VOLOVOI WATCHED THE IDIOT Nikolai run to the gas station as Bogdan Urzica waited inside the truck.
Perfect, he thought, creeping out from the little garage. Stay where you are, Bogdan. I’ll deal with you in a minute.
Nikolai was making foul noises behind the little building. Volovoi could hear them as he approached the rear wall. The bastard was disgusting, a pig, a waste of space and air, and momentarily, Volovoi wondered how Bogdan Urzica had tolerated the man for so long.
Patience, he decided. Or desperation. Bogdan Urzica had debts with unsavory people, an addiction to underground poker games. He needed the money. The steady work. Driving women for Volovoi was the closest Bogdan Urzica could get to a reputable job.
Still, Volovoi thought, listening to Nikolai cackle as he unleashed another hellacious fart, what a hardship.
Volovoi pulled out his pistol, and circled around the rear of the gas station just as Nikolai hitched his pants up, catching him fumbling with his belt, a stench in the air. Nikolai saw him, grinned wide.
“Andrei,” he said. “How fortunate for us both you didn’t arrive a minute earlier. You may have been scarred for—”
Then he saw the gun.
Volovoi didn’t hesitate. He raised the gun and pulled the trigger, watched the smile fade away from Nikolai’s face.
“Andrei,” Nikolai said, grabbing at his wound. “What are you—” He collapsed to the ground before he could finish the sentence. Volovoi shot him again anyway.
One idiot down, he thought, watching Nikolai gasp and bleed and die in the dirt. One to go.
> > >
BOGDAN HEARD THE FIRST SHOT as he unlocked the false compartment in the back of the box. Heard the second shot a moment later. Felt a sudden relief as the shots echoed briefly, as the silence descended again.
So long, Nikolai Kirilenko, he thought. It wasn’t nice to know you.
The girl’s eyes were wide in the back of the box. “Not to worry,” Bogdan told her. “That was only my partner. He will not bother you anymore.”
The girl didn’t answer. Didn’t move. Bogdan held out his hands. “Come on,” he told her. “Change of scenery. You’ll be going the rest of the way with my friend.”
The girl still didn’t move. She stared at him, a pitiful little wench. Bogdan studied her, the grime on her skin, her filthy, ragged clothing. Really didn’t want to have to carry her.
“Come on,” he said. “Are you going to make me drag you out of there?”
The girl walked slowly to the false door. Bogdan watched her approach. Moved back from the doorway to give her space to walk out.
“Nothing funny,” he told her. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
The girl said nothing. Stepped out of the compartment and into the back of the box. Bogdan turned to the back doors. Then he stopped.
“Andrei,” he said. “Jesus. You scared me.”
Andrei Volovoi stood at the rear of the box. He was a good-sized man, dark, his eyes devoid of humor. In his right hand, he held a pistol. A big one, a .45, from the look of it.
Volovoi said nothing. He looked at the little urchin, then at Bogdan. “This is the girl?” he asked.
“This is the girl,” Bogdan said. “I don’t know what the Dragon wants with her, though. He could get a hundred better-looking girls just by snapping his fingers. Why is this one so special?”
“She’s special, Bogdan, because her sister is in FBI custody,” Volovoi said, watching the girl step down from the box. “She’s special because you let her sister get away.”
Bogdan stepped out of the box and landed beside Volovoi and the girl. His heart was pounding again. His nerves tense. He felt his own pistol in his waistband, ready for the worst-case scenario. Beside him, the little girl’s eyes were wide. She could feel the tension, too.
Bogdan forced a smile. “Anyway,” he said. “Here she is, for the Dragon’s approval. Unharmed, more or less.”
“More or less,” Volovoi repeated. Then he turned toward the gas station, the Escalade parked inside the garage. “Come on.”
Bogdan led the girl across the gravel lot. The girl stumbled; the ground was uneven and rough, no doubt, on her bare feet. Bogdan dragged her, ignored her protests.
Just get me the hell out of here, he thought. Just end this fucking situation and let me go home.
The garage seemed impossibly dark, the light of day making its last stand outside. The Escalade was a void in the middle, a black hole. Volovoi climbed in the driver’s seat, turned the engine over. Idled the big truck halfway out of the garage. Then he stepped out again, the engine still running. Circled back to Bogdan and the girl.
“The passenger seat,” he told Bogdan. “Strap her in good.”
Bogdan pulled the girl forward. The girl whimpered, but she didn’t struggle. She let Bogdan open the door for her, climbed up into the truck. Sat, stone-faced, as Bogdan fumbled with her seat belt, as he tightened it around her.
“There,” he said. “Good enough.”
He straightened, ready to tell Andrei good night and good riddance, tell him he’d dispose of the truck and the box and see him back in New Jersey, maybe ask for some time off before the next shipment arrived. He was already imagining a hot shower, a bed, maybe a girl of his own, hell, maybe a fucking vacation, some beach somewhere. He was ready to forget about the little tramp and about Andrei Volovoi, about the Dragon. Maybe he was even ready to buy a farm somewhere, go back to the simpler life. Who knows? He was free. He could do anything. He—
Then Bogdan heard the click as Volovoi cocked back his hammer.