12. Alexei
Alexei
I spend the first week of the voyage south having a serious argument with my conscience.
Staying away from Ofelia will potentially destroy whatever might have started in Paris. Which is what I should do.
Going to see her will, at best, be starting something I’m not at all certain I will be able to see through.
And at worst, it will put Ofelia directly in danger.
It’s the reason I’ve moved slowly. The reason I can’t sit at my laptop for more than half an hour at a time. And it’s sent me into the onboard gym so often that my lifting power would be the envy of a fucking Navy SEAL.
So it’s almost a welcome diversion when we drop anchor several nautical miles offshore from the party island of Ibiza, and Mak’s high-powered speedboat pulls up alongside Quantum Drift.
“Interesting choice of rendezvous,” I greet him as he steps over the railing.
“Never pegged you as a pill-popping raver.” His tall, rangy form is clad, typically, in immaculate linen and designer loafers, with his trademark fedora perched one side of his head.
I swear Mak would be crease-free and fresh as a daisy in the middle of an equatorial jungle.
He probably has been, for that matter. Bastard might dress like he’s just been on the cover of Esquire, but he’s one of the hardest, most dangerous fuckers I know.
“I’ve always liked Ibiza,” he says, shaking my hand and regarding me with the perennial amusement that seems to gleam just beneath the surface of his charcoal eyes.
“It’s full of people who don’t want to be found, which is always interesting.
Negroni,” he tells the steward waiting to take his order.
“I’ve recently spent a hectic few days with Roman,” he says when the drink arrives, raising the extremely alcoholic concoction in my direction.
“And believe me when I say that I’ve earned a decent drink.
” He gives a long-suffering sigh. “The only time I can’t delegate security setups to one of my teams is when it comes to Roman’s children.
And when it comes to setting up a home for his eldest daughter, the man borders on the pathological.
” He pauses, his eyes meeting mine. “Understandable, obviously.” For a moment, we’re both back in a Miami hangar, surrounded by wounded men, with Ofelia lying on a stretcher.
Mak raises his glass to me and we both drink, a silent honoring of those who never made it out of the firefight with the Orlovs that day, and in gratitude for the lives of those who did.
He eyes me over the rim of the glass, taking in my altered appearance and dark sunglasses.
“Interesting hair color,” he murmurs. “And I’m rather sad you’ve ditched the eye patch; I always quite liked it.
On the upside, you’ll definitely keep the gray men on their toes. I almost didn’t recognize you myself.”
“Gray men. Ha.” I pull a beer out of the cooler. “I take it you’ve met John Owens, then.”
“Not exactly.” He gives me an annoyingly cryptic smile. “But we’ll get to that. Before we do”—he pulls a heavy-looking telephone out of his jacket pocket—“your friend Renata needs to talk with you, and she didn’t want the conversation overheard.”
“Renata?” I frown. “How do you know about her?”
Mak lifts a shoulder. “I know people.”
I shake my head. Fucking Mak. “Are there any pies you don’t have a finger in, Tereschenko?”
He gives me a bland smile. “Very few, Petrovsky, and none worth eating.” He hands me the phone. “It’s secure, obviously. She’s expecting your call—just hit number one on speed dial.”
“You do realize I have my own secure line?”
“Ah.” His smile doesn’t change in the slightest. “But mine is always better.”
Unfortunately, knowing Mak’s access to top-level military hardware, he’s probably fucking right.
Walking to the railing on the edge of the deck, I hit the number.
Renata answers on the first ring. “We’ve got a problem,” she says without preamble.
“Just the one?”
“It’s big enough on its own, believe me.” Her tone doesn’t match my levity, so I drop it.
“I’m listening.”
“It seems the FBI have lost interest in our congressman. And when I say lost interest, Lex, I mean they’ve done a complete one-eighty. A week ago I cleaned up that recording so that Hunter’s voice could be clearly heard ordering the hit on Watkins. Took it to the FBI—and guess what?”
“It disappeared.”
“Bingo.”
Owens.
Somehow, I’m not surprised. But until I know more, I still don’t want to mention that particular name to Renata. If—or rather, when—Owens ends up in the swamp, the less she knows, the better.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince. “No recording means no charges against me. I come home, and it’s business as usual.”
And technically, I should be happy about that.
Except I’m not.
I stare over the glittering water at the low blur of the Spanish coastline. My lack of enthusiasm has nothing to do with leaving behind the beautiful view, any more than it does with facing John Owens, congressmen, or the FBI.
