A police car eased past. Kline leaned back into the shadows of the entryway. He’d avoided the KGB thus far, but evading capture wasn’t enough. He needed to take the focus off himself. Ducking into an alleyway, he crept to the far end. A menacing, scarred canine rose to its feet and barred its teeth. Its leash kept it within arm’s length of the rear entrance.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Kline knocked on the ironclad door and waited. It slid halfway open. A guard blocked the entrance.
“You lost?” he asked. British accent, not Russian.
“Kelly here?”
“Never ‘eard of ‘im.”
“Give him this.” Kline tossed a satchel to the guard, who glanced inside and raised his eyebrows.
“Wait ‘ere.”
Five minutes later he returned. He frisked Kline, confiscated his datapad, and then waved him in. The guard led Kline through a long hallway and down a short flight of stairs. They came to a second iron door. Another guard with a machinegun slung over his shoulder opened the door and motioned them through. The cold hallway was soon forgotten as the scent of alcohol, must, and freshly cooked food hit Kline’s nostrils. It was like entering a Prohibition-era speakeasy—stark and uninviting on the outside, and but warm and friendly behind the curtain. At the table in the far corner, Sean Kelly, an Irish mercenary, and three of his men guffawed. Kline approached and waited for their laughing to subside. Kelly, still smiling, fingered the satchel that Kline had brought him.
“This mine now?”
“I need help getting into Rustam Egorov’s estate.”
“No t’anks. That’s a suicide job. Appreciate the money, t’ough.”
“Quadruple it.”
Kelly leaned back in his chair. “A reward for killin’ meself, eh? How ‘bout I jus’ take this money ‘ere and we’ll call it even.”
The guard stuck a pistol in Kline’s lower back. Kline slapped the pistol aside, grabbed one of the knives from the table, and slid behind Kelly. The knife’s blade grazed the mercenary’s throat.
“Quadruple.”
Kelly burst out laughing and clapped. “T’at’s more like it, friend. Quadruple it is!”
