Gatac

  Anne still had the keys to Sean's Mazda, and for a few moments she tried to match up the pros and cons of using it again, but that turned out to be so far from a fair fight even she had to wince a little. No, the Mazda was going to stay here, and if it was to move at all, it'd be to the backlot where fewer curious eyes might fall upon it. For now, it was best to ignore it. Anne climbed into her own car, started the engine and carefully pulled out onto the street to start her journey to the East. Her ride of choice was a Nissan 200SX of indeterminate recent-ish vintage, with a silver coat so matte it could just as well have been gray, sharp angles in the back and about a hundred horses under the hood on a good day, all riding on tires too cheap for a brand name. But it ran and ran and ran and most of all, nobody looked twice at it. The only thing to notice about it would have been the extra antenna sticking out from the rear window, indicating the car kit for her cell phone installed within.

  Twenty minutes of driving and twenty-five minutes of standing in traffic ter, she pulled into one of the lots at John F. Kennedy International and began her stroll to Terminal 3. She was barely on time, but just a few steps in, she had already started thinking about everything. Where was this going? Suppose everything went as she wanted: Sean safe, Ilya backing down, nobody the wiser about her own involvement, and then — what? Just forget about the third man at the deal, about the letter from Boleg's jacket she still hadn't read, about the mother of all loose ends going back to his duty as one of the cops hunting people like her? How could she possibly think, even hope, that any one of those three points would not blow up in her face?

  By the time she sat in the pstic bucket chair of the waiting hall, she still had no good answer. She sat like that for a few minutes, tuning out the announcements, gncing up at the big board of incoming flights: Leningrad (LED), scheduled to nd 6:45 PM. The “On Time” bel shifted to “Now 7:00 PM”.1If you happen to have the Aeroflot 1989 flight schedule memorized, you would of course know that the flight LED-JFK would have been scheduled to arrive at 01:15 PM. I apologize for this grievous inaccuracy. She got up and got a coffee, which was good enough if not cheap enough, took a sip, nearly scalded her tongue, let it sit for five minutes and downed the cup in a few big gulps before she tossed the paper cup into the next bin and sat back down again. She tried to tune in the announcements, distract herself from where her thoughts were going as she sat there, longer and longer with Sean Collins out of her view, and when the board switched to “Arrived”, she almost jumped up out of the chair. It would of course still take a lot more time for disembarking and border control and baggage cim and customs to happen. Even when the first passengers filtered out of the terminal interior into the waiting hall, she was kept waiting.

  “Annichka!” she heard a shout. She mentally smacked herself: she had been looking at all the passengers walking past her. She hadn't thought to look for the nice flight attendant pushing her kinda-sorta little brother Alexander toward her in an airport-issued wheelchair. His smile brought out one of her own, and she walked to meet him. He looked about a year younger than he was, in those teenage years where that distance mattered, with unruly blond hair and his mother's deep blue eyes — to hear his father tell it, anyway.“Kak djeh, Shura?” she said. The attendant smiled and excused herself wordlessly, while the boy awkwardly rose from the chair to embrace Anne. “Welcome home,” she added.“Not a moment too soon, Annie!” Alexander said. “Missed you.”“Missed you, too, Lexi,” Anne whispered, cpping him on the back before letting him sit back down. “How's the knee?”“Better,” Alexander said. “Can we go now?”“Sure,” Anne said.

  She walked around to the back of the wheelchair and grabbed the handles. They were off toward the exit.

  “Is Daddy home?” Alexander asked. “There are some things I need to tell him about Ilya Gavriilovich.”“I think he is,” Anne said, stiffening at the mention of Ilya's name. As if that fire needed any more fuel. “How did you find out anything from the hospital?”“Physical therapy was boring, the streets were a lot more interesting — and the taxis are cheap,” Alexander said. “I snuck out.”“With a leg brace,” Anne added.“Somebody taught me how to be very sneaky,” Alexander said.“Your father will be very proud of you,” Anne said. “So proud that he will ground you until you are 25.”“In that case, let's get some ice cream first,” Alexander said.“An excellent pn,” Anne said. “May I suggest chocote chip?”“A whole tub,” Alexander said.“Better make it two,” Anne said. “Viktor will want some, too.”“Hah!” Alexander burst out. “Is he ever going to stick to that diet?”“That will be the day I go straight,” Anne mused.

  Anne had barely gotten the car onto the Belt Parkway before Alexander restarted their conversation from the passenger seat. That gave them about fifteen minutes before Anne would have to start paying attention to the exit signs again.

