Alex glanced at Elena with the knife at her neck; she stared back, wide-eyed, plainly terrified. He felt a stab of gut-wrenching guilt that he had gotten her into this mess, and he tried with limited success to push that aside and figure out what was going on here. When he hadn't shown up for the scheduled meeting, Eugene had obviously called his office in Moscow, probably tossed around a threat or two, and gotten a concerned response. And then-somehow-somebody in Konevitch Associates had passed this news to Vladimir, who was now brandishing a knife at Elena's throat. With a blinding flash of the obvious he understood what this meant: an inside job. Somebody in his employ was a traitor.
No wonder they knew what flight he was on, that he was traveling with Elena, and how to bypass his security.
It dawned on him for the first time that definitely they intended to kill him and Elena. He could sign over his businesses and every last penny of his millions, the deeds to his homes, the titles to his cars, even the clothes off his back. Or he could refuse and tell them to go pound sand, they weren't getting a single penny.
It would make no difference. Absolutely none. He and Elena were dead either way.
Alex drew a long, deep breath. "All right, here's the deal," he blurted into the phone. "You remember the special clause? If Elena and I aren't in the restaurant in thirty minutes, invoke it. Both of us, or-"
A moment too late, Katya jerked the phone from his ear and with an angry forefinger punched the disconnect button.
"What was that about?" she hissed with a stare meant to kill.
Alex ignored her and looked at Vladimir and the knife at Elena's throat. He yelled, "Oh God… wait!" to Vladimir, then yelled at anyone who would listen, "Kill her, spill one drop of her blood, and you'll get nothing. I swear. Not a penny."
Vladimir played with carving a deep gash across her throat, but Katya barked, "Don't. Not yet." Obviously the smarter of the two-at least the less instinctively sociopathic-she awarded Alex a hard look and demanded, "What was that you told him?"
"It's very simple. Eugene is an American investor with three or four very wealthy backers in New York. It's called a joint venture. They are pooling hundreds of millions for this deal. They put up the cash, and I invest it for them, keeping a fair share of the profits for my trouble. In return I had to put up collateral."
Vladimir and Katya were in the wrong line of work to comprehend the meaning of this word, "collateral," and Vladimir snapped, "What are you talking about?"
"It's a common business term. In return for their trust and capital risk, I put my companies on the line. It's all stipulated in the contracts inside Eugene's briefcase. Every one of my businesses, right down to the final nail. If I fail to do my part, title to every business I own reverts to them."
"He's lying," Vladimir hissed at Katya.
"Am I?" Alex asked, definitely lying. He turned to the legal shyster who was hiding in the corner, watching this scene with nervous fascination. Alex asked him, "Have you ever heard of a business deal that did not involve collateral?"
The man frowned, stroked his chin, and tried to look thoughtful. He had small, crowded features and they pinched together; like a pug with hemorrhoids. And he was totally, irrevocably lost. He had been a criminal lawyer under the old Soviet system where the extent of his legal expertise was not lifting a finger or raising a squawk as his clients were ramrodded through the politically corrupt courts and crushed by the state. These days the big money was in corporate law, so he had hung out a new shingle and was avidly trying to cash in. Everything was crooked and rigged in Moscow anyway and the shyster knew as well as anybody who needed to be bribed and/or threatened for a deal to go through.
In short, the man on the gurney had just tossed a pebble down an empty well. The thoughtful pause dragged on.
Well, he might not know squat about contracts, but he had a firm grasp on survival, he told himself. If he said no, this man is clearly a liar, and it turned out the shyster guessed wrong, everything would be lost-all those hundreds of millions of dollars. Naturally, they would hold him responsible. For well over an hour he had stood out in the warehouse, hearing Alex's anguished howls and shrieks echoing through the walls. He felt a sudden shiver as he considered how they might punish him.
But if he said Alex was telling the truth, well, whatever happened afterward-good, bad, or worse-they couldn't blame him.
Feeling quite Solomonic, and with a tone of utter conviction, he offered his best professional opinion. "No, never. As he says, it is typical to arrange collateral in these matters."
"And this is the special clause you referred to?" Katya asked Alex.
"That's right. In forty minutes, everything I own will revert to Eugene and his group of New York investors."
The lawyer walked over to the gurney and leaned in toward Alex. "But there is a way to void this clause, am I right?"
"I'd be an idiot if there weren't."
"Good. Tell me about it," the lawyer demanded, enjoying his sudden moment of importance.
"Put me through to whoever you work for. I'll tell him about it."
"Not a chance," Vladimir answered for all of them, sneering and sliding the knife back and forth against Elena's throat.
"Fine, your call," Alex replied, trying his best to look confident rather than terrified. He had done hundreds of high-pressure business negotiations, tense parleys upon which many millions of dollars hinged. They always involved a fair amount of posturing and bluffing, and Alex had become a master at it. This time, though, he was bargaining for Elena's life, and his own. He took a hard swallow, then forced a smile and said to Vladimir, "In forty minutes, everything will be gone. These are New Yorkers. Greedy bastards, every one of them. If they get their fingers on my properties, you can beat and torture me all you want. You'll never pry them back."
"Maybe we'll just go to the hotel and kill this Eugene man," Vladimir suggested, his preferred course for solving problems.
"That would be stupid. It won't make a difference," Alex told him. "Copies of all the contracts are with his partners in New York. In fact, they'll appreciate it. One less partner means more for them."
Vladimir nodded. Made sense.
"Also," Alex confided, sounding like an afterthought, a small, insignificant detail that meant nothing, "once I sign Eugene's contracts another three hundred million dollars will be electronically transferred to my investment bank."
"What?" Katya asked, suddenly hanging on every word.
"You heard me. When I sign the contract, Eugene and his investors will immediately wire-transfer their funds into my investment bank. Three hundred million American dollars. Cold cash."
Vladimir licked his lips and looked at Katya. Both were struggling to maintain the pretense that they were still in control. And both were clearly rattled and looking for a way out. When Golitsin learned about this, he would throw a tantrum of monumental proportions. But if they didn't call him and Konevitch's companies and properties slipped out of their fingers-much less losing the possibility of three hundred million more, in cash-well, neither of them wanted to think about what he would do to them. It would be horrible and slow, they both knew.