It has everything to do with Ofelia Borovsky, who is so fucking close right now I can almost taste her rose-scented skin.
“You’re missing the point, Lex,” Renata is saying on the other end of the line. “Hunter isn’t just off the hook with law enforcement. He’s back in the political game—only this time, it’s not the midterms he’s running for. It’s governor.”
“What the fuck?” Suddenly she has my full attention. “One minute Hunter is headed for prison, and the next he’s running for governor? Even if his own party will swallow it, the Luccheses aren’t going to back a traitor, any more than the Cardenas cartel will.”
“Except there are no Luccheses left in Miami.” Renata’s voice is tight. “All three senior members of the family were found in the Everglades yesterday. Or at least parts of them were.” She pauses. “The bodies were all headless.”
John Owens smiling blandly across the airport table: “We’d also like you to give your backing to Mr. Hunter and persuade your friends, such as the Luccheses, to do the same . . .”
It seems the Luccheses were just as emphatic in declining Owens’s offer as I was.
And headless bodies are Kiril Novikov’s fucking MO.
Owens and Kiril working together is the kind of headache I really don’t fucking need.
“Christ.” I grip the railing in resigned frustration. “It’s been barely a fortnight, and the entire swamp is already oozing through the fucking streets. I’ll get a flight home today.”
“No!” Renata and Mak speak at the same time.
I turn and glare at the latter, who looks typically unfazed.
“Miami is going to hell,” I snap, “and you two want me to sit on my ass drinking cocktails?”
“Hunter will have you arrested the moment you set foot on US soil,” Renata says. “This all looks like you, Lex. Everyone knows you stormed a Lucchese hotel right before you left town. And you’ve made Everglades waste disposal your signature move. You can’t be anywhere near this.”
“When I use the Everglades for waste disposal,” I say coldly, “the waste stays disposed of. This has Kiril Novikov written all over it.”
“It’s possible,” she says. “It’s also possible that’s just what someone wants you to think.
Either way, if you come back, you’re playing right into the hands of whoever is behind this.
And much as it looks like the Novikovs, their operation isn’t big enough to take down three senior members of the Lucchese family. Not without help.”
That’s true enough. Not to mention that normally Dima would have known the moment those boys stepped across the state line—which means it either wasn’t the Novikovs or they have serious help.
“You need to stay put, Lex,” Renata is saying. “The lack of hard evidence linking you to the Luccheses is the only reason there isn’t an Interpol Red Notice out for you already.”
“I’m a lot less worried about a fucking Red Notice,” I say tersely, “than about bodies piling up in my swamp. Not to mention the fuckers who staked out my Paris hotel.”
“Leave the swamp to Dima and me. You and Mak can deal with Paris.” Renata sounds harried.
“I’m only calling you about this in the first place because Dima asked me to.
Hunter and the FBI have your entire operation under a fucking microscope, and until Lars runs in-depth security checks to make sure you haven’t been tapped, Dima didn’t want to risk exposing you. ”
Smart. But not being able to talk to Dima feels like I’ve had a limb cut off.
“Where the fuck did Hunter get the money to run a gubernatorial campaign, anyway?” I snarl. “He’s always relied on backing from organized crime, and criminals don’t like being burned.”
“That’s what I’m trying to work out, Lex.
” I don’t miss the taut frustration in her tone.
“But I’m a marshal, not FBI, and I’m being stonewalled everywhere I turn.
There’s something going on here that doesn’t make sense.
Hunter’s campaign is extremely well funded.
And I mean the kind of money that’s going to be hard to beat. ”
The kind of money that can find me in an airport when I’ve booked under a fake name and then hit me in a Paris hotel only hours later. The kind of money that has a nondescript cream card, a name right out of The Matrix, and a gray fucking suit.
“I can’t just do nothing.” I glare at Mak across the deck, addressing him as well as Renata.
“Nothing is the only thing you can do, at least for now.” Her blunt response is unequivocal.
“As far as the FBI is concerned, you’re currently partying somewhere in the Caribbean.
We need to keep it that way. Stay out of sight and wait for me to contact you.
” There’s a noise in the background. “I have to go,” she says and abruptly cuts the line.
I stare at the phone in my hand. “Fuck,” I say finally.
“It’s not that bad.” Mak still has that same annoying smile on his face. “How long has it been since you took a holiday, Lex?”
My glare deepens. “Is that what this is?”