The bartender smiled. “Yes, a son. He’s seven.”
“What’s his name?”
“Andy.”
“As you raise him, give him confidence and humility. It’s often difficult to do. Many people can’t connect the two. But, together, they are powerful attributes.”
The bartender thought for a beat. “Yes sir, they sure are.”
“Can you make arrangements for me to stay here tonight? At my age, capacity for fine drink isn’t what it used to be. A nice sleep would make a world of difference.”
“Would you like a lower level room, or something near the penthouse?”
“Why go near the penthouse when you can go to the penthouse?”
“I agree.” The bartender smiled.
Miller slid a platinum America Express card toward her. “Put everything on there, and while you’re at it, give yourself a two-hundred dollar tip.”
“Yes sir! Thank you!”
“Oh, by the way,” Miller gestured toward the pool beyond the smoked glass windows of the bar. He looked at an older woman sitting alone at a table beneath an umbrella surrounded by royal palms in a lush tropical setting. She had long gray hair, which she wore in a braid over her shoulder. “The lady out there, the one about my age ….”
“Yes sir?”
“Do you know her?”
“Yes sir. That’s Mrs. Lewinski. She lives in one of the condos across the street. Comes over here sometimes. Husband used to come with her. But he died about three months ago. She always orders a mint julep. She likes a view of the beach. Nice lady.”
“I imagine she is,” Miller said, watching the woman under the umbrella. “Send her a dozen of the hotel’s finest red roses mixed with sprigs of mint. Put it on my card.”
“Yes sir.”
Miller entered the penthouse, the Atlantic wide and blue beyond the large veranda. He fixed a drink from the bar and opened the French doors to the veranda, the salty breeze from the ocean warm against his face. He set the drink on a glass table near fresh-cut flowers, and braced his hands on the railing. He glanced at his hands. They looked like old claws with age spots the size of dimes. The taste of diseased tissue rose from his lungs to his throat. The wind tossed his white hair as he stared out across the Atlantic. Heat lightning pulsed through a tumbling stretch of purple clouds over the horizon.
“You do give up your dead sometimes,” he mumbled. He looked down at the parking lot twenty-five floors beneath him. Robert Miller climbed on a chair and stepped up onto the ledge, felt the wind in his face, looked at the sea one final time before plunging off the balcony and free-falling like a fledgling bird toward the dark asphalt.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
A glass of cold water splashed across Mike Gates’ face. His head pounded. Gates was groggy, his vision blurred as if he’d opened his eyes wearing a dive mask underwater, a surreal perspective around him. He was strapped in a metal folding chair, stripped to his underwear, his feet in metal buckets filled with water. Wires ran from his ankles and wrists. He shook his head. This wasn’t happening.
Standing in front of him was Boris Borshnik. Seven heavily armed men stood at the windows and doors. Two men sat at folding tables, three laptop computers on the tables, the canisters of HEU lined on the wooden floor, a small video camera trained on them. Twenty feet to Gates’ left, Jason Canfield was tied to a chair. The kid had dried blood around his mouth, one eye swollen shut.
Gates looked up at Borshnik and said, “We had a deal! We had an agreement!”
“So did my father with your FBI in 1951!” Borshnik roared.
“That had nothing to do with me.”
“Yes it did! Because the man who lied to my father trained you, and you lied to me about Robert Miller. You told me he died of cancer. Now I know otherwise. You denied me that retribution years ago.”
“I’m more valuable to you alive than dead.”
“You have no value. You made a mistake, said something that should only be said if the other side knows it. You understand the game, but in your haste, you told me you had been exposed. The only value you have to your government now is in making you an example. I shall save them the cost, most generous of me. Don’t you agree? Probably not, because for you, it has always been about the money.”
Borshnik pulled a roll of one hundred bills out of his pocket, shoved them between Gate’s teeth and tied the bills in his mouth using a small piece of rope like a bit and bridle for a horse. He nodded and one of his men plugged the wires into a 210 volt power outlet. The force of the electricity threw Gates back in the chair, his head slamming against the brick wall.
Gates screamed, his voice like frightened growls from a muzzled dog. His body convulsing and shaking as the electricity burned into his nervous system. Smoke coming from his wrists. His neck corded in veins and muscles. His heart pumped in erratic beats, his bladder collapsing and urine soaking his underwear.
Jason Canfield looked the other way, tears seeping from his swollen eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
Andrei Keltzin stood by a dirty window on the north side of the room, looked out and saw Mohammed Sharif’s three vehicles turning into the parking lot. He said nothing as he watched Borshnik move away from Gate’s body and speak to one of the men sitting behind the bank of laptop computers.
Keltzin stepped back from the window. “Shall I dispose of the corpse?”
Borshnik looked at Gates burned body. “I wonder what they did with my father’s body. Probably fed it to American hogs. Yes, remove it.”
Keltzin nodded, began untwisting the wires from the charred flesh. “Could Zahkar help me?”
Borshnik said, “Be quick.”
On the ground floor, Keltzin said, “We can carry him to the end of the dock and let him go in the water. It is probably deep. The body should stay down for a while before it floats. You will be back in Russia by then.”
“And you return to New York to await further instructions?”
“Yes. Let us share a cigarette first. I have some very good ones made in Pakistan.” Keltzin reached inside his jacket and pulled a knife, the movement a half second blur. He sank the knife to the hilt directly into Sorokin’s heart. The man fell like a steer in a slaughterhouse.
Keltzin turned and waved toward Mohammed Sharif’s vehicles, directing him to park on the far side of the warehouse. Sharif got out of the car, nine men following him.
“We can go though the freight elevator entrance,” Keltzin said. “I just took out one of his men. That leaves seven including Borshnik. They are on the third floor, the northeast corner of the building. Go up the steps and turn right at the top. The room will be less than twenty meters down the hall.”
Sharif gestured with his head and one of his men handed Keltzin an oversized black attache case. Keltzin lowered it to the ground and opened it. The case was filled with stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Sharif said, “We do not have time for you to count it.”
Keltzin grinned. “I trust you.”
Sharif touched his cheek and said, “That will be your last big mistake.” One of his men raised a Beretta with a silencer and shot Keltzin through the back of the head, blood and brain matter scattering across the green of the money.
Sharif looked across the river. “Our boat is approaching. Proceed upstairs. You know what to do. Today, some of us will enter paradise. Inshallad.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
Eric Hunter nodded his head, anxious for the caller to finish. “Thanks,” he said disconnecting.
O’Brien asked, “What do we have?”
“Cab dispatcher said his driver reported that he’d taken a customer to Pier 13 on Jacksonville’s northeast side, not far from JaxPort. It’s a warehouse area.”