The Other Son (20 page)

And not to hatred, as the person who had done this had proved.

Mikhail Asmarov hurried down the escalator in the underground. His big body moved quickly; people scattered to make way for him.

There were four men after him, and there were probably more on the way. He had drowned their boss in the bath, in his lover's home. It was problematic, half-political. He had been given the job by another freelancer who was close to the police. That was how the cops commissioned murders. So now he had a mafia group after him, and soon the police as well. The lover had talked. Mikhail regretted giving in to an attack of mercy. He should have drowned her, too.

The underground train was standing at the platform. Was he going to make it? He heard the little signal and the driver's voice inside the train. Mikhail took a huge leap into the train car just before the doors closed.

He saw his pursuers reach the bottom of the escalator as the train began to move. Panting, he made his way back through the car to an empty seat. He sat down breathlessly. Now every fucker in Moscow knew he was on this train.

The train rattled through the tunnel, and glitches in the electricity supply meant the lights in the car kept flickering. Mikhail could feel his pistol against his ribs.

A little girl was playing a violin at one end of the car. It sounded good; she knew what she was doing. Mikhail looked around: children, adults, old people. There'd be a bloodbath if he stayed where he was.

The train ground to a halt at the next station. Mikhail scanned the sea of people going past but had no chance of knowing if anyone was waiting for him.

The doors opened and he dived into the people on the platform, cruising around the big, square marble pillars as he hurried toward the escalator.

On the other side, on the escalator taking people down to the platform, two men had just got on and were heading toward him. Mikhail thought he recognized one of them. He put his hand inside his jacket.

The man caught sight of him when they were almost level. The moment of recognition was unmistakable. Mikhail pulled his pistol from its holster, shot and hit the man in the side of the head, then ducked down for cover.

People started screaming and trying to get away in panic on the escalators. He heard pistol shots firing blindly behind him. Mikhail crouched down, then glanced up; he was almost at the top of the escalator. At that moment his cell phone rang, caller unknown, and he answered with a grunt.

“Yes?”

“
Mikhail?
”

“Yes?”

The top of the escalator was close now.

“
Rüdiger here.
”

“Hang on, Rüdiger.”

Mikhail stood up and ran up the last few steps and through the hall. He reached one of the exits and took it, hurried along a sidewalk until he found a door that was open, ran through a corridor, and found himself in a backyard. High-rise apartments all around him, sky up above. Mikhail stopped, held his phone up, and gasped: “Yes?”

“
It's Rüdiger.
”

“Yes, so you said.”

“
Are you busy?
”

“What do you want?”

“
The nurse called.
”

“Who?” Mikhail was still out of breath.

“
Hector Guzman's woman, Sophie…Sweden.
”

Mikhail added Rüdiger's words together, and after the equals sign a woman's face appeared in his mind. She was beautiful, kind, and good, he remembered. And completely wrecked after the shootout at Trasten.

“And?”

“
The debt you inherited from Klaus. She needs help.
”

Klaus had been lying on his deathbed, emaciated and pale, full of guilt and other crap. He had tried to make amends for his past before the devil came to get him, because he was going to; no one doubted that, least of all Klaus himself. So his promise to Sophie had been important to him. She had saved Klaus's life twice in a short space of time, and that had evidently softened his heart.

Klaus had asked Mikhail for help, and Mikhail had taken on the debt in exchange for
€
40,000.

“What with?” Mikhail asked.

“
I don't know.
”

“It'll have to wait, I'm busy with other things right now.”

“
That wasn't what you agreed. Klaus was clear about that.
”

“Klaus is dead. And I'm busy. I'm sorry, Rüdiger, not now.”

“
Why would you say that about Klaus, Mikhail? You promised him. And you were also handsomely rewarded. Now the woman is asking for help. Keep the agreement. Do the right thing. That's all Klaus wanted.
”

Rüdiger was as measured as a teacher. Mikhail massaged his bull neck and looked around, surrounded by buildings. It was a fitting metaphor. He was trapped in Moscow. And the longer he stayed there, the closer the walls would press in on him.

