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“She said if we want a game, she would play it,” Kira said.
Lyon looked at her. “Can you remember her exact words?”
Kira bit her lower lip. “It was strange actually. She saidgive me a difficult positional game, and I will play it.”
He pulled her into his arms. “My god, you’re brilliant.”
Now, he understood.
40
Lyon stood in the middle of the woods, his eyes on the machine sitting on the ground. It looked like a futuristic bug, which now that he thought about it, wasn’t far off from the truth.
“And you’re sure this thing can make it all the way to the house?” he asked Kofi.
“I’m sure,” Kofi said, tapping some buttons on the controller. “It’s a long-range drone. I’ve used it before.”
Lyon nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Kofi stepped back, and Lyon and Alek followed suit. Markus was already back a few feet. He’d been looking at the drone suspiciously since Kofi had unpacked it, as if it might come alive and attack him.
Kofi worked the drone, and it lifted into the air with a buzz.
“They won’t be able to hear it?” Alek asked.
“We’ll be too high,” Kofi said, his dark eyes focused on the controller.
Lyon stood closer to him, looking over his shoulder at the screen on the controller. The view almost didn’t look real, the tops of the trees growing increasingly distant as the drone climbed.
“Okay,” Kofi said, “we’re in the air. Let’s find our coordinates.”
He’d punched the coordinates of the drone’s destination into the controller back at the warehouse, and Lyon watched with fascination as the drone left the trees and swept past a rolling lawn.
Lyon had used drones before, but this one was much more advanced, and he watched as a giant house came into view.
Ivan’s house.
Looking back, Lyon should have known. It had been Ivan who had pushed Musa Shapiev forward, using him to try and clear the board of Lyon. It had been Lyon’s mistake in assuming he’d given up after Musa’s death, that Ivan had accepted his fate as a member of the Spies, well-compensated but with no significant power.
Lyon had been wrong.
He didn’t know whether Vadim had enlisted Ivan or Ivan had used Vadim the way he’d used Musa, but as soon as Kira had repeated his mother’s words, Lyon had known.
Give me a difficult positional game, and I will play it.
It was a quote from Johannes Hein Donner, a Dutch chess grandmaster, and there was nothing Ivan liked better than a chess quote as it applied to life.
The flowers had just been an additional fuck you to Lyon, a checkmate he’d probably never intended Lyon piece together.
Kofi adjusted the controls and the picture of the house became crystal clear far below.
But not just the house.
“Fuck,” Alek said, standing behind Kofi’s other shoulder.
“He has an army,” Lyon said, looking at the men surrounding the house. “Can you give us a tour?”
“Sure thing,” Kofi said.
