The Hunted (15 page)

The moment the throng was in place, stamping their feet and singing in a brash routine imported from an American restaurant
chain, Alex leaped up from his chair, lifted the empty chair beside him, and hurled it with as much force as he could muster
directly at the big picture window ten feet away. He had rehearsed this throw over and over in his mind. Over and over he
told himself, ignore the pain from his dislocated shoulder, forget the severe burn on his chest. No matter how agonizing,
put everything he had into this one chance. There wouldn’t be another.

The moment the chair launched, he shut his eyes, held his breath, and prayed.

The chair flew through the air, and then, with a loud satisfying crash, the large plate-glass window shattered into a thousand
shards and crumbled to the floor.

Vladimir was still holding the satellite phone, still smarting from the conversation.

Katya had been eavesdropping. Her elbows were planted on the table, her head craned sideways in a wonderfully successful attempt
to catch every word.

She loathed Vladimir and found huge enjoyment in overhearing the old man browbeat and humble him. She had no love for Golitsin
either—a selfish, overbearing, snarling old tyrant she detested to her core. But she worked for him. She took his money and,
without complaint, did whatever sordid work he asked of her. And why not? The money was damned good; actually it was merely
adequate, but she wasn’t about to complain. Two thousand a month in salary when thousands of KGB veterans were out on the
street, wiping windshields of traffic-stalled cars and pleading for kopecks.

Plus he was cunning, corrupt, ambitious, and endlessly ruthless; in the bare-knuckle new Russia, with that résumé, she was
betting the old coot would shoot quickly to the top. There were worse wagons to hitch her horses to, she reasoned. Besides,
her other options were few and not overly hopeful. She had spent twelve years doing dirty work for the KGB before the wall
tumbled down. Sadly, her skillset had prepared her for only one thing.

By twenty-six, she had thirty kills on five continents. All clean hits, all professionally flawless. Now thirty-one, her once
lustrous hair had been peroxided, bleached, dyed and redyed so many times it hung in listless strands. Her skin resembled
a snare drum in need of a rigorous tightening. Long years killing under the hot African and Afghan sun had prematurely aged
her. She still had an attractive face, one that bordered on beauty, except for a detached iciness that chased men off. She
cared less. Her tastes ran more toward women than men anyway.

Besides, sex didn’t interest her generally, and emotions even less.

Unfortunately, that arctic demeanor was exactly what attracted Vladimir, who over the past year had come on to her more than
a few times. Like many men with bulletproof egos, beating around the bush wasn’t his preferred style of seduction. He barged
right into the sweet talk, long, swaggering soliloquies of what he’d like to do to her. Much of it sounded physically impossible;
all of it sounded vividly repulsive.

Katya encouraged him in the strongest terms to get lost or, barring that, try performing the acts on himself.

One dark night, while they were staking out a target from a parked van, he gave up on the subtle approach. Without ado, he
rabbit-punched her twice on the side of the head, clamped his hands around her throat, and tried to rape her.

She wasn’t entirely surprised by his foreplay. The brawl was brief. No quarter was given. His balls screamed with pain for
weeks afterward.

She didn’t nurse a grudge. Vladimir was an animal. Naturally, his urges lingered closer to the surface than most. She simply
hated him a little more passionately than before.

And thus, at that moment, while Golitsin upbraided Vladimir on the phone, she smiled and hung on every word. Way to go, old
boy. Oh please, don’t forget my favorite part—call him an idiot again.

And thus, at the very moment the lights were extinguished, they both were preoccupied with their own thoughts, off guard and
flat-footed. One instant the restaurant was brightly lit and humming with small groups engaged in polite conversation; then,
without warning, it went dark and the calamitous mob of waiters and waitresses were clustered in front of their table, a gaggle
of people in white uniforms stomping their feet and howling that stupid ditty at the top of their lungs.

A long hesitation. Then both drew their pistols and leaped to their feet. It was already too late.

They heard the glass crash and stretched their necks to look over the choir. They began hopping up and down, feeling like
idiots. But between the darkness and the wall of kitchen staff, they were completely blinded.

