The girl was still looking down at her hands. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Florian let a moment pass while he finished filling his glass, then shrugged. “I can’t read your mind, Kylie.”
The girl looked up. “I came to tell you that I’m pregnant.”
Florian did not react. He sipped his wine while keeping his eyes on the girl. “So you’re here for money, then.”
“Maybe I wasn’t clear,” the girl said. “I’m pregnant with your baby. Our daughter.”
“So how much does a good abortion go for these days?”
“Are you even hearing what I’m telling you?”
Florian put down his wine glass and pulled his handset out of his pocket. “Five thousand? Ten thousand?”
The girl gave Florian a disbelieving look. “I want you to listen to me, Florian. I don’t want your money, and I’m not getting an abortion.”
“Look, Kylie, I’m tired and I have a lot of work to do before I can go to bed tonight. Can we please just call this what it is? You’re obviously here to shake me down. People like you don’t accidentally get pregnant by people like me. We both know that. You’re a secretary or an executive assistant or whatever the fuck you call yourselves these days who got knocked up on purpose because you knew it was probably the best opportunity you’d ever have to get someone to marry you, or to pay you a small fortune to keep quiet. You saw a shot and you took it. Good for you. I don’t blame you. I would’ve probably done the same thing if I was in your position. So why not just make this easy on everyone and name your price. How about we agree to an even hundred thousand and I never see you again?”
The girl had grown calm. She regarded Florian carefully. “Actually, there is something I want from you, Florian, but it isn’t money.”
“We’ve already established that I can’t read your mind, Kylie. Spit it out.”
“I know you’re not going to be a father to this baby. That’s not what I want, and that’s not what I’m asking. All I ask of you is that you think about the kind of world that you want to leave behind for your daughter. That’s it.”
“Come on, Kylie. This is bullshit. You’re not having this baby.”
“I am having this baby, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. I’m going to raise her by myself, and you will never see her, hold her, touch her, or talk to her. But you will always know that somewhere out there, you have a child who has absolutely no chance at any kind of opportunity or success with the way the world is today. And someday, with that in the back of your mind, you might just decide to do something about it.”
“And what exactly do you think I can do about it? You think I can just change the way the entire world works because I suddenly feel guilty that my kid can’t get a job, or has to sell her vote to buy something to eat?”
The girl suddenly looked perplexed. “Wait a second. I’m confused. Weren’t you just telling me how incredibly important and powerful you are, and about how you’re going to bless all of humanity by leaving your mark on the world?”
Florian glared at the girl. “You’re goddamn right,” he told her. He moved his glass to his other hand so he could point. “My mark. Not yours, not your baby’s, and sure as hell not the mark of some pathetic washed-up Russian spook. Nobody ever looked out for me when I was a kid, so why should I look out for anyone else? I had to fight for everything I have, so let everyone else fight for what they want. It’s called survival of the fittest, and it’s the only law since the very inception of life on this planet that’s ever meant a goddamn thing.”
“I think you’re actually selling yourself short,” the girl said. “I think you’re capable of doing much bigger things than you even realize.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve always taken the easy way out. It means you just do what everyone expects you to do and what comes easily and naturally to you. Survival of the fittest is easy when you’re the fittest, isn’t it? But maybe someday you’ll decide to actually challenge yourself—to walk away from a fight, or to fight a fight you know you can’t win, or to do something in someone else’s best interests rather than your own. Someday maybe you’ll understand the meaning of the word humanity.”
“Do you really think that just because you refuse to have an abortion, I’m suddenly going to turn into some kind of bleeding heart humanitarian? I’m sorry, but I’m not following your logic.”
“Believe me, no one expects you to become a humanitarian, Florian. But I do think that one day, you could be in a position to change the world. And when that day comes, I want you to remember your baby. Even if you’ve never thought about her before and if you never think of her again for the rest of your life, I want you to think of your daughter right at that moment, and I want you to challenge yourself to do the right thing.”
“Thank you, Kylie. That was truly inspirational. I promise to do my very best to keep all that in mind. In fact, maybe you can needlepoint it for me and frame it and I’ll hang it up in the bathroom. Now if you’re finished, I believe you’re familiar with the exit.”
The girl did not move. “Florian, please,” she said.
“Please what?”
“Please,” she repeated. Her resolution was beginning to falter. “Don’t be like this.”
“Like what? Like the person I am? Like the person you knew I was when you decided to sleep with me? How should I be? Should I be who you want me to be? Should I be who God wants me to be? Should I be like everyone else in the world and pretend to be someone I’m not so I can spend the rest of my life repressed and miserable? Tell me what you think I should do, Kylie. Tell me. Please. I’m dying to know.”
“I don’t know what I want you to do,” the girl said. She looked at him imploringly. “I just don’t want you to send me away.”
“What’s the matter? Are you having second thoughts about the money? Well I’m sorry, but that offer has expired. My new offer is this: you have thirty seconds to get the fuck out of my apartment before I call security.”
The girl looked down at her hands. She was still for a moment and then she shook her head and tears fell into her lap.
