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Calvin shook it. “You must be Makarov. Jansons said I’d be meeting with you.”
“Yes, yes, Makarov. This is my associate, Yuri, and my other associate, Ilyin. Sit down, yes? You want drink?”
“Please.” Calvin sat. Matthias stood at his shoulder. The men hesitated, looking at each other, but they took their seats again.
The room was thick with anxiety and uncertainty. I could barely stand it. I drifted to the side to try to get a better look at the men sitting across from Calvin.
They were well-groomed, middle-aged, but looked rough. Hard eyes, callused hands. If these were the representatives of the Latvian government, I wondered what the rest of their elected officials looked like.
“Minister Brnovich says you speak with his voice. Is that true?” Calvin was quiet and intense. I didn’t like it.
“Yes, of course, of course,” Makarov said. “Me and Brnovich, we very close. We go back far.” He grinned and poured a glass for Calvin, who accepted it. “Let us drink to him.”
The men touched glasses and threw back the shot. Calvin frowned slightly and leaned forward.
“I was told you wish to inspect the shipment. I have a hangar at Riga International where—”
“Yes, yes, inspections,” Makarov said, interrupting Calvin. “We want inspections soon, yes? But first, we talk price. Brnovich says price too high, must come down.”
Calvin went very still. Matthias looked like he might start killing people at any second. I wanted to scream.
This wasn’t right. Something was extremely wrong here. These men weren’t government officials, and if they knew the defense minister, it wasn’t through approved channels. Calvin had been passed off, and I suspected he was dealing with Latvia’s underworld, with men that drifted between legal and illegal, black and white.
Gray men. Neither good nor bad. Neither official nor unofficial. The kind of men every government employed to some extent. They got things done. Did dirty work, wet work, tasks nobody else wanted or could handle.
Now Calvin was supposed to negotiate a multi-million-dollar deal with monsters.
I didn’t know why I cared. Some part of me wanted him to fail.
But this was dangerous, and I wasn’t sure who I should be scared for, Calvin or these bastards.
“The price is firm,” Calvin said slowly and carefully. “Brnovich agreed to it weeks ago, and I will not change it.”
“Yes, yes, but situation changes, yes?” Makarov kept on smiling, but it was empty and malicious. “You have guns here now. They’re ready, yes? So you come down on price and we take them from you.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, then, I suppose we have issue, yes?”
One of Makarov’s associates looked over at me. I felt his eyes move down my body. He grinned, baring a set of yellow teeth, and grunted something in another language. Makarov laughed, and Calvin’s fingers dug into the table.
“What did your friend just say?” Calvin asked and his tone was like ice.
“Nothing, nothing, bad joke. Yuri keep mouth shut from now on.”
Calvin’s jaw tightened. “Yuri can speak for himself.”
Yuri looked at Makarov and spoke in that same guttural language. Makarov waved him off. “Is fine, is fine, is all good. He only made bad joke about your girl there, but Yuri is animal, very dumb man. You can ignore him.”
Yuri showed his teeth again. “Said she looks expensive. You can afford to come down in price.”
Calvin lunged forward. He reached across the table and grabbed Yuri by his stringy, long hair. He pulled hard, yanking Yuri’s face forward, and his nose smashed into the table with a sickening crunch. Calvin’s growl was feral as he slammed his elbow into the back of Yuri’s neck, and something popped as Yuri went very still.
Makarov stared in utter shock before he shoved his chair back and stumbled to his feet. Makarov’s men grabbed their guns, but Matthias and Calvin’s guards were already shouting for them not to move. Weapons were brandished, and the room was one second from turning into a slaughterhouse.
Calvin stepped in front of me. He didn’t look back, but he placed his body between mine and the Russian gangsters on the other side of the room.
Yuri didn’t move. His body slumped to the side. He breathed slowly, and his eyes were open, but it was like his limbs had stopped working.
“What is wrong with you?” Makarov shouted, hand on the gun behind his back. “This is how you do business? You insane fuck? He make one joke and you kill him?”
“He’s not dead,” Calvin said. “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re walking out of this room. If you try to stop us, we will kill you. There will be a lot of blood, and most of it will be yours. But if you’re smart, you can return to your bosses and tell them what I did here.”
“They’ll rip out your tongue. Are you crazy? You psycho American fuck. I’ll cut off your balls.”