  “So,” he said. “Miss me?”“You were gone?” Anne said, trying and failing to keep a straight face before she turned and reached over to tussle his hair, which he futilely tried to dodge. “Of course I missed you, Lexi. Life is no fun without you.”“I can see that,” Alexander said. “What did I miss? Any good movies?”“Oh, there is a nice one for both of us,” Anne said, somehow keeping a straight face. “The Little Mermaid.”“Fuck that!” Alexander ughed. “Is Batman still on?”“I think so,” Anne said.“Then we'll just see that again,” Alexander said. “And what's with your clothes? Did Daddy fire you and you're on your way to a job interview?”“No,” Anne said.“Oh, come on,” Alexander ughed. “Kidding! Rex, Annie. Why are you so tense when I make a joke?”“Is that what that was?” Anne said.“Oh, now you're trying to teach me comedy, too?” Alexander said, still smiling. “Seriously, though, what's going on?”Anne considered her options for a moment. “You are not the only one who's found some dirt on Ilya. There was a deal — weapons from Afghanistan. But there were drugs in the mix, too.” She thought about it for a moment. “Had to drop some bodies. Cops are involved. It's bad.”“What?” Alexander said. “How —”“I hope your father can sort it out,” Anne said.Alexander just shook his head. “How long has it been?”Anne checked her watch. “It has been about eight hours,” she said.“Shit,” Alexander said. “Shit!”

  There were very few people in Huntington Bay who knew what Arkady Arsenovich Ignatyev looked like.

  The Ignatyev mansion wasn't the biggest house in Huntington Bay, but pains had been taken to ensure it was the most intimidating. It sat on a decadent plot, rge enough for any three other mansions in town, with an arrangement of trees around it that surpassed the term grove and was more akin to a woodlet. The house itself was stark, stout walls and small windows, with a thick roof whose dark green tiles gave it the appearance of a turtle's shell. Floodlights along the driveway painted a small corridor of permissible movement for anyone trying to approach; only a rogue would pick any other way and be treated accordingly for it. The front gate had no doorbell. A doorbell was unnecessary, because anything one could want a doorbell for was instead handled by the brothers Szymon and Leonid, two very nice gentlemen in the very nice shed just behind the very thick gate.

  The two gentlemen were very nice to Anne and Alexander, rushing to open the gate for them and wave them through. They had rushed so much, in fact, they had forgotten to button up their jackets when standing up, and when they ran those jackets billowed open, showing off the leather straps that held their slick Polish machine pistols2The PM-63 RAK is an excellent example of the ‘machine pistol’ category, sitting between self-loading pistols and submachine guns in size and capability. It’s just about compact enough for a shoulder holster, but has a folding foregrip and an extending wire stock to stabilize it for burst fire at short ranges.For a more modern and photogenic take on the concept, see Heckler & Koch’s MP7. in constant reach. Anne gave them a curt nod and drove onto the estate, up the long, bright driveway and to the loop it did around a small fountain in front of the mansion proper. Anne pulled to a stop on the gravel there to clear the road. She'd barely gotten to the back of her car to retrieve Alexander's cane when he climbed out of the car, standing on wobbly feet — but standing — with his eyes locked at the mansion's second floor, where he imagined his father still elbow-deep in work. When the front door opened and revealed Viktor as the first to greet Alexander, the boy was therefore not surprised — which is not to say he wasn't happy.

  “Ah, Alexander,” Viktor said. Though easily as intimidating as the gentlemen at the gate given the right circumstances, his early onset hair loss and slight pudge were disarming, and he'd always had a more sincere smile than most, which served him well in his duties. “Tell me of your knee.”“Much better,” Alexander answered. “It's good to see you, uncle. We brought ice cream.”“Oh, that's good for you two,” Viktor said, looking to Anne as the smile faded from his eyes.“For you, too,” Alexander smirked.“Oh, not for me,” Viktor said. “I already had dinner.”“Then you're going to have dessert,” Alexander said.“What was the main course?” Anne asked.“Pelmeni,” Viktor admitted. “Without meat!” he added quickly.“But with cream?” Alexander poked.“Of course,” Viktor said. “I am a human being, after all.”

  Anne felt her own stomach rumble in sympathy.

  “Did you leave any?” she asked. “I bet Lexi could eat some — so could I, for that matter.”“Blech,” Alexander said. “I've got blini and pirozhki coming out of my ears. Can't we order a pizza?”“Oh, that won't do,” Viktor said. “Come, Lexi. You've just forgotten what good Russian food is like.”“Okaaaaay,” Alexander said. “But I want fried pelmeni, none of this boiling bullshit.”“Watch your nguage,” Viktor said.“Why?” Alexander said. “I'm the son of a Thief. I’m almost one myself. And Thieves talk like that.”“A Thief,” Viktor said, cpping the boy on the shoulder. “Ah, well, you're no kid anymore, Alexander Arkadyevich. I think it is alright. We will see if your father will have dinner with all of us, to catch up.”“Actually,” Anne cut in, “I will go ask him. You two go ahead and get set up in the kitchen.”“Aw!” Alexander said. “He's going to make me knead the dough!”“A proper man is a cook,” Viktor said.“A proper man is a cook!” Alexander aped. “A proper man is a tailor! A proper man is a mechanic!”Viktor smiled at that. “I see the lesson is getting through,” he said and turned back to Anne. “Come talk to me afterwards,” he told her.“I can fill you in,” Alexander said. “Ilya Gavriilovich is stepping out of line. I thought I found out early enough, but according to Annie, he's already making his move here.”The rest of Viktor's smile faltered. “You should not have told Alexander this. There is no sense in making him worried on the day of his return.”“He would have found out anyway,” Anne said. “He is the son of a Thief,” she added.“So he is,” Viktor said. “More of that ter! Now, we cook.”

