Page 56 of Damaged

He paid for his mistake.

All it took to find him was Brock calling surrounding hotels and asking if a man by his description had checked in. Brock said he was a thief, and his perfect Arabic he’d learned from his time in the special forces helped let the concierge’s guard down.

I close the door slowly and leave Sophia sleeping in silence as I exit the room and board the elevator.

The hotel is silent at this time of night. The lobby is empty, apart from a custodian. I walk out past the driveway to where an old black sedan waits for me.

I get in the back seat. Itsmellsof crime—cigarettes and spent shell casings.

Brock’s behind the wheel, and I sniff out the gunpowder in the air. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

Brock shakes his head as he lets out a plume of smoke. He smokes his cigarette and taps his knee with his index finger to indicate where he put the bullet, and then he puts the car in drive.

Karim knows of this little errand of ours. I asked him if he knew a good place to get rid of a problem, and he dropped me a pin to a bridge south of the city. It’s past the apartment complexes and pyramids and into the solid dark of the desert.

We don’t speak as we drive. It probably would’ve been smart to have some of Karim’s military attachés join us. That way we wouldn’t risk a run-in with any local law enforcement. But I figure if we’re quick, we’ll be fine.

I don’t want to owe Karim a favor when we’re about to buy the artifacts. Plus, he owes me one for not decking his pimpled son when he insulted Sophia.

The bridge he’s sent me to is obviously no thoroughfare, since we must take a series of rugged dirt roads to reach it. When we get there and it’s illuminated in the headlights, I see weeds sprouting from the concrete. Piles of sand have been blown onto it.

“Don’t park on it,” I say, not wanting us to fall through and into the river.

Brock stops the car right where the road meets the bridge and pops the trunk. We both step out, and the first thing I do is look up at the stars.

There must be thousands in this dry, cloudless sky. Stars beyond stars. Endless. It’s the kind of sky that living in New York makes you forget exists.

“Boss?”

“I’m coming,” I say, unhurried, and walk around to the trunk. The Russian is bound. His kneecap is red from where Brock shot him.

“We’re going to take a little walk,” I say. I take a knife from Brock. “Get some stones ready to sink him.”

Brock nods, and I cut this parasite’s ankles free and start to walk him down the bridge. He limps hunched over with his hands tied at the small of his back. He’s slipping in his camouflage Gucci loafers. His suit tail is blowing in the wind.

When we’re in the middle of the bridge with the river below us, I stop and push him against the hip-high railing. It takes everything in me to not plunge the knife through his eye right now. To not uncut his hands to let him try to stop me. To feel the life slowly leave his fingers as they grip feebly at my throat.

“Who are you working for?” I ask in Russian. I put the point of the knife against his bloody kneecap. I let him groan in pain before I slip the gag out of his mouth and ask again.

“Who are you working for?”

Silence.

I do have to give it to these Russians. Most are atheists, yet they’re ready to meet their end with more glee than a Jonestown Kool-Aider.

I’ve learned over the years how to loosen them up, however. “If you tell me and work with me against them, youlive. I won’t offer you money, but if you double-cross them, you get your life.”

The Russian meets my eye, at least I think he does. It’s so dark, I can only see by starlight. “I don’t care if you know my boss or not. Lev Petrov only pays hires who don’t get shot.”

Lev Petrov. The Baltic mob boss. I’ve heard of him, but our paths have never crossed.

“And what was the plan? Why kidnap the girl?”

“We were tipped off that you were buying artifacts in Cairo, but we didn’t know from where. We were to follow your movements and then stake out and rob the place. But Karim’s is too secure. We changed the plan to ransom.”

Thewemakes my heart skip a beat. I look around, like this Russian’s backup could be lurking somewhere in the dark. But it’s not me I’m worried about.

The hotel is secure. No one is breaking into the presidential suite. Still, I have an urge to get this over with and race back as quickly as I can.

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