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The central screen changes to a live security feed. Flames pour from the loading doors while armed men hold the road outside. A Volkov guard lies beside the gate.

Yuri opens another map. “Gunfire at Lyubertsy depot.”

Lyubertsy holds weapons, vehicles, and route records used by several Volkov captains.

Dmitri reaches for his pistol. “Two attacks at once.”

“Three,” Kirill says.

A new message fills the captains’ channel. The Blacklist archive in Moscow has stopped answering, and its alarm has been cut.

On the estate map, three locations turn red. Khimki. Lyubertsy. The archive.

Dmitri looks at the screens. “They’re done hiding.”

My phone vibrates. A message fills the screen. My name appears above a photograph of a dead man behind the wheel.

Captain Konstantin Lebedev. A pistol rests on the seat beside him.

Mine.

26

ALEXEI

“Lebedev is dead. Check the file I sent.” Maksim’s voice comes through the secure phone.

Yuri opens the message and puts the first photograph on the main screen.

Lebedev sits behind the wheel of a black sedan on a service road near the Lyubertsy depot. His seat belt is still fastened, and his head hangs forward. Blood covers the front of his shirt. The driver’s window is open, and my pistol lies on the passenger seat.

My men never found it where I was shot. Now someone has left it beside a dead captain.

“Was he coming from the depot?” I ask.

Yuri checks the road cameras. “Yes. Our men found him ten minutes after he left.”

“Was he alone?”

“In his car. His bodyguard followed in another.”

Yuri opens the next photograph.

A second sedan stands several lengths behind Lebedev’s car. His bodyguard lies beside the rear wheel with one knee folded beneath him. Two bullets struck him through the side. His pistol is still inside the holster, but his hand rests near it.

“Neither car was armored,” Abramov says.

Lebedev liked to drive himself, and he often told his guards to follow at a distance.

“He stopped for someone he knew,” I say.

“Or something blocked the road.” Abramov studies the road between the two cars. “His bodyguard was following at his usual distance.”

“Lyubertsy is still under attack,” I tell Dmitri. “You and Dima go to the depot. The men who found Lebedev will block the road and leave both cars as they are.”

Dmitri nods. “Send me the road cameras between the depot and the cars.”

“Kirill will put them on your tablet.”