  Anne had never quite gotten over the feeling of walking up these stairs the first time, so it always came back to her whenever she came up here. Maybe it was a slight draft, maybe the colder air, or maybe it was the silence — the second floor of the house was Arkady's domain, off-limits to all but his family and inner circle, and Anne knew exactly how rare and fragile her inclusion was. She walked up to the door of his private office, one hand running through her hair to slick it back, another checking her clothes. As ready as she was ever going to be, she stopped before the door, took a breath and knocked.

  “Come in,” Arkady coughed.

  Anne pushed the door open. It made a nice, gentle groan as it moved, suggesting a certain noble vintage instead of a mere pedestrian ck of grease in the hinges. Arkady's office was a spacious affair, with an oak desk in the middle, a bookcase for the essentials on one side, a row of file cabinets on the other, and a wide dispy cabinet behind it. Having already spent what he could on the mansion and the family and the soldiers, Arkady had proceeded to plow the surplus into collecting swords for dispy. The collection filled a gss case that easily dwarfed him, though this was no extraordinary feat. Arkady was a small, thin man, only a few years short of being outgrown by his son, with sunken eyes, a nose like a long knife and the tattoos on his neck to match. He waved her inside, which was all the greeting either would give to the other.

  “I need to know what happened at the warehouse, Anne,” Arkady said. “They say this cop Sean Collins killed Ilya's men.”“I killed them,” Anne said, standing up straight. ”Berkovitz and Collins witnessed it. I used the cop's gun and the two agreed Collins should take credit for it. As far as anyone else knows, I was never there.”Arkady tapped his fingers on the desk. “You had no sanction,” he said. “I trust your reason was good.”“They were not just moving weapons, but cocaine as well,” Anne said.“Which you could not have determined before you moved to kill them,” Arkady said.“I was sure when I drew on them,” Anne said.“You always are,” Arkady said. “But you have made this move outside the Law. If the council ever finds out, I will not be able to protect you. This is your problem and I expect you to take care of it.”“Yes, boss,” Anne said.Arkady nodded. “Let us examine the pieces,” he said. “Report on the cop Sean Collins.”“At the safehouse, with Mikhail,” Anne said.“Berkovitz, then,” Arkady said.“I don't know,” Anne said. “I was focused on keeping Collins alive. Ilya already sent one of his torpedoes after him.”“Kyrill would be the logical choice,” Arkady said, getting a nod from Anne. “I trust you dealt with him efficiently.”“He is still alive, but in critical condition,” Anne said. “Collins insisted we get him medical help. Dolr is skeptical he will regain consciousness, though.”“He will not identify you, either, and it must be assumed his condition was the work of the cop Collins, too,” Arkady said. “The council will not like this expnation. Mr. Dolzhikov will not like this expnation, either.”“It does seem to stretch credibility,” Anne said.“You managed to convince him of your skill, after all,” Arkady said. “It is not unreasonable we should run into another cowboy in America. I have often counseled them to be more careful and I will take no pleasure in being correct in this.”Anne bit her lip. “Whatever Mr. Dolzhikov has come to learn about me does not apply to Collins,” she said. “Someone who could defeat three men at the warehouse might just be good enough to handle Kyrill as well, that is true, yet who would believe a random cop could do it?”“So he cannot be a random cop and I must merely figure out what makes him special before I report,” Arkady said. He leaned back in his chair. “I see this outcome does not satisfy you, either,” he said.“I don’t think we should lie to Mr. Dolzhikov,” Anne said.“A logical extrapotion from an unfortunately slight pick of facts is not a lie,” Arkady said. “In any event, it is imperative that the cop Collins does not get in the way of our expnation. Handle him as you see fit.”“Yes, boss,” Anne said. “Collins aside, I am concerned about whether Berkovitz will keep quiet.”“Berkovitz knows not to cross us,” Arkady said.“And Sebastian Reid?” Anne asked.“We should get our story straight with Mr. Dolzhikov first,” Arkady said. “Reid is a more reasonable man. He will accept that he got what he paid for, as long as we can keep the situation from escating further. I assume your assessment is simir.”“Yes, boss,” Anne said.Arkady waved in her direction, but Anne stood her ground. “You are dismissed,” Arkady said.“Boss,” Anne said, “what are we going to do about Ilya Sidorov? If he is a traitor —”“That is not for you to worry about,” Arkady said, with that smile she had come to hate. “Thieves' business.”“Yes, boss,” Anne said.

