She held the tongs out so Tom could see the bloody lump of metal, no bigger than a pea, before dropping it onto the steel tray next to her. "Doesn't look as though it hit anything vital."
"Good." The wound had started bleeding again, so she swabbed it with iodine solution that stained Tom's arm purple. Grimacing at the stinging sensation, Tom asked, "Then what?"
"Then…? Then he punished me."
Viktor hesitated for a second, looking into his eyes, then lifted her hair away from the left-hand side of her head. Tom saw with horror that, where her ear should have been, there was just a hole surrounded by angry pink scar tissue.
"So I killed him." She spoke so matter-of-factly that at first Tom wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly. "One night, when he was on top of me, grunting away like the fat sweaty pig he was, I stabbed him in the back of his neck. Then I dumped him in the river. Like Rasputin." She gave a short laugh.
"And all this…?" Tom indicated the room with a sweep of his hand.
"Was his. Like I said: I inherited it."
"Just like that?" Tom's tone was disbelieving.
"There were some who thought a woman shouldn't be head of the family. But in Russia people respect strength. They soon learned to take me seriously. I took on Viktor's name to help ease the blow. A lot of people think he's still around."
She signaled for Tom to sit up so she could bandage the top of his arm and shoulder.
"What's your real name?" he asked.
She paused. "You know, you're the first person to ask me that in almost ten years."
"And?"
Before she could answer, there was a knock at the door. Viktor hurriedly swept her hair back across her ear as Archie and Dominique walked in.
"How are you doing?" said Dominique, concern etched on her face.
"He'll be fine," said Viktor. "In the morning I'll get anti-
biotics. Right now, he must rest."
"Close one." Archie pulled up a chair and sat down. "Good thing Viktor's used to patching people up."
"So I've been hearing." Tom looked at Viktor, his eyes meeting hers for a moment before she turned away.
"Don't worry, we'll be out of your way in the morning," Archie said to Viktor.
"Make yourself comfortable, Archie," she replied. "No one's going anywhere until you tell me what's going on."
Archie shook his head. "It doesn't involve you. There's nothing to say."
"Doesn't involve me? I lost six of my best men. Believe me, I'm involved."
"Look, I'm sorry about—"
"You came to me, remember? I'm not interested in apologies. Just tell me what you're doing here and why someone wants you dead."
"It's not that simple—"
"This is not a negotiation. Because of you, my club will be shut for weeks. That's money. My money. So now you are in my debt. You understand what that means?"
"It means I owe you," said Archie sullenly.
"No. It means I own you. I own you until I say otherwise. So, whatever you're planning, I want a piece of the action."
"Not this action, you don't."
"That's my decision, not yours. Now, I won't ask you again. What's going on?"
Archie looked questioningly at Tom, who gave a reluctant nod.
"We're looking for a painting."
"A painting? I thought you were out of that business."
"I am. We both are."
"Both?" Viktor looked momentarily confused.
"Tom was my partner. The Matisse out there in the hall? He got that for you."
She stared at Tom, clearly reappraising him in the light of this revelation. "I like that painting."
"So did the Fine Arts Museum in Buenos Aires," he replied with a smile.
"So this is just another job?"
"No," said Archie. "Not a normal sort of job, anyway. We think the painting may tell us where something was hidden."
"What is this 'something'?"
"We're not sure yet," Tom intervened, unwilling to share the secret. "But it's valuable."
"And we want to stop anyone else getting to it first," Dominique added.
" 'Anyone else' being the people responsible for tonight?"
"Could be," said Archie. "We don't know."
"What do you know?" Viktor sounded exasperated.
"We know that someone went to a lot of trouble to hide a series of clues that lead to a painting we think is hidden in the Hermitage storerooms."
"The Hermitage? Forget it!" She rolled her eyes. "You'll never get in there."
"Tom can get in anywhere," Dominique said confidently.
"You think you are the first person to want to rob the Hermitage?" She smiled. "The authorities are many things, but they are not stupid. They may not have the money to invest in cameras and laser trip wires, but guns are cheap and people even cheaper. The Hermitage is heavily patrolled, especially the storerooms. You'd have to be invisible to get past them."
"First things first," said Archie, brushing aside her reservations. "We need to find it. Then we can worry about getting it out. Can you help?"
"Maybe." Viktor shrugged. "It depends."
"On what?"
"On what's in it for me."
Archie glanced at Tom, who gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head. He wasn't looking for a partner. Certainly not one like Viktor.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
It's a fucking war zone down there." Special Agent Strange entered the small, windowless meeting room, sank wearily into a chair, and put his feet up. Bailey could see that he wore tan cowboy boots emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes.
"How many dead?" Bailey asked. "Three. Two men and a woman."
"Not—"
"Don't worry. They weren't your suspects."
"They were ours," Special Agent Cunningham growled from the far end of the room. "Local mobster. He was one of the people the DEA has us keeping tabs on out here. Ran with a fast crowd shipping drugs and weapons into the U.S. via the Caribbean."
"What happened?" Bailey asked.
"Some sort of hit." Strange sniffed. "Two guys walked up to their table, took 'em out, then walked straight out again. Pretty goddamned cold."
"Local cops let half the people who were in the club get away. Apparently there was some sort of escape tunnel. The rest are probably bribing their way out of trouble as we speak," Cunningham growled. "If they're lucky, the cops will get a few descriptions, but that's it."
"What about Blondi and the other two?"
"We saw him and the others go in, but the cops didn't bring them out."
"Then, of course, there's the car bomb." Strange clasped his hands behind his neck and pulled it to one side, then the other, his vertebrae clicking noisily.
"The car bomb?" Bailey exclaimed. This was going from bad to worse.
"Convoy of three Cadillac Escalades got ambushed about two miles from the club."
"That's standard wise-guy issue round these parts," Cunningham interjected. "Makes 'em think they're in the Sopranos or something."
"It was a professional job. A remote-detonated Semtex charge on the road to disable the lead vehicle, gunmen standing by with grenades to take out the rest," Strange continued. "But the main vehicle shot its way out. It was found abandoned near the Troitsky Bridge. The occupants managed to get over the bridge just as it went up."
"Any witnesses?"
"From what we've picked up off the police scanner, there were four people at the scene. Two men, two women. Three of the descriptions match Kirk, Blondi, and the girl who's with them."
"And the cars belonged to Viktor," Cunningham added. "So it's short odds that's who the fourth person was."