The Hunted (13 page)

It was their first chance to talk. He whispered to Elena, “They’re going to kill us, no matter what.”

“I know. It’s not your fault,” she replied.

Oh yes, it definitely was his fault, but this wasn’t the time or situation to discuss it. At this stage, fault or fate or
serendipity made no difference. Don’t waste time; think quickly, he told himself. He squeezed her hand and said, “This is
an opportunity—probably our only chance. We have to use it.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“I’m thinking.” He tried to smile reassuringly but it came across weakly. “If you think of anything, let me know.” She squeezed
his hand back, and made no reply.

Eugene had spotted them and jumped from his seat. He took in the gallery of bruises and abrasions on Alex’s face, noted the
severe limp, and his face turned instantly into a mass of concerned wrinkles. “My God, Alex, what happened to you?”

“Car accident,” Alex replied with pretended indifference, slipping the overnight bags off his shoulder and placing them on
the floor to free his one good arm for a lame handshake. His leg was killing him. His left arm hung limp and useless. The
yellow ointment covering the burn was seeping through his white dress shirt. He forced a smile and said a little lamely, “You
should see the other guy.”

After a polite chuckle, Eugene asked, “That’s why you’re late?” It was a dumb question. Why ask? The answer was right before
his eyes. He suggested, “It looks like the accident was damned serious,” suddenly swimming in guilt that he had insisted on
Alex coming here.

Elena explained, “Well, first there were the police reports. That took nearly an hour. Our taxi driver ran a red light, two
other cars were involved, a complete mess. We went to the hospital afterward.”

“The hospital?” Eugene echoed, still stunned by the condition of his friend. Elena looked fine; on the surface she appeared
unharmed, anyway. Nervous and distressed, for sure—but considering the dreadful state of her husband, that was easily understandable.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Alex assured him. “I was lucky. A few cuts, some nasty bruises, a few broken ribs, I think.”

Eugene stared at the floor, torn between empathy for his friend and sympathy for himself if he didn’t get Alex’s signatures
on the contracts. Cuts and bruises heal. Ten million bucks are forever.

Only thirty minutes before, Maria had stormed back downstairs, suitcase in hand, and announced that she had booked a flight
back to New York and scheduled a meeting with the most venomous East Coast divorce lawyer money can rent. A real loud-mouthed
cutthroat with sterling references. Among those references, Eugene well knew, were wives two and three, whose divorces the
lawyer had handled with appalling effectiveness. Practice makes perfect—how sadly true. Wife Three had walked away with twice
what Wife Two got. Eugene shuddered to think how much Number Four might cost.

Alex stole a glance over his shoulder, took in the two boys by the exit, and noted that Vladimir had slipped in and joined
Katya at her table in the center of the room. Vladimir and Katya were partially blocking the views of their pals by the exit.

Not that it mattered; they were arranged perfectly to keep him and Elena bottled up.

He needed time, and Alex looked at Eugene and said, “Incidentally, please call your friends in New York. Tell them I require
another thirty minutes.”

“Not possible, Alex.”

“Please make it possible.”

“You know the stakes. If this deal’s not locked down by five tonight, I’m deeply, deeply screwed.”

Alex and Eugene stared across the table at each other, frustration hanging in the air like mist. Alex eventually noted, “Surely
your contract with them has an Act of God provision. Am I right?”

“Do I look stupid?”

“So use it, Eugene. I was an innocent victim, a hapless passenger in a taxi accident. That’s a shining example of an Act of
God.” He pointed at his own face. Eugene needed no reminder.

“Alex, these contracts have been months in the making.”

“I think I know that.”

“I faxed copies to your office a week ago.”

“And I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“Seven whole days. Surely you’ve had more than enough time to study them.”

“I’m a slow reader.”

“Damn it, Alex, I—”

“Look, Eugene, let me be honest. I once signed a contract my lawyers and I had examined only the day before. During the interim,
without mentioning it, the other party slipped in a few clauses, a few very expensive clauses. I trusted them, Eugene. I signed
the contract without noticing the changes. That little stunt cost me two million dollars.”

“You’re kidding.”

