That was enough for Karasek to look a little rattled, suggesting Finn was in the right neighborhood.
“I have no connection with this BGS. I tell you what I think . . . I think somebody is using BGS to get to me, not Aleksandr Naumenko.”
Finn nodded, smiling in a way that made Karasek even more jumpy.
“I imagine you spoke to Perry after I called you. Did he tell you Gibson is dead? I killed him. I killed Taylor, too. They’re both dead, but Gibson talked first, so I know exactly how involved you are with BGS, and so does Alex. But here’s the good news—the person we really want is Perry, so tell us what you know about what Perry’s up to, and we won’t have a problem with you.”
Karasek smiled, trying to look superior but appearing priggish, then stabbed the air with his finger and said, “Join the dots.”
Finn looked out over the city. A small plane was crossing the sky, pulling a long banner behind it. For a moment, he tried to read what it said, forgetting it would be in Finnish.
“You know they killed a fifteen-year-old boy last week, and they tried to kill a girl, too?”
Karasek shrugged, clearly unaware of Jonas’s death, but equally unconcerned by it. The death of a boy was nothing to Karasek, but as much as Finn wanted it to be otherwise, it seemed the crimes against Jonas and Hailey had been entirely Perry’s doing, not Karasek’s.
The small plane crossed into his line of vision over Karasek’s shoulder, and Finn realized now that it was circling the tower at a distance. He looked inside and saw the whole wedding party crushing toward the other viewing platform. It seemed the banner was a message for the newlyweds.
He looked back at Karasek and said, “Sparrowhawk—it was meant to destroy you and destroy Perry.”
“It failed.”
“True.” He could hear the plane, but it was out of sight now, on the other side of the tower. “And it’s so rare in my business that you get a second chance.”
Karasek shook his head, baffled and mocking. Finn heard a spontaneous cheer from the bar and glanced inside, the banner now in sight to those on the other platform, everyone in the bar facing north.
Finn lunged across the table, punching Karasek hard in the face. It wasn’t enough to knock him out, but fierce enough to leave him shaken, groggy. Finn jumped up, pulled him to his feet. Karasek mumbled something in Estonian. Finn threw him against the reinforced glass, adrenaline pumping, the cheers and claps still coming from within the bar. He grabbed Karasek by the chest and crotch, and thrust him upward, just managing to get his center of gravity over the lip of the glass, tipping him over.
Karasek realized what was happening and cried out, his voice lost against the party and the wind licking around the tower. He thrust out with his arms, then grabbed wildly as he fell down the other side of the glass, his feet finding the narrow ledge, one hand finding the railing, then the other.
“Stop, Harrington! Wait!” He was breathing rapidly, as if his heart might fail him. “It was Perry who wanted you. He knew Sparrowhawk was a trick, that you were trying to catch him. That’s what he was doing. He wants to prove you worked with Naumenko, that you were . . .”
“Corrupt?”
“Yes, yes—corrupt.”
“Why did you help? What was your reason for getting involved?”
“For everything . . . for Kaliningrad, for Katerina, but . . . it wasn’t . . .”
Finn nodded and said, “I know.” He punched over the top of the glass, one hard swing downward into Karasek’s face. Karasek fell silently—probably stunned by the punch—which Finn thought a shame.
Finn turned and walked off the terrace. As he did so, the first of the wedding party turned away from the other terrace and the view of the plane that now flew on toward the west. Still none of them looked at him or out to the other terrace, let alone wondered if there had not been another man out there.
He caught a glimpse of the bride and groom as he headed down the stairs—not a particularly young couple, perhaps around his own age or Adrienne’s. And as he reached the bottom of the spiral staircase, another small group of partygoers was just coming out of the elevator.
The three bodyguards stood alert at the sight of Finn, but he simply smiled and stepped into the recently vacated elevator car. One of the guards, the one who’d been sent down, tried to go back up but found himself stuck behind the late guests on the stairs.