Vladimir, who prided himself on being a man of action, for once was at a loss, frozen. Katya reacted first. She raised her
pistol and fired three shots into the ceiling, rapid-fire—boom, boom, boom. It was absolutely effective—and totally the wrong
move. The first shot unleashed a wild fiasco; the next two wildly reinforced it.

Between the thunderous crash of the glass shattering and the upsetting flash and bang of the pistol shots in a dark chamber,
the entire dining room collapsed into instant bedlam. Half the waiters and waitresses fell to the floor. The other half fled,
screaming and hollering and clawing past one another in the general direction of the kitchen. Customers leaped to their feet,
shoving over tables and chairs, banging against each other, racing for sanctuary wherever they could find it. Wails and shrieks
and flailing bodies bounced around the room.

After an interminable thirty seconds, somebody flipped the lights back on. Vladimir and Katya stared wide-eyed at Alex’s table.
“They’re gone,” Katya screeched, and indeed, they were. Quite gone.

They were dumbfounded. They stood, mute, wide-eyed, gripping their pistols and gawking at the empty table. They took in the
gaping hole that had replaced the picture window. They observed the heavy chair that hung on the window frame, dangling precariously.
They didn’t need to confer, didn’t need to voice a single theory or weigh any half-baked suspicions. The facts were right
before their eyes, unmistakable. They had underestimated Konevitch. A stupid amateur’s mistake, and they had made it: plain
and simple.

Konevitch had obviously confided to the waitress that Vladimir and/or Katya were old pals celebrating a birthday, and obviously
he persuaded, or more likely bribed, her to have the lights shut off and put on a little show to distract them. Just as obviously,
he had faked the severity of his wounds. That harsh limp, that shambling gait, that lame shoulder: nobody that horribly mangled
could’ve tossed that heavy chair, much less disappeared with such speed through the window frame. But he and his wife had
successfully bypassed the layers of security. They had escaped, and were out there, on the streets of Budapest.

They were out there now, running for their lives.

Katya came to her senses and screamed at Vladimir, “Go out the window and find them. I’ll get the others.”

A response was a waste of time. He raced for the hole in the window and dove through, crashing hard on his knees on the concrete
sidewalk outside. A loud curse exploded from his lips. The pain was sharp and intense. But his fury at being made into a fool
hurt worse. He pushed himself to his feet, extended his pistol arm, spun on his heels, and scanned the surroundings.

Not a soul. Not out on the street. Not in the side parking lot. And not along the front of the hotel.

Alex and his party had vanished into the evening.

The hotel entrance was to his right and guarded by a pair of his men, making it unlikely, if not impossible, that Konevitch
fled that way. He gripped his pistol hard and limped off in the other direction. There would be no warning this time. No second
chance. He endured the pain from his bleeding knees and kicked it up to an all-out run.

Katya raced to the pair of thugs who were still seated by the restaurant exit, quietly congratulating themselves that they
weren’t in charge of this mess. When Golitsin learned about this screwup, heads were going to roll, literally.

She shrieked at them to follow her and went and collected the pair by the hotel entrance, then the two bored watchers outside.
She ordered two of them to trail Vladimir before she set off, accompanied by the other four, in the opposite direction.

She signaled for the men to spread out, and issued one stern instruction. “Blow them to hell,” she hissed.

A
minute after Vladimir and Katya departed, the long white tablecloth was gently tugged back. Alex slowly raised his head and
looked around. A waitress and two waiters loitered by the kitchen entrance, bantering about the bad people who had fired guns
and chased all the customers away. The waitress was in tears, traumatized. One waiter looked ready to faint or flee. Otherwise,
the palatial dining room was empty.

Alex stood and glanced over at the table where Vladimir and Katya had been seated. No corpses littered the floor. There were
no dead waiters, and from what he could detect, no wounded patrons bleeding on the expensive carpet. He nearly fainted with
relief. The three shots he heard were warnings or misses. Probably frantic or angered bullets fired out the broken window,
he decided.

“Are they gone?” Elena asked from under the table, almost a whisper.

