Джеймс Паттерсон - Killer Instinct

Quickly, she clocked the exits. The elevator bank, how she and Viktor arrived, along with the stairwell to the right of it. They were at six and nine.

Back at midnight, Viktor was turning off his alarm, tapping a keypad on the wall just inside his door.

“All clear,” he said. “Welcome.”

Elizabeth had faked everything with him up until that point. Walking in, though, her reaction was as real as it gets. “Wow,” she said.

It clearly paid to be an art dealer—and whatever else Viktor Alexandrov was involved in. Never mind the floor-to-ceiling windows and the designer furniture. It was all about the walls in the living room straight ahead. The only things missing were the velvet museum ropes in front of all the paintings. Viktor wasn’t kidding about his apartment doubling as a gallery.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“Yes. But not before the tour,” said Elizabeth.

“Of course.” Viktor took a step toward the living room.

“No. I want to see the whole apartment. Where you eat. Where you work.” She paused. “Where you sleep.”

Viktor liked that. He liked that a lot. Maybe he didn’t need to get her drunk first, after all. “Follow me,” he said.

He began showing her every room of his massive apartment. The kitchen, the dining room, the den that served as his office. Next came his bedroom.

“What are you doing?” asked Elizabeth.

“Changing into something more comfortable,” said Viktor, standing in front of his king-size bed and removing his suit jacket. “Would you like to do the same? You could borrow a robe.”

“Maybe in a little bit,” she said. “When we’re done with the tour.”

“Ah, yes, my artwork,” he said. “I’ll be sure to show you that after.”

“After what?”

Viktor stepped toward Elizabeth, reaching for her shoulder and the strap of her dress. “After this.”

“Not so fast,” she said, putting a hand over his. “If you want to see what’s underneath, you’re going to have to earn it.”

“Earn it?”

“Yes. You heard me.” She cocked her hip, teasing him. “Do you think you’re up for it?”

It was the daily double of male button pushing. The prospect of sex combined with challenging his masculinity. Viktor was suddenly putty in her hands.

“Darling,” he said, “I’m up for anything.”

“Good.” Elizabeth took a step back and peeled a strap off her shoulder. “Follow me.”

Chapter 75

I KEPT staring through the crack of the stairwell door, waiting for Viktor’s door to open. What’s taking so long? Where are you, Elizabeth?

“Any longer and I’ll have to open another bottle of Scotch,” came Julian’s voice in my ear.

“Don’t get hammered on me now,” I whispered. “I need you sharp.”

“Hammered is when I’m at my sharpest, old friend. You know that.”

I did. I also knew it was weird to have Julian inside my head, courtesy of the earpiece he’d given me. It had GPS and cellular built in, too, and it was still no bigger than a raisin. Eat your heart out, Q.

“Should I do something?”

“Like what?” asked Julian.

“I don’t know. Knock on the door maybe.”

“You mean, ruin the whole plan?”

“You got a better idea?”

“Yes, and you’re already doing it,” he said. “Be patient. Elizabeth knows how to take care of herself.”

“I know she does.”

“It’s not weird, in case you’re wondering. Caring about her the way you do.”

“Who said it was weird?” I asked.

“Exactly. You’re just being human.”

Jesus. Julian really was inside my head. I was about to tell him to cut it out when I saw Viktor’s door open. Elizabeth appeared. Alone. Right according to plan. I quickly slipped off my loafers on the stairwell landing and made a beeline to her.

“You’ve got to be quick,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“No. I mean, you need to be really, really quick. I don’t know how much longer I can hold him off. I’m only wearing so much.”

“What does that mean?”

“I told Viktor I’d take something off for every shot of vodka he does. He’s now chilling shot glasses while I’m supposedly in the bathroom.”

I quickly looked her up and down. Two Louboutins, one dress, and whatever was underneath it. She was right; she wasn’t wearing much. “I hope your jewelry counts,” I said.

“And I hope it doesn’t come to that.” She stepped back and pointed. “Down the hall, second door on your left. There’s a laptop on the desk.”

“Wait. Where?”

“Viktor’s office,” she said. “It’s—”

“No, I was talking to Julian,” I explained, pointing to my ear. He was trying to tell me something. Suddenly, I was whipping my head around to look at the elevator.

“What is it?” asked Elizabeth.

“We’ve got company,” I said. “Someone’s coming up.”

“What?”

As soon as the word left her mouth she knew she’d been loud. Way too loud.

“Did you say something, darling?” came Viktor’s voice, calling out to her.

There was no time to think, and only two ways to go. In or out.

Elizabeth decided for me, pulling me inside the apartment. “The office,” she said. “Go!”

Chapter 76

I TOOK off down the hall, racing in my socks so fast I nearly slid right past Viktor’s office. I saw his desk. I saw his laptop. The problem was what I couldn’t see.

“Julian, tell me that’s Viktor’s neighbor in the elevator,” I said.

Julian was more than the voice in my ear. He was also the eyes in the back of my head. Once I told him where Viktor lived he was able to hack the building’s security system by ghosting the IP address of the off-site monitoring company. He could see what every camera could see. The entrance and exits. The lobby and the elevators. Especially the lone elevator that serviced only the penthouse floor.

“No such luck,” said Julian. “It’s not the neighbor.”

The way he said it, I knew it was trouble.

Julian told me who it was the second the doorbell rang. Of all the gin joints in all the towns…

The man who’d paid a visit to me as Benjamin Al-Kazaz was now standing outside Viktor’s apartment. Check that. He was about to be inside the apartment.

I listened as Viktor opened the door and greeted him. I couldn’t make out their conversation all the way down the hall, but they definitely knew each other.

Then suddenly I could hear every word of what they were saying. Along with their footsteps getting closer.

“This way,” said Viktor. “Let’s go into my office.”

I spun in my socks, looking for a place to hide. My heart was pounding, the panic setting in. There was no closet. No bathroom. No balcony. The one couch in the office was perpendicular to the door; I couldn’t duck behind it.

I had only one choice. The curtains.

They were pulled back, bunched and long, the bottoms touching the floor. If they could hide my feet, they could hide the rest of me. Maybe.

Quickly, I slipped behind them doing a vertical limbo. All I could do was stand like a statue and hope that the first thing to see in Viktor’s office wasn’t a man trying to hide behind the curtains.

Don’t swallow. Don’t breathe. Don’t even blink.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” asked Viktor.

Good question. Thankfully, it wasn’t directed at me.

There was a pause—a long pause—before Viktor got a response. The voice was the same as I remembered from my apartment, but the tone was drastically different. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

My gut had told me that Al-Kazaz and the Mudir were one and the same. Whatever doubt I still had disappeared in that very moment. I didn’t need to see him. Hearing him was enough. It was the way he chillingly delivered the line, a simple question. What did you say?