Kurt remained silent.
“The look in his eyes,” Gregorovich continued. “The look in his eyes as he died. It wasn’t shock. It wasn’t fear. It was pride. For the first time in my life, and the last time in his, I had impressed him.”
Kurt tipped back another shot of vodka. “Why are you telling me this touching family story?”
/> “Because from that day on, I knew who I was,” Gregorovich said coldly. “From that day on, I understood life. It revealed what I was meant to be. An assassin. A killer. It is my gift. I have never failed at an assignment. Never failed to destroy the selected target. It is perfection. I am perfection.”
“Except for Thero,” Kurt guessed.
Gregorovich seemed to brood at the mention of the name.
“Come on,” Kurt said, “it’s not that hard to figure. Thero’s facility was blown to bits. Somehow, he survives, and now Russia ends up on his hit list. It was you guys who blew him up. Seems you got everything except the head of the snake. I’d say you failed pretty badly on that one.”
Gregorovich lunged across the table, his hand blasting the chess pieces all over the room as it plowed through them on the way to the Makarov. He reached the pistol before Kurt could react.
Kurt had made a different choice. His left hand went for the vodka bottle, grabbed it, and smashed it against the bulkhead wall and brought the shattered stub up to Gregorovich’s neck like a blade. It met the Russian’s neck at the very instant the barrel of the Makarov lodged against Kurt’s gut.
The safety was off, Kurt’s liver unprotected. But so was his opponent’s jugular. Either man could have ended the other’s life in a blink, but it was a standoff. If Gregorovich fired, Kurt’s body would convulse, and the jagged glass of the bottle would slice his artery. If Kurt flipped the edge of the glass, he would mortally wound the Russian, but death would not come quick enough to stop the 9mm bullet from blasting through his liver and tearing apart his internal organs.
They stared into each other’s eyes. Two men on the brink.
“In chess they call this blood,” Gregorovich said. “A piece for a piece, an even trade. But our trade wouldn’t be even, would it? End my life and I end yours, but Kirov will have your crew shot before dawn. The pawns you fight desperately to protect will die along with their king. And I sense you have no stomach for that kind of outcome.”
“That may be true,” Kurt said. “But if you kill me, you lose your only chance to find Thero, your only chance to erase your one big failure. And your pride won’t let you give that up. No matter how badly I’ve angered you.”
The Russian began to laugh. “At least we understand each other.”
Gregorovich released the pistol and dropped it into Kurt’s lap. He then pulled slowly away from the glass.
Kurt grabbed the pistol and tossed the broken bottle away.
“I will find and destroy Thero,” Gregorovich said matter-of-factly. “Whether it happens before or after he obliterates Australia, Russia, or the rest of the world matters little to me. I will hunt him down and kill him because it is personal to me. And I will do so if I have to drive every man and woman on this ship to their deaths in the process.”
Kurt nodded. He recognized a modern-day Ahab when he saw one.
“Why would you need to drive your men so hard,” Kurt asked. “Don’t they have the same orders as you?”
“Orders, yes. But they lack my zeal. They’re uneasy and have been since we determined what happened to your ship. Like the men with Columbus, they’re afraid we’re sailing off the edge of the map.”
“So that’s why you gave us the guns,” Kurt said.
“You and your men are quite an effective counterbalance against them,” Gregorovich said. “Now they have something else to worry about beyond getting rid of me.”
“How Machiavellian of you,” Kurt said.
“It’s worked so far,” Gregorovich boasted. “But for how long, I don’t know. Kirov prods them and plots against me. They may find the heart to challenge me yet. If they do, you and your men will certainly die.”
“Or fight for you,” Kurt guessed.
“Odd as that sounds, yes.”
“I guess we’d have no choice,” he said. “The question is: how much time do you think we have until that occurs?”
Gregorovich shook his head. “No,” he said, “that’s not the question. The question is: how far will you go to stop Thero?”
So that was it. Gregorovich was looking for a partner, a blood brother, in his quest for the prey that escaped him. Kurt was up for that, as long as they got there in time.
“To stop Thero from killing millions,” Kurt said. “To the ends of the Earth, if necessary.”