Chen kept his face calm, but inwardly, he was seething. Chow was right. He had forgotten the threat of exposure. His assets in the Chinese government were deeply entrenched. He was in no danger of discovery here.

  But his assets in the United States were compromised. He could no longer count on them to put pressure on the Lawsons.

  “I see. Procure the information I’ve requested. Find also all of the information you can on Todd Strickland. Determine as well the CIA’s internal and external political positions. We’ll start with that. We can use Meridian’s other arms to lean on politicians unconnected to our female services. It will be time-consuming, but with enough time, a single stream of water can carve a canyon a thousand feet deep.”

  Chow bowed low. “Of course, sir.”

  He left the office, and Chen returned to his desk. He opened the drawer and selected a cigar. This one was Nicaraguan, an unusual source but a unique one. Their cigars had an interesting peppery flavor to them that Chen found intriguing.

  He carefully clipped the end of the cigar and just as carefully lit the opposite end.

  Care. That was crucial. In all things, a wise man must show care. Passion was the arena of fools. Those who ran stumbled. Those who acted quickly acted rashly. Chen would not act rashly.

  He puffed the cigar, sighing with satisfaction as the heady aroma of the tobacco filled his nostrils. He released the smoke and watched the tendrils drift lazily to the ceiling to be sucked through the vents into the air filtration system.

  Outside, the masses led their little lives, unaware of the movements of the giants who lived above. They remained ignorant of the fact that every step they took was planned for them, manipulated by those giants.

  Yet from time to time, one of those termites would grow strong and seek to shake off the yoke his betters had chosen for him. Or for her. Those termites, if not stopped, could chew through a castle’s beams as easily as water could carve through stone.

  These termites were under the protection of other giants. That lent a layer of intrigue to this that pleased Chen. He couldn’t simply crush these bugs. He had to find the weaknesses of their giants. Once discovered, he could bind those giants.

  Then the termites would be vulnerable. Then there would be no escape from his wrath.

  He smiled and puffed more of his cigar. He imagined the fright on the Sparrow’s face when she came face to face with her true enemy and realized how utterly insignificant she was by comparison.

  Until then, he wished joy of her victory. She had played well. It was a shame her fate was decided before she made her first move.

  EPILOGUE

  “You’re not worried that they’ll kill Zero before you can get to him?”

  Katerina giggled. “Of course not. You can’t be serious, Boris.”

  Boris frowned at her. “I am quite serious. Chen Wei-Ming has formidable reach, and he has friends in the United States government. He may be able to reach them before we can. At least before we can reach them the way you want to.”

  Irritation flashed through Katerina. First Keller had cost her nearly a billion dollars with his little airline stunt, and now the lord of a little Far East fiefdom was interfering with her campaign against Zero.

  “We will reach them the way I want to, and we will do it before Chen Wei-Ming touches them. If you are so worried, then call our assets and have them impede him. Or do you think we should assassinate him?”

  “It would be better if we didn’t assassinate him,” Boris replied. “His presence is required to maintain stability in the Far East. Our own concerns will suffer if he is not there to maintain order.”

  “Then impede him. Make sure he can’t do whatever he’s planning to do. And plan for his replacement. I don’t like being dependent on others for our success.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Good. And when you’re finished, buy yourself some good borscht and come back in a good mood. I don’t like when you’re cranky.”

  Boris grinned. “I am never cranky around you, Solnyshko.”

  Katerina rolled her eyes. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Boris.” She waved her hand. “Go. Get started. Rosa has a demonstration for me, and I want you to be there to see it.”

  “Da, Katerina.”

  He left her office, and Katerina kicked her legs and floated to her feet. The black dress she had chosen for today fell around her long, creamy smooth legs, tugging gently at the milky-white flesh of her breasts. She admired her reflection in the window for a moment, noting with pleasure that as she matured, her cheeks were firming beautifully. She would remain attractive well into her forties. If she took excellent care of herself, perhaps even her fifties.

  But she had a long way to go. She had only just turned twenty-two. She had many more years of youth to look forward to.

