"Kid Midas" was the predictable headline that outed Alex, and it said it all and then some. It was rumored that Alex was Russia's richest man, its first fat-cat billionaire; he owned an armada of towering yachts; two hundred rare and exotic sports cars housed in a temperature-controlled underground garage and spitshined daily; a fleet of sleek private jets to ferry him to his sprawling estates in Paris, London, Rome, New York, and Hong Kong. The chatty employee had recently finished a spicy, newly translated, unauthorized biography about the marvelously perverse life of Howard Hughes, and he plagiarized liberally and imaginatively from that intoxicating tale to earn his seven grand.
Alex was a total schizoid paranoid, he'd said; he sat around his office nude, counting his rubles and hatching new businesses in between watching old black-and-white Katharine Hepburn flicks. He collected beautiful women by the carton, renamed them all Katharine, and was so germophobic that he boiled them before he slept with them. He was anti-Semitic, antisocial, ate only raw vegetables, drank only boiled water, was left-handed, was rumored to go both ways sexually, and had to be chloroformed by a squad of brawny assistants to get haircuts and his fingernails trimmed.
The resulting article was ridiculous, packed with bizarre lies, and viciously fascinating.
Fictitious or not, it incited an all-out frenzy and induced scores of Moscow reporters to join in the hunt. Sensationalized stories about Alex quickly became daily fare, more often than not outrageously fabricated nonsense. One enterprising weekly magazine initiated a column dubbed "Kid Midas Sightings" so the whole city could join in the fun: a five hundred dollar reward was offered to anybody who could produce a photograph of Alex, five thousand if he was nude, purportedly his normal state.
Alex's attorneys begged him to sue, promising to terrorize the publishing industry, as only lawyers can do. A flat, persistent refusal was his stubborn response. It would only generate more unwanted publicity, he insisted. And anyway, it was a novelty that would quickly wear off, he assured them, but he promptly hired his first security people. Six private bodyguards. All former Spetsnaz special forces warriors, who looked fierce and swore they would be loyal to the end. Alex was still scribbling notes and poring over thick business files when, two hours later, the pilot's nasal voice launched the usual preparatory steps for landing. Seat backs were jolted forward, eating trays shoved back into position, a few people got up and stretched. The pair of watchers exchanged knowing winks.
Time for the fun to begin.
They followed Mr. and Mrs. Konevitch as they deplaned, he hauling their leather overnight bags casually slung over his broad shoulders; both of them totally clueless. Light packing for what the couple obviously assumed would be a brief and enjoyable business trip, in and out, a single night at most. Guess again, Alex.
The carry-on luggage was a welcome relief, nonetheless. Their instructions were stern and clear: avoid loose ends, anything that might make the authorities suspicious. The Hungarian police weren't known for nosiness or efficiency. Interference seemed unlikely. Still, unclaimed bags that were tagged with contact information might cause an unwanted problem or two.
At customs, Mr. and Mrs. Konevitch offered polite smiles to the green-uniformed customs guard, flashed their Russian passports, no problems there. Then they went directly through the sliding glass doors into the expansive lobby.
Midday. The foot traffic was sparse, which made the targets easy to track, but also made it harder for the reception team to blend in and hide.
Their briefing was unequivocal on this point-stay with the Konevitches every second of every minute. No respite until the arrival-and-reception team had matters firmly in hand. Same kind of job they had done hundreds or possibly thousands of times during the past fifty years, always successfully. Old age had slowed them down a few steps, but in their line of work the trade-off was more than equitable; nobody suspected a pair of doddering old geezers.
The customs agent barely gave them or their passports a glance as he waved them through. What possible threat could these wrinkled old wrecks pose to the Republic of Hungary? they were sure he was thinking. If only he knew. They had thirty confirmed kills to their credit, with six more they stubbornly claimed, though the corpses had been incinerated into ashes or fallen into deep rivers and washed away.
Mr. and Mrs. Konevitch were walking briskly through the lobby, straight for the taxi stand outside. The tail team followed at a safe distance, hobbling and creaking with every step.
At the taxi stand, three people were already lined up ahead of the Konevitches-a hatchet-faced lady struggling with her oversized luggage, and two faces the tails instantly recognized, Vladimir and Katya.
Vladimir was the boss of the arrival-and-reception team, a man they all thoroughly feared and deeply loathed. Katya, like the rest of them, was vicious, cold-blooded, and unemotional, a veteran killer with a long and enviable list of hits-but always just business. Vladimir was a sadistic bastard with freakish appetites. He would've done this work for free; paid to do it, probably. Even the toughest killers in the unit felt a wash of pity for his victims.
The tail team from the airplane backed off, ignoring the Konevitches and redirecting their attention to trying to spot the private bodyguards. They had memorized as many faces from their flight as they could. Now they separated from each other, about twenty yards apart, stopped, pretended to fumble with their luggage, and watched for familiar faces. The call came in at 2:37 p.m. and the secretary put it right through.
Sergei Golitsin checked his watch, right on time. He lifted the phone and barked, "Well?"
"Good news, they're here," the voice informed him. "Everything's under control."
"So you have them?"
"No, not yet. They're at the taxi stand two feet from Vladimir and Katya. Everything's on schedule, everything's in place. I'll call you in a few minutes when we do."
"Don't mess this up." Golitsin snorted.
"Relax. We won't."
There was a long pause. Golitsin, with barely suppressed excitement, asked, "Are the communications set up?"
"They are. The listening devices are state of the art. You'll get a crystal-clear feed into the phone lines and through your speakerphone. I tested it with your secretary an hour ago. Everything's fine." After a pause, the voice added, "Vladimir's going to handle this. It's going to be loud and ugly."
"It better be." Golitsin closed his eyes and smiled. "I want to hear every sound."
3
The old lady at the front of the line shoved two bags at a cabbie and crawled painfully into a blue BMW with TAXI splashed in bold letters across the side.
The couple directly in front of Alex and Elena stepped forward, and a black Mercedes sedan that had been idling by the far curb suddenly swerved in front of the other taxis and screeched to a noisy halt half a foot from the taxi stop. Vladimir, wearing the garb and collar of a Catholic priest, made a fast survey of the surroundings, then quickly threw open the rear door. The same instant, Katya, dressed as a nun, pushed out an ugly black pistol hidden inside the folds of her baggy sleeve and pointed it in Alex's face.
Her partner turned around. Coldly and in Russian he said to Alex, "It's a simple choice. Get into the car or die right here and right now."