VOLOVOI PULLED THE BMW to a stop outside the Dragon’s apartment building. Around him, traffic swarmed Park Avenue. Cars and taxis and buses. Police cars. Lots of them, but no sirens, not yet.
Volovoi pulled the BMW to the curb. Stared up at the building, the DuPont, some fancy tower. A hell of a lot nicer than his apartment in Newark, anyway, not that he would ever see the place again. Volovoi figured he would be lucky to see New York again, hell, America. His face was on every news program in the tristate area.
The smart play would be to get out right now. Stay in the BMW and keep driving, get away from Manhattan and just go. Find somewhere quiet to hide until the attention died down, then get out of the country. Nobody would connect him to the BMW, not for a little while. He could put some serious distance between himself and the FBI insects.
He could save himself easily. He just had to keep driving.
Volovoi shut the car off. Pulled out his cell phone and called a contact at the docks. “I need an out,” he said. “Tonight.”
“Give me a moment,” the contact replied. A moment passed, and the contact came back. “The APL Brazil,” he told Volovoi. “Sails midnight for Rotterdam. Good?”
Volovoi checked his watch. A quarter to ten. He would have to hurry, but he could make it.
“I’ll be there,” he said, and ended the call. Then he climbed out of the car.
There were police everywhere. NYPD cruisers, unmarked sedans, FBI Yukons, even a helicopter. They were searching, Volovoi realized. Somehow they’d traced the Dragon here.
Only a fool would stick around.
Volovoi checked his pistol again. Shoved it into his waistband, hidden, and crossed the sidewalk to the DuPont’s front doors, every sense in his head screaming at him to turn around. He didn’t. He couldn’t.
Volovoi knew the Dragon would not rest while he was still alive. He would not forgive his partner’s debts, nor his betrayal. Lloyd was dead. The Manhattan project was ruined. The Dragon would carry the grudge to his grave, and if he couldn’t find Volovoi, he would take out his anger on Volovoi’s family.
Well, so be it. Volovoi would send the Dragon to his grave a little early.
He walked into the DuPont. Slipped past the doorman, who barely looked up from his paperback novel. Entered an open elevator and pressed the button for the Dragon’s floor, checked his pistol again as the doors slid closed, and waited as the elevator slowly climbed skyward.