CHAPTER 84
Alexander Egorov swallowed the last of his whiskey, his eyes burning.
“When Joseph returns,” Egorov told his sons after the traitor and her accomplice had departed with their product packages, “we will be leaving. Joseph and Natasha will close this house for a while—maybe forever. Bad people will come, so we must be prepared. They are most formidable.”
Egorov asked Natasha for another drink, studying his sons while he waited.
Of course he loved them both, more than anything—when he wasn’t pissed off at them, which was often.
He didn’t think he’d spoiled them after their mother died, but they were soft, probably because of him.
He definitely hadn’t been spoiled when his mother died.
But none of that family history mattered now: He was hard and going to die; they were soft and going to live.
An electronic signal from the front gate broke the silence in the room.
The cargo is about to arrive, the arms dealer thought to himself.
Natasha handed Egorov a fresh glass as Joseph and two of his men entered. They placed a limp body on the floor, its head covered with a black hood, its hands and feet bound.
Egorov took a sip as he surveyed the cargo, then nodded at Joseph to remove the covering.
Joseph pulled the hood off. It was a woman. “This one is Meg Fuller,” Joseph reported, “the intelligence officer for the group.”
“And the others?”
“Taken care of, Mr. Egorov—as you ordered.”