“Otvali!” said Tikkar.

  Fuck off.

  “Yest’ liniya,” said Tacoma.

  There’s a line.

  Tikkar nodded, staring at Tacoma, then whipped his tray at Tacoma’s head. Tacoma blocked it, just as Tikkar swung with his other fist. Tacoma ducked, and in the after-wash of Tikkar’s whiff Tacoma hammered a hard fist into Tikkar’s chin, snapping his head back. Tikkar stepped sideways and paused—surprised more than anything—then, as he started to charge at Tacoma, Tacoma pivoted in a martial 180, slashing his right leg across the air in a blurry, precise movement. Tacoma’s foot caught Tikkar in the neck and jerked his head sideways. He let out a deep groan and fell backward, stumbling, then tumbled to the ground.

  A group of men quickly stepped into the middle of the fight, stopping it. Tikkar stood up and pointed at Tacoma.

  “Ty pokoynik,” said Tikkar.

  You’re a dead man.

  Tikkar walked away from the cafeteria.

  Tacoma filled his plate with lasagna and green beans and sat alone. The food wasn’t bad, though he could’ve eaten anything at that point. He drank an entire pitcher of water at the table. He ate ravenously. He was still soaked in sweat when the whistle blew twenty minutes later, ending the lunch break. He couldn’t remember being so thirsty or hungry, and that included during desert training after he was accepted into the Navy SEALs.

  But the afternoon was even worse, as a tramp steamer—scheduled for a noon docking—idled in the channel, waiting as the vessel that was there, a Russian steamer, off-loaded its freight. They were behind schedule and they needed to empty the sitting ship as quickly as possible or else incur penalty fees from both shippers. The pallets came in hot now, and Grigor dispatched another man to help out Tacoma and his partner. He was thin, with long, scraggly hair and arms covered in tattoos, but he handled the incoming pallets with skill, taking charge and quietly directing them.

  When the whistle blew at 5 P.M., Tacoma was exhausted. They’d gotten the cargo off with half an hour to spare, then unloaded the second ship.

  It was Tacoma’s idea to go after the people who killed Cosgrove on his own, but now he questioned his own logic. He could barely lift his arms. All he wanted to do was go to bed, which he realized was a thin mattress in an odd smelling room at the Holiday Inn.

  * * *

  Tacoma followed everyone else out to the open area between the two warehouses. The halogen lights were on, and soon the circle was formed. Bottles of vodka were passed around and the shouting and yelling started.

  Tikkar emerged from the warehouse. He looked angry.

  The night before, Tikkar had spent time searching around for someone to fight, but not tonight. Tonight, he just needed to find the one who’d embarrassed him. When Tikkar found him, he pointed.

  “You,” said Tikkar in a thick accent, pointing at Tacoma. “New guy.”

  Tikkar flicked his finger, calling Tacoma into the center of the human ring.

  Tacoma felt the finger pointing at him across the crowd. It made him shiver. He looked to his right, then left, as if perhaps Tikkar was pointing at someone else.

  Tacoma stepped forward into the ring at the center of the human scrum.

  The shouting and yelling became more subdued as the rest of the workers saw Tacoma enter the middle of the ring. Tacoma, at six foot two, was half a foot shorter than Tikkar. Men abruptly stopped throwing cash down. To a man, they thought Tikkar was selecting a smaller man, a new worker, in order to take a night off.

  Only Victor stepped forward, reaching into his pocket and throwing down a wad of twenties.

  Tikkar had a dark look, his eyes buried back beneath hawkish sockets that kept his gaze in a gray light at all times, like a phantom. He had thick, dark eyebrows. He came at Tacoma as the yelling from the gathered dockworkers grew louder.

  Tikkar bared his fists, a boxing maneuver, bouncing on his feet. He stepped toward Tacoma and swung, but Tacoma ducked and stepped back, though as he did Tikkar’s other fist whacked him in the chin out of nowhere. Tacoma was dusted for a moment, blurry and dazed. As he stepped sideways, trying to get equilibrium, Tikkar swung again, this time with his strong arm. Tikkar’s fist caught Tacoma in the stomach, a hard, violent strike that caused Tacoma to suddenly groan and bend over in pain.

