The Spy Who Came for Christmas (23 page)

^{"Damn," Andrei said. "I wish I'd worn thick gloves. My hands are so cold I can barely hold anything."}

^{He reached into
the
snow, groped, and pulled out the phone. He brushed snow from it and pretended to try to use it.}

^{"Shit. Now
this
phone's not working, either." He didn't want Brody going into the house with a phone. Pyotyr would no doubt find it and use it to get help. "I'm awfully sorry about this. You'd better lend me your wife's phone."}

^{"Lend
you ... ?"
Brody tensed. "What's going on here?"}

^{"Don't worry. The police department will get you a new one," Andrei promised.}

^{"What did you say your name was?"}

^{"I didn't. It's Detective Parker."}

^{"You told me your microphones and earbuds allow you to communicate with headquarters, so why do you need my wife's phone? This is . . . Something's wrong. Let me see your badge."}

^"Badge?"

^{'All of you. Let me see your ID."}

^{"I told you to keep your voice down," Andrei warned. "My identification's under my coat." He brushed snow from the front. "Do you really want me to freeze, just so you can--"}

^{Brody backed away.}

^{"What are you doing, Mr. Brody?"}

^{As Brody turned to run down the shadowy lane, Andrei shoved him hard, knocking him into the snow. He bent down, braced a heavy knee on Brody's back, and rammed his face down into a drift. Andrei's powerful hand kept Brody's features submerged in the snow.}

^{Brody struggled, gagging, but Andrei ignored his efforts and pressed his face down harder into the drift.}

^{"Listen to me," Andrei whispered close to Brody's left ear. "You're going to do what I want, or I'll smother you. Do you feel the snow clogging your nostrils? Some of it's melting. You're inhaling the water. Soon you'll be choking."}

^{Pinned in the drift, Brody started coughing. The sound was muffled by the snow. His back arched--or tried to. His chest heaved.}

^{"Are you listening?" Andrei asked quietly, applying more weight to his back. "Do you want to die in a snowbank on Christmas Eve, or would you like to spend the holiday with your wife and son?"}

^{Brody choked as he tried to speak under the snow.}

^{At once, Andrei reached under Brody's hat, grabbed his hair, and jerked his head up. Brody's cheeks were covered with snow. He strained to clear his nose and mouth, but Andrei pressed a glove over his face to diminish the sound.}

^{"What are the names of your wife and son?" Andrei murmured. He took his hand from Brody's mouth while he pressed his Glock to Brody's right temple.}

^{Snot clung to Brody's mustache.}

^{"Meredith. My wife's name is Meredith. My son . . . my son is Cole."}

^{"Nice names. I bet they're wonderful people.
Are
they?"}

^"Yes."

^{"Do you love them, Ted?" The tip of the sound suppressor on Andrei's Glock made an indentation in Brody's skin. Andrei imagined how hard and cold the metal felt.}

^{"Love them?" Brody managed to answer. "Of course."}

^{"Prove it, Ted. Prove that you love Meredith and Cole. Prove how much you wish you hadn't punched your wife. This is your chance to be a hero. Save them. Save your family, Ted."}

^{"Yes." Brody trembled. "I'll do anything for them."}

^{"Then nothing's different. You'll go in that house. You'll notice whatever defenses have been set up. You'll ask about them. We'll hear you talking. We'll know what to expect."}

^{"Meredith and
Cole ..."}

^{"We take care of people who cooperate, Ted. I just thought of something." Andrei felt a sudden terrible doubt. "Is there a computer in your house? Could the man in there have e-mailed for help?"}

^{"I use a password lock."}

^{Andrei breathed out, releasing some of his tension.}

^{"Good," he said. "Before we go into the house, I'll tell you we're coming. You'll have plenty of warning. All you need to do is get your family down to the floor. As soon as we teach a lesson to our friend in there, and retrieve something he stole from us, we'll leave. You and your wife and son can have a nice life."}

^{"God, don't I wish."}

^{"What he stole from us is crucial. I want you to make sure we get it back alive."}

^'Alive?"