No, not kidding; lying, definitely, though he offered a regretful shrug and lied again. “I swore I would never sign another
contract I haven’t read on the spot. Please get on the phone and buy me some time.”

“This is me, Alex. Eugene Daniels.”

Alex bent forward, inspected him closely. “Yes, no doubt about it.”

“How many deals have we done together? Five? Six?”

“Four.”

“All right, four. Have I ever cheated you? I’m telling you, nothing, not a word has been added or subtracted from the contracts
I faxed you.” He awarded Alex a look of complete bewilderment. “It’s the same paper, Alex, identical, down to the commas.
Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Good. Then it’s settled.”

A brief pause. “You trust me, too, don’t you, Eugene?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Good. Then let’s just dispense with those contracts. A useless waste of time. What’s paper between friends? Let’s just swap
a few hundred million on a handshake.”

Eugene lowered his head in defeat. “All right, all right, I’ll try,” he said, frowning tightly. “These people are absolute
bastards, though.”

“And right now, their mouths are watering for the easiest ten million they ever made. Your money, Eugene.”

“But if I invoke the Act of God clause, they get nothing, right?” Eugene said, letting the words fall off his tongue. The
frown began to melt. “Nothing, not a thing,” he said, answering his own question, suddenly smiling. As hard as they had made
him beg, work, and sweat to cobble this deal together—their nearly unending selfish demands, their noisy bickering over inane
details, their lousy New York manners—and now, holding ten million of
his
dollars as ransom; well, the thought of suddenly yanking the rug from under
their
feet was exhilarating. What fun.

“That’s right,” Alex said, reading his thoughts. “The only people who will walk away from this richer and happier are the
lawyers and accountants who prepared this deal.”

Eugene wasn’t drunk but he had inhaled enough thick German swill that any ability to think with real clarity was hours behind
him. Alex was right, though. Every word made sense.

After all they’d put him through these past months, if the sharks in New York refused to give him another thirty minutes he’d
tell them all to piss off. Take a flying leap and kiss your own fanny before you hit the floor.

“Please, make the call,” Alex implored him, looking suddenly apologetic. He glanced quickly over his left shoulder: Vladimir
and Katya were eyeing him closely. Once they saw Eugene stabbing numbers into his cell phone, things could instantly turn
ugly. Alex put a hand on Elena’s arm and smiled pleasantly at Eugene. “Excuse me. In all the excitement today, I never had
a chance to use the bathroom.”

Without waiting for an answer he stood and left Elena with Eugene. Eugene’s plump fingers were already stabbing his cell phone.
He couldn’t wait. His only regret was that he couldn’t watch their faces.

Alex approached the table where Katya and Vladimir sat. Both were glowering and trying to look utterly fierce. Why try? They
could be wearing clown suits and sipping pink margaritas through striped straws; they would still smolder with menace. Alex
stared directly at Vladimir and hooked a finger.

Katya was the smart one and he preferred to avoid her: Vladimir did his thinking with his fists and would be easier to fool.
Not easy, but easier.

Vladimir had been watching the heavy American businessman at the table begin dialing numbers into his cell phone, and then—surprise—Alex
standing up! Then walking in his direction! He turned to Katya. She shrugged noncommittally. Did the rich boy have a death
wish? Where did he think he was going? Vladimir quickly pushed away from the table, stood, put a hand on the gun in his rear
waistband, and trailed Alex.

The pair of hired guns by the exit were just lifting their pistols out of their laps when they saw Vladimir following behind
Alex. They decided to sit and wait.

Alex offered a friendly nod as he walked past, then stopped beside a vacant pillar in the massive lobby and allowed Vladimir
to catch up. The lobby, like the restaurant, was sparsely populated—it made it ridiculously easy for Alex to pick out Vladimir’s
people, a tough-looking couple lounging on comfort chairs right beside the entrance, smoking and glowering at anybody who
passed by. And through the glass window, huddled directly beneath a fancy outdoor lantern, stood two more men in black jeans
and black leather jackets. The moment Vladimir reached hearing distance, he hissed at Alex, “What in the hell are you doing?”

“What anybody in my position would do. The man at the table has to make a call to New York. It’s not an option. I wouldn’t
want you to draw the wrong impression.”

