The Lion

PART VI

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Asad Khalil sat in a taxi in front of Svetlana. A text message appeared on his cell phone, and Khalil read it, then got out of the taxi and said to the driver, a fellow Libyan named Rasheed, "Wait here."

Khalil, wearing a suit and tie, and also a drooping mustache and glasses, entered through the front door of the nightclub, where he was greeted by a maitre d', who asked him in Russian, "Do you have a reservation?"

Khalil replied in the passable Russian he'd learned from Boris, "I am going only to the bar."

The maitre d' took him for a native of one of the former Asian Soviet Republics-a Kazakh, perhaps, or a Uzbek. The maitre d', Dimitri, did not like these people, and he would have turned him away if the man wanted a table. But it was more difficult to turn away someone who wanted to sit only at the bar to watch the floor show. The bartenders could deal with the man.

Dimitri motioned wordlessly toward the open doorway behind him and turned his attention to an arriving group.

Asad Khalil walked through the doorway and down a long corridor that was brightly lit and decorated with large photographs of past events at Svetlana-weddings and other happy occasions-accompanied by advertisements in Russian and English urging people to book their special events here.

He stopped at one of the group photographs that had caught his eye. Standing in the group was Boris Korsakov, whose smile, Khalil thought, was not sincere. "So," Khalil said to himself, "the great KGB man has sunk to this." Also he thought Boris had gained some weight.

Khalil continued on, and the corridor opened out into the big restaurant, where he could see the bar and lounge farther toward the rear. The restaurant, he noted, was half full on this Sunday evening at 6 P.M., and the stage was empty.

Khalil had never been here, but he felt he knew the place from the photographs and information given to him a few days earlier by a fellow Muslim, a man named Vladimir, a Russified Chechen who had been instructed a month ago to find himself a job here.

Khalil stood at the entrance to the restaurant for almost a minute, knowing that a security person would notice him, then he walked deliberately to a red-curtained doorway and entered the short corridor that led to a locked door.

Almost immediately, he heard footsteps behind him, and a man's voice in English said, "Stop," then in Russian, "Stoi!"

The man put his hand on Khalil's shoulder, and Khalil spun around and thrust a long carving knife into his throat, severing his windpipe.

Khalil held the man and let him slide into a sitting position against the wall, then withdrew the knife. He went through the dying man's pockets and found a keychain, and also a Colt.45 automatic pistol and a radio phone.

The man was still alive, but he was drowning in his own blood, and his larynx was severed, so he made no sound except for the gurgling in his throat.

Khalil glanced at the red curtain. No one had followed them, and he hefted the dying man over his shoulder, then went to the locked door, tried a key, then another, and the door opened.

Khalil found himself in a small room that contained an elevator and a steel door that Vladimir had told him led to the staircase. Vladimir had also texted Khalil that the other bodyguard, Viktor, was now sitting in the anteroom above, outside Boris's office, while Vladimir set the table for Boris and a lady who would be arriving shortly.

Khalil relocked the door to the corridor, then unlocked the steel door to the staircase and threw the bodyguard, who now appeared very close to death, onto the stairs. He relocked the staircase door and made his way quickly up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs was another door, and Khalil put the key in the lock with his left hand and held the long carving knife in his right hand. He opened the door quickly and burst into the small room.

Viktor jumped to his feet and his hand went inside his jacket for his gun, but Khalil was already on him, and he thrust the long knife into Viktor's lower abdomen while pulling him closer in a tight hug with his left arm so that Viktor could not draw his gun. He withdrew the knife quickly, then brought it around and thrust the blade into Viktor's lower back at a downward angle so it would puncture his diaphragm and leave him unable to make a sound.

Viktor tried to break loose from his attacker, and Khalil was surprised at his strength. Khalil held him tightly and brought his knife around again and buried the blade into Viktor's abdomen, then made a long, deep angular cut that severed the abdominal artery.

Khalil withdrew the knife and held Viktor in a bear hug. Khalil could feel the man's heart pumping, and his breathing becoming more labored and shallow. He also felt the warm wetness of Viktor's blood on his skin.

Viktor's head tilted back and they made brief eye contact, then Viktor's eyes widened and his body arched and shook in a series of death throes, before going limp.

Khalil lowered the dead man back into his chair and retrieved Viktor's gun from his shoulder holster, noting that it was also a Colt.45 automatic. He stuck the gun in his belt next to the gun of the other dead bodyguard.

Khalil looked at his watch. It had been just nine minutes since he'd entered this place. He dialed Vladimir's cell phone.

Boris Korsakov sat in his armchair, sipping a cognac, smoking, and reading a local Russian-language weekly that was filled with news of the immigrant community-births, deaths, marriages, some gossip, and many advertisements, including a full-page ad for Svetlana, which Boris studied. Perhaps, he thought, his ads should put less emphasis on the floor show and more on the food. Less breasts, more borscht. He smiled.

The busboy, Vladimir, was taking his time setting the table with chilled caviar and champagne for two. Boris was expecting a lady at 6:30, and it was already 6:15, and the stupid busboy-who was only a few weeks on the job-seemed nervous or unsure of what to do.

Boris looked over his shoulder and said to the busboy in Russian, "Are you not done yet?"

"I am just finishing, sir."

Vladimir knew that for all appearances he was an ethnic Russian, but in fact his name, his speech, and his Russian ways had been forced on him from birth by the Russian occupiers of Chechnya-and though he was Russian on the outside, in his heart he hated everything and everyone who was Russian, and he especially hated the former KGB and its successor, the FSS, which had arrested, tortured, and killed so many of his fellow Muslims in his homeland.

Vladimir looked at Boris Korsakov, sitting with his back to him, drinking, smoking, and giving him orders. Soon there would be one less KGB man on this earth.

Vladimir felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. It was time.

Boris put down his newspaper and said to Vladimir, "Just leave everything and go." Boris stood to walk to the door and look out the peephole for Viktor, and to show the busboy out.

But Vladimir was already at the door, without his cart, and with his hand on the bolt.

Boris shouted across the room, "Stop! You idiot! Stand away from that door!"

Vladimir slid the bolt open, stood aside, and the door swung open.

Vladimir left quickly as Asad Khalil entered with a pistol in his hand. Khalil bolted the door and looked at Boris Korsakov.

Boris stood absolutely still, his eyes fixed on the man who stood less than twenty feet from him.

The man had a mustache and glasses, and perhaps his hair was more gray than Boris remembered and not combed back as he recalled, but he knew who his visitor was.