Private Moscow (Private 15)

“Mr. Yenen, is there something you want to tell us?” Jack asked.

Dinara thought he must have been picking up the same cagey feeling from the man. They were in the presence of someone who was desperately trying not to show how frightened and confused he was.

“I want to tell you to stop your investigation,” Yenen said. He drank from the tumbler. “Scotch,” he added, raising his glass. “Thirty-year-old Glenfarclas. Good for the soul.”

Dinara and Jack exchanged puzzled looks.

“Yes,” Yenen went on. “I want to end the investigation. Shut it down. My lawyer will settle your bill.”

“Mr. Yenen,” Jack began, but the powerful Kremlin insider raised his hand.

“Shut it down, Mr. Morgan, Miss Orlova. Shut down the investigation and close the file.”

CHAPTER 56

I WATCHED THE Russian stagger over to his bodyguards, who quickly surrounded him as he walked toward St. Basil’s Cathedral. The guards were like limbs, extensions of the man and manifestations of his power.

Or the bars of a cage, I thought darkly.

I looked at Dinara, who was equally puzzled. Why did he bring us here to fire us? Here of all places … unless …

I glanced at a group of tourists gathered at the north end of the bridge. Three men and two women busy taking selfies with the brightly lit cathedral in the background. As Maxim Yenen and his entourage passed, the tourists put away their phones and started toward us.

Almost directly opposite us on the other side of the bridge, a middle-aged couple were watching us closely. Every inch of me suddenly came alive with adrenalin.

“We need to get out of here,” I said.

Dinara had spotted them too, and nodded.

We turned around and headed south across the bridge. A trio of drunks came toward us, young men with their arms around each other’s shoulders, singing jovially. But there was something wrong; their movements seemed forced and their slurring artificial.

“You got your gun?” I asked.

“Yes,” Dinara said, and she slipped her hand into her coat pocket.

We walked faster, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw the quintet of selfie-takers had matched our pace. The couple on the other side of the bridge were tracking a few yards behind us. And on came the trio of drunks, their singing growing increasingly loud.

I sensed Dinara’s anxiety, and it magnified my own. I saw her arm shift slightly. She was probably adjusting her grip on her pistol. My breathing grew rapid and shallow and my head was pounding with the rush of blood being pumped by my thundering heart. I took my hands out of my pockets and pressed the fingers of my gloves tight as we drew near the three men. They were ten feet away.

Then five.

One of them glanced at me and I thought I saw a flicker of recognition. I steeled myself for the inevitable confrontation.

But they passed us and kept on going, singing and swaying their way across the bridge. I glanced back and saw the couple had stopped and were looking over the barrier at something in the river. Even the quintet of men and women had halted and were taking selfies in the middle of the bridge.

I looked at Dinara, who was visibly relieved. She shot me a smile and I grinned in reply. We’d let out imaginations run wild.

When we reached the southern end of the bridge, I heard steps behind us and turned to see the trio of drunks sprinting toward us. There was a roar and a screech ahead of us, and a white van came racing along the bridge, and skidded to a halt beside us.

Dinara had her pistol out and trained it at the masked driver, but the side door slid open and another masked man jumped out, brandishing an assault rifle. He pointed the barrel of the gun directly at me. He yelled something in Russian.

“He says he’ll kill you this time,” Dinara translated.

I studied the gunman’s eyes and recognized him as the assassin I’d followed from New York. The man who’d killed Ernie Fisher, Elizabeth Connor and Karl Parker. He was probably also responsible for Robert Carlyle’s death.

I glanced over my shoulder at the trio of drunks who were almost upon us. Behind them, the quintet hurried in our direction, talking into radios. They were all part of what was about to happen to us. Only the middle-aged couple were innocent, and they fled the scene hurriedly.

I heard a familiar hum above us and looked up to see a chopper sweep over St. Basil’s Cathedral and shine its powerful spotlight on us. There was no escaping this. Our instincts had been right