  Still, she hesitated. True, it had only been a few hours. But was this how she was going to go about it? Let Collins take the bme, let Ilya get away with whatever he was trying to do, simply sit at the sidelines and let Arkady count the money for another assignment completed? Staring at Arkady was not going to answer those questions, so instead she gnced at the swords behind him.

  “Do not torture yourself with impossibilities, Annie,” Arkady said. “Even if what you are did not exclude you, who you are would see you come to a bad end. You would see Mr. Dolzhikov’s cruelty in full.”“You believe I would not be able to suffer it,” Anne said.Arkady chuckled. “No,” he said. “I believe you would not suffer it for long.”

  Anne left without another word.

  When Viktor grabbed the wicker basket from the kitchen counter, the remaining button mushrooms in it shivered. Their time had come. First, Viktor gently brushed them, giving them one st taste of tenderness, but when they were clean, the knife came for them. Slice and slice and chop chop chop Viktor went. The onions were not spared, either: chop chop chop. Soon they all went into the skillet with just a thin film of oil. Satisfied with his end of the job, Viktor turned to Alexander, who had sat on chair with a stainless steel bowl in his p and was wrist-deep in the dough, adding some grunts to his every kneading move, but if he was fishing for pity from his father's right-hand man, he was not having a lot of success with it.

  “Keep your rhythm,” Viktor said. “You need to get all the lumps out before you roll it.”“That's easy for you to say, uncle,” Alexander said between grunts.“Practice makes perfect,” Viktor replied with a smile. “Keep at it.”

  Viktor turned when he heard footsteps coming down the hall toward the kitchen; the rhythm was unmistakably that of Anne, one of those rare times when she wanted to be heard. By the time she walked in, he had agitated the skillet, turned down the heat a little and turned around to face her.

  “Arkady has been deyed,” Viktor guessed.Anne shook her head. “Thieves' business,” she said. “It is all Thieves' business.”“Yes, it is,” Viktor said. “Your expression…he did not —”“No,” Anne cut in. “No, nothing like that.” She sighed. “The Lord had a pn when he made me who I am. I just wish I knew what it was.”“It’s not God putting you through that nonsense,” Alexander said, punching the dough down. “Unless father’s scheming for that chair, too.”That earned him a snort from Viktor, who rolled up his left sleeve. The tattoos on his knuckles and the back of his hand continued up his arm, stretching still further underneath the white cotton fabric. “You do not believe this is nonsense,” Viktor said. “These are our traditions you are speaking of, Alexander Arkadyevich. Men bleed and die for what they mean. Curse if you want to, but you were raised better than to disrespect them.”“Anne deserves the same respect,” Alexander said. “A bck woman does better work than a dozen white men. The traditions say I shit on her and drink with them. That is nonsense. I say, if you do the work and do it well, you are fit to become a Thief.”“That is not the way,” Viktor said, but his stern gaze turned to Anne instead.“And you know I respect that,” Anne said, earning a nod from Viktor. “This is not a question of justice. It has never been. What matters to me is protecting you all and doing it well.” She looked to Alexander. “Listen to Viktor, Lexi. It is what it is.”“Which is nonsense,” Alexander said.“Don't forget the dough,” Viktor said. A quick gnce at the skillet showed the onions with a green-yellow translucent sheen, while the once white mushrooms were now a light brown color; he pulled the skillet off the stove, put it to the side on an unused burner and put a lid on it. “You don't know how difficult it has been for your father to employ Anne at all.”“I was about your age when I came here,” Anne said. “He took me in when I was nobody and had nothing. He fed me, trained me —”“Kissed you,” Alexander cut in.“And I am quite sure I never told you that,” Anne said.“You didn't have to,” Alexander said. “I've heard this story a dozen times from father himself. Not every telling was sober.”Viktor gave Anne a ‘Do you want me to leave?’ type of gnce, but she kept her eyes on Alexander, who — feeling her gre on him — stared down at the dough.“Just to be clear,” Anne said, “yes, he proposed such an encounter and I agreed to it, but I didn't like it and when I asked him to stop he did. I don't hold it against him and it has absolutely nothing to do with the work I do for him. That is all I have to say about it, so if you don't mind, I consider this topic well and truly concluded.”“Okay,” Alexander said. “Sorry.”Anne nodded. “Just don't bring it up again,” she said.“Okay,” Alexander said.“Good,” Viktor said. “Now, back to dinner. Anne, please fetch us the rolling pin and a gss.”

  Gunfire outside.