  The crowd went wild.

  Tikkar moved in for the kill. Tacoma was doubled over. Tikkar slashed his arm through the air, launching a brutal strike at Tacoma’s exposed cheek.

  Tacoma saw it, despite the pain. He saw Tikkar and he saw him swinging and he heard the cheers as Tikkar was about to kill him and he remembered the words.

  Never give up.

  He ducked quickly back, eluding the fatal blow, then stuck his foot out as Tikkar whiffed. Tikkar’s leg hit Tacoma’s foot and he spilled sideways, tumbling to the tar.

  Tacoma stood, beet red, covered in sweat, and pounded a fist against his breast.

  “Get up!” barked Tacoma.

  The workers were in a state of pandemonium. The decibel level was rising.

  Tikkar stood and charged at Tacoma.

  Tacoma timed it. He charted Tikkar’s every step, and when he had him, Tacoma abruptly took two steps toward him and then dived to his left, kicking his leg violently through the air in an upward motion. His foot met Tikkar’s chin just as Tikkar came within inches of being able to grab Tacoma. A dull snap of bone echoed across a suddenly stunned crowd. Tacoma’s strike shattered Tikkar’s jaw. Teeth dropped to the tar like Chiclets. Tikkar crumpled to the ground, unconscious, as blood gurgled from his nose, ears, and mouth.

  Tacoma got to his feet and stood still, fists bared, waiting for Tikkar to get up, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  Tacoma cast his eyes around the crowd of dockworkers. A few threw money down, then a few more. Tacoma walked along the edge of the crowd and picked it up. As he did, his eyes cut to the warehouse. Volkov was standing on the fire escape watching everything.

  “Not bad,” said Victor, who approached Tacoma from across the ring. “When I heard what happened at lunch, I figured you were a dead man.”

  Victor leaned over and helped Tacoma pick up bills from the ground.

  “Thank you,” said Tacoma.

  “Where did you learn to fight like that?” said Victor.

  Tacoma said nothing.

  By the time he finished picking up the cash, the crowd had dispersed, except for a few men who were helping Tikkar get into the back of a truck to take him to the hospital. Tacoma walked to the driver, one of Tikkar’s friends, and stood in front of the door. Finally, he lowered the window.

  “What the fuck do you want?” the driver said.

  “Eto dlya doktora,” said Tacoma quietly, pushing the thick pile of money into his hands.

  This is for the doctor.

  Tacoma glanced at Tikkar in the back seat, sprawled out and unconscious.

  CHAPTER 57

  APQA Terminal

  Miami, Florida

  The next day was easier than the first.

  Tikkar, the crane operator, didn’t show up for work the next day and a different man operated the crane, someone who was less reckless. It was still brutal work, tiring and constant, but the man operating the crane wasn’t a psychopath.

  As much as he wanted the work to be done, Tacoma also knew that at the end of the day he would face a decision. Who to fight. He thought about picking an easy opponent and taking a day off, but in fact he had already made up his mind. He would follow Jenna’s design.

  When the whistle sounded at five, he walked with Zachary to the lockers. Everyone was looking at him as he opened his locker. Finally, it was Zachary who approached.

  “It’s time,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Who will it be?”

  Tacoma ignored the question.

  He drank two bottles of water and then walked out to the parking lot, where a human ring had already started to form. He had to push his way through to the inner ring, and as he did he encountered shoves, kicks. They all wanted to take him on.

  Tacoma moved out into the center of the human ring, pulling his T-shirt from over his head and tossing it onto the ground. The crowd of workers started chanting and yelling as bottles of vodka were passed around.

  Tacoma scanned the crowd. At least three hundred men were gathered. He saw Andrei Volkov on the fire escape.

  CHAPTER 58

  Reagan National Airport

  Washington, D.C

  The plane landed at midnight, a black Gulfstream on an alias flight plan. Kaiser climbed into a waiting Mercedes limousine and was whisked into Washington, a city he was all too familiar with.

  His large frame took up the back seat of the limo and, as requested, a chilled bottle of Moskovskaya Osobaya was waiting. When Kaiser drank he took no prisoners. He unscrewed the green cap and opened the window, hurling the cap out as the luxurious Mercedes sped into Washington. He put the window back up, lifted the bottle to his mouth, and started drinking, like a man lost in the desert who suddenly finds a bottle of water. Kaiser drank the entire bottle in less than ten seconds. He opened the window and hurled the bottle out along the freeway.

