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Chapter79
WHEN DECKER CAME TO,he had a vision of something that felt familiar. When he opened his eyes fully and looked around, he understood why.
He was in the Richardses’ old home, sitting on the floor.
In the kitchen, where Don Richards and David Katz had died.
He felt the zip ties around his wrists and ankles.
He looked next to him and saw Jamison and Mars similarly bound. They were staring across at the doorway where a man was standing.
Bill Peyton, or more correctly, Yuri Egorshin, did not seem like a happy man.
There were three other men in the room. They all looked tough, hardened, chips of iron with guns in their hands. Decker didn’t recognize any of them from the American Grill. To him, they all looked like muscle. Russian muscle, which was pretty damn intimidating.
Egorshin pulled up a chair and sat down opposite the three bound people.
“You have royally messed up my work, Decker,” he said quietly. “I hope you realize that.”
“Well, it’s sort of my job.”
“If the optics weren’t so bad and other…conditions not so adverse to me, I could probably beat your bullshit search at the Grill. You found all that stuff without a warrant. None of it would be admissible.”
“Yeah, but the whole Russian spy thing? I’m not sure the Fourth Amendment really applies to protect people like you.”
“And there we have the limits of the democracy you Americans tout so fiercely.”
Decker glanced out the window into the darkness. “I’m surprised that you would bring us here.”
“What? You mean witnesses? Are you concerned the DeAngelos might have seen us?” Egorshin stopped and his lips set in a firm line. “You don’t have to worry about them. Whatever they might have seen, they will be able to tell no one about.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” said Decker grimly, his features turning angry.
“Do you know what Mr. DeAngelo told me right before I put a bullet in his head?”
Decker said nothing.
“He told me that all he wanted to do was retire down south. I saved him the expense. And I needed…privacy, to deal with you and your friends.”
Decker felt sick to his stomach about the fate of the DeAngelos. He said, “You’ve wasted a lot of time hanging around here. You could be gone from the country. Now it’s too late. It’s death penalty time for you.”
“Please don’t worry about me. I’m well provided for. I have assets in places you couldn’t even imagine.”
“I don’t know, my imagination is pretty good. And if you’re thinking about Peter Childress, you better have other assets.”
“This does not concern me in the least.”
“Why’s that?”
“For the same reasons that the DeAngelos do not concern me.”
Jamison blurted out, “You had Childress killed?”
Egorshin looked at his watch. “With confirmation twenty minutes ago. No, the assets of which I speak go far higher than a police superintendent in a nothing place like this.”
“What do you want with us?”
“After every intelligence operation there must be a debriefing.” Egorshin spread his hands wide. “So this, this is my debriefing.”
