As she led them down the steps, and they worked their way around the edge of the wine rack, Rachel kept an eye on them. Each one, as they filed through, fell silent, looking at the sleeping family. Rachel watched Peter’s face, for a part of her wondered if she had jumped too quickly to her conclusions, and perhaps the family would be a surprise to him as well. But no—his hardening expression made it clear that this was no surprise at all.
“Are they dead?” Layla asked.
“Asleep.”
Gary rubbed his face. “Who are they?”
“Peter?” Rachel said, turning to him.
She could see that he was angry. Whatever he’d planned for this evening hadn’t involved this moment. He glared at her, chewing the inside of his mouth, then licked his lips and plastered on a false smile. In his right hand, the Colt swung back and forth, but he didn’t raise it. Instead, he began to speak.
“When I came to America, six years ago, I was entranced. The enormity of your country. The bigness. Highways from one end of the continent to the other. The constant whish of planes piercing the clouds. Farms and factories and Hollywood and Silicon Valley. You maybe don’t appreciate it, but coming from where I come from, the size and industry of America took my breath away. There is an American energy that no other country can match.” He looked from face to face, finally settling on Rachel’s. “But then, after the glow had faded, I was able to see why America has all this energy. It’s built on the blood and bones of its willing slaves—because that’s what capitalism makes of the poor. It makes them willing slaves. They spend their whole lives chasing a lie: that one day they, too, will be the ones putting their boots on the necks of the poor. But this is never true, and generation after generation is crushed into the mud to keep that small, elite class of oligarchs living with their private jets and country mansions that Roman emperors would have envied.”
“We know all this,” Rachel said, for his impromptu lecture was nothing new. “We want to know who these people are.”
Peter held up a hand for patience. “Do you think you’re special?” he asked her, then turned to Layla and Gary, both of whom stared dumbly back at him. “Do any of you? Every generation makes the same analysis, because the facts have always been the same. Every generation gets angry—you’re not any more appalled than they were. And every time they rise up capital claims victory and all the fighters for social justice are plowed into the earth. No,” he said, shaking his head. “The one percent will never bow down to peaceful marches and angry editorials. Never in the history of the world has that happened.”
“Who the fuck are they?” Rachel cut in, her face warm.
Peter shot out a hand, pointing directly at her. “The good people give up because they’re human, but money isn’t human. It doesn’t get frustrated or tired or want to just lie down and take a nap. And it knows that people who work for social justice will only go so far, because they have a conscience. Money has no conscience. You know that, Layla—it killed your parents. These people here, they have no conscience. Neither did Rome, and you know who understood that? The Vandals. The boot of Rome was on their neck, and the only way to deal with it was to break that ankle, then the knee, the pelvis, and on up until they were smashing the head of Rome against a rock. Burn it down and sow the land with salt. Make sure it could never rise again.” His finger swiveled until it aimed at the family on the ground. “That,” he said, “is Rome’s ankle.”
Gary, thoughtfully tugging at his fat mustache, said, “Yeah, but who are they?”
“They’re Caesar. They’re Rothschilds. They’re the men behind the curtain who rig every election in this country to make sure you never win.”
“No,” Rachel said, having heard enough. “His name is Grigory Orlov.”
Peter met her gaze, cocked his head, then raised his Colt and fired twice into Grigory Orlov—once in the head, once in the chest. Blood exploded from his skull and shot across the dirt floor. The body convulsed. Rachel’s ears screamed. Gary stumbled back, shouting, “Fuck!” Layla jerked, her own pistol bouncing in her hand, but said nothing.
“He’s not Grigory Orlov anymore,” Peter said. “Your turn, Layla.”
Stunned, Layla stared at him.
“Go on,” Peter said, his voice softer now. “All your life you’ve been working to this moment.”
Slowly, Layla raised her pistol toward the wife, and Rachel stepped instinctively forward. “No, Layla. Give me the gun.” She held out her hand.
“Out of my way,” Layla said, her voice suddenly less druggy and stupid. Energy was flowing back into her.
Rachel blocked the shot with her own body. “Give it to me.”
Layla’s face twisted, as if in pain, and then she unexpectedly screamed: “We have to do this! They can’t keep winning!”
“You don’t even know who they are.”
“I don’t have to! Look at this place—look! How the fuck do you think they got to live in this place?!”
The smell of gunpowder was replaced by the stink of shit as Orlov’s body released its gasses. But Rachel tried to focus. “You don’t know anything about them, Layla. This house probably isn’t even theirs.”
“It’s theirs,” said Peter, his voice cool and even. “These people—they get rich off the backs of people like your parents. Off of poor trash in other countries who can’t defend themselves, who die of dysentery and cancer. That’s why I brought you here, Layla. Because you understand.”
The drugs, Rachel saw, were making it hard for Layla to think clearly, and she knew that she was losing. So she threw herself at Layla’s gun hand, knocking her to the ground. Layla reacted immediately, screaming and kicking, but unlike her, Rachel had been trained in how to disarm a suspect, and she twisted the pistol out of Layla’s grip. But not quickly enough, for Layla’s index finger clawed at the trigger, firing a bullet that exploded from the chamber and ricocheted off the stone walls. They heard a shout from behind them, and as Rachel got to her knee, the Smith & Wesson in her hand, everyone turned to see Gary sitting on the ground, gripping his stomach. Blood gushed out from between his fingers.
Rachel scrambled over to him, found him huffing and twisting, pulling at his pierced gut. Her knees slid on the wet floor as she put her arms around his shoulders, squeezing. There was nothing she could do—the bullet had clearly sliced an artery—but she held on anyway. “Gary, Gary,” she said impotently, listening to his frantic whimpers slowly losing their edge. His wide, teary eyes started to lose their focus. Just a few feet away, Layla was on her knees, mouth agape, horrified.
Beyond her, still on his feet, Peter blinked rapidly, watching Gary die.
Then he said, “Jesus Christ, Rachel. You really know how to fuck things up.”
Rachel went cold—he’d used her real name. Or had she misheard him?
“What?” Layla said, then turned to look back at him. “What are you saying?”
Peter just shook his head, his expression dismal. “We have to finish it now. I’m sorry about Gary, but this has to be done.”
“What?” said Layla.
That was when Rachel looked down to see that Gary had passed away. She let his body slip out of her hands and reached for the gun she’d wrestled from Layla. “No, Peter. Nothing has to be finished.”
Casually, as if it were an afterthought, he raised his Colt and fired twice again. The wife, whose name she would later learn was Jelena, jerked. Head, chest. Professional.
“No!” Layla shouted, trying to climb to her feet. But she was unsteady; she stumbled forward into Peter’s arms.
He caught her and held her up, almost lovingly. Rachel had no way of shooting him without putting a bullet into Layla. Peter seemed to understand this. He locked eyes with Rachel as he spoke into Layla’s ear. “One left, comrade. The littlest one. You do her. She’ll just grow up to be like them. A fat cat corporatist who’ll crush your children into the mud. Go ahead. Save us all.”
Layla, gasping between tears, managed a single syllable: “No.”
“Okay, then,” Peter said, and raised his pistol.