“What if we don’t break him?” I finally ask.
“We will.”
“But what if it’s not in time?” And when Cole doesn’t answer, I add, “What if the decree becomes final?”
“It’s a fucking piece of paper,” he says. “It doesn’t change a thing.”
But it does. It changes the world. “If Tarasov gets out of here, he’ll use it against us. He’ll get his hands on me—don’t tell me he can’t! He’ll pay some doctor to say I’m insane. Or he’ll buy off his feckin’ priest, same as Pyotr did to get Breagha. He’ll marry me and he’ll lock me in his fort on Butchers Hill and he’ll?—”
Cole’s thumb is heavy on my lips. “He has to get through me to do any of that.” Shifting his weight, he wraps his arms around me more tightly. “You’re exhausted. Close your eyes. Get some sleep. We’ll break the motherfucker in the morning.”
We’ve been in this observation room forever. The Georgetown house feels like it’s on another planet. I know we have a bedroom there. I know we have the dungeon. But I can’t remember how any of it looks or smells or feels.
When I close my eyes, I can’t picture Nilsson’s face. Anna’s either. If Granny called me on my phone right now, I’m not sure I could recognize her voice.
I want to believe Cole. I have to believe him.
But in my heart, I’m terrified he’s wrong.
42
COLE
First thing Wednesday morning, Richardson takes a good run at Tarasov. She comes in before Bennett, just minutes after the Sawgrass men remove the hood and headphones.
The pakhan looks like a broken man before she starts. The bags under his eyes are so dark they could be bruises. His hair is matted. His beard seems thin on his cheeks. He looks like a drunk who’s spent the past month sleeping under a dumpster.
Richardson moves into the room with a soft, sighing sound. She puts her cup of coffee on the table, close enough for Tarasov to grasp. When she nods for him to take it, he guzzles the caffeine.
Shaking her head, she steps out to the break room, only to return with another cup and one of the glazed donuts Megan brought in for her team. “This government crap isn’t as good,” she says, passing him the grounds-filled coffee. “But it’s Sarah’s birthday,” she ad-libs. “So at least there are donuts.”
He polishes off both like he’s starving. Which isn’t that far from the truth.
Richardson sits on her side of the table. She’s a professional. She keeps her distance. There isn’t a chance Tarasov can get his chains around her neck. He probably can’t even land a gob of spit in her eye. But she lowers her head and softens her voice and sounds like she’s really pleading.
“You have to help me out here. Bennett’s a hard-ass. He’s never giving in. If you can just give me something, some stupid detail about the bratva’s activities in Baltimore, I can go to our boss. I can say you’re being reasonable. You deserve a real meal and a shower.” She looks at his wrists with pity. “I can get you out of those things, at least for a while. Just give me something. Anything. So I can say you’re cooperating.”
Cooperating.
That’s the word that loses him. He sits back in his chair, his mouth slamming shut like a snapping turtle’s. By the time Bennett arrives, he’s closed up tighter than a bank vault.
Bennett goes bad cop in the afternoon. He pulls a revolver and shoves it against the base of Tarasov’s skull. He announces he’s always wanted to play Russian roulette and he spins the chamber, Richardson screaming for him to stop.
But Tarasov has checked out.
He’s clearly counting the minutes. No legitimate government agency can hold him past seventy-two hours—not in DC, not without lawyers, not without a formal accusation and arrest. We’ll have to release him. He’ll walk away free.
Kate is counting too. Every time I glance at her, she’s staring at the clock on her computer screen. 4:30. The office starts to empty, all our grifters heading for home. 4:45. The last of the floor clears. 5:00. Megan leaves the receptionist’s desk.
5:01.
Our divorce decree is final. Kate is not my wife. I am not her husband.
And we’ve utterly failed at breaking Tarasov.
But that Russian motherfucker has a fundamental misunderstanding about the rules of the game we’re playing. MAJAT isn’t bound by the United States Constitution, or laws, or justice. Kate and I can do whatever the fuck we want to our prisoner.
And what I want…
