Christopher Reich - The First Billion

But if Gavallan thought he’d found his trophy, the souvenir of his secret visit, he was mistaken. A marked-up copy of the newest article for the Private Eye-PO’s web page lay crumpled in the trash can by his feet. “Mercury in Mayhem,” it was titled, and it offered a blow-by-blow account of Prosecutor General Baranov’s failed raid on the offices of Mercury Broadband.

That would have done it, thought Gavallan, reading intently. Word that Kirov was under investigation would have proved the straw that broke the camel’s back. And so the victory burger!

“Ah, Ray, you were so close.”

Finished reading, he laid the paper to one side. He had no time to digest, just to collect. Still using the handkerchief, he clicked on the mouse and watched as the parade of galloping Thoroughbreds was replaced by a copy of the same article. Closing the file, he thought of burrowing into the computer’s directory and deleting it. He decided against it. Mercury was what it was. He’d never planned on abetting a fraud. He wouldn’t start by erasing a dead man’s last words.

A bedside clock showed the time as 12:08. His window of safety would close in seven minutes. Abruptly, he rose. Collecting the Russian fax, he laid it on top of Luca’s last article, then folded the papers in half, as was his habit, script side up. That was when he saw it: ten little numbers printed across the top of the page, indicating the phone number of the sending fax machine. Area code 415 for San Francisco, 472—and he knew the rest by heart.

Leave, a voice told him. You can be sick outside.

He had stepped into the corridor outside the bedroom when a door opened and closed. This time there was no mistaking the noise. Footsteps crossed the kitchen floor, squeaking on the checkerboard linoleum. He made out voices. Murmured. Controlled. Guilty.

Gavallan ducked back into the bedroom, eyes desperately seeking a hiding place. Under the bed? Too narrow. Behind the door? Too easy to find. In the closet? He didn’t have time to find anything better. The sliding doors were half open. Five steps and he was inside. Edging into the tight space, he moved as far as he could to one side, maneuvering between neatly hung pants and shirts, jostling a golf bag. Laying his fingertips on the sliding doors, he eased them together, leaving a slim crack through which he could see the room.

The man came in first, big as a linebacker, hair cut to a jarhead’s exacting specifications—high and tight with plenty of whitewalls showing. Military, Gavallan thought, spotting the caged stance, the disciplined posture. The intruder scoped the room, moving immediately to the computer.

“Tatiana,” he called, then issued instructions in what Gavallan took to be Russian.

A young blond girl dashed into the room, her stride as taut as a feline’s. A lioness, to be sure. What else would you call a svelte knockout wielding an automatic with a marksman’s ease?

“Da, Boris,” she answered.

A flash of platinum blond, the wink of gunmetal, and she was gone.

The man named Boris busied himself at Luca’s desk, gathering the day trader’s papers and shoving them into a plastic duffel he’d produced from his pocket, then sitting down and tapping a blizzard of instructions into Luca’s PC. From his hiding place, Gavallan could just about read the windows popping onto the screen, asking Boris if he was sure he wanted to erase the files. A voice inside of him railed and grew frantic. That’s your proof he’s destroying. Your evidence that Kirov manipulated the offering from the beginning, that you weren’t part of the whole damned scheme.

Gavallan found the golf clubs. Sliding a hand from the clubhead to the grip, he selected what he thought was a five-iron and deftly withdrew it from the bag. He was no longer thinking, but acting. Rationality had left him when he’d entered the house. Inching the closet door open, he found his vision framed by a fizzing red tide.

You killed Luca and nine others.

You kidnapped Graf Byrnes.

You’re going to kill him too, if you haven’t already.

Then he was out of the closet, closing the gap between himself and soldier Boris. An eye darted to the door. He could hear Tatiana rummaging through another part of the house. Cocking his wrists, he drew the golf club back, his strength coiling in his arms, his shoulders.

“Hey, Boris.”

“Da?”

He swung as the man swiveled toward him, involuntarily holding back a fraction as the iron connected. The club struck a glancing blow, toppling Boris from the chair. Gavallan ran to the doorway, ready to deliver a like blow to the girl. Behind him, Boris was already rising, a feral groan escaping his bloodied mouth. No way, muttered Gavallan, retreating a step. Hands slick on the leather Fairway grip, he brought the club back for a second shot. Tatiana appeared in the doorway. Her gun was rising, her laser blue eyes focused on Gavallan’s.

“Nyet, Tanya,” called Boris, waving her off. He rushed a few words in Russian that Gavallan took as a caution.

Tatiana inched toward the closet. Boris, a hand assaying his bruised jaw, held his ground next to the desk. Gavallan shifted his eyes from one side of the room to the other, from the lithe blond to the hulking thug. He felt tingly and alert and unafraid.

“You, be calm, okay?” said Boris.

“I’m fine. Why don’t you two just turn around and leave. This is not your home. You shouldn’t be here.” His hands tightened on the club. “Just go… I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

“You, hurt us?” Boris wiped at the blood and drool leaking from his mouth. The bastard was smiling.

And then, the telephone rang, an old-fashioned jangle that in the tense silence practically blew the roof right off the house. Boris’s eyes shot to the phone. Tanya shifted her head. And in that instant, Gavallan moved. Jumping forward, he drove the iron hard into the soldier’s ribs.

“Boris!” screamed the girl as the flat top collapsed to a knee.

Gavallan kept the iron in motion. It rose into the air, then dove in a silver arc, the shaft striking Tanya’s hands, sending the pistol pinwheeling across the carpet. The girl registered no disappointment. Planting her feet, she came out swinging. One fist darted at his head, another at his gut. Gavallan sidestepped the blows, and as the girl’s momentum carried her by him, he dropped the club and drove an elbow into her back. When she rose from the floor, Gavallan had the automatic in his grasp—a Glock 9mm, he now recognized.

“Freeze,” he said, one eye scanning the room for Boris. “Don’t move a mus—”

The blow hit him low in the back, a kidney punch delivered with ferocious verve. He wanted to cry, but no sound escaped him. His body was paralyzed. The cords of his neck flexed, his shoulders bowed, his lips bared over screaming teeth. The whole of his being grimaced with a pain it had never known. He collapsed, first to his knees, then to his chest, his arms and hands ignoring his every reflex to cushion his fall.

He wasn’t sure how long he was unconscious. A minute. Maybe two. Boris stood by the desk, dumping the last of Ray Luca’s papers into his duffel. The computer had been turned off. Tatiana kneeled close by, smelling pleasantly of lilacs and rosewater, the gun once again in her possession. Her head was tilted, and seeing his eyes open, she smiled. “Allo, Mr. Jett.”

Hearing Tatiana speak, Boris abandoned his duties. “I’m sorry, sir, but we will kill you now,” he said, turning toward Gavallan. “Mr. Kirov, he insists. He says to tell you, it is business only.”

“You mean, ‘It’s only business,’” said Gavallan.

Boris shrugged. “My English is not so good as should be.”

Gavallan lifted his head. Watching the blond cock the hammer and level the barrel at his forehead, he felt like a spectator to his own death. He wasn’t frightened; he was too groggy for that, too fatigued by pain. He felt only disappointment, a terrible sense of letting Graf Byrnes down, of sentencing his company to an unknown fate, of allowing life to get the better of him.