While Kagan worked to order his thoughts, melting snow dripped from his hair. He realized that the zipper on his parka had been pulled almost completely open. Sweat from his exertion soaked his clothes. Heat drifted up from the bricks, a sensation that made him think he was delirious until he remembered a bellhop telling him about the under-floor radiant heating-hot water through rubber tubes-that warmed the hotel where he was staying.
“ Broken?” He drew a breath. “The snow brought down the phone lines?”
“ No. Not the lines. The phones are…” The woman kept her face to the side and didn’t finish the sentence.
“ Smashed,” the boy said. Bitterness tightened his voice. He had a slight build, almost to the point of looking frail, but that hadn’t stopped him from attacking Kagan with the baseball bat. He was around twelve years old, with glasses and tousled hair, blond like his mother’s. Talking about the smashed phones made his cheeks red.
The baseball bat, Kagan abruptly realized. Is he still holding it? With relief, he saw that the boy had leaned the bat against a cupboard. Kagan didn’t understand why the boy had attacked him, but there wasn’t time for questions.
Dizzy, he tried to sit up. He remembered the microphone he wore. The woman or the boy might say something that would tell Andrei where he was hiding. Under the pretense of rubbing a sore muscle, he reached beneath his parka and turned off the transmitter. It was the first time since he’d taken the child that his hands had been free to do so.
To his left, he saw the small window over the kitchen sink.
“ Please.” He worked to neutralize the accent he’d acquired, his voice sounding more American. “You’ve got to pull the curtain over that window. Turn off the lights.”
The baby squirmed in the woman’s arms, kicking, crying again.
“ Do it,” Kagan urged. “Turn off the lights.”
The woman and the boy stepped back, evidently worried that he might be delusional.
“ As weak as I am, you can see I’m no threat to you.”
“ Threat?” The woman’s eyes reacted to the word.
“ Men are chasing me.”
“ What are you talking about?”
“ They want the baby. You’ve got to turn off the lights so they can’t see us.”
“ Some men are trying to kidnap this baby?” The woman’s face registered shock. She held the infant closer, defending it now. The blue blanket was enveloped by the arms of her red dress.
Slow down, Kagan warned himself. This is coming at her too fast. She needs time to adjust.
He inhaled slowly, held his breath, then exhaled, each time counting to three as he would before a gunfight, working to calm himself.
Making his voice gentle, he asked, “What’s your name?”
The woman looked surprised, unprepared for the change of tone. She hesitated, still keeping her face angled to the left. The baby whimpered in her arms, and its wizened face seemed to urge her to reply.
“ Meredith,” she finally said.
Thank God, Kagan thought. She gave me something. He noticed a night-light next to the stove across from him.
“ If you’re concerned about being in the dark with me, turn on that night-light. The glow won’t attract attention from the street. It’s the bright lights we need to worry about. Then I promise I’ll explain why I’m injured, why I have the baby.”
Meredith didn’t respond.
“ Listen to me.” Kagan mustered the strength to keep talking. “I didn’t intend to bring trouble to you. I planned to hide in the shed or the garage. Things didn’t work out. I’m sorry I involved you, but that can’t be changed now. Those men will do anything to get their hands on this baby. You’ve got to help me stop them from thinking he’s here. That’s the only way you and your son will get out of this.”
If Meredith hadn’t been holding the baby, Kagan was certain she’d have grabbed the boy and fled from the house. But the baby made all the difference, seeming to prevent her from moving.
“ You can see how helpless I am,” Kagan said. “What’s the harm if you close the curtains over the sink and use the night-light? It won’t hurt you, but it might save the baby.”
Meredith kept hesitating, her strained features showing the confusion she felt.
“ And it might save you and your son,” Kagan emphasized. “You’ve got a known situation in here. A baby who needs help. A man who’s injured. But you have no idea of the trouble outside.”
When the baby whimpered again, Meredith looked down at its unhappy face and debated. She stroked its dark, wispy hair, then frowned toward the window.
Reluctantly, she told the boy, “Cole, do what he wants.”
“ But…”
“ Do it,” she said firmly, then added gently, “Please.”
The boy looked at her, his gaze questioning, then moved toward the window.
“ Thank you,” she told him.
When Cole nodded, Kagan didn’t bother trying to conceal his relief.
The boy surprised Kagan by limping slightly as he crossed the kitchen. He stretched nervously over the sink to close the curtains. Then he turned on the night-light, which had a perforated tin shield that looked like a Christmas tree and reduced the glow.
Watching Cole walk unevenly toward an archway that led into the living room, Kagan subdued a frown when he saw why the boy limped. One leg was shorter than the other. The heel on his right shoe rose two inches higher than the one on the left.
Even so, Kagan couldn’t help silently urging the boy to hurry.
Cole flicked a switch on the wall and turned off the main kitchen lights. Apart from the glow of the night-light, the only illumination came from the fireplace and the lights on the Christmas tree in the living room.
Kagan allowed himself to hope.
“ Okay, you said the phones in the house aren’t working. But don’t you have a cell phone?”
“ No,” Meredith answered uncomfortably. “Don’t you? ”
Kagan thought of the coat pocket that had been torn open when he’d escaped.
“ Lost it.”
“ He took my mother’s phone,” Cole said.
“ He?” Kagan crawled painfully toward a wooden chair at the kitchen table.
Neither of them answered. In another part of the house, a man’s voice sang, “ Away in a manger, no crib for a bed…” Kagan was surprised that he took the time to identify it as Bing Crosby’s.
Damn it, concentrate, he thought.
“ A man took your cell phone?” Kagan felt he’d achieved a small victory when his right hand touched the chair.
“ You promised to tell us why they want the baby,” Meredith demanded. “I made a mistake. I don’t know why I brought you inside.”
“ You brought me inside because you heard the baby crying.” Kagan fought for energy. “Because you couldn’t leave the baby out there in the snow.” He took a deep breath. “Because you’re a decent person, and this is the one night of the year you can’t refuse to take care of someone who’s hurt.
With effort, Kagan pulled himself onto the chair. His gaze drifted toward a wall phone next to the night-light across from him.
At least, it had once been a phone. Someone had used a hammer to smash it into pieces. The hammer lay on the counter.
“ Is the man who took your cell phone the same man who did that?” Kagan pointed toward the debris.
From his new position, he had a better view of the side of Meredith’s face. Even in the dim illumination provided by the night-light, it was obvious that her cheek was bruised and her eye was swelling shut. She had dried blood on the side of her mouth.
“ Is he the same man who beat you?” Kagan asked.
The question filled him with bitterness. To prove himself to the Russian mob, he’d been forced to beat many people. Often, the Pakhan had ordered him to punch women in the face, to knee them in the groin and knock them to the floor, kicking their legs and sides to make husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers do what the Pakhan wanted.
His mission controllers had been delighted by how effectively such tactics had earned Kagan access to the mob’s inner circle.