  Anne moved almost before she knew what it was. Her left hand grabbed Alexander by the shoulder and pushed him down to the floor while her right hand reached for a shoulder holster that wasn't there. Viktor's right hand did just about the same, if a little slower, but in his case with a more tangible result: in a second, he had his new, steel-framed pistol3For the gunbunnies: Viktor’s weapon of choice is a CZ 85, essentially an updated CZ 75 with ambidextrous controls. I don’t worship at the CZ 75 altar quite as much as, say, Kenichi Sonoda, but if you’re gonna have a handgun from the Warsaw Pact in the te 80s, you’d want this.Also, there are, in fact, several different firearms manufacturers all commonly referred to as ‘CZ’. This is specifically a weapon of ?eská zbrojovka Uhersky Brod / CZUB, the biggest among them. out and aimed at the entrance while ducking away from the windows.

  “Stay down!” Viktor barked at Alexander and reached for the small of his back, producing another, smaller pistol4And for the sake of consistency in Viktor’s firearms preferences, this is a CZ 82. Because firearms model numbering schemes are often nominally tied to the year of introduction, it of course makes perfect sense that the 75 and 85 are closely reted while the 82 is a different gun altogether. It’s essentially a Makarov with a double-stack magazine, which in turn basically makes it the Walther PPK’s cousin in 9x18 mm…with a double-stack magazine. Yes, yes, I know, many differences in detail, not straight copies of one another, but if you’re seeing 007’s signature gun here, you’re actually not too far off. he handed off to Anne. Anne drew the slide back just enough to see the chambered cartridge. She snapped the gun up and started creeping toward the wall to the left of the kitchen door. With a quick sp, she turned off the lights inside. It would take a few moments to adjust, but at least it put them on equal footing with the attackers.“Protect Alexander!” Anne said to Viktor. “I will get the boss.”“Good luck,” Viktor said. Gun still in his right hand, he reached for Alexander's arm and helped the boy grab onto his broad shoulders, lifting him off the floor and dragging him toward the retive safety of the pantry.

  Anne could feel her head getting lighter by the microsecond. The wave of adrenaline inside washed over her levies and surged through her blood. She was already in the zone when she first peeked around the corner for a moment, surveying the hallway for potential threats before she advanced, pistol raised, toward a nice little antique dresser for all the good that little bit of cover would do her. Objectives: One, reach Arkady's office and secure him. Two, grab a bigger gun. Three, get out of the building in one piece.

  And, of course, the implicit Zero: kill every st hostile between One, Two and Three.

  Another quick peek: the hallway was clear. Anne had walked this house often enough that the dark hardly bothered her. There were fifteen steps from her position to the stairs. She stepped out of cover, gun up. In the middle of her fifth step, the front door creaked open. Anne took a knee, trying to get a target picture beyond the front sight. The man’s silhouette was neither Leonid nor Szymon — hostile. She shot him twice center mass, square in the chest, dropping him to the floor like he knew he was supposed to be dead. No time to see if he got up; she had to move to the next piece of cover. Six more steps forward, movement behind the door frame, but nobody else through the door — yet. She fired one shot through it to make anyone outside think twice about coming in and she booked it for the stairs. She dashed upwards, taking the steps two at a time. Even though she heard nothing through the adrenaline and the deafening aftereffect of her own shots, the hairs in the back of her neck told her to move. She ducked and dove for the little ptform halfway up the stairs, ignoring the pain of the impact to twist around and get the gun on whoever was behind her. Another man stood in the hall, looking at the body on the floor for the moment — she didn't even wait for him to turn around. Instead she plugged him twice, one smashing into a rib, the other taking a chunk out of his neck and stacking him almost neatly on top of his almost dead friend.

  Get up get up get up!

  Scrambling to her feet, she rushed up the rest of the stairs toward the lit second story, mentally checking off her count of scenarios. Hostiles through the backdoor was out, she would have seen them from the kitchen. Smashed windows, no, would have heard them. If they were only coming through the front door when she got there, then all hostiles were outside or just now coming in, all below her, which meant the boss was still safe and the route to his office —

  What hit Anne next wasn’t loud, in the same way dumping a saltlick into a pot of stock wasn’t seasoning. It was a wave of raw overpressure that rattled her teeth and bounced her eyeballs enough to make her vision swim. She dropped to the floor, all sense of up and down driven out of her. The door to Arkady’s office burst apart in red light. The afterimage stayed with Anne and no amount of shaking her head seemed to dislodge it. Her eyes were cmped shut out of pure defensive reflex, and she dared not open them again because her face was too numb to tell if it had been peppered by shrapnel. She filed her left hand at it best as she could, wheezing with the effort to breathe in and out at the same time, somehow.

  You are not dead yet, the devil whispered to her. Make sure you stay that way.

  In anything resembling a sane situation, she would have just stayed down, made darn sure not to touch anything that might be hurt and waited for EMTs to arrive. But this wasn’t sane. This was the world outside taking a big swing at her and the family and the only thing she had was a stubborn refusal to learn when to fold ‘em. She opened her eyes, to heck with what might have happened to her face, and was relieved to find she could still see through the haze. Left hand on the floor and she pushed up, stumbling against the wall before she pushed against it, righted herself. Getting to her feet was hard, never mind staying on them, but she managed it. Behind the afterimage of the fsh, the hallway around her seemed mostly intact. The door to Arkady’s office was anything but. Anne's eyes widened as the implications pyed through her head, but she quickly cmped down on those thoughts — imminent threat downstairs.