“Oh, Christ,” Florian said. “Not the fucking waterworks now.”
The girl did not respond. She crossed her arms and hugged herself and seemed to grow smaller beneath the weight of Florian’s glare. Florian watched her a moment longer and when he spoke again, his tone was milder.
“Kylie, look. I’m sorry. I know I said some shitty things tonight. But the reality is that you’re much better off without me. We both know that. Now come on. Pull yourself together.”
The girl looked up. She wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands and sniffed. She held Florian’s gaze as she got down off her barstool and tentatively approached him. Even with her heels, she looked like a child standing in front of the much larger man, and she reached up and touched his chest through his shirt. Florian looked down at the girl, neither withdrawing nor reciprocating. As the girl slid her arms around him and pushed her body against his, his demeanor began to soften, and when he had relaxed enough, the girl was suddenly behind him. Florian’s wine glass shattered against the concrete floor as she did something to his knees to knock him off balance and cause him to collapse back against her. One of Florian’s hands grasped at the counter beside him while the other searched the air for something else to give him leverage. The girl’s hand struck at the knife block beside her and came back with a long, mottled, Damascus-steel blade. She flipped it around to reverse her grip, and Florian froze when he felt the edge press against his throat.
The girl’s voice was soft and sweet as she spoke into Florian’s ear. “I didn’t come here for money, Florian. I came to deliver a message.”
Florian’s astonishment turned to bitter amusement and he smiled. “Son of a bitch. I should have known. Very well played, Kylie. Although I’m guessing your name isn’t actually Kylie, is it?”
“Good g
uess.”
“So who are you?”
“You’re the genius. You tell me.”
“OK,” Florian said. “I think you’re Hyun Ki, Alexei’s little pet assassin. I think you’re the little slut who killed Nicolas Laroche.”
“What gave me away? Was it the knife?”
“I take it Alexei says hello.”
“Not hello,” the girl said. “Goodbye.”
Florian’s smile vanished and he reached up for her hand, but the blade cut deeper. Blood trickled out from beneath it and ran down into his collar.
“Kylie, please,” Florian said. His breathing was rapid and he closed his eyes. “I mean Ki. Whoever the fuck you are. Please. You don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t? But you just said positive reinforcement doesn’t work on you.” She moved the knife and it bit down closer to his jugular. “So why don’t we try a little fear and pain, instead. Since you weren’t interested in the carrot, let’s give the stick a try.”
“Jesus Christ!” Florian screamed through his teeth. “Ki, please!”
The girl held Florian for another moment, then stepped back and dropped him to the floor. Florian cried out when his hand slid through the shattered glass. As the girl stepped past him toward the door, she slammed the stone handle of the knife down on the counter.
“Just a friendly reminder that we’re watching you,” she said.
“Wait,” Florian said. The girl stopped and turned. Florian pulled a shard of glass from his palm and tossed it down beside him. “I have a message for Alexei, too.”
The girl gave a mocking shrug. “I can’t read your mind, Florian.”
“Do you know what a queen sacrifice is?”
She took a dish towel from a steel rack by the stove and tossed it down to Florian. He caught it with his good hand.
“I wasn’t trained to play board games,” she told him.
“Clearly,” Florian said. He used the counter to pull himself up. His hair had fallen down over his forehead and there was blood on the front of his shirt. “It’s when you sacrifice your most powerful piece on the board in order to gain a tactical advantage—usually to win the entire match.”
“And?”
“Tell Alexei that when the time comes, he needs to stand down.” He wiped the blood from his neck, then held the towel against the opening in his palm. “Tell him if he doesn’t, he’s going to lose everything.”
“I don’t think that’s going to go over very well,” the girl said. “Alexei doesn’t like to lose.”
“That’s the problem,” Florian said. He took a drink directly from the wine bottle, then smiled wildly at the girl. His teeth were red and wine trickled from the corner of his mouth. “Neither do I.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was rainy and still early so the foot traffic in central London was light. Alexei sat at the intersection of Arlington and Piccadilly in the driver’s seat of an old Aston Martin One-77 which had been retrofitted with a hydrogen fuel cell, a first-generation auto-drive system, and an electrostatic air filter which was doing a poor job of containing the smoke from his cigarette. The windshield had at some point been treated with a superhydrophobic vapor which actively repelled the rain so there was no need for wipers. The sky was solid gunmetal gray, and red ran through the wet streets as London’s iconic double-decker buses lumbered by.
Alexei was watching for Atsuko Yoshida. She lived on Down Street and worked at Itsu Sushi a few blocks east, which made Alexei’s position facing north toward Dover ideal for spotting her on her way past. Although he was fairly confident in his ability to predict her route, it had been well over four years since Alexei had seen or even spoken to the girl, so he was a great deal less confident in his ability to recognize her. She was young enough the last time they were together that she would have probably grown up considerably. Her hair could be of any length now, and being a young woman living in central London, she might have adopted any number of various fashions. And if all that wasn’t enough, she would very likely be in a hurry due to the unpleasantness of this morning’s weather.
