“True,” he says. “Still, indulge me and let me check you for a recording device.”
“A sign of good faith?” I ask. “Cooperation?”
“You could think of it that way.”
“Maybe I’m not feeling cooperative,” I say.
Kutuzov gives me an icy smile. “Victor,” he says.
Before I can ask him what he means, or who the hell Victor is, I hear a thwip pierce the air and the stair immediately below where I’m sitting explodes. I jump up and tumble over to my side. Kutuzov enjoys a good laugh at my expense.
I look back at the place the bullet landed. An inch or two to either side and one of my feet would have been blown off. An inch or two higher and I’d be singing with the Vienna Boys’ Choir.
I look around the Mall. I have no idea where that bullet came from. But the sharpshooter’s marksmanship is unquestionable. Kutuzov has made his point.
Kutuzov, who has remained as still as a statue this entire time, turns and winks at me. “Perhaps now you are feeling cooperative?”
I nod my head and get to my feet, the adrenaline dump now catching up with me. My heart is pounding, and I’m standing here wondering if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. To which the answer is, Absolutely.
“You win,” I say, raising my trembling hands. “Check me for a wire.”
He nods in the direction of the reflecting pool, where a large gentleman suddenly moves toward us.
“My associate will check you,” Kutuzov says as he gets up and walks away.
My pulse rockets in my throat. “Where are you going?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. He just winks at me and bounds down the stairs.
And his “associate” walks up the steps toward me.
I love you, Mother, I whisper, in case they are the last words I ever speak. But he’s not going to kill me, right? Kutuzov wouldn’t have come here personally if they were just going to kill me. Right?
He would’ve just had his sharpshooter, Victor, kill me.
Right?
The man walks up to me and reaches inside his jacket. I hold my breath and savor it. I’ve come to enjoy breathing. I’d like to keep doing it.
He removes a long wand from his jacket. “Please raise your arms,” he says in a thick accent. He reminds me of Drago from Rocky IV, only he’s not as handsome. But he has a similar sense of humor. I’m waiting for him to say, I must break you.
I stand up. He runs the wand over me, with no sound coming back. No hits. No signal coming off me. Then he pats me down for a microphone. I feel like I’m going through airport security in Leningrad. He leaves no corner of my body unchecked. He even checks my prepaid cell phone, which I have turned off. He can search and probe all he wants. He’s not going to find anything.
Because I’m not recording this.
He walks past me up the stairs. I turn and watch him as he pulls back the blue tarp covering the monument and checks behind it.
Once he’s finished back there, he walks back down the stairs, passing me without comment, and gives a curt nod to Alex Kutuzov. Kutuzov then comes back up the stairs and rejoins me.
“Thank you,” he says. “You are quite right. You’d have no sound reason for recording this. But you can understand my concern. I must…exercise discretion.”
I say, “Of course,” like I’m cool. But I’m not. I shouldn’t have come here.
“Now,” says Kutuzov, “we talk business.”
Chapter 103
“You are nervous,” says Alexander Kutuzov. “You are shaking.”
I wish I had a good comeback. That’s what Bruce Willis would do. He’d squint and arch his eyebrows and say something icy smooth. “Icy smooth” would be a good slogan for mint gum. I wish I had some gum right now, because it calms me down. You always seem more at ease when you’re chewing gum.
“I understand the local police are pursuing you with great urgency,” Kutuzov says.
“Yeah, I’m pretty much out of friends,” I say.
“Well, you have one now.” Kutuzov turns to me. “Miss Diana, she warned me that she had stowed away the video for her reporter friend as a measure of insurance. We looked ourselves and could not find it. We knew you were looking for it, too. And so, Benjamin, you were my adversary. And I took measures to…prevent you from obtaining it.”
“‘Measures,’” I say, mimicking him. “You mean like firing machine guns at me? Are those the ‘measures’ you mean, Alex? The ones that killed my friend Ellis Burk and six other law enforcement officers?”
He pats my leg. “You are upset. I understand. And if it helps, I apologize. But we must put such matters in the past. You have won, Benjamin. You have found the video despite my efforts to stop you. For this, I congratulate you.”