  She forced herself back into focus, turned around to face the stairs and brought her gun up. This way she slowly backed down the hallway.

  “NYPD!” came a shout from below, barely breaking through the haze and the whine settling into her ears, and for a moment a whole new type of fear shot through Anne — had she just taken on an ESU team? — but a short burst of automatic fire followed a shotgun bst, and the jumble of different pieces of information in Anne's head now actively refused to come together into any one scenario. She quickly opened the door to Alexander's room to her left and sidestepped into the frame for cover, keeping her gun trained on the stairwell. She could now see enough to make out her hands were shaking.

  “NYPD!” came the shout from downstairs again. “Lay your guns down and come out with your hands up!” Somebody was making their way upstairs. Anne couldn't hear the creaking, but felt the vibrations in the hardwood floor. Her stance hardened, but she eased her finger off the trigger. Even if this was a trick, she had the better position, and with (potential) cops in the mix — better to look first and shoot second this time.

  It was a cop that came up the stairs, no doubt, ballistic vest and shotgun in hand, and Anne blinked at the realization.

  “Sean?” she called out.That made him look her way — deliberately not swing the shotgun to aim at her — and stop where he was. “Anne!” he called out. He said something else, didn't shout it, and so she couldn't make it out.Anne lowered her gun. “I've got it!” she shouted. “Stay down and wait for me!”

  Sean spoke and again she couldn’t make it out. He turned and swung his shotgun with him, then carefully climbed down the stairs again. Anne wondered if he had a deathwish.

  Nobody for Anne to shoot at on the way into Arkady's office and nobody for her to save inside. Whatever had come through the window had devastated the whole room, and even though Arkady had ducked behind his desk at the first sound of fighting outside, that hadn't been nearly enough to shield him from the bst. His head and neck — exposed skin — were deeply burnt, and fluids were seeping out of every hole in his body, pre-existing and fresh ones alike. Fmes still pped up around him, bits of treated wood slowly catching fire and providing the only light that could cut through the smoke. Anne didn't move to recover his body. He was most sincerely dead and there were no eyelids left to close, nevermind eyeballs to close them over. The devil soothed her before she could be properly upset, told her the man she had served for nearly fifteen years was of no more concern, and she listened. Fifteen years of feelings broke away clean, drifted away from her. Maybe there’d be grief ter, nightmares for sure, but now there could be no hesitation, nothing to impede her functioning. Arkady was dead. All further emotional investment in him was futile. Cut losses, close the position, move on. Nothing to do here, nothing but turn around and walk outside again. Much of the whine had already gone out of her ears and she hoped the rest would leave in good time, too. The shooting seemed to be over for the moment, too. New pn: walk outside, get downstairs and make darn sure Alexander won't see this. She wondered how long it would take for the smell of it to waft through the rest of the house.

  Downstairs, she found Sean still in the hallway, obviously not up to the risk of getting shot by Viktor for coming near the kitchen. When he saw her, he reached up to his left ear, pulling out a foam earplug. “I'm sorry,” he said. “They attacked before I could do anything.”

  That got her to stop and look at him and start thinking about the billion things she had to not think about in order to survive the fight. She looked around for more hostiles, as if searching for a way to keep not thinking, but when that failed, she turned to Sean and gred at him.

  “What are you doing here?” she shouted. She wasn’t much for shouting and after hearing herself and seeing Sean’s reaction, she took her volume down a notch, though her attitude worsened, if anything. “I left you in a very specific pce to keep you safe!” she snarled at him. Keep him safe because she couldn’t — no. She felt it fre up in her and pushed against it. Arkady was dead. Move on.“Jesus, pipe down!” he said. “I'm helping you, for starters! I don't know if you kept my car keys so I couldn't try to follow you, but it didn't matter anyway, I keep a spare in my bug-out bag, so I told Mikhail I was cutting out and not to call you, which he seemed to be okay with, and I got lucky you're such a sunday driver because I saw your car leaving and caught up, I guess you weren't checking your rear-view for a tail, but I also guess you weren't looking for me because you thought I was —”

  Anne banged her left fist against the nearest wall. It was starting again, that salty taste in her mouth and throat and nose, eyes shut for just a moment and then the waterworks — on top of her ears still ringing and the first twinges of a truly enormous headache. Sean took the hint to stop talking. He dug into his pants pockets and produced a pack of tissues. Anne pulled out two and put them to good use, dabbing her eyes dry with one and snorting her nose into the other. That second one turned up some blood, but when she touched her ears, she felt nothing draining out of the canals. So her eardrums were still in one piece, more likely than not. A few seconds ter, the worst of the fog and detachment in her head started making way for crity and pain, and she turned back to Sean.