In addition to studying each pedestrian who passed in front of his car, Alexei used his handset to scan the street. Emma had records of all of his students’ biometrics: fingerprints; DNA sequences; facial, voice, iris, retina, brain wave, and vein patterns; thermographic and olfactive signatures; and, for long-range identification, gait dynamics. Alexei had been trying to locate Atsuko on the street for two days now, and he was almost out of time. He knew that he could find her at work or by breaking into her flat and waiting for her to come home at night after her shift, but those were the two most likely locations to already be under surveillance. He had to make contact with her in a neutral environment—someplace unexpected and impractical to watch for long periods of time. It was critical that Alexei be patient and execute flawlessly since an opportunity like this would almost certainly never present itself again.
Atsuko was one of seven young Japanese women Alexei sent to live in seven different major cities around the world: Beijing, London, Moscow, New York, Paris, Seoul, and Tokyo. Each was set up in her own flat, and each took a job at a nearby Japanese restaurant with a popular sushi bar. The girls were instructed to remain exactly where Alexei had placed them—to keep their jobs, to forfeit all vacation time, and to avoid serious relationships. Most of them would never see or hear from Alexei ever again, and if—after five years—he had not shown up, their lives were their own to do with what they chose. Inside of that five-year window, however, Alexei might appear at absolutely any moment, at which point the chosen girl’s destiny was his alone to dictate.
Alexei lowered his window and flicked his cigarette away from the car. As he was fishing another one from the gold and black box, his handset chimed. It was highlighting a small girl dressed entirely in black, striding through the rain with her hands shoved down to the bottom of her coat pockets. Alexei opened the car door, stepped out onto the wet pavement, and called her name.
The girl stopped. In her face was none of the congenial neutrality that one tries to present to someone they have not yet recognized, nor the joyous bewilderment of unexpectedly running into an old friend or loved one. It was clear that the girl knew instantly who Alexei was as she stood there frozen and expressionless, and that she was struggling to process the implications of his sudden and unexpected appearance. Alexei wondered for a moment if she might continue right on down Piccadilly and force him to stoop to chasing her through the streets.
“Come on,” he called. “Get in.”
The girl looked up and down the street one last time, and only with obvious resignation did she finally approach the car.
She got in on the passenger side and pulled the door shut. Alexei was already back inside. He took his handset down off the dash, touched the screen, and the glass around them dimmed to its maximum opacity.
He turned to the girl beside him and smiled at her. “It’s good to see you, Atsuko,” he said. “It really is. How have you been?”
The girl had chin-length hair with blonde highlights, bangs, and a tiny bit of curl to it. She was wearing black jeans, a short black synthetic leather coat, and a cashmere scarf. Her lips were painted a glossy, ruby red, and the delicate curves of her narrow dark eyes were emphasized with meticulously applied liner. She was looking down at her hands in her lap and Alexei noticed that her nails were short but well manicured—painted the precise shade as her lips.
“Fine, I suppose,” the girl said. “Or at least I was a moment ago.”
Her Queen’s English accent was perfect. The girl’s nanny had been from central London, which is why Alexei had chosen to send Atsuko here. The less the girls stood out, the better.
“You’re not surprised, are you?” Alexei said. “You knew this day was coming, didn’t you?”
“I knew it might come,” the girl said, “but I’d obviously hoped it wouldn’t.”
Alexei nodded. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I’d ho
ped it wouldn’t, too.”
“It’s not,” the girl said quickly. She looked at Alexei and water dripped from the tips of her wavy hair onto her lap. “Why don’t we skip the pleasantries and sentimentality and get right to the point. What do you want from me?”
Alexei reached into his coat, then passed the girl a small black canister. When she got the top off, she lurched back in her seat. Inside was a human thumb.
“What the bloody hell?”
“It’s OK,” Alexei said. “It’s a prosthetic.”
Atsuko glared at Alexei. “You might have warned me.”
Alexei tried not to smile at the girl’s reaction. “I’m sorry.”
“What’s it for?”
“I’m meeting someone for lunch at Itsu tomorrow—someone I need to make a final decision about. I need you to be our server. At the end of the meal, if and only if I ask you for your most expensive bottle of sake, I want you to slip that on over your right thumb and press it hard against the inside of his glass. Then immediately place it back in the canister, seal it, and wash your hands. I’ll come by your apartment tomorrow night to pick it up.”
Atsuko slipped the prosthetic on over her thumb. The size, texture, and shade made it a perfect match. It had clearly been custom fabricated.
“What if I say no?”
Alexei drummed on the steering wheel with his fingers. “You knew going into this that saying no wasn’t an option, Atsuko.”
The girl’s delicate features became defiant. “What if I decide to make it an option?”
Alexei shrugged. “If you say no, then you say no. I’m not going to try to force you to do something you don’t want to do. But I think you’ll help me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because this is your time,” Alexei said. “This may be your chance to change the entire course of human history. The whole thing will be over in no more than a few seconds, but I promise you that this will be the most important and significant thing you do in your entire life.”
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