Borodin motioned for Alexei to wait in the shadows, then stepped up to the door and pressed a buzzer. A full minute later a red curtain inside drew back, and while light fell across his face. Borodin smiled into the light and nodded. The red curtain closed sharply, followed by the sound of dead bolts unlocking. In the moment before the door opened, Borodin said to Alexei, “It’s very simple. Kill them all,” and moved out of the way.
Alexei made no sign that he understood these instructions, but when the door swung out on its heavy hinges, he stepped forward, lowered his MAC-10, and began to shoot. The doorman, a fat Mongolian, let out a sharp grunt and fell back in a splatter of blood. Alexei stepped calmly over his body into the shallow entrance hall.
At the other end stood a door padded in red leather and decorated with Chinese characters painted in gold. He kicked it open to reveal an ornate red and gold room in which about fifteen Chinese men sat around felt-covered tables, gambling at mah-jongg. No one had heard the quick burst of gunfire; loud Chinese rock music blared from huge speakers chained to the ceiling. Smoke hung in a thick cloud beneath red-shaded lamps. In the hands of the gamblers the ivory mah-jongg tiles gleamed like fish scales in dirty water. Hundred-dollar bills, dull green against the vivid green felt of the tables, were stacked in neat piles at the gamblers’ elbows. Two bored young women, naked except for garter belts, stockings, and spike-heeled pumps, sat on stools against the far wall. One smoked a cigarette and read a women’s magazine; the other, head tilted to one side, mouth open, appeared to be dozing.
Poised on the threshold for a long beat, Alexei carefully chose his first targets. The gun felt heavy and warm in his hands. The muzzle velocity of a MAC-10 is such that a man standing in the middle of a crowd of people can begin firing and all of them will hit the ground dead or wounded before they can stop him. The woman reading the magazine saw Alexei first and began to scream. As her scream reached its highest octave, he squeezed the trigger. The gamblers scattered instantly. They were unarmed; according to club rules, weapons were always checked at the door. Some tried to dive beneath the tables; others ran for another exit at the far end of the room, which had been locked from the other side.
Alexei spent the first clip, knocked it out, loaded another. Blood showed as a dark stain against the red walls, soaked into the green and blue pattern of the Chinese carpet. Soon the room was a mess of splintered wood and gore. Most of the gamblers were dead after the first clip, but a few were still alive, moaning in the general heap of bodies. The woman with the magazine remained on her stool against the wall. She sobbed without making a sound. Alexei walked around the room, casually putting a single well-placed round into each victim’s skull. The woman with the magazine was last. When he reached her, he smiled and brought the muzzle against her forehead. She closed her eyes.
Just then Borodin rushed in from outside. He gasped and choked back a mouthful of vomit. He hadn’t been prepared for the extent of the carnage.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he shouted. “Now!”
Alexei looked up. The emptiness in his blue eyes made Borodin shudder.
“No,” Alexei said. “Get out if you want. To do the job right, you’ve got to kill the head.” He squeezed the trigger and there was a small explosion and the girl with the magazine jerked back and fell over sideways. Then Alexei turned quickly and let loose a spray of bullets that nearly tore Borodin in half: he walked over just to be sure and put another round behind the man’s ear. When he was satisfied that everyone was dead, he collected all the bills from the floor that were not bloody or bullet-torn and stuffed them into the pockets of his coat, and he went out into the alley and down to the back room of the Kiev, where Kutuzov was waiting nervously, glass of vodka in hand.
“Where’s Borodin?” Kutuzov said.
Alexei leveled the gun at his side and began to fire.
Copper vats of fermenting beer blew steam and bubbled behind a floor-to-ceiling wall of tinted glass opposite the bar. Young men in surgical green medical scrubs, bandannas tied over their long hair, worked purposefully behind the glass. They measured hops and barley into capacious bins, checked the aspirators and temperature gauges, scribbled their observations on tearaway pads of blank newsprint. A chalkboard announced the work in progress in large letters: NOW BREWING MARAUDER BOCK.
The assistant United States attorney for the District of Columbia watched the brewers at work, increasingly annoyed. He stood waiting for Martin Wexler at the long mahogany bar at the National Star Brewing Company Bar & Grill at 12th and New York Avenue. Martin was already a half hour late. The AUSA was a tall, distinguished-looking black man named Malcolm Rossiter. Today he wore a dark blue Continental-cut suit; his shirt collar shone startlingly while in the pleasant dimness of the big room. His tie of pale blue silk with yellow squares probably cost a week of Martin’s salary. A well-trimmed mustache presided over his upper lip. He was a busy man; he didn’t have the time to be kept waiting. But he smiled and nodded a genial greeting as Martin stepped up to the bar out of breath, nearly forty-five minutes late.
“Sorry I’m so late,” Martin panted. “My bus broke down, and I couldn’t get a cab to stop. I had to jog all the way from Dupont Circle.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rossiter said, and he sounded sincere. “I haven’t been here ten minutes. What can I get you?”
Martin glanced at the beer menu and picked an India pale ale, which came served in a tall, delicate glass that looked like a dessert flute. When he tasted it, he grimaced. It had the green, bitter taste of most microbrews.
“Something wrong?” Rossiter asked. A flute of bock sat flat and nearly untouched on the bar in front of him.
Martin shrugged. “These brew pubs are going up all over the place,” he said. “I just wish they’d learn how to make beer first. Think of the people who make Pilsner Urquell, or the Belgians. These are people who have been making beer for hundreds of years.” Beer was one of the few things that Martin had strong opinions about.
Rossiter nodded blandly. He hadn’t asked Martin to meet him at the National Star to discuss the quality of the beer. He checked his watch and pushed his flute of bock aside.
“I’ve got to catch a train,” he said, “so I’ll cut right to the chase. We need to talk about the Russian.”
Martin set his ale on the counter and wiped his mouth with his knuckles. “I think you should know something, sir,” he said quietly. “I am not prepared to compromise my position on this case.”
Suddenly Rossiter was very angry. “I’m here talking man to man with you,” he said, and he was almost shouting. “I’m not talking legal ethics. You got that?”
Surprised, Martin didn’t say anything.
“This Alexei Smerdnakov, he’s an animal, a public menace. He’s a murderer, a rapist, a pimp, a pornographer, a drug smuggler, and whatever else. He’s got an FBI file like a brick. You should know that; it’s sitting on your desk. You’ve read the damned thing!”
“No, I haven’t,” Martin said.
Rossiter’s mouth dropped. “Why the hell not?”
Martin took a long draft of his bitter ale. The stuff was too carbonated; it burned going down. “Somehow an FBI file appeared anonymously in my box two days ago, like magic,” Martin said. “I don’t need to tell you how irregular that is. Frankly I was shocked. The FBI doesn’t release files unless the person in question is dead. Well, my client is not dead, and I’m not going to read the damned thing. I don’t have the time. I’m too busy preparing my defense. Mr. Smerdnakov’s past has no bearing on this case.”
Rossiter shook his head. “You know something, man? You’re weird.”