  “I suppose it doesn't matter now,” she said, stuffing the two used tissues into the right front pocket of her pants. She’d have to dispose of them properly ter.“You were checking on somebody upstairs, but you came down alone, so I have to assume somebody is dead, yeah?” Sean said.Anne nodded. Should she crack a joke? Should she smile? Would that reassure him her head was still on straight or convince him she had completely lost it? She settled on staring at him, just…staring.“…your boss?” Sean said, meeting her eyes.“Yes,” Anne said. “Did you see Leonid and Szymon? The two guards outside?”Sean looked away from her for a moment. “I'm sorry, Anne.”“Two bodies outside, then,” Anne said. “One upstairs. I got two hostiles down here, sounded like you got another?”“Over there,” Sean said, craning his head toward the door that connected the main hall of the house to the attached garage.

  Anne could barely make out the unmoving hand of a prone body in the dark. She paused for a moment, listening for movement as if she stood a chance of hearing anyone still skulking around the pce. Smart move would be for any survivors to be retreating now. She gambled they were doing the smart move and rexed, clicking her mind over from firefight to cleanup mode.

  “Six bodies,” she mumbled to herself. None of them people Sean had to care about. None of them people she could, either. Just numbers stacking up on the wrong side of an equation in her head that she was working out. “We can't hide this,” she concluded.“Oh, was that an option?” Sean said. “See, I thought we were done with subtle when this asshole came at me bsting with his Uzi or Mac or whatever —”Anne looked down at the submachine gun still clutched by the first man she had shot. It had a boxy receiver, a straight magazine in the grip, big semicircle front and rear sight bdes as well as a side-folding stock. “Mini-Uzi,” she said. It felt comforting to put a name to something in the chaos around her.“Like the mystery man at the warehouse,” Sean noted. “Anyway, I ducked behind a corner, and, well, I couldn't go forward and I couldn't run without getting shot in the back, so I figured, him or me. Hit the deck and rolled out, got him before he could aim down at me.” He tapped the shotgun with his left hand. “What's done is done.” He flexed his right hand as if to demonstrate the reflexive wince it put on his face. “Think I sprained my wrist, though. I should've listened to you about firing with the stock folded.”“You should have listened to me about everything!” Anne snapped. Again she stopped herself, forced some calm into her voice. “You should have stayed in the room,” she added. If she was calm and Sean was calm — which he seemed to be — then maybe they could get through this.“I just proved I can handle myself,” Sean said, “and honestly, Team Simmons is in no shape to turn me down or keep me on the bench. I mean, shit, just look at this hardware” — he lightly tapped the now-orphaned Mini-Uzi with his foot — “this is Sidorov decring war on you, right? You didn't go pick a blood feud with another crime boss while I wasn't looking?”“I don't know,” Anne said, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. It didn't help. “I don't know anymore. The attack on you was understandable, but this…I don't know. I don't recognize any of these men. This could be him, but I don't know why.”“Seems pretty open and shut to me,” Sean said. “He either figured out what you did at the warehouse, or you spooked him into making a move that was coming one way or another. There's nobody else with motive to do you guys in, right?”“I don't know!” Anne said, eyes still closed, nose still pinched, both still not helping. “I don't…look, Sean. This has gotten far out of hand. You should just leave before the local police show up.”“I could do that,” Sean said. “But I could have just left when I saw these guys roll up and start shooting. The relevant part here is I didn't. I didn’t sit by. Okay? I chose to help you. This one's on me, because we're in this mess together. You called it a partnership, remember?”Anne reopened her eyes and stared directly at him. “What is so hard about doing what I tell you, Sean?” she asked.“Annie?” came Viktor's muffled call from the kitchen. Sean's grip on the shotgun tensed.“They're with me,” Anne told Sean. Deciding for herself this was the way forward, she hit a nearby lightswitch. “Viktor! You can come out now!”

  Sean's hands painfully tightened around the shotgun some more when two new pyers entered his field of view. One was a pale teenage boy with a limp Sean immediately dismissed as a threat, but that was more than made up for by the man who had to be Viktor. The tattoos started just under his receding hairline, highlighting his eyes and framing his face on both sides. They ran further down his neck underneath a nice suit, only to resurface right out of the sleeves and run all the way over his fingers, which were wrapped around the handle of the pistol he aimed at Sean's head. When Sean was graced with the rare sight of seeing Viktor blink, he thought he even saw tattoos on the man's eyelids.