“Maybe. It looks that way,” Alex replied in a tone that conveyed half hope and half doubt. “Stay where you are another moment.”
He walked over to a waiter by the kitchen, a tall young man, considerably less fazed than the other two. He asked where the
shooters had gone. Out of the building, he was informed—one dove out the window and disappeared and the other raced out of
the restaurant, collected her evil pals, and dashed outside. Nothing more to worry about, Alex was assured. The bad people
were gone. The concierge called the police. Any minute, the place would flood with cops.

Alex rushed back to the table, hefted the overnight bags over his good shoulder, and informed Elena and Eugene it was safe.
Elena came out first and threw her arms around Alex, a hug she immediately lessened when he winced and groaned.

Then Eugene emerged, loud, upset, and furiously disoriented. He kept asking Alex why he had grabbed him, wrestled him under
the table, pinned him down, and slapped a hand over his mouth. Alex tried leading him out of the room, but Eugene refused
to budge until he had a reply, and it better be damned good.

“Long story. I don’t have time to explain everything,” Alex replied in a hasty effort to put him off, looking around and wondering
what to do next. Open and shut, his plan had started and stopped at getting the killers out of the restaurant. Divert them,
send them off on a wild-goose chase. Then he and Elena would make a speedy getaway in Eugene’s Trabant.

But now, how was he to get to the Trabant in the parking lot without blundering into Vladimir and his people? And, he realized,
if he left Eugene here, they might return and take their fury out on him. Eugene’s yapping was growing louder. Alex waved
a hand for him to calm down and attempted another explanation. “They kidnapped Elena and me, beat me silly, and forced me
to sign over my companies. Now they’re after your money, too. Let’s go.”

“My money?”

“Yes, Eugene, that’s what I said.”

“You know them?”

“We just met this afternoon. I don’t want to get to know them better. Come on, we have to hurry.” Alex glanced at the doorway
to the dining room. He did not have time for these questions.

“Who are these people?”

“Eugene, please, shut up and help me. They’re out there. Right now, they’re combing the street, hunting for us. In a few moments,
they’ll figure out they’ve been hoodwinked and they’ll be back. They’re professional assassins. Are you listening?”

In the past two minutes, Eugene had passed from inebriated verging on tipsy to frightened out of his wits with Alex nearly
smothering him under the table; he was finally settling on an emotion he could live with. Upset. Very, very upset. “Dammit,
I’m not going anywhere. Why don’t you just wait for the police?”

“Because they might be in on it. There’s a very good chance they are. These people are unbelievably well-connected, better
than you can even imagine, Eugene, and I can’t… Listen to me, it’s time to leave, now.”

Eugene still looked angry and dubious—it
was
a lot to absorb—and Alex decided it was time to be blunt, and possibly a little deceitful. “It’s not just Elena and me, they’re
hunting you, too. They want to kidnap and torture you, to force you to get your partners to wire the cash into my corporate
accounts. They made me sign over the title to my companies, and now they want to steal your three hundred million, all of
it. After that, they’ll kill you.”

Eugene suddenly felt nauseated. “They want to kill me?” he asked in a high-pitched voice. This was too much. He leaned back
against a table and, drawing a few labored breaths, struggled to regain his balance; recapturing his composure was out of
the question. He couldn’t seem to think. He deeply regretted all those beers. How many was it? Eight? Nine? However many,
the answer was: too many.

Alex placed a hand on his arm. “Yes,” he said very quietly. “After they beat and torture you, after they steal all your money,
yes, Eugene, yes, they intend to kill you.”

Elena had been standing quietly, listening, and decided the time was right to throw her two cents in. Only shock would get
this man moving, and she provided it. “Look what they did to Alex. Look at his battered face. Look, they nearly killed him,
Eugene. They beat him for hours and burned him with an iron. That’s what they’ll do to you, too. Now, please stop wasting
time. Do what Alex says.”

With that, it finally sank in and Eugene offered the one response that felt appropriate at that moment. He vomited, a huge,
boisterous gusher that splashed across the floor. He bent over, sucked in a few deep breaths, wiped the sleeve of his hand-tailored,
thousand-dollar suit across his mouth and nose, then mumbled his first intelligent words of the night. “Get me the hell out
of here.”