“This wasn’t your fault,” I assured her. “You did everything you could. The fact you’re even here is a miracle.”
“That is thanks to Anna,” Dinara replied. “She saved my life.”
“What do you suggest we do then?” Anna asked. “Sit here and drink?”
“For tonight,” Feo replied. “We need to find out who we can trust before we do anything. At the moment, that’s no one outside of this building.” He filled a glass and passed it to her. “So you might as well drink.”
He stood up and raised a brimming shot glass to his fellow residents, “Leonid Boykov, vechnaya pamyat,” he announced loudly.
Dinara’s eyes filled anew and she leaned toward me, her voice straining with emotion: “It means let him be remembered forever.”
Everyone in the room stood, and we all raised our glasses. I joined a chorus of voices who all cried out in unison. “Leonid Boykov, vechnaya pamyat.”
Let him be remembered forever.
CHAPTER 81
GOD WATCHES OVER those who are careful, and death stalks those who are not.
Maxim Yenen thought about his instructor’s words as he hurried through the private parking lot beneath his apartment building. He’d bought an entire floor of parking spaces and had filled them with one of Russia’s most extensive car collections. His prized pieces included a Bugatti Royale Kellner Coupe, a Jaguar XKSS, and an Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale, but he rarely used anything other than his Bentley Bentayga. His choice was dictated by his security detail. The Bentley SUV and the Range Rovers his bodyguards used had an imposing presence. According to Diak Nesterov, his head of security, the cars were big, heavy and, particularly in the Bentley’s case, fast.
God watches over those who are careful.
Yenen had heard about the death of Leonid Boykov, who, like so many before him, had fallen at the hand of Veles, a masterful assassin. The public were being told that Jack Morgan was the suspect, but Yenen and a handful of others knew the truth.
Without warning, Yenen’s heart skipped a beat. It happened every now and then, but it had been getting worse recently. Anxiety had been his constant companion ever since he’d metamorphosed from a simple smuggler to a petrochemical oligarch. Of course, in truth he’d never just been a simple smuggler, his life had always been much more complicated. But it had taken on new complexity and risk with every step closer to the Kremlin. The more money he made, the more anxious he became. The more power he acquired, the more trapped he felt.
As they made their way along one of the six aisles that ran between the rows of expensive cars, Yenen looked at the men responsible for keeping him safe. Diak Nesterov, the grim-faced leader of his team, was almost certainly FSB Counterintelligence Service, and Tisha Bobrik, the former weightlifter who’d spoken with Leonid Boykov about past Olympic glories, was likely Military Counterintelligence Directorate. These men weren’t just bodyguards, they were jailers, and their watchful eyes saw everything. Nothing Yenen said or did could escape the Kremlin.
Well, he thought, almost nothing.
The Bentley and Range Rovers were parked halfway along the row nearest the elevators. Miron Sizy, a gaunt, methodical man who was responsible for vehicle security, was using a telescopic sensor to check the underside of the Bentley. There was a flight case of EMF sensors and counter-surveillance equipment at his feet.
“Anything?” Diak asked.
“It’s clear,” Miron replied. “They all are.”
The cars were swept every day, as was Yenen’s apartment, and the elevators. Yenen had no doubt the men were ordered to ignore Kremlin-approved devices, but anyone else who tried to spy on him wouldn’t get very far.
Yenen climbed into the back of the Bentley, and his entourage split between the three vehicles. Tisha drove the Bentley, and Diak rode beside him. Yenen settled into the soft cream leather as the engine purred to life. They rolled toward the metal shutter that secured his floor, the very lowest, from the rest of the building. They drove through the five public levels and turned onto a grey, cloud-covered Mosfilmovskaya Street. As they drove past the magnificent forty-story tower that was Yenen’s home, one of the Range Rovers overtook the Bentley, which was now sandwiched between the two larger vehicles. Even in the gloom of an overcast day, Yenen’s building shone like a monument to success.
It was a twenty-five-minute drive to the Kremlin, where Yenen had been summoned to a meeting with Yevgeny Salko, a director of the SVR, to discuss the threat Private posed. It was a conversation Yenen wasn’t looking forward to. He’d hired Private without realizing the attention the firm would bring.
The convoy was heading north along Mosfilmovskaya Street, a broad four-lane boulevard, and Yenen was rehearsing his conversation with Salko. As they crossed the intersection with Kosygina Street, Yenen became aware of rapid movement to his right. A fourteen-wheel truck careened past a line of traffic waiting at the lights, and smashed into the lead Range Rover.
“Go! Go! Go!” Diak yelled at Tisha.
The former Olympian stepped on the accelerator, and the Bentley shot forward.
Yenen felt sick, and his nausea deepened when he turned to see a large van smash into the trailing Range Rover. The two mangled vehicles crashed into the sidewalk. Both protective vehicles were out of commission, and the Bentley was speeding along Mosfilmovskaya Street alone.
Lines of vehicles dawdled along, their exhausts spewing clouds into the freezing air, but Tisha threaded past them expertly. They weren’t far from Krasnoluzhsky Bridge, where they might be able to lose their pursuers in the heavy traffic on the beltway. Yenen could see the arch of the steel railway bridge against the gray morning sky. If they could get there, they might be safe.
They didn’t make it.
As they shot past the junction with a side road that ran up from the river, a van surged forward and swiped the Bentley. Another van cut across the median and hit Yenen’s SUV from the other side, smashing the Bentley in a sandwich of grinding screeches, awful crunching and shattering glass.
The Bentley came to an abrupt and violent halt, and Yenen’s head hit the back of Diak’s seat. Airbags burst, Yenen’s ears rang and, as the edges of the world were frayed by darkness, he saw a gang of masked men stream from each of the vans.