  “Sean,” Anne said, “may I introduce Alexander Ignatyev and Viktor Raikov.”“That's your nice guy?” Sean asked.“Detective Sean Collins, I assume,” Viktor said right back, waiting for a nod from Anne before he lowered his gun and returned it to its holster. His accent was at the tipping point of nondescript New Engnd and Boris Badenov, with a particurly charming butchering of 'Collins'.“Where is my father?” Alexander asked, and here Sean's ears perked up again — the kid's accent was all new world, no old country.“He…didn't make it,” Anne answered. Alexander’s face showed no surprise.“The explosion…” Viktor muttered.Anne nodded. “He was already gone when I got to him,” she said. “I am sorry, Lexi.”“You're sorry?” Alexander cried, regaining all the color in his face and then some. He took a step forward with his good leg. “What good is being sorry? He's dead! These animals came to our home and killed him! I don't need you to be sorry! I need you to find these assholes and cut off their dicks and stuff them down their throats while we fuck their bleeding cunts5Look, I said there’d be strong nguage. with a power drill!”“Alexander Arkadyevich!” Viktor growled, putting a hand on Alexander's shoulder. “Get a hold of yourself.” Alexander didn't reply. He just turned away, shrugged the hand off his shoulder and wandered back to the kitchen, a few sobs breaking through the noise of his shuffling footsteps.“Do I want to know what he just said?” Sean asked Anne, who simply shook her head. He’d seen all kinds of grief in his line of work: the tears, the disbelief, the off-switch…and now, the explosion.“Are there…” Viktor said. “We must see after Leonid and —”“Dead,” Anne said. Viktor said nothing. “We must grieve them ter,” Anne added. “The police will be on their way by now.”Sean pushed the shotgun into Anne's hands. “I'll handle them,” he said. “You three get out. I parked the Mazda a quarter mile down the road, you should be able to cut through the back. Give me your car keys.”“To do what?” Anne said.“Get your car away from the crime scene,” Sean said. “Unless you really want to know what happens when we run the ptes.”Anne and Viktor shared a look. Anne nodded. “Alright,” she said, fumbling for her keys to pass them on to Sean. “Viktor, I think it's best if you go upstairs and grab what you can from the boss's safe. Catch up with us at Sean's car. I will escort Alexander. Sean, you — you do what you think is best with the local officers. We will wait for you at the safe house.”“Sure,” Sean said, granting her a small smile as he took the keys. He reached into his pocket, grabbed the pack of tissues and handed it over to her. “You're still bleeding,” he added.Anne quickly drew out another tissue and held it under her nose. “Thank you,” she said and turned to the tattooed man at her side. “Viktor?”Viktor's expression moved, very slightly, toward the positive end of the spectrum. “I agree with this pn,” he said. “Go, Detective. We will meet you ter.”“Good luck,” Sean said, turning to hurry off to the front gates.

  When Sean cleared the front door, Anne and Viktor still stood in the hallway. The ringing in Anne's ears was settling down enough for her to hear Alexander's muffled crying in the kitchen. They had no time to lose, but coming down from the rush of combat had all but frozen her in pce, her mind racing nowhere at a hundred miles an hour. Viktor broke the mutual silence.

  “Tell me you saw who killed Arkady,” Viktor said.“I am sorry,” Anne said. “There was an explosion from his office. I was too te.”Viktor took a deep breath. Anne knew it took a lot of pain to force tears from him. This, somehow, wasn’t enough, but it was close.“They will not profit by it,” Anne said. “I swear this to you, Viktor, my bde and my bullets will find them and bring them low. Take up your rifle and come with me. We shall have them all buried before the day is out.”“Do not tempt me, girl!” Viktor growled at her. “You cannot begin to understand what I just lost. But the Law —”“Silent enim lēgēs inter arma,”6The original formution by Cicero, but more often quoted as ‘Inter arma enim silent lēgēs’. Often transted as “In times of war, the w falls silent”, but I like a variant transtion: “Amid the csh of arms w ceases to he heard.” I think that’s more in the spirit of what’s happening here. Anne cut in. “How can you think of the Law in this moment?”“How can you not?” Viktor said. “Have you not bloodied your hands enough for one day? Do you not see the consequences?”“They are begging for war with us,” Anne said coolly. “And now they shall have it.”“No more,” Viktor said. “I will not hear this from you now. We must save what can be saved. Protect Alexander. You would do well to focus on that instead of pnning more death.”“And offer no opposition to Ilya?” Anne countered. “Arkady would not want us to y down and die for our honor.”“You dare —” Viktor shouted at her face. Anne let him. But Viktor froze and turned away and Anne could read in his moves the shame of having lost himself in the moment.“He would tell us to be practical, would he not?” Anne said. “We can bring down Ilya together with the cop.”Viktor scoffed. “The cop that brought us all this misery,” he said. “You have already decided for all of us to pce him in our circle of trust. You are sorely testing my faith in you, again.”“He is our only way out!” Anne said.“He's dangerous, above all,” Viktor said. “At least tell me your car is clean.”“He will find nothing incriminating in there,” Anne said. “And I believe he will keep his word.”“You may be right today,” Viktor said. “A goose is not a pig's friend. Soon it will be us or him.”

  Anne turned her head to look at the front door, perhaps examining an afterimage of Sean walking out to help them, and looked back to Viktor.

  “When the moment comes,” she said, “it will be my bde at his throat.”