^{"It's a baby."}

^{'A ...
What's a
baby
doing in there?"}

^{"That's not your concern, Ted. Just talk about the baby when you see it. Tell me where it is. When we go inside, I want to make sure it isn't injured."}

^{"But what about my family?"}

^{"I told you, just get them onto the floor. I promise, you and your wife and your son will be safe. An hour from now, this'll be over. We'll be gone. Your family will owe their lives to you. You'll be a hero to them. Your wife won't have any choice except to forgive you for hitting her. Do you understand, Ted? Is everything clear?"}

^{* * *}

^{KAGAN STOOD
with Andrei., Mikhail, Yakov, and the new man, Viktor, in the corridor outside the three doors. Beyond the middle door, he heard the muffled sound of a television, the only noise in the corridor. All the other guests were probably away from their rooms, enjoying the holiday festivities.}

^{As adrenaline surged through him, Kagan heard just enough of the television program to be able to determine that a little girl was asking someone if he was really Santa Claus. The voice of an elderly man said that he was.}

^{That middle room was where the three bodyguards were based.}

^{Concentrating to control his breathing, Kagan watched Andrei take his cell phone from his pocket. It was set to the vibrate mode, and what Andrei waited for was a call from the nursemaid in the suite. Not that Andrei would answer the call. All he needed was to feel the vibration through his glove.}

^{He also needed to verify the caller's number. It would signal that the nursemaid had rigged the door to the left, pressing a strip of plastic against the spring-controlled latch, preventing it from sliding into the doorframe and locking the door. She had done the same with the door on the right.}

^{By now, she would have taken the baby into the bathroom, where the two of them would be lying in the bathtub.}

^{The bathtub wasn't sturdy enough to keep bullets from penetrating it, but shots weren't likely to go in that direction. As a precaution, however, Hassan's rivals had bribed the nursemaid to lie sideways, with her back to the closed bathroom door, holding the baby on the other side so that if a chance bullet did come into the bathroom, the baby would have a human shield.}

^{Andrei's phone made a faint buzzing sound. He looked at the screen to view the caller's number. He nodded to the team, put the phone away, and drew the Glock from his coat pocket.}

^{Kagan and the others pulled out their weapons. A sound suppressor projected from each barrel.}

^{Each man eased back the slide on his pistol just enough to assure that a round was in the firing chamber. They'd performed this precaution several times prior to starting the mission, but no matter how often they'd already done so, they felt compelled to do it yet again, an obsessive habit of gunfighters.}

^{Kagan's hands were sweaty in his latex gloves.}

^{Andrei nodded a final time. The team separated, Kagan and Mikhail going to the door on the right, beyond which, they'd been told, the nursemaid rested when Hassan's wife took care of the baby. Yakov and Viktor proceeded to the door on the far left,, while Andrei----who liked frontal distractions--went to the middle door.}

^{Andrei knocked loudly on the middle door, no doubt startling the bodyguards beyond it. Kagan pressed a hand against the door on the right at the exact moment Yakov did the same to the door on the far left.}

^{For an urgent second, Kagan met resistance and wondered if the nursemaid's strip of plastic had in fact kept the latch from engaging, but then Andrei knocked louder on the middle door, and when Kagan pushed, his door came open. Mikhail immediately aimed past him, making sure the room was unoccupied.}

^{Andrei pounded on the middle door a third time, saying, "Housekeeping!" in a loud voice while Kagan and Mikhail hurried into the room on the right. As the nursemaid had promised, the connecting door was open. Kagan pretended that the bed was in his way, allowing Mikhail to charge ahead and crouch, firing upward toward chest and head level in the middle room.}

^{Mikhail's sound suppressor made the shots barely audible. Amid the smell of burned gunpowder, Kagan hurried next to him and fired upward, his bullets striking bodyguards who were in effect already dead. In the opposite open doorway, Yakov and Viktor crouched and also fired upward, the angle of their aim preventing them from being caught in a crossfire.}

^{Blood spurted from the three bodyguards. Groaning, they fell in a cluster, one of them landing on the other two.}

^{Mikhail stepped into the room and shot each man in the head.}

^{Kagan ran back through the bedroom toward the door he'd shoved open. He leaned into the corridor and motioned for Andrei to enter. The moment Andrei hurried past him, Kagan tore off the plastic strip attached to the side of the door, allowing the latch to function again. He shut the door and turned the dead bolt, then followed Andrei into the middle room, where the coppery smell of blood was now strong.}

^{They stepped over the bodies and joined the rest of the team in the third bedroom,, the outer door to which Yakov had closed and locked.}

^{Andrei knocked three times on the bathroom door, twice, then once, completing the all-clear signal.}