Chapter 22
“It’s not serious. He’s going to be miserable for a few days or a week, and it will show for a month.”
“What do we do now?”
“You sleep. I want all of us to be rested and alert as soon as possible.”
The three all went upstairs to the bedrooms. As soon as they were gone, she went back to the den where Maxim was sleeping. She shook his shoulder and he blinked his eyes. “Hello, Maxim,” she said in Russian.
He stared at the ceiling, raised his hands intending to rub his eyes, and then winced in the first instant when his fingers touched his skin.
She could see he was remembering what had happened.
He turned his head toward her and looked at the bloody pillow, felt the toilet paper stuck to his skin, and sat up.
Magda said, “What I’d like you to do is go into the bathroom down here and start cleaning yourself up. Try to make yourself look as good as you can, ready to travel.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t really care where you go, but I would think it should be back to Boston.
You’re no use to me looking like this. You remember I picked all of you because you seemed most like Americans and spoke most like Americans?
Now you stand out. People will look at you and remember you.
It will take a week or two before you heal.
If I were you, I would see a doctor right away to make sure your face heals right. ”
“They’ll look at me in the airport here, and on the plane, and at Logan Airport.”
“Then drive. You can take Brian Finlay’s car.
He parked it in the garage, and I took his keys and his gun, so the car is still there.
You can ditch the gun for me on the way to Boston, and have the car chopped for parts after you get there.
” She went into the kitchen, opened the pantry door, reached into a box of crackers, and took out the key fob.
She opened a kitchen cupboard, took the top off a fry pan, and produced the pistol.
She brought them back to the den and set them on the desk where Maxim could see them.
He nodded, stood up, took his suitcase, and walked to the bathroom connected to the small bedroom near the kitchen. In a moment she could hear water running.
Magda thought about whether she should call the Pachan in Boston to tell him what had happened and ask for another man.
After a moment she decided that asking for anything extra was showing weakness.
Without Maxim they would be four—two men in one car, and Magda and one man in the other.
As long as she kept alternating which vor she rode with so they didn’t start thinking of themselves as partners, she would be able to control them. Right now, she was tired.
Eight hours ago, or maybe more recently than that, Magda had been sure she had everything moving along smoothly.
She had Brian Finlay as tame as a pet. He was worth at least a million dollars to his former employer, and she had been practically counting the money.
Now he was gone. This Jane she had been sent to capture had walked straight into the ambush Magda had prepared, sneaked into the house without being noticed, gotten back out again, found Brian Finlay, and vanished with him.
She had also left Maxim’s face looking like he’d been hit with a bat.
Magda had been up the rest of the night chasing hunches based on which directions looked as though they would appeal to a person trying to escape from someone like her.
The whole experience had left her confidence diminished, and that made her feel as though she’d been hit in the face too.
She gathered the bloodied sheets and pillow and stuffed them into a big black plastic trash bag from the kitchen, tied it off, and left it by the back door.
She sat down at the desk in the den and began to search the drawers.
She had given everything a cursory search when she and her men had arrived, but what she had been searching for had been mail or papers that had the name of the woman on them.
When she hadn’t found any of the usual papers, photographs, or anything else of use the first night, she had reluctantly granted the woman respect for maintaining a general void around herself.
That had never made her question the fact that the woman lived here, or used it as a home base.
Magda had been part of the crew who had caught her here before.
That time when the woman had arrived, she had not knocked on the door.
She had opened it with a key, stepped inside, and been dragged to the floor and overpowered by four men and Magda.
This Jane had not received any mail or a newspaper or anything else since Magda and her men had arrived.
It was time to start looking for other ways of learning things.
Was there a key to a post office box hidden somewhere?
Was there a plugged-in cell phone hidden that never rang, but recorded her calls?
Had she been watching her house with pinhole cameras set into walls or shelved books or furniture?
Maxim came out of the bathroom wet-haired and clean-looking, in neat and well-pressed casual clothes. “I’m ready to leave,” he said. “I’m sorry I failed, Magda.”
“We only got set back. Delayed,” she said. “Go get yourself healed. When we have her, I’ll ask the Pachan to give you a chance to hurt her more than she hurt you. How much cash do you have?”
“About a hundred.”
She went to her purse and pulled out two thin sheaves of money. “That’s five hundred in fifties and a thousand in hundreds. It will hold you until Boston. Use some to stop overnight somewhere so you don’t fall asleep on the highway.”
“I will,” Maxim said. “Thank you.” He picked up Brian Finlay’s car keys and his gun, hid the gun in the outer pocket of his suitcase, and went out the kitchen door.
Magda stood a few feet back from the kitchen window and watched him open the garage, pull Brian Finlay’s car out, close the garage door, and then back into the street and drive south toward the road they had taken from Buffalo to get here.
She turned around, walked back to the den, and lay down on the big couch to think.
She took her phone out of her purse and pressed the number of the man who had selected her and freed her for this job, Pavel Obolonsky.
Her phone gave the ring signal and she heard Obolonsky’s voice. “It’s me,” she said. “Do you recognize me?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I just sent Maxim home. He’s driving, so it should take about two days to get there.”
“What for?”
“I brought the crew here, to the place where we caught her last time. A man was already here looking for her, wanting her to help him disappear. Two nights later she arrived at the house in the middle of the night. She ran into Maxim, and at first, she seemed to think he was her fugitive. She didn’t talk, so Maxim didn’t either.
She led him to the basement. She climbed out a little door that opened outward in the stone wall.
He started to follow. When his head and hands were out, she kicked the door shut in his face, locked it from the outside, and got away.
Her fugitive seems to have been aware of what was happening, and he used the time to sneak out a window and join her.
They disappeared before the rest of us woke up to the sound of Maxim shouting in pain, and went after them. ”
“Was Maxim hurt so bad he couldn’t help?”
“He has a broken nose and a big wound on at least one eyebrow. He may also have a broken finger or two. When I looked at him this morning, I realized I have no more use for him. He stands out too much with the bruises and swelling. I can’t use him.”
“Do you want me to send you a replacement?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “Things might take a little bit longer than I had planned, but we’ll find her again.”
“All right,” Obolonsky said. “Let me know when that happens.”
“I will.” She poked the red circle to end the call, and then felt the exhaustion like a weight pushing her back onto the big leather couch.
She had made sure her boss had the self-satisfaction of learning that his confidence in her had been justified.
She had found the woman that so many experienced people—dozens, maybe even hundreds—had hunted with no success, and she had lured her into an ambush.
She’d had to acknowledge to him that her carefully selected crew had failed to spring the trap and capture her, but she had managed to shift the blame for it from her to one of them—the one who was most likely to tell him a story that would be worse for her.
She closed her eyes for a moment and sleep caught her.