down, and carefully set the suitcase on the ground. She gestured again and he joined her and took his first good look at the guard. The guy couldn’t have been much older than they were. He had died with surprise on his face and dark round holes in his chest and forehead.
Ivan had never seen a dead man before, and the chow mein once again threatened to choke him.
“Are you good?” Malina asked. “I can’t do this alone.”
Ivan nodded a third time.
Malina studied him for a moment as if waiting for him to change his mind. When she seemed satisfied he wouldn’t, she moved to the nearest subway car in his chosen row, and pried the doors open with a crowbar from her backpack.
“Grab his feet,” she said as she returned to Ivan and the dead man.
Ivan didn’t resist. What was the point? Still trembling, he grabbed hold of the guard’s ankles as Malina took the man by the armpits. She counted one-two-three and they hefted the body, carried it through the open doorway into the subway car, and laid it on the floor.
“Get the case,” she said.
The moment he returned with it, she took it from him and laid it flat on one of the plastic chairs in the middle of the car. Handing him her flashlight, she told him to shine it on the case, then popped the latches and swung the lid open, revealing the pipes full of explosives and the wires and the cell phone mounted to a small board in the center of it all.
The phone had been modified and given to her by one of her uncle’s contacts — a burner, she’d called it. But a very special one.
“You call the number,” she had explained the first time she’d shown him her creation. “The phone vibrates, the wires connect, and boom.”
“You can call it from any phone?”
“Yes, from any phone. Anywhere.”
Now, she flipped a small lever that looked like a miniature light switch mounted near the phone, then closed the lid, locked the case, and placed it on the floor under the seat.
She gestured to the body of the guard. “They’re bound to start wondering about him at some point. We’ll have to hide him somewhere in the yard and hope they—”
The ring of a cell phone cut her off.
Ivan flinched, thinking the sound had come from the suitcase, but then realized it was Malina’s personal phone. She pulled it from her back pocket, looking as relieved as he felt. When she saw the name on the screen, she smiled and pressed a button, putting it on speakerphone so Ivan could hear.
“Uncle Radovan,” she said. “I was hoping you’d call. We had some unexpected trouble, but we’ve just delivered the package and it’s ready to go.”
“That is good to know,” a voice said, but it was clearly not the one Malina had been expecting. The accent sounded German.
“Who is this?” she demanded.
“People call me Valac.”
“Who?”
“I am a friend of your Uncle’s. Unfortunately, it seems he is very much in need of a lesson in proper business etiquette.”
Malina looked alarmed. “What does that mean? What have you done to him?”
“It means you pay your debts on time or you will be assessed a surtax. A very significant surtax. Something he is about to learn the hard way.”
“I don’t understand. What do my uncle’s debts have to do with me? Have you done something to him?”
“I’m sorry,” the voice said. “Do you mind if I call you back?”
“I—”
The line went dead and Malina remained crouched there, looking both exasperated and dumbfounded.
Ivan was about to ask her what was going on when her expression shifted, as if she had just thought of the solution to a very difficult puzzle, but found no comfort in the answer at all.
“Oh my God,” she said. She jumped to her feet and shouted, her voice filled with panic, “Run, Ivan. Run! Run!”
But before either of them could take a single step, another cell phone rang — this one muffled by the aluminum case it was stored in.
Then the world around them exploded, tearing Ivan Kovac and the love of his short life into a thousand tiny pieces.
CHAPTER 2
When she was young, Alexandra Poe had often dreamed of working in a hospital, but this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind.
The scrubs she wore were half a size too small and her shoes squeaked. And as she worked her way through the corridor, she felt uncomfortable and conspicuous, certain she wasn’t blending in as well as they had hoped she would.
Fortunately, despite its age and current state of disrepair, Yardim Hastanesi was one of the busiest hospitals in all of Istanbul. Alex tried to convince herself that anyone watching — Yusuf Solak’s bodyguards, for example — would see her as nothing more than another woman in hospital green.
Pretending to read the chart in her hands, she made her way to the elevator at the far end of the corridor. The uniformed guard who waited outside its open doors had undoubtedly been paid off by Solak. He was checking the credentials of anyone who attempted to board.
Alex kept her eyes on the chart and acted as if she hadn’t noticed him, but he stopped her just short of stepping inside.
She smiled politely, hoping to disarm him a bit, but he was all business. He snapped his fingers and gestured to the ID card clipped to the lanyard around her neck.
She removed it and handed it to him.
As he studied it, he said in guttural Turkish, “Where are you headed?”