“So you’re listening in on his every move, huh?”
“He thinks I’m in London. What a moron. If that is what passes for leadership in your organization, then this whole thing should be so easy.”
“What whole thing?”
“Koval taking his rightful place. He’s been second-in-command for years. But then you found the list and exposed our clients. You ruined my reputation, and because he brought me into Marchuk’s organization, you ruined his, as well.”
By the time she finishes the last sentence, her English accent is gone. Koval had said she could affect a number of accents, but it’s clear this was the one she grew up speaking.
“So you’re Ukrainian, too, not some English hack-for-hire working for Marchuk?”
She doesn’t answer, but I want to keep her calm and talking while I work out a plan.
“You work for Koval now?”
“I was always on his side. Vadim Koval is my brother. And this has always been my plan. Sveta works for no one but herself.”
“What exactly is this plan of yours?” I take a small step back, hoping she’ll subconsciously respond to my movement by stepping forward. So far, all I can think to do is draw her near enough to me to disarm her, then take her out with hand-to-hand combat. But she doesn’t move, just stays there with that rifle muzzle pressed against Bunker’s back.
“You are so smart, haven’t you figured it out? No, because I’m smarter. I suppose it doesn’t matter if I tell you now. Who are you going to tell, Prettyboy? No one, because you’ll soon be dead.” She smirks at that last part, which actually makes me hopeful. Her overconfidence is a weakness to exploit. “We would get your people to capture, hopefully kill Marchuk, since we all know the capturing didn’t go so well last time.”
So they wanted the CIA to do their dirty work. I just hadn’t realized how far back the plan went. Sveta has played me for a fool for even longer than I believed.
“So you’re saying even back in the Ukraine, you were manipulating us into taking out Marchuk for you?”
“We wanted either the clients or the CIA to do it, as long as Vadim continued to look like the grieving, loyal sergeant. But both you and the clients failed. Well, you did get the old man.”
“And here I thought Koval was just waiting for Marchuk Senior to retire so he could inherit the business. But y’all planned all along to take it from both Marchuks, except making their clients believe our people killed them.”
“You let the stupid one get away,” Sveta continues, “but I lured him out of hiding—”
“And I suppose it was with your help that I didn’t know anything about that?” I ask, still stalling for time, still hoping I can draw her close enough to kill her with my bare hands, or at least away from Bunker so I can throw a screwdriver into her heart. Fortunately, people love talking about themselves, especially sociopathic people who think they’re extra brilliant and underappreciated. I take a small step forward. Sveta is so into bragging about herself, she doesn’t notice.
“Yes. I intercepted recent calls, voicemail, and texts from the CIA, just letting through what I wanted you to see,” Sveta boasts, clearly proud of her phreaking skills. If Bunker’s eyes weren’t starting to water out of fear that she’s about to kill him, I’d admit to her that I’m impressed. “Vadim has been working to get the operation up and running again while that coward Marchuk hid out, just waiting to surface and take over again. So I hurried things along.”
“You know he isn’t dead, right?” I ask, closing my fingers around the handle of the Phillips-head inside my sleeve, waiting for the moment I can use it.
“For now. Your people have been embarrassed by Marchuk. I doubt they’ll let that happen again. They’ll either kill him by accident, or at the very least, make sure he never escapes again. Vadim and I will take over permanently, as it should have been before you destroyed everything. Or tried to. Today will make everything right again. You showing up was just a bonus.”
“You lured me here!”
“I didn’t know what you looked like. It was Marchuk who saw you in the student directory. He wanted to kill you. I wanted to ruin you. And Vadim wanted to use you as CIA bait. All you did was help. And you had no idea.”
“So you took the photo of me hoping it would go viral and get me burned out of the CIA for good, right? Or do you just have a thing for me?”
Sveta smiles at that, which hopefully means I’m distracting her enough to charge her.
“You’re half right.”
“So what’s the other half of the story? What did you plan to do with me if you had found me in the chem lab? What other reason is there to make my photo go viral?”
“The photo was meant to scare your people into coming here and finishing what they started in Ukraine. Having your cover blown and making sure they knew Marchuk was in town assured that. It would be bad publicity if your government knew the CIA was employing teenage operatives on US soil. Spies dislike all publicity, no? Taking you as a hostage was the ace card, as you Amerikanski say.”
“You took over an entire school,” I say. “The authorities would have come running, with or without me as your hostage.”
“We didn’t want just any ‘authorities.’ We needed the same organization that took out the old man, so it would look like they were finishing the job. Many people want Junior gone. Clients might suspect Vadim was one of them—after all, the job would have been his if not for…” Sveta doesn’t finish, because it would mean admitting a time when she wasn’t smarter than me. That pause makes her look away for one second, allowing me to move another step closer. “Anyway, we needed our customers to believe the CIA finished him off. I mean, do you really think people would believe you took out Marchuk and his team single-handedly?”
When I don’t say anything, proving her right, she laughs.
“That is why the plan worked so well. You were so convinced the attack was about you, Prettyboy, you never saw the real threat coming. Do you think I would do all this to chase you here, to this country, just to ruin you?” She points the rifle at me. “I could have done that without either of us leaving Ukraine.”
She’s got a point there.
“Marchuk does not give a damn about you. Well, yes, he wanted to kill you,” she muses as she circles Bunker, never taking her eyes off me, “but avenging his father wasn’t enough to come out of hiding and put himself on American soil for easy capture. I gave him better bait.”
“Better bait? What are you talking about?”
It must be the bigger thing Katie still hasn’t told me about. The package. Which means I have absolutely zero leverage here because I was never critical to this mission. Marchuk might have wanted me brought in alive so he could kill me himself, but he’s probably in Berg’s custody by now. I am of no use to Sveta or Koval at this point.
Sveta laughs, and I swear it is the laugh of a cartoon evil queen, but she doesn’t answer my question.
“Now that I’ve told you all my secrets, I have to kill you. And obviously, I’ll have to kill your friend, since he just heard all of that.”
“Wait a minute. Maybe we can work something out,” I say, reciting the desperate plea of captives everywhere.
“I know. It’s really too bad I have to kill you. You’re both so cute, and this one with the crush on me and all. But it must be done.”
Then the crazy chick starts singing a kid’s chant to figure out which of us she will shoot first. I’m going to die at the hands of a psycho, and the last words I’ll ever hear will be duck, duck, goose.
CHAPTER 27