Private Moscow (Private 15)

“Or a target,” I conceded. “Either way, we’ve got to check anything out of the ordinary. Can you take me there?” I asked West.

He nodded.

“I’m going to put you in lockdown, sir,” Underwood said. “Until we know what’s going on.”

“Leonid, alert the Moscow police. Send them to Fisher’s home,” I told the former cop as I got to my feet. “Dinara, you’re coming with us.”

CHAPTER 43

THE PLACE STANK of alcohol, but it was only now that Ernie Fisher registered the full extent of the stench. He was turning over his own apartment, desperately searching for the key that would keep him alive.

You’ve become sloppy, he told himself. All your training, all your discipline lost at the bottom of a bottle.

He’d become a drunk. A functioning one, but a drunk nonetheless. He’d hidden it from the ambassador, but his day job wasn’t that demanding. Not compared to his real work, the task he’d spent decades preparing for.

He needed the key. The key he’d hidden years ago when he’d first come to Moscow and taken the grand tenth-floor apartment overlooking the river. It was the key he’d told himself he’d never need.

Ernie pulled books from his shelves. He’d amassed a collection of political history and theory, but had hardly read any of them. But books helped sell the image, and made people think he was a savvy political operator, a high-flying Ann Arbor alumnus who had his finger on the pulse. He tossed the heavy books on the Persian rug he’d bought in the Novopodrezkovo Market, and for the very first time, he saw it with a stranger’s eyes. It was covered in stains, tiny droplets spilled during his many vodka-infused rants against how unfair life was. The dark reckonings he held with himself in the early hours, when no one but the witches and wolves were around to hear.

You’re losing your mind, he told himself. Lost. Past tense, he thought.

He turned from the shelves to an armoire he’d picked up in an antique store on Year 1905 Street. He pulled out the drawers and emptied the contents everywhere. He’d already wasted so much time and was getting desperate. He’d made a cursory search of the apartment and had given up, telling himself he could break into the safe without the key. But when he’d gone to his little bolthole, he’d found the safe impossible to crack and it had chewed up his drill. He’d returned to his apartment, convinced he’d be walking into the jaws of death, but he’d found nothing out of the ordinary, and had resumed his desperate search for the key.

He got on his hands and knees and rummaged through the contents of the drawers, but there was no sign of the key. Frantic, Ernie sat up, ran his fingers through his hair, and dragged them down his face.

“I wasn’t expecting to find you so easily,” a voice said in English.

The words were like nails on a chalkboard and sent a shiver down Ernie’s spine. He turned to face the speaker, and that’s when he caught sight of it. A flash of brass, the key taped to the underside of one of the compartments that housed the drawers. His heart leaped. That’s where he’d put it all those years ago. He could escape. If he could just get past death’s messenger, he could flee.

The man standing in the doorway wore the dark green urban combat uniform of Russian Special Forces. It was common to see such soldiers around Federation House, but what was uncommon was the ski mask covering his face and the tactical vest protecting his torso. Ernie was surprised not to see a gun in the man’s hand. Instead, he caught the glint of piano wire looped at either end around the man’s gloved hands.

Ernie slowly got to his feet. This man was a trained killer, but so was he.

Older, out of shape, and carrying the weight of drunkenness, he thought.

He was dead either way, but if he fought, at least he’d have a chance, and it was better to die with hope.

“I thought you would have run,” the masked man said. “But then, according to our intelligence reports, you have become ineffective. Careless.”

Ernie felt the embers of pride flare. He was many things, but he wasn’t careless.

You missed your chance to escape because you forgot where you hid the key, he told himself. You’re a drunk. That’s as careless as it gets.

He flushed with embarrassment.

“Will the Ninety-nine claim credit for me?” he asked.

The masked man shook his head. “You are no billionaire, Mr…. What shall we call you?”

“Fisher,” Ernie said.

“Fisher,” the masked man sneered. “You will just be another statistic. A miserable drunk who took his own life. No credit will be claimed.”

The embers of pride rose into a fire of indignation. He would not die here in his own apartment at the hands of this arrogant man.

Ernie rushed at the masked man and launched a side kick at his ribs, but his leg was too slow, and his opponent stepped in and wrapped the piano wire around Ernie’s neck. He tried to get a hand between the coils, but he wasn’t fast enough, and the metal snapped tight and bit into his Adam’s apple. The pain was excruciating, and Ernie fought it with everything he had. His arms and legs flailed wildly, but they found no purchase and slowly the pain gave way to numb realization.

There was a noise in the distance. Raised voices and a crash, but the sounds must have been from the memory of a dream, because nothing in Ernie’s reality changed, and a moment later his world turned completely dark.