In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(135)

“I was there when your father died,” Hazlett said. “A memorable anatomy lesson. He deserved it, for inconveniencing us. But in the end, Cherchenko’s solution was better than Zhoglo’s.”

“The boats from Africa,” Sveti said.

“Exactly. Perfect test subjects. Undocumented, illegal, invisible. Through Pavel’s Italian mafia contacts, he could broker hundreds of them at a time. All sizes, all ages. So efficient, so smooth. No one noticed, no one talked. The Camorra had the local people well trained.”

“They gave everything they had in the world to get their families away from war and genocide,” Sveti said. “And they found you.”

“Yes, I know their stories are heart wrenching, taken individually. But I console myself by the fact that the Milandra product line will improve cancer outcomes for hundreds of thousands of people, and our compound could pull the teeth of terrorism’s most vicious threat against civilization. That’s worth something, don’t you think?”

“Don’t,” Sveti said faintly. “It’s grotesque when you try to justify it. Be honest about your sadism.”

Hazlett looked affronted. “I’m not sadistic! I simply don’t suffer from the awful torment of empathy, like you do, and thank God for it. You’re a slave to it, Svetlana. It’s just agonizing to watch you suffer. It’s so much simpler to be me. I don’t actively enjoy anyone’s suffering. I simply don’t waste my time on guilt or remorse. I get on with it, see?”

“So you’re a sociopath, then,” she said.

Hazlett made a face. “I don’t like labels,” he replied with distaste. “They’re limiting. Don’t put me in a box. I won’t fit.”

“You’re not even human,” Sveti said. “Not if you can’t feel.”

“Don’t be melodramatic,” he scoffed. “I feel many things! I’m feeling disappointed right now, for instance. Cheated out of what’s rightfully mine. That’s a perfectly valid feeling!”

“Cheated of what?”

His eyes turned soulful. “You. If only you hadn’t made the connections. If you’d been less stubborn, less obsessive, I would have taken you for my lover. Maybe even my wife.”

Renato snorted and rolled his eyes.

Sveti suppressed a burst of bitter laughter. If there was a path through this experience that did not terminate in her grisly death, making this man angry and offended was definitely not on it.

“But I was stubborn,” she said. “I was obsessive. And so?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve suffered this way,” Hazlett confided. “I’m not married, and not because I didn’t want to be. I like intelligent, fascinating women as much as any man, but after a time, they start complaining. They want something that I can’t give them. I could make do with stupid, unperceptive women, or gold diggers, but they bore me. I can’t bear their presence for more than the time it takes to fulfill my biological needs. Then I want them escorted back to wherever they came from. But you would have been different, Svetlana. For you, I could have felt real feelings. We could have had something special.”

He looked like he expected her to mourn what might have been. But she was incapable of playing along with his fantasy, even to save her own skin. “So it’s all about you,” she said. “All the time.”

He looked politely blank. “Who else?”

A pointless discussion if there ever was one, so she abandoned it. “What are the dirty bomb materials for?”

“Oh, that.” Hazlett chuckled. “That was random. Isn’t that funny? This Sword of Cain was not my doing. That was Pavel Cherchenko’s bright idea, foiled by your mother. She certainly got around, I give her that. We knew nothing about it until Pavel told us a few days ago.”

“But . . . then why was he—”

“Presumptuous idiot,” Renato said coldly.

“His plan was to proof his people against radiation with our drug, then set off a dirty bomb and have freedom and leisure to loot and pillage,” Hazlett said. “The idea has merit, in a bestial sort of way.”

“Ridiculous.” Renato spat the words out. “Criminal scum.”

“As you see, Renato does not approve of my plans, but I’m going forward with Pavel’s idea anyway,” Hazlett said. “But a new and improved version, of course. We noticed yesterday as we followed your RF signal that you lingered in the garbage dump in the canyon for over thirty minutes. So we told Josef to pay particular attention to that area. And lo and behold, there was The Sword of Cain. Josef is quite a discovery, by the way. He was the one who told us what happened in Sant’ Orsola. Bold ideas, nerves of steel. A good replacement for Pavel. And thank goodness for someone who can make that bomb for us.”

Sveti’s mouth dangled open. “You’re setting off the bomb? Why?”

He lifted his arms. “Because I can.”

Her mouth worked. “But . . . but that’s crazy!”

“Not at all,” he said calmly. “Anarchic, yes, but Pavel’s unhinged thinking process took him to places that mine had never dared to go. The more I thought about it, the more attractive the idea became. Remember at the gala, when I spoke of my passion for finding those pressure points? This is a nerve center so tender, it will make the whole world jump six feet into the air. It’ll be so entertaining.”