The Take(91)

Voroshin spun on his heel and double-timed it down the hall, punching a code into a security system before disappearing into the vault room where the SVR kept a permanently stocked selection of the world’s major currencies totaling over one hundred million dollars. The money was Borodin’s and Borodin’s alone to allocate, though it was by no means a private slush fund. He must account for every euro, yen, or pound at quarterly reviews led by the president’s much too diligent anticorruption squad.

Borodin paced the room, hands clasped behind his back.

The moment of truth, indeed.

So far all actions taken over the past years to further his private investigation could be ascribed to his official responsibilities. The meticulous, time-consuming assembly of dossiers listing suspicious activities, the interviews with retired agents, the prolonged interest in the pirated legal emails. All were natural activities to be performed by the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service.

This was different.

To take government money of your own volition with the intent to bring down the president constituted an act of high treason, nothing less, and if discovered would be punishable by death, the sentence carried out immediately, a bullet to the back of the head delivered most probably by the president himself.

A sobering thought. Yet such was Borodin’s confidence that he did not for a moment waver in the certainty of his actions.

He checked his watch, preparing to upbraid Voroshin for his lassitude, when the bank teller appeared, lugging a suitcase at his side.

“Ten million euros,” said Voroshin.

Borodin took the suitcase from his hand and left without thanking him.

Kurtz, his deputy, had pulled the car to the rear entrance as commanded. He stood by the open trunk. “Sir,” he said, “there is something you should see.”

“What is it this time? We need to get the money to the airport and transported to France. I don’t have time for anything else.”

“Major Asanova.”

“What about her?”

Kurtz handed Borodin his smartphone. A report from a French news channel was queued up. Borodin shot Kurtz a damning glance, then pressed PLAY. With horror, he listened to a reporter from France 2 describe the mysterious death of a female Russian passenger aboard a TGV from Paris to Marseille following a physical altercation with another passenger. A witness appeared on screen telling of the fight that took place in the dining car between a beautiful blond woman and an unidentified man, acting out how the woman had plunged a pen into her neck and then died gruesomely. The reporter ended by adding that the unidentified passenger with whom the Russian woman had quarreled had disappeared and could not be found.

Borodin returned the phone to his assistant. The unidentified man was an American, of course. Most probably, the one named Riske with an e. Oh, how they must want the letter back to engage in such theatrics aboard a train.

Instead of anger, he felt a sudden lightness of being, the fleeting beatific joy that came from knowing that one was right. The letter was genuine. Absolutely, incontrovertibly genuine.

“Well?” asked Kurtz.

“Take me to the airport.”

“But, sir—”

“I’m going to get that damned thing myself.”

“Out of the question. It was already too much of a risk going to Cyprus.”

“Nonsense.”

Kurtz stepped closer. “People are asking questions.”

Borodin turned on Kurtz. “And I am going to bring them back answers.”

“Not alone. Major Asanova was a formidable asset. Whoever did this—”

“I’ll need a team of five. We have twenty men from Directorate S within three hours of Marseille. Find me the best. And make sure one of them is a decent shot. If Mr. Coluzzi thinks he can toy with me, he is sorely mistaken.”





Chapter 52



It was a drive through the most beautiful landscape on Earth. They made their way south along two-lane roads that rose and fell with the hills and valleys, past vineyards and wheat fields and grand country estates, through towns and hamlets, the air rich with the warm, fertile scent of the earth, the colors a palette of russet tones.

Driving was one of the few activities that relaxed Simon. Often, the faster he drove, the calmer he grew. Today, he made sure to check those instincts. He kept to the speed limit and obeyed every light and stop sign. They were off the radar. He wanted to keep it that way.

Nikki asked him again about his past. This time he told her, joking he had better take the opportunity while he still had it. He told her the real story as he knew it, not the sanitized version he’d grown used to recounting even to those he was close to. It was the truth with the emotions exposed; he was surprised at how raw some still were all these years later.

He told her about the fear and abandonment he’d felt after his father’s suicide, the bottomless well of anger at his not having left a note, the lingering notion that Simon was in some way responsible no matter how much he knew it wasn’t the case. The move to Marseille, the beatings he’d endured at his stepfather’s hand, until one day he’d decided enough was enough and he hit back. The decision to quit school. His first days on the street—un petit voyou—a little thug working the block. His distaste for the drug users he shepherded in and out of the dealers’ lairs, until he started using drugs himself. His move up the food chain to stealing cars, the unbeatable rush of leading a dozen police cars on a two-hour chase through Marseille and the surrounding countryside. No one knew the area as well as he—every street, every alley, every shortcut. No one.