  In Kosovo, at the time of the uprising, Kaiser had been in charge. He made the decision to kill innocent men, women, and children only after drinking a bottle, like tonight. He destroyed lives after drinking like this, but it was only the alcohol that could get him to do what was more important than caring about one individual life.

  Kaiser had few personal loyalties or affections. That being said, within the maze that was the Odessa Mafia, he vastly preferred the Bergens over Darré. He didn’t like Americans, yet they provided the revenue for everything; America was the engine and Darré was a special earner. There were others, of course, but no one like Darré and his operating partner, Volkov. Darré was more refined than anyone in the broad diaspora of the Odessa clan. Darré had outwitted the Malnikovs along the East Coast of the United States. In addition, Darré controlled 55 percent of all cyber-related crime in the world. Darré was an intellectual. He and Darré had once attended the Bolshoi together along with a pair of beautiful women Darré had arranged for the evening. That being said, Darré and his henchman, Volkov, could be just as violent and brutal as the next in line, if not more so. Their crimes might have been less bloody than others, but they were more brutal. Their phishers had no problem taking away someone’s life savings, and in the end, the victims of Darré’s crimes suffered even more than they would have if they’d simply died.

  Bruno Darré had been the logical selection to terminate the two American politicians, Blake and O’Flaherty. Yet, the whole thing was beginning to take on a life of its own. A troubled life. Kaiser knew he needed to end it. It was why he was here, in the United States.

  Kaiser was wanted on several warrants—under various identities, none of them his actual identity—inside the U.S. but had long ago figured out how to manipulate the technology governing foreign visitors. He came to America at will, but always remembered that one wrong move could have disasterous consequences. His visits were short but necessary.

  The Mercedes limousine pulled up in front of a sleek apartment building in a neighborhood north of the National Mall, a building with stellar views of both the Capitol and the White House.

  Kaiser walked around the back of the apartment building and entered through the parking garage. He took the elevator to the fourth floor, then the stairs down to three. He knocked at the door.

  After several moments, the door opened. There, standing, was a tall, thin, polished-looking individual.

  “Good evening, Senator Lehigh,” said Kaiser.

  “Who are you?” said Lehigh, trying to close the door.

  Kaiser abruptly kicked forward, slamming his foot into the door. The door shot back, ripping the chain lock, and hit Lehigh square across the forehead, sending him back as he screamed and blood suddenly poured from his broken nose.

  Kaiser shut the door behind him and walked to the wet bar, returning with a bottle of vodka. He unscrewed the cap and took a large gulp.

  “Good evening, Senator Lehigh,” said Kaiser.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “My identity is irrelevant,” said Kaiser. “Now tell me, who is aware of your arrangement with Bruno Darré?”

  “Only me,” said Lehigh.

  Kaiser took another large gulp. He reached into his coat pocket and removed a gun, a Stechkin APS, with a long black alloy silencer jutting from the muzzle.

  “What is the name of the other CIA agent assigned to the unit, Senator Lehigh?”

  Lehigh paused, his face a picture of abject fear, even terror.

  “I don’t know. I swear…”

  Kaiser aimed the gun at Lehigh’s head, then swung it to the television and fired a hole into the screen. A flare of cracks spread out from the dime-sized hole.

  Kaiser reacquired Lehigh, who was bleeding from a gash across his forehead.

  “Tacoma,” Lehigh whispered. “Robert Tacoma.”

  “Why did you not tell us this?”

  “He quit,” said Lehigh. “After Cosgrove was murdered, he quit. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “You saw what they wanted you to see,” said Kaiser.

  Kaiser set his gun down on the coffee table and sat down on the couch.

  Lehigh slowly climbed to his feet, holding his nose and moving gingerly, then he suddenly lurched at Kaiser. He dived forward, across the coffee table, reaching for the weapon. It all occurred in a fraction of a second, and Lehigh grabbed the gun before Kaiser could even move, grabbing it and pivoting the muzzle as he slid across the marble top. He acquired Kaiser and pulled the trigger. There was no sound except for a dull mechanical click of the empty chamber, then a second, and a third.

