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“I do.”
Jack started the car and turned on the A/C, but he stayed parked. “Let’s hear it.”
“Is it true that Vladimir Kava named his superyacht after his late mother?”
“That’s what people say. I guess even a ruthless tyrant can love his mother.”
“Then here’s my idea. My people talk to Kava’s people and tell them Imani is not going on stage until Vladimir Kava looks her in the eye and swears on his dead mother’s soul that no one is going to lay a hand on Theo Knight.”
Jack’s feelings had blown hot and cold on Imani. At that moment, he liked her better than he ever thought he would.
“That’s better.”
“You think?”
“Definitely better.”
“Can you call the FBI and tell them we have a deal?”
“I will,” said Jack.
And when they hung up, he did.
Chapter 26
Vladimir Kava watched from the beach of his superyacht, as a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter touched down on the helipad. The “beach” was actually a mechanically retractable platform that, upon the push of a button, slid out over the sea from just below the main deck, complete with sand, palm trees, and deck chairs. It was just one of the many extras on what Kava called the most “pimped-out” vessel afloat.
The oligarch’s son climbed out of the helicopter, his hair whipping in the wind of the whirring blades overhead. Sergei had returned to Russia after winning his extradition hearing in London. He was dressed casually, having flown by private jet from Moscow to Malé before catching the chopper. A deckhand escorted him past the wave pool and down a flight of stairs. Kava wrapped his handsome son in a bear hug.
“Shoes off,” said Kava, and he led a barefoot Sergei across the sugar-white sand to the lounge chairs. A server brought them an ice-cold bottle of vodka and poured each of them a drink, which they enjoyed while talking business in Russian on a makeshift beach in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
“That was a close call you had in London,” said Kava.
Sergei sighed deeply, though Kava guessed his exaggerated reaction was more jet lag than anything. The time change from Moscow to the Maldives was just two hours, but the flight took nearly all day.
“Too close,” said Sergei.
“You need to be more careful in choosing your staff, son. I’ve been chauffeured around every country in the world for over forty years. Not once has a driver betrayed me.”
“Mine will never betray anyone ever again,” said Sergei. “Guaranteed.”
Kava nodded approvingly. “How much did MAP pay him to set you up?”
“We never found out.”
Kava did a double take, surprised. “Starikova always finds out.”
Starikova was among the most vicious mercenaries in the Wagner Group. Kava considered him the go-to contractor for private special-ops.
“My coward of a driver stuck a gun in his mouth the second he found out Starikova was on his heels,” said Sergei.
Kava chuckled. “Starikova has that effect. We had to pull him from the Bucha Building interrogations. Too many prisoners took the quick way out after seeing what Starikova did to the defiant ones.”
The Soviet-era Bucha Building, located just outside Kiev in the sleepy town of Bucha, was one of the first interrogation sites set up by the Wagner Group to support the Russian invasion. In the dark basement of a four-story office building at 144 Yablunska—a tree-lined lane that translates to “Apple Tree Street”—Wagner’s most trusted and ruthless operatives questioned, tortured, and executed in grisly fashion the local politicians and residents rounded up by the Russian army as leaders of the resistance.
“Is Starikova on the trail of that Black guy, too?” asked Kava.
“Yes, Theo Knight is his name,” said Sergei. “But there has been a development as to him, which is the reason I came here to talk.”