Vladimir opened his lips and was on the verge of speaking, but Alex cut him off. “His partners requested a thirty-minute extension.
They want to add a few conditions. It’s not uncommon. I probably should have warned you—antsy investors who come up with last-minute
concerns, demands, and conditions. He’s calling to nail down their issues.”

Vladimir studied Alex. Nervous. Alex was fidgeting with his hands, his knees trembling so badly they were almost knocking
together. Mr. Big Shot: all that money, all those businesses, one of the richest, most powerful men in Russia. Yet here he
stood, nerves shot, ready to crumble. How utterly disappointing. Then again, Vladimir had worked damned hard to incite an
earthquake of nervousness. In fact, he should be more worried if Alex seemed the least bit nonchalant. “If he’s calling the
police,” Vladimir threatened, “he’s arranging your death sentence.”

“That’s exactly why I’m talking to you right now. I knew you’d assume that.”

“Is that right? Well, you’re a bright guy, Konevitch, but don’t think you can outsmart us. The local police will notify us
the instant an alarm goes out about you,” he warned. “There’s no place you can go that we won’t know. No place we won’t catch
you.”

And it was true. During his long decades in the KGB, Sergei Golitsin had collected contacts and stoolies throughout Europe,
all of whom now were struggling to create new lives in a new world, and wanted their dirty pasts as Moscow stooges and finks
erased, buried, or forgotten. A fastidious bureaucrat with lethal instincts, over the decades Golitsin had kept every incriminating
piece of paper he came in contact with. Within hours after he was “retired with prejudice” from the KGB, three large vans
wheeled up in front of his old headquarters and were hurriedly loaded with forty years’ worth of pilfered files. Box after
box. Name after name, enough to fill several city-sized phone books. It was all squirreled away in a clandestine warehouse
a few miles outside Moscow. Golitsin was sitting on enough dirt and compromising material to coerce and blackmail many thousands.

Among the names were the deputy minister for internal security for Hungary, two captains and three senior inspectors in the
Budapest police, all of whom were operating under harsh instructions to notify Golitsin the instant Alex Konevitch’s disappearance,
or death, became an item of police interest.

Vladimir thumped a threatening finger off Alex’s forehead. “You’re way out of your league, boy. The only way out of this is
to get him to sign that money over to us.”

“Believe me, I know that. I just want to survive this and get on with my life.”

From his face and eyes it appeared he did know. Still, Vladimir thought it a good idea to rekindle his memory. With narrowed
eyes he said, “Your pretty bitch will go first. Remember that. You’ll have a moment to watch the blood draining from her head,
to hear her last pitiful breaths. And you’ll know it’s all your fault. Then I’ll kill you, too.”

“I have to get back to the table,” Alex told him, now looking paralyzed with terror.

“You’ve got twenty-five minutes to finish this. Not a second longer.” He pointed at Alex’s watch. “In twenty-five minutes
and one second, I write off the money and start blasting. Now, take a few deep breaths,” Vladimir said, “then get back in
there and get us our money.”

“It worked,” Eugene announced with a triumphal slap on the table the moment Alex returned to the table. The lawyers in New
York, a consortium of legal hit men who smelled an easy ten million for their clients, had yapped and howled a chorus of odious
threats right up to the instant Eugene invoked the sacred Act of God clause. Like that, the curses and bullying died in their
throats. Total silence. After that moment of stunned stillness, suddenly they couldn’t shut up. They talked over themselves
to extend Alex however much time was needed. And how was the poor man’s health? the suddenly compassionate throng wanted to
know. Damn shame about that awful accident, they collectively agreed—they couldn’t have felt more sorry or sincere.

Eugene euphorically snapped his cell phone shut and laid it on the table. “They gave us thirty more minutes to hammer this
thing out.” He took a long congratulatory sip of beer and smacked his lips.

“Do you mind if we order a little food first?” Alex replied, sliding gently into his seat. “We haven’t eaten all day. We’re
famished.”

“No, no, of course,” Eugene replied, feeling regretful once more for putting his friend through this. Then he thought again
of his money, of ten million sailing away to his despised partners. Like that, he got over it.