Page 98 of Cruel Demands

“We don’t know yet. Yuri is reviewing everything from the eastern gate to the cathedral. No vehicle appears consistently enough to be obvious.”

I look at the photographs again. Someone has stood close enough to my mother’s life to know which entrance she uses at church, which side of the car she enters, which man accompanies her. Before that, men came to the eastern gate knowing her name, her pharmacy, and exactly which wing of my house belonged to her. The pharmacy could have been learned once. This is a pattern. This is someone studying her. “Orlov. He’s angry about his men. And his routes. My routes.”

Arkady doesn’t answer immediately. That’s answer enough. “We still have not proved the pharmacy information came from him,” he says.

“The second phone leads to Orlov. His cocaine moved through Lyubertsy. Six of my men concealed it. Then men arrived at my mother’s gate knowing her pharmacy, and now this.”

“I said we have not proved it. I did not say I disagree.”

I rise from behind my desk. Anger is often described as heat. Mine is cold. Heat is uncontrolled. It consumes oxygen, destroys whatever lies nearest, and eventually burns itself out. Mine never ends. Someone wants me to imagine what else they could have done to my mother. I am imagining it.

“You wanted Orlov alive before,” Arkady says.

The sentiment beneath the words is unspoken, but I hear it anyway. If I had killed him, we would not be discussing this. “I did.”

“You wanted to know how deep the breach went.”

“And now I know enough.”

“Do you?” he asks. I look at him. Arkady doesn’t retreat. He never does. “If you kill Orlov before we know which people inside your organization belong to him, you kill the easiest man to watch.”

I hate when Arkady is right. It’s one of his least attractive qualities.

“I want him brought to me.”

“Alive?”

“For now.”

Arkady gives me a long look. He picks up one of the photographs again. “He wants a response.”

“I intend to give him one.”

“So you will give him what he wants.”

“If I do nothing, he believes my mother can be used to control me.”

“I did not say do nothing.”

“Then say what you mean.”

Arkady sets the photograph down. “Take something from him. Something he cannot complain about publicly without exposing himself.”

I consider him. “What?”

“His nephew moved a shipment last night.”

“Where?”

“Northern route. Pharmaceutical freight.”

I know the shipment. Cocaine concealed among legitimate medical imports. Orlov’s nephew has been moving small quantities for months, carefully enough that police attention has remained elsewhere. We have allowed it because information is often worth more than interference. Not anymore.

Arkady says, “I suggest we give it to narcotics control.”

“Federal,” I mull. “Not local.”

“That shipment is connected to people beyond Orlov. They will blame Orlov for allowing exposure.”