Джеймс Паттерсон: Revenge

Shelley knew they were a hair’s breadth from it ending. Bennett was making a lot of sense. Opposite he could see that Lucy was still out for the count, though perhaps beginning to regain consciousness.

And then it came to him. The truth. The truth that had been staring him in the face all the time. “That’s what you told Dmitry, is it?” he said to Bennett.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You told him that you were taking over as inside man, is that it? That you could add the finesse, give him everything Johnson was promising and more, right?”

Perhaps Bennett suspected where Shelley was going with this. “Shut up, Shelley,” he ordered. But a note of disquiet in his voice was enough to alert the Chechen boss.

“Let him speak,” said Dmitry.

“Because you know what I think, Bennett?” continued Shelley.

“I’m not interested in what you think,” snapped Bennett. “Sergei, we really need to get on with this.”

“I think that you were always the inside man,” said Shelley. “Just that you offered Johnson up as a patsy to grease the wheels and give everyone a fall guy. But you were always there.”

“You’re reaching now, my friend. Straws, meet drowning man.”

“Drake going crazy at the cam house—was that part of the plan?”

“I had no idea he was going to do that.”

“Didn’t hurt the cause, though, did it? Tell me, when did the idea first come to you? When you were investigating Emma’s death? You made the connection with the Chechen Mafia way before the cops, right? You knew there was gold in those hills.”

“Time to stop talking,” said Bennett.

“No,” ordered Dmitry.

“You just needed an ally. Dmitry, did Bennett come to you, or did he go through Sergei? Think back now . . .”

“He came through Sergei,” said Dmitry slowly. His gaze went to his second in command.

“And Sergei, you saw your chance, did you?” said Shelley. “What, to avenge your brother Ivan? To do what he had failed to do and stage a takeover? Karen was on the right lines back there, wasn’t she? Just that you weren’t in the market for a partner.”

“Dmitry, let’s finish this,” called Sergei from across the way. He was struggling with Lucy, a deadweight.

“You see, Dmitry, all that housekeeping back in Millharbour? There’s a bit more to come. And you’re it.”

“Sergei?” said Dmitry. And while the hint of suspicion in his voice encouraged Shelley, it terrified Sergei.

“No, Dmitry,” he said, sounding hurt and slightly panicked at the same time, “this is bullshit. We interrogated Johnson, remember? He said nothing about working with others.”

“Exactly. Don’t listen to him, Dmitry,” chimed in Bennett. “He’s just trying to sow the seeds.”

But Bennett hadn’t witnessed the near coup at Millharbour. Bennett hadn’t heard that note of suspicion in Dmitry’s voice. He didn’t know those seeds had already been sown.

What’s more, Shelley was speaking the truth.

Now he directed himself to Dmitry. “This interrogation of Johnson. Did you ask him about his collaborators when you were torturing him?”

“No, I do not recall that we did,” replied Dmitry slowly, thoughtfully.

“That means nothing,” yelped Sergei indignantly. He was struggling to hold Lucy now. Shelley saw her eyes flicker.

“Come on, this is all smoke and mirrors, you must see what he’s doing, for fuck’s sake,” urged Bennett. “Let’s finish this.”

“ No ,” commanded Dmitry.

“That’s because they wanted you to think he was working alone,” pressed Shelley, “so that Bennett could swoop in with the kidnap idea. That’s how it happened, am I right? Through Sergei again, yes?”

Dmitry nodded.

“Dmitry, this is lies,” pleaded Sergei. The most beautiful sight in the world was the sweat that glistened on his forehead.

“Come on, Dmitry, you can’t seriously believe Bennett just breezed in after Johnson. What did you think was happening? Musical conspirators? You said yourself that Johnson’s plan was short-sighted. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but do you really think he was so stupid that he’d come to you with some half-arsed plan to bag an SAS guy? He was a pathfinder put up to it by Bennett. He did the same thing to his other man, Gurney. They were nothing more than a pair of firewalls thrown up to protect himself and avoid suspicion. Worked a bloody treat as well.”

“This is fiction,” called Bennett, but he sounded unnerved.

“Easy for you to be the hero and go to Johnson when you knew the car wasn’t booby-trapped, wasn’t it?” said Shelley, and then returned his attention to the man on his right. “You’ve been played, Dmitry. We all have. How does it feel? Betrayed by your wife and now by your second in command?”

“This is not true, Dmitry,” said Sergei, his voice taking on a panicked tone.

In the distance was the sound of approaching sirens. The gun battle was only moments old but the cops were already on their way. Armed cops.

Shelley risked a sideways look at Dmitry, and saw the expression on the Chechen’s face, a mixture of anger and betrayal.

But no surprise.

“It is true, Sergei,” said Dmitry. As he spoke he shifted his aim from Shelley to Sergei. “You told Karen that you hated your brother. You told me that you hated your brother; that you had only contempt for his actions in Moscow. But you don’t hate your brother, do you, Sergei? You have his picture in your wallet.”

Over the way, Sergei’s face hardened and Shelley saw where the roots of his deception lay. He thought again of the old masters reusing their canvases. How the past stayed underneath all those layers, yet at some point would make its presence known again.

“Yes, Dmitry, you are right,” said Sergei. He had cast aside all pretense now. “And you were right before. Family is what matters. The Kravizes had their time. Now it is time for the Vinitskys to lead.”

Shelley’s bead on Sergei had never faltered. And so he saw what Dmitry did not: an almost imperceptible sideways movement of Sergei’s eyes as he indicated to Bennett. A movement that said, Kill him. Kill Dmitry.

Shelley’s finger tightened on the trigger, ready, knowing he had to fire before Sergei but also that he had to time it right, he had to be sure Bennett had shifted his aim or he would blow the back of Shelley’s head off.

The moment seemed to hang in time.

And then it happened.

All four weapons crashed together. Only Dmitry failed to find a target, his shot going wide. But Shelley’s round hit Sergei dead center in the forehead, blowing out the back of his head in a welter of blood and skull and brain matter, throwing him backward at the same time, Lucy crumpling safely to the deck. Bennett’s two rounds were clustered at Dmitry’s heart, opening holes in his T-shirt and sending him staggering back before he dropped to the tarmac.

And Sergei’s round hit Shelley.

He felt it like a heavyweight punch to the shoulder and threw out a hand to support himself as he was thrown back, twisting to the side at the same time, landing bodily on the ground.

How badly am I hit? came the thought. But his next instinct was to protect Lucy, and he pulled himself to his knees, raised his SIG to take aim at Bennett. Why hasn’t Bennett opened fire?

And then he saw why. Bennett stood in the same spot, Glock held loosely in his hand. He was looking down on himself to where a dark, gleaming patch of blood was spreading slowly across the groin of his navy suit trousers.

As Shelley watched, Bennett’s legs gave way beneath him, and he, too, sank to his knees so that they faced one another, both wounded by the same round—a round that had passed through Shelley’s shoulder and into Bennett.