Jeffery Deaver - Watchlist

The problem was, he only needed one of them.

He had known this day would come, which was why he had bought twins, so he’d always have a back-up, the heir and the spare. But now he had to choose one and he wasn’t sure how. They were doppelgangers and their temperaments were the same, as far as Sikari could tell.

“When did you get home, Father?” Archer asked, his tone casual, and duplicate sets of blue eyes looked at him.

“This morning. You boys were in the gym. Listen, we have a problem.”

“What?” Archer asked.

Harris cocked an eyebrow. “Arch did it,” he said, and the twins laughed, echoing each other.

Sikari smiled, for show. “Listen to me. This is serious. You have been preparing for this day your whole life. You just didn’t know it.”

The two boys fell silent and blinked at exactly the same time, which Sikari found eerie. They’d had their own language as toddlers and he’d always wondered if they were talking about him.

Princess Ida began to peck at Archer’s loafer, but the boy didn’t notice.

Sikari said, “I need one of you to succeed me in the family business, when the time comes. But I need only one of you. I assume you both want to ascend.”

“Of course,” they both answered, and suddenly neither looked over at the other, their gaze fixing on Sikari.

“So how do I choose between you?’”

Archer smiled crookedly. “Whoever can catch Princess Ida gets the job.”

“Great idea!” Harris clapped his hands together, like punctuation at the end of a sentence. “How about it, Father?”

“Ha!” Sikari laughed, and this time it was genuine. They had no idea of the enormity of the position they were vying for. It was like drawing straws to become President of the United States. For some reason, the absurdity of the notion appealed to him. He smiled to himself. “But nobody can catch Princess Ida.”

“I can,” Archer said.

Harris gave him a playful shove. “So can I, you loser.”

Archer’s mouth dropped open. “I’m the one who catches them at night.”

“Not without my help,” Harris shot back.

“Whoever catches her first then,” Sikari said, standing up. He had no better way to choose between them and it may as well be arbitrary. If the twins were that much alike, either would do. He raised his right hand. “When I say ‘Go.’”

Archer and Harris planted their feet in the dirt and bent their knees slightly, a perfect footballer’s stance. The chickens reacted instantly, sensing something afoot. Princess Ida flapped her wings, signaling to the Women’s Chorus, and Peep-Bo and Pitti-Sing clucked loudly, rousing from their dirt baths and scampering around.

“Ready, steady, go!” Sikari said, bringing his hand down.

“On it!” Archer cried, taking off, but Princess Ida ran full tilt toward the chicken coop, with Harris sprinting after them both. The clever hen veered to the left before she reached the little door to the coop, which sent Archer crashing into the wall, and Harris gave chase, bolting after Princess Ida, his legs churning and his arms pinwheeling comically. The speedy hen dodged this way and that, half-running and half-flying from the boys, squawking loudly in alarm and protest, refusing to be caught.

“Go, Ida, go!” Sikari heard himself shout, lost for a moment in the spirit of the contest. It charmed him to see these two strapping young men laughing and running, prime specimens in the fullness of their youth and promise, their golden hair blazing in the sunlight, and Sikari found himself wishing he had been a real parent to them.

“BAWKKK! BAWWKK!” Princess Ida screamed, as the two boys chased her toward Sikari, and he stepped back so they wouldn’t barrel into him. The twins ran neck-and-neck next to each other, their faces alive with the thrill of the battle, and just as Sikari was about to shout again, he noticed Archer’s expression darken as if a storm cloud were passing over his features. In one unexpected movement, Archer raised his right arm and whipped it backwards into Harris’s neck.

“No!” Sikari heard himself cry, and the sound was drowned out by a sickening guttural noise that emanated from Harris’s throat. The boy’s eyes widened in shock, his hands flew reflexively to his crushed Adam’s apple, and bright red blood spurted in an arc from his gaping mouth.

Sikari couldn’t believe his eyes. He was accustomed to violence, but not here, not at home, not now. He couldn’t process what was happening. He watched in horror as Harris crumpled to the ground, his legs bent gro – tesquely under him, his face crashing into the dirt. Instinct drove Sikari to the stricken boy’s side and he threw himself on the ground calling, “Harris, Harris, Harris.” He turned the boy over by the shoulders, but Harris was already dead, his eyes fixed at the sky, his mouth leaking his life’s blood. Cradling Harris, Sikari looked up in shock and bewilderment. Above him stood Archer, with Princess Ida tucked under one arm.

“I win,” Archer said simply, and Sikari found his voice.

“Why?” he asked, hushed.

“Because I’m stronger, smarter and better than him. And because my time has come.”

“But… He was your brother.”

“So? Don’t worry, Father. I can handle the responsibility. I know what’s required of me. I know everything.”

“What? How?” Sikari asked, astonished.

“I’ve been through your papers. I’ve hacked into your computer. I even broke the code on your passwords. I know everything I need to know. You understand what that means?”

Sikari understood, but he went for his holstered Berretta a split-second too late. The last thing he saw was the tip of Archer’s loafer, kicking forward to drive his nose into his brain.

Devras Sikari realized that his successor was now in place and that the new king was smarter, stronger, younger and even more ruthless than the old one.

And as he died, he thought: What have I unleashed upon the world?

Harold Middleton regarded the crumpled butt of Korovin’s Marlboro, mashed into his plate of zakuski , and for some reason it brought to mind Felicia’s rebuke that he too often lacked the time or inclination to look beyond the obvious. He would have very much liked a view beyond the obvious at that moment: Bits of tobacco flecked the pickled onions; the charred aroma of cold ash lingered with the vinegary jolt of stewed beets and smoked herring.

A glance at his watch-what sort of phone call would demand so much time? Perhaps, Middleton thought uneasily, his secret entry into Russia at Domodedovo was no longer secret. Perhaps Korovin was being dragged across the coals by a younger, more officious and less forgiving man, his replacement in Russia’s new intelligence megalith, the FSB.

Then again, maybe poor Ruslan was merely arguing with his wife. Or his lover-and Azerbaijani perhaps, or a sultry Uzbek.

Look beyond the obvious, he reminded himself.

He sank into a guilty humor. Felicia had barely escaped death in London, the cost of her staying at his apartment. How much misfortune can you visit upon a friend, he thought, before the friendship twists into a curse? And what of Charley-hadn’t he inflicted the same jeopardy on her, insisting she join him on this quixotic crusade? What kind of father does that to his daughter?

The questions lifted him from his overstuffed chair and sent him ambling ruminatively toward the window. The distant reaches of Moscow sprawled beneath layers of urban haze fouling an ashen, moonlit sky. His impression of a transformed Russia had vanished. Trash fires dotted the less central reaches of the cityscape, surest testament to the country’s lingering Third World status. The putrid stench of the rancid smoke filtered through the window glass: shoddy glazing, one more relic from the worker’s paradise.