“OK, I'll contact her,” Mikhail said and hung up.

He walked across the yard, through the building, and out onto the street on the other side of the building. Then down into the underground again. They wouldn't look there again for a while. He needed to get out of Moscow without being spotted; that was his first goal.

Aron was standing on the terrace looking out over the sea and Cap Ferrat.

The electronic gates down at the end of the garden swung open and the seven-seat family Jeep came driving up the hill.

Aron left the terrace and went down to meet them in front of the entrance.

Angela was leading Andres and Fabien by the hand.

“I'm Aron, welcome. Long journey?” he asked.

Angela nodded. She looked drained, anxious, no energy at all.

He said hello to the boys, smiled, and tried to make light of the situation. Sonya came to his rescue and helped Angela and the boys inside the house.

Leszek and Hasani were standing in front of him, and he gestured that they needed to talk without delay.

In spite of the chill in the air, they sat down at a secluded table at the back of the house. Raimunda brought cups and a flask of coffee. Aron and Leszek watched as Hasani put five sugar lumps in his cup and stirred it with the spoon.

They started talking.

“Is there any truth in it?” Aron asked.

The question was aimed at Leszek. He answered with a shrug, cautious as ever.

“It's like this,” he began. “You call and tell us to come, all apart from Sophie. Without her knowledge, without saying anything to her. We do as we have been told. She is suddenly all alone, scared, possibly worried for her life, who knows. But she has betrayed us. So she does something drastic, and says her son is missing, to get our attention and sympathy.”

Aron nodded. But Leszek wasn't finished.

“That's the conclusion one comes to first, the most probable. But perhaps there is some truth in what she says,” he went on. “I've lived at her side. She's never lied, never tried to distance herself from us, never tried to gain any personal advantage. Instead, she has done whatever we have asked her to. And she has done her best.”

“She was in Munich with the Hankes,” Aron said. “She gave us false information after her meeting with Ignacio and Alfonse. And now something unlikely about Albert going missing the moment we leave her?”

Leszek lowered his head, even he couldn't get away from the inevitable.

“Hasani?” Aron asked.

Hasani stirred his coffee again.

“I don't know her, so the little I've seen can't really be taken to mean anything.”

He stopped stirring.

“I saw the grief in the boys' eyes when Eduardo was taken from his family,” he continued. “I was a guest of Daphne and Thierry when they were murdered. So if she has anything at all to do with…”

He didn't say any more, just raised the cup to his lips and drank his sweet coffee.

Angela shook out the clean sheets. They hung in the air for a moment before sinking onto the mattress.

The two boys, Andres and Fabien, were asleep on the bed, the window was ajar. Angela had heard fragments of the men's conversation down below. Aron's questions, Leszek's answers, Hasani's comments, their tentative tone of voice. They were talking about Sophie, and they were talking about treachery.

Angela realized that this was how it was going to be, that Aron and the others' desire to protect her and the boys wasn't the whole truth. She knew too much. So even if the threat against them disappeared, the situation wouldn't change. She and the boys would always have to live a life of undefined captivity.

Hasani wasn't on her side anymore, he was on theirs. Maybe he had been all along, but now it was obvious.

Angela wanted her husband back, Eduardo; she wanted to carry on living life the way it was meant to be….She put a pillowcase on one of the pillows.

“Are they asleep?”

Angela turned around.

Sonya was standing in the doorway, looking at the sleeping boys.

“Have you got everything you need, Angela?”

Angela realized she was clutching the pillow like a teddy bear.

“Yes, thanks,” she said, and finished putting the pillowcase on.

Sonya was about to leave when the men's voices outside the window reached her. Suddenly she looked anxious, walked back into the room and over to the window, and looked down. Then she closed and bolted it.

“Have you been listening to what they're talking about?”

“No, I've just been standing here thinking about other things.” She smiled sweetly and believably.

Sonya was about to say something, then changed her mind and walked out.

Angela's shoulders slumped.

She was frightened. She was going to get herself and her boys away from there. She would ask for help.

And she knew whom she was going to ask.