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The bureaucrat shrugged his shoulders. “I’m here at your request. I’ll listen to what you have to say. But that’s all. If you want something from me, tell me. Then I’ll decide if it’s worth it...to me.”
“Three million,” Vishenko said.
The man smiled to himself, sighed regretfully and shook his head. He put down his cognac, stood up and turned as if to go.
“Ten million, and that is my final offer,” Vishenko said on a desperate rush. He had to silence Caterina Mateja. He had less than four weeks to do it, so time was of the essence. This man knew where she was hiding, and he was the only one Vishenko knew who knew. Others had to know her location, but Vishenko didn’t know their names. It was certainly possible one of the others would accept far less than ten million dollars, but he couldn’t afford to wait.
“Ten million.” The other man considered the offer. “That is...a possibility. But what exactly do you want for your ten million?”
Vishenko spoke in Russian. The other man shook his head. “Sorry, but I don’t understand.”
Vishenko wasn’t sure about that. The bureaucrat’s reputation was one that led him to believe the man spoke many languages, including Russian. But he wasn’t positive. He hesitated, then was reassured their conversation couldn’t be recorded. My men would have found it if he was wearing a wire, he reminded himself, just as they would have found a gun if he’d brought a gun. “Caterina Mateja has been a thorn in my side for far too long,” he said. “I want her dead.”
The bureaucrat shook his head again. “I’m not a murderer,” he insisted. “Not for any price.”
The admission reduced him in Vishenko’s eyes. Vishenko had ordered men killed over the years, but had never hesitated to kill with his own hands when called upon...if necessary. Early in his career he’d made his reputation as a ruthless, cold-blooded killer, and nothing had changed. He could kill Caterina Mateja himself, despite his one-time obsession with her.
“Then I want to know where she is,” he said. “I can take it from there.”
The other man nodded slowly. “I’ll think about it.”
Vishenko cursed foully, but in Russian. Then said in English with more than a touch of contempt, “What is there to think about? I want Caterina Mateja. Now. Do you know where she is or not? Ten million should easily overcome any scruples you might have about her.”
The other man smiled, but his smile was as cold as Vishenko’s usually was. “I know where she is,” he said softly, meaningfully. “But you will never find her...without me.”
Vishenko lunged to his feet and grasped the lapels of the man’s suit coat. “Give me her location,” he shouted as he vehemently shook the other man.
The man crossed his arms, and with a swift movement freed himself from Vishenko’s hold. Then he stepped back, and brushed down his crumpled lapels. “I will think about it,” he said once more. “Do that again, however, and I will see you in the courtroom and not a minute before.” He turned his back, opened the plane’s door and walked down the stairs.
Vishenko moved to the doorway and watched the other man stride across the tarmac. He cursed again in Russian, relieving his anxiety and frustration by calling the other man every derogatory name he could think of. Then he stomped back into the center of the cabin and knocked the other man’s snifter against the wall with a tinkling sound of splintering glass.
When he finally calmed down, he picked up his own snifter and refilled it, then dashed off the contents in one abrupt move. “Every man has his price,” Vishenko reminded himself. Ten million dollars was more than most men dreamed of, even this government bureaucrat. “He’ll be back,” he asserted, believing it because he wanted to believe it. “He’ll be back.”
Chapter 10
Liam pulled the SUV into the clearing at the end of a dirt road and parked with a small sigh of relief. He hadn’t been absolutely sure he knew the way to Cody’s cabin near Granite Peak—he’d been here only once before, shortly after Keira had married Cody—but he wasn’t about to call his brother-in-law for directions. And he would have called Callahan only as a last resort. He smiled ruefully. Why did guys have a thing about asking for directions anyway? A GPS was different. He didn’t mind relying on the GPS, which had gotten him most of the way here. The rest had been trial and error, a little blind luck and a sudden memory of what the turnoff looked like.
The good news was that even if someone knew Cate was here in Cody’s cabin, unless that person had specific directions and a better GPS than Liam’s, they’d be hard-pressed to find it. And even if that person got as far as this dead-end road, there was still the issue of finding the cabin itself. It wasn’t visible, no matter which direction you looked. And there were several openings that looked like paths, but if he remembered correctly, those led to nothing but hiking trails—and not easy hiking trails, either. None of those paths led to the cabin.
