Bykov stood behind the apartment door, his Glock G26 subcompact pistol raised shoulder-high, as Kolchin looked through the peephole. “It’s a woman, carrying an attaché case.”
The buzzer rang again.
“Anyone else in sight?” Bykov asked.
“No. But the concierge would have let us know if she brought someone with her.”
“Unless the man had a gun pointed at his head.”
The buzzer rang a third time.
“Let her in.”
Kolchin unlocked the door and opened it. “May I help you, miss?” he said in decent English. His accent was the least heavy of the four of them.
“Your concierge called to tell you that I was on my way up. I have something for you from Mr. Hardy.” She was of medium height and compactly built, but she looked and sounded like a cop.
Bykov nodded, and Kolchin stepped aside to let the woman in.
Once she had cleared the doorway, Bykov pushed the door closed.
Kolchin took the attaché case, handed it to Bykov, then turned the woman around. “Hands on the door, please.”
She did as she was told, and Kolchin quickly and efficiently frisked her, running his hands over and between her breasts, then under her skirt, front and back between her legs.
“Clean,” he said, stepping back.
The woman turned around. “Get your jollies off, asshole?” she asked.
“I’m sure he did,” Bykov said, sticking the pistol in his belt at the small of his back. “Would you care to join us for a drink?”
“No. I was told to wait for you to count the money and acknowledge that it’s correct.”
Bykov handed the case back to Kolchin, who took it to the dining room, opened it, and counted the money. It took several minutes.
“Five hundred thousand,” Kolchin said.
“Photographs?”
“Several, some of which we’ve already seen, but a couple of new ones.”
“You may go now,” Bykov told the woman, and she started to turn. “One question first. Are you a police officer?”
“I used to work with Butch, but that’s been a couple of years now.”
“Fly then, little bird.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I hope to fuck I never see you guys again,” she said, and she left.
“She was sweet,” Kolchin said. “I would have fucked her.”
“You would have fucked a goat if it spread its legs,” Bykov said, as the others laughed.
Bykov phoned Hardy’s private number, and the man answered on the first ring.
“It’s Dugan,” Bykov said.
“Did my courier show up?”
“She just left, and everything is as it should be. Is our subject still there?”
“Yes, but something is going on, and I don’t know how long I can keep her without arousing some suspicion.”
“What something?” Bykov demanded.
“It’s about the program she’s working on. She’s sending it upstairs to management, and there’s a good possibility she won’t be carrying it out of the building.”
“You said it could be contained on a flash drive, is that right?”
“Yes.”
Bykov couldn’t imagine how a man as stupid as Hardy made it through a normal day without getting lost. “Maybe she made two, one bogus and the one she will keep in her possession, the real thing.”
“We’ve considered just that, but whatever the case may be, our deal still stands. I’ll call you when she leaves, hopefully not until lunch, and I want your people to pick her up and dispose of her.”
“Assuming she leaves the building with something damaging to your company, where is she taking it?”
Hardy hesitated for a beat. “I don’t give a shit, because you’re going to stop her.”
“What door will she come out of?”
“Nassau Street,” Hardy said. “Are we clear?”
“Yes,” Bykov said, and he hung up. But the real question in his mind was why were they willing to pay two million dollars to blow up a building, and another million to assassinate a woman? And he was a man who’d never liked unanswered questions.