Page 134 of Kingmakers, Year Four

Send Mikhail and Gendray to the?—

Then Kuzmo comes running down the hallway with two more men. I peer through the slot, watching. I see his look of relief at Borys and Ihor standing guard, at the closed door and empty hall.

“Don’t move from your post!” he orders the soldiers.

“Are they here for him?” Borys says, the nervousness in his voice like a live wire, exposed.

“I don’t know,” Kuzmo says, stiffly. “They could be looking for Marko.”

Marko isn’t here. He received a text message right in the middle of our monthly visit, and he left Kuzmo to handle my phone call to Dom. Kuzmo has been lurking around all evening, which means Marko took the plane or chopper or whatever the fuck they used to get here, leaving Kuzmo with no ride home.

That gives me an idea.

If Sloane is coming, I have no intention of waiting for her in here.

This cell is a bottleneck, the worst possible place for a conflict.

“Kuzmo!” I call. “Bring me your phone. I need to speak to Marko.”

I hear Kuzmo’s boots crunching on the stone floor as he stops pacing, then turns to look in the direction of the cell.

Kuzmo is Marko’s most faithful servant. He’s a good right-hand man: loyal and precise in following instructions.

But at the end of the day, he’s a dog with a master. He responds to authority.

In my most commanding tone, I call out, “He’ll want to take this call. It concerns his daughter.”

Kuzmo hesitates a moment longer, torn between the imperative to never enter my cell, and the possibility that harm might come to Nix Moroz because he didn’t listen to me.

I stay silent.

Then I hear three rapid steps toward my cell, and the grit of stone as Kuzmo leans forward, pressing his eye against the retinal scanner.

The lock clanks open.

“Stand back from the door!” Kuzmo orders. “Don’t fuck with me, Ivan.”

I stand back, calm and quiet as ever. I sit down on the folding chair, allowing Kuzmo to cuff my hands behind my back.

Kuzmo stands in front of me, hisboyevikMykah right next to him with his rifle pointed at my chest.

“Why do you want the phone?” Kuzmo demands. “Do you know who’s in the tunnels?”

“I’ll only speak to Marko,” I say, stubbornly.

Sweat gleams on Kuzmo’s shaved scalp, even in the chilly cell. He doesn’t know whether to face the attackers in the tunnel, stay close to me, or allow this phone call. I think it’s his own desire to hear his boss’s voice that compels him as he pulls out his phone.

All the while, slowly and quietly behind my back, I’m dislocating my thumb.

This is a trick I learned at the age of eighteen. It was much easier to do then, before my fingers thickened and my joints stiffened. I haven’t attempted the maneuver in twenty years. Yet I find I can accomplish it still, with only a popping sound that I disguise by clearing my throat.

Kuzmo’s fingers tremble slightly as he finds Marko’s number. When your men fear you too much, they make stupid choices.

Gripping the steel manacle with the fingers of my left hand, I pull my right hand free, keeping it hidden behind my back.

“Don’t move,” Mykah says, his barrel pointed at my face now. “Don’t even breathe.”

Something funny about all these soldiers and all their guns: I don’t think they’re actually supposed to kill me. Shoot me, maybe. Stop me from escaping, most definitely. But I don’t think Marko wants me to die at any hand but his own.

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