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Lyon looked at him. His friend looked as tired as Lyon felt. It was more than the late night. They’d had plenty of those. It was nearly a year of constant turmoil.
“Not the best time to be recruiting,” Lyon said.
“Or it’s the best time of all,” Markus said, downing his coffee and looking hopefully at Sue, chatting up the businessman at the counter.
Lyon thought about it. There were always young hopefuls — guys who thought being part of the bratva was glamorous, that they’d be set up with a mansion, a hot blonde, and a pile of coke in no time — hanging around the brigadiers.
So far, Lyon had been more intentional with his recruiting.
More careful.
But they didn’t have the luxury of caution.
“So we bring in a bunch of shestyorkas,” Lyon said, using the Russian term for associate, the lowest man in the bratva hierarchy. “We pair them with the soldiers we trust, put them on guard duty around the city.”
Alek rubbed at the blond stubble on his chin. “It’s not the worst idea.”
“It’s not the best either, but it’s the only one we have.” Lyon tried the coffee again, if only to give him something to do with his hands, then quickly regretted it. It was worse than he remembered.
“I’ll get to work on it,” Alek said, “ask around, see if we can round up twenty rookies.”
Lyon nodded, threw some cash on the table, and stood. “I need to sleep.”
Alek and Markus rose to their feet and they started for the door. By the time Lyon and Alek stepped outside into the early morning air, they’d lost Markus. Lyon could see him at the counter, flirting with Sue.
Lyon wished him luck.
“Fuck,” Alek said, looking around.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Lyon said, leaning back to stretch.
His gaze snagged on the traffic cams attached to the street lights, and an idea formed in his mind.
The locations that had been hit all had one thing in common: none of them had working cameras. They were either broken or they were non-existent, as with the nightclub, which had a private sex club on the second and third floors.
Whoever was behind this attack on the Antonov bratva had chosen the locations carefully, ensuring they wouldn’t be captured on camera. Lyon had assumed it was a dead end.
Now, he wondered.
“How much of the lab does Kofi have set up?” he asked Alek.
“Not sure how to quantify that,” Alek said. “I wouldn’t know a finished cyberlab from a hole in the ground.”
Lyon pulled his eyes away from the traffic cams and looked at his friend. “Think he could access the traffic cams around the hits?”
Realization dawned in Alek’s eyes. “You think if we can access the surrounding cameras we can get a bead on these guys?”
“I’m thinking it’s worth a try,” Lyon said, already heading for the car.
“I got it!” Markus said, emerging triumphantly from the diner.
Alek yawned. “Got what?”
“Sue’s number,” Markus said as if there was no more precious commodity.
“Hurry it up,” Lyon called back to them. “I want to get to the warehouse.”
“What about sleep?” Markus asked, trotting to the Rover.
