Basilisk (The Korsak Brothers #2)

“Fine. Jesus. You are such a brat,” he grumbled. I lowered my gaze and narrowed my eyes. “Okay, okay.” He threw up his hands. “You’ve got me. You’re not a brat; you’re not a kid; you’re an adult. And one who pushes me around as if I were a toy car and half the time I don’t realize it.” He snorted and started finishing off the breakfast.

“I am the puppet master,” I said with appropriate darkness and doom in my voice. It should’ve been a joke, but unfortunately it was appropriate in real life this morning as well.

“You’re Darth Vader without the asthma and black cape,” he countered, scraping up the last forkful of potatoes.

“That too.” I didn’t mind. I liked Darth before he became a whiny mama’s boy. The whole choking people without having to touch them hit a little close to home, but it was a big pop culture thing I’d missed at the Institute and it was entertaining. I had all the Star Wars movies—the good three and the blasphemy-against-nature three. I’d watched the first three at least twice each. At least I’d stopped before I bought a light-saber to hide in the closet, although I still firmly stood behind the view that Han had shot first. The man wasn’t an idiot. Of course he shot first. I’d been younger then, by two years, and I had missed the excitement of everything being new and engaging. Things had popped up now that were new, but not engaging.

Not in a good way at least.

Stefan got up, dumped his empty plate into the sink, and said, “Okay, you’ve made sure I’m fed and watered just like your little monsters, so tell already.”

Tell I did. As he braced his hands on the back of my chair and looked down over my shoulder, I brought out the pictures I’d had hidden under my plate and laid them out. “I went back to look at the news on Anatoly.” I didn’t wait for a reaction, rushing on. “I thought something had seemed peculiar.”

“Weird,” Stefan substituted absently. He tried to help me get the language right for someone my age and my pretense of a lifelong coffeehouse career ambition.

“Weird. Something seemed weird.” I pointed at each photo. “This man. He’s in every one of them. Where they found Anatoly, when they put him into the coroner’s van, at the autopsy.” Stefan knew better than to ask where I’d gotten the autopsy photos. I could tell you who killed JFK if you wanted to know, but you really didn’t.

“I was curious,” I said. “There’s nothing Anatoly can do for the FBI or IRS now, but he looks like government. Then I ran him through my facial recognition program.”

That one did get to him. “You have a facial recognition program? You’ve got to be shitting me. Like the government and the TSA?”

“No, nothing like theirs. Mine is ninety-nine point nine percent accurate. They wish they had my program.” I pointed at the last picture. “This is him coming through the Miami airport the day after you broke into the Institute, grabbed me, and they moved. I hacked into the rental car place he used—video cameras are everywhere in airports—it’s great—found the car he rented under his own name, which definitely makes him government. Overconfident. I downloaded that car’s GPS information and guess where he went.”

Stefan didn’t have to guess. There was only one place that would have me going to this much trouble. He had gone to the Institute. “Who is he? Who is the son of a bitch?”

“Hugo Raynor. He’s been with the CIA, NSA, and now Homeland Security. He’s forty-two, five foot ten, best marksman at the Farm.” This was where CIA applicants trained when they were young and relatively untarnished. Raynor was far beyond the Farm and as blackened with tarnish as fifty-year-old tin. I’d bet he was still a good marksman, though. You’re never that good at something unless you love it, and if you love it, you don’t give it up.

“He speaks five languages,” I continued, “amateur” running through my mind, “and repeated a course in advanced psychological and physical interrogation. He got the top score both times. I guess it was like a good book; once isn’t enough.” I leaned back in the chair and said what had to be said, although Stefan probably already knew it by now. “The mob would’ve been quicker with Anatoly. The autopsy report says what was done to him was slow. Someone wanted to know something. The mob wants to find you too. King Anatoly is dead. . . . Long live King Stefan.” The man who’d taken Anatoly’s place in the mob would want to make sure Stefan wasn’t coming back to stir up old loyalties. “But they’re not patient, not like this.”

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