Arkov stood at the window, watching the Escalade carrying his father back to Cape May airport move out through the front gates.
As the red taillights vanished into the fog, his mind lingered on a perverted thought. He hoped he’d have the pleasure of dealing with the woman himself. A tingling anticipation coursed through his loins, a feeling that was almost sexual in its intensity.
He’d take a stroll down to the basement and see how Shavik was getting on. Better still, he could watch using the cameras from the privacy of the security room.
He put his hand under his suit jacket, removing the Glock from its holster. He racked the slide, chambering a round, before replacing the weapon.
Then Arkov snapped open his phone and hit the number.
Billy answered on the second ring. “Yeah?”
“Do it. Kill them all.”
• • •
Dobrashin, Arkov’s bodyguard, zipped up his pants, flushed the toilet, and waddled back into the security room.
All 320 pounds of him slumped into the swivel seat and it creaked in protest. He needed to oil that thing, man. A sumo wrestler’s build had certain advantages—like getting instant physical respect—but swivel seats that squeezed your butt like a zit were not on the reward list.
Arms swollen with energy, he reached out to fiddle with the console buttons and scan the screens.
All clear. Every image as it should be. Except one: the guy Shavik, in the basement, talking with the female intruder. He didn’t know what the heck was going on there but it wasn’t his business and he didn’t care.
More than a dozen infrared cameras covered strategic locations both inside and outside the house and he could switch between any of them.
Infrared beams out there in the garden, too.
Anything moved, he’d see it, or if he didn’t, the alarms would sense it and go off. Which was how they caught the woman.
Nobody could get past those beams or cameras, and even if they did they still had to face him. And the Heckler & Koch MP5—a short-barreled machine pistol lying on the console.
Dobrashin reached down and grabbed what looked like a small violin case by the console. He snapped open the catches. Inside was a ukulele.
Fact of life—everybody had a day job and they had a dream.
His dream was to be like that Hawaiian guy with a quivering voice who had a massive hit with “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” Dobrashin wanted to make it onto a show like America’s Got Talent or American Idol. Make it big. Forget the bodyguard stuff; he wanted big bucks, not to get wasted for some rich moron.
Dobrashin’s folks came to the United States when he was three and he played the ukulele since he was eight. He did a pretty good impression of the Hawaiian guy, could hit the high C’s no problem, even modulate his voice to get that quivering sound. Dobrashin started to strum the ukulele, got the song going, pitching his voice high.
Oooo, oooo, oooo . . .
Oooo, oooo, oooo . . .
C, E minor, F, then C.
“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high . . .”
“Hey, that’s pretty good.”
Dobrashin stopped strumming, felt something hard touch his right ear.
He went to turn, and the chair squeaked. He glimpsed a guy dressed in black, black balaclava, Glock in hand.
“Don’t move again. You ever think of playing professionally, son?”
Dobrashin was struck dumb.
“Well, did you?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d give it some serious thought. You’ve got a voice.”
Dobrashin almost said, “Thanks,” but stopped himself.
“I’m looking for a lady. I think she came here. Her car’s parked not far away. You know who I’m talking about?”
Dobrashin nodded.
“Where is she?”
“The basement.”
“Alive?”
Dobrashin’s eyes shifted to the bank of security screens.
Ronnie followed the bodyguard’s gaze, saw Carla seated in a room, another man standing, talking to her. Shavik?
“I guess I’m a little late to change her mind. Is she in any immediate danger?”
Dobrashin shrugged.
“Lay the instrument on the console, and keep those palms down, away from the MP5. Then slowly—and I do mean slowly—bring your hands round behind your back. No tricks, or you’re going to screw up the coroner’s weekend.”
Dobrashin laid down the ukulele. Slowly, deliberately, he put his beefy arms behind his back. He felt a couple of hard plastic ties slip over his wrists and get pulled tight. He couldn’t move his arms.
Duct tape was run tight around his mouth. Dobrashin snorted.
“I’ll take the tape off when I want to ask you some questions, so relax. For now, sit still while I put another set of ties on your ankles. You’re going to get hog-tied, buddy. It’s still a lot better than getting shot . . .”
Dobrashin glimpsed a movement in one of the cameras.
Arkov.
Calmly walking down the hall, heading to the security room.
The intruder behind him was too busy fiddling with the plastic ties to notice the screens because the moment the stout metal security door opened on its return springs and Arkov appeared, the intruder startled.
Dobrashin twisted round in the chair, saw it all unfold.
Arkov, shock registering, wrenching out his gun.
The intruder went to reach for his but didn’t make it in time, Arkov firing first, two rounds smacking into the plaster wall above the intruder’s head.
The intruder moved fast, grabbed Dobrashin’s MP5, rolled on the ground and fired, stitching the walls with rounds, hitting Arkov in the left hand and shoulder.
Arkov staggered back out the way he came, and the return spring slammed the security door shut with a metal clunk, the steel two inches thick.
Then there was only silence and the smell of cordite from spent ammunition, Dobrashin watching the camera screen as a wounded Arkov scurried back down the hall . . .
• • •
Arkov staggered toward the bedroom, knowing exactly what he had to do.
The basement exit route led to the dock, but first he had important things to do. Sweat drenching his face, agonizing pains stabbing his chest and shoulder, he yanked out his cell as he moved, and fingered the number, frantic.
A voice answered. “Felix.”
“It’s Boris. We’re abandoning the nest. We’ll use the boat. You know the plan, stand by to meet us.”
The call took six seconds, and as Arkov ended the conversation he reached the bedroom. Every second counted, all his instincts honed to survival.
He lurched into the walk-in dressing room, tearing away the clothes-laden hangers to get to the safe. A black briefcase lay below it. On a shelf next to him was a loaded MP5.
Blood dripped down his arm where a bullet shattered bone, the pain excruciating, but it didn’t stop him from stabbing at the keypad with a finger.
The safe sprang open.
He grabbed the ledger, the laptop, and the decoder, stashing them in the briefcase.
He hit an alarm button near the wall safe and a high-pitched siren shrieked all over the house. Holding the briefcase under his arm he grabbed the MP5, then stumbled out of the room and down the basement steps, the alarm still sounding, his wounds on fire.
In all, it took him less than forty-seven seconds from the moment he exited the security room.
Shavik already had the basement door open as Arkov staggered down the stairs.
“Get down to the boat, now! We’ve got trouble!”