Milo had nearly drifted to sleep in the gloom of the fetid apartment, half dreaming of Leticia’s belief that it was up to them to change the course of history for the better, and his own conviction that neither of them deserved that kind of power, when his ringing phone shocked him awake. It was Alexandra.
No hello or greeting, just “Emergency. Exfil.”
“What?” Milo asked, sitting up. “Why?”
“We just learned Kirill Egorov is dead.”
A chill went through Milo. “How did he…?”
“Unknown. Next flight out will take you to Tripoli. From there you can make New York.”
Milo was on his feet now, snatching his shoulder bag and heading for the door. “Any sign anyone knows about this place?”
“Unknown.”
“Okay,” he said as he stepped into the dark stairwell and slammed the door shut behind himself. “I’ll check in from the airport.” He hung up and trotted down the steps, where he pressed the buzzer to unlock the front door and stepped out into the blazing sunlight that momentarily blinded him. He paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust, and from the hot whiteness he was able to find shapes—a minivan among the cars, an old woman smoking, two men hurrying across the street toward him. Instinctively he turned the other direction, away from them, but faced a chubby white man in a wide-brimmed hat holding up his hands.
“Milo Weaver?” the man asked with a thick Russian accent, and once Milo had made sense of the situation the other two men had reached his side of the street and were stepping up behind him. Unlike the one who spoke, these two men were hard, their poorly fitting suits tight over a padding of hard muscle, not doing much to hide the bulge of shoulder holsters. With a parked car on one side and the old stone building on the other, there was no getting away. “Milo Weaver?” the Russian asked again.
Milo looked past him, to the cracked sidewalk beyond, and felt a rare longing to run.
“Ach!” the Russian said, his hands waving around. “Of course, you do not know who I am, yes?” He held out a hand to shake. “Maxim Vetrov, vice-consul of Russian Federation in Algeria. And now, I am sad to say, acting consul. I have bad news. Esteemed Kirill Egorov is dead by heart attack. Only one hour ago. But before he dies he asks me to keep meeting with you, Mr. Weaver.”
His hand remained in the air between them, and, knowing that the two young goons behind him would be able to outrun him in five seconds, Milo took the hand and shook. “Heart attack?”
“Doctor’s opinion. Kirill was old man. Drinker.”
“He died at the consulate?”
“Home.”
Milo nodded, wondering. Coincidences did exist; they were everywhere. But this one strained credulity. On the very day Egorov was to meet him in order to ask for the kind of protection he could not trust with his own people, he had died. And according to Maxim Vetrov, acting consul, with his last breath Egorov had instructed the people he didn’t trust to come and meet Milo. “So you were with him when he died?”
“In last moment, yes.” Vetrov rubbed his thick hands together. “Kirill, he insist I come here and meet you.”
“What did he say we would discuss?”
A blankness crossed Vetrov’s face, then left it. “He says you tell me. That it is very important secret.”
Then why don’t you get your people to protect him? Milo had asked Egorov.
Your father never would have had to ask that question.
“Listen, Mr. Vetrov, I’m afraid I don’t know anything. Kirill Egorov requested the meeting but didn’t share any details.”
Pursed lips, then: “I do not think you come all the way to this hot place without details.”
“I’m very gullible.”
Vetrov sighed loudly through his nose, shaking his head. “This is stupid,” he said in Russian, then nodded at his men. Milo felt two sets of hard hands grip his arms and pull him back, then off to the right between cars. They were dragging him across the street to a minivan with diplomatic plates. He fought back, but these young men had been trained to grab things and hold them still. They were black belts in it.
Milo said, “I’m a United Nations official. You’d better let me go.”
Maxim Vetrov didn’t seem to care. It was apparent that Vetrov wasn’t your run-of-the-mill diplomat; he was one of many GRU embassy plants, a military intelligence officer who didn’t flinch as he watched his men throw Milo into the backseat of the van and climb in with him. Milo looked at each of their blunted faces, wondering which one he might be able to go through, then heard the sound of shouting.
Outside the driver’s door, three dark-skinned men, their suits tailored a size too big, ran up to Vetrov and spoke rapidly to him. Though it sounded like French, he couldn’t make out their words, but the two men on either side of him looked concerned. The one on his left got out of the minivan to check on it while the one on his right grabbed hold of Milo’s arm with both hands.
After a moment of conversation, Vetrov flashing his diplomatic papers and looking very put out, it was done. Vetrov and his goon stepped aside while a dark mustached man pulled open the door of the van and said in Berber-tinted English, “Mr. Weaver, you will come with us.”
The grip on his arm only tightened.
“Who are you?” Milo asked.
“I am an officer of the Algerian government, and we wish to have a conversation with you.”
Through the window, Vetrov made a sign, and the grip on Milo’s arm finally loosened. Milo got out to join the mustached man, and as they headed for an unmarked car parked in the middle of the street Vetrov said, “Good-bye, Mr. Weaver.” The Russian was trying to look smug, as if all this had been part of his master plan, but he wasn’t pulling it off very well. Kirill Egorov would have done a much better job.