  “This isn’t about me, Senator,” said Kaiser from the sofa as he swallowed the remainder of the vodka in one large gulp. His Russian accent was sharp, thick, and he made no effort to hide it. “This is about a war. You are a casualty of war, but we must cut off the connection between you and us. You do understand, I hope? I appreciate your courage,” said Kaiser, just as he reached out and grabbed Lehigh’s arm with his prosthetic hand, snapping the forearm halfway between the elbow and wrist. Lehigh screamed.

  “Your wife and daughter will be safe, Mr. Lehigh,” added Kaiser matter-of-factly. “Any money that has been given to you by Bruno Darré will not be touched, you have my word. You earned it. Unfortunately, you will not be around to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but your wife and daughter will.”

  Lehigh moaned and swung wildly, and kicked at Kaiser as Kaiser stood up, absorbing every blow. Kaiser hoisted Lehigh up by the neck, holding him with his prosthetic hand in the air, gripping him tighter and tighter until the skin broke beneath the pressure of the mechanical limb. Lehigh stared back at Kaiser and stopped fighting as his face turned red, and a trickle of blood flowed from his nostrils. Then his eyes rolled back into his head. Kaiser let him fall. He tumbled sideways, taking a chair with him, landing on the carpet in a growing pool of crimson.

  CHAPTER 59

  Mandarin Hotel

  Washington, D.C.

  Tacoma.

  Once Kaiser had a name, it was a simple matter to get one of his hackers to dig deep and assemble a dossier.

  Tacoma.

  Kaiser knew he had to be eliminated, for the roots of an American insurrection against the Russian mafia could not be allowed to take hold. They had to snuff it out at its beginnings. Never again would the CIA be able to get such an effort approved. It had to be stopped. Kaiser knew this.

  Yet, it was something altogether different that now coursed through Kaiser’s brain. He hated this person Tacoma like he’d never hated anyone before.

  Kaiser was going to do what everyone else obviously was incapable of doing. He was going to put down the second member of the team, pluck the weed of this special unit before it sprouted.

  Kaiser studied the photos of Robert Tacoma. The dossier was building by the minute, after-action reports from places Tacoma had wreaked havoc. Lisbon, Paris, Monaco, Tokyo … Moscow.

  He stared at photos of Tacoma from his days at UVA, as a Navy SEAL, and fuzzy surveillance photos. A photo from People magazine.

  Kaiser wanted to kill him. But he knew that more important than who killed Tacoma was that it was done. He had to die.

  Kaiser took his phone and tried calling Darré, but it went to voicemail. He tried again, but there was again no answer. Kaiser wasn’t going to leave a voicemail. He slammed down the phone as he looked out the window of the Mandarin Hotel over the empty dark waters of the Potomac River.

  I’ll find you, Tacoma, and when I do I’ll kill you.

  CHAPTER 60

  APQA Terminal

  Miami, Florida

  Volkov walked to the small window that looked out on the parking area between the two warehouses. Volkov went out onto the steel fire escape, as he did every night. The circle had already formed and Volkov watched as the new champion stepped forward. Evgeny, the newcomer, had protected Volkov’s record of continuous victories from Tikkar with his surprising victory last night. Tikkar had underestimated him. Tonight, however, Volkov thought, we’ll see what he can really do. The newcomer stepped out into the human ring. The sky was black. The tarmac was illuminated by bright halogen lights on cranes.

  * * *

  Tacoma pulled his shirt off and tossed it to the ground behind him. He looked muscled, even tough, though Tacoma was not as big as many of the men gathered around the increasingly loud scrum. He wasn’t massive, but he was covered in chiseled muscle and held himself in a way that projected experience, capability, athleticism, and above all, speed.

  Tacoma circled within the ring and, out of the corner of his eye, watched Volkov move along the fire escape to get a better view.

  The crowd was getting boisterous, yelling at Tacoma. Many men were taunting him. Alcohol was flowing. Everyone wanted to know who he would choose to fight. The dockworkers were hyped, expressing their heightened sense of anticipation by throwing money down to incentivize him.