  She turned around, admiring her form a moment longer before heading to her desk. Boris did raise a good point, though it galled her to admit it. As the heiress of Mr. Bright, she was in command of the most powerful criminal organization on Earth, not to mention a legal conglomerate worth hundreds of billions of dollars. She wasn’t used to encountering people who could rival her in power. Meridian’s global reach was pitiful compared to hers, of course, but its criminal arm was formidable, perhaps even superior to hers in the illegal drug trade.

  And, of course, the human trafficking trade.

  Her lip curled at that. She had no problem with selling labor, and in fact operated considerably profitable ventures in Africa and Asia that provided low-wage income to manufacturing concerns.

  But the sex trade? It was so… gauche. How did men possess such little respect for themselves?

  It wasn’t the men to be blamed, really. They were just obsessed with sex. It was biological. They couldn’t quell their urges unless, like Boris, injury robbed them of the ability to act on those urges. It was the women who refused to understand and use that power who deserved to feel shame. For God’s sake, why was everyone so desperate to hide their greatest weapon? Just use it! Men weren’t masters of sex; they were slaves to it. If women could just understand that truth, they would rule the world. It wouldn’t even be difficult.

  She shook her head and reached for her phone. She dialed a number, and a voice on the other end answered tentatively, “Hello?”

  “Hello, Rosa!” Katerina said cheerfully. “How much longer?”

  Rosa swallowed. The sound was audible even over the phone. Katerina rolled her eyes. Seriously, the woman acted like Katerina was just waiting to bite her head off. “Just a few more minutes. Maybe… twenty?”

  “Excellent! We’ll be down in twenty minutes.”

  “Okay. I mean yes, ma’am.”

  Katerina started to explain that she didn’t need to call her ma’am, then stopped. Really, if Rosa was going to be so difficult about being her friend, then Katerina would just let her see her as a tyrant.

  She hung up and said, “Well, it’s for the best, I suppose. I will have to kill her at some point.”

  She got to her feet and headed for the window, but not to stare at her reflection this time. She gazed through the window at Neva Bay, watching the sun glitter off the gentle waves of St. Petersburg’s ocean. Her smile faded, and her blue eyes reflected the frost that would cover the shore when winter arrived.

  No, Chen would not get to Zero before she did. She wouldn’t allow it. He was hers by right. Zero had killed her father, robbed the world of its greatest genius, robbed Katerina of her hero. He belonged to her. She would make him suffer. She would torture him as he had tortured her. She would watch him mourn the loss of the people he loved the most.

  And she would make him belong to her. Utterly. She would crush him under her thumb and hold him there squirming. She would make him hers and make him know that he was hers. She would make him understand that she was as far above him as the sun was above the Earth.

  Then, when he knew fully the weight of the mistake he had made when he killed Mr. Bright, she would kill him.

  The door opened, and Boris entered. “Okay. I’ve contacted my agents in Shanghai and Sichuan and our associates in Washington, D.C. They will put obstacles in place that will impede Meridian’s movements in… But I see you are not interested in these details.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Katerina said. “I’m just angry. How dare he get in my way like that?”

  Boris crossed the office and placed an enormous paw on her shoulder. “We will teach him the error of his ways, Solnyshko.”

  Katerina smiled faintly and leaned her head against Boris’s hand. He was her best friend. He had cared for her before when her father was called away on business. He had taken her under her wing after Zero cruelly murdered her father. She viewed him as a favorite uncle, and from time to time, she considered leaving this life behind and retiring with him somewhere in the countryside while others ran the criminal empire her father left her.

  After she killed Zero of course. That must come first.

  “Dr. Hernandez will be ready for us soon,” she told Boris. “Your borscht will have to wait.”

  “You know I eat other things, right?”

  “Then your harem of women will have to wait too.”

  He grimaced and took his hand off her shoulder. “Why must you joke like that with me? You are like my… niece.”

  He hesitated, just briefly, but long enough that Katerina knew the word he didn’t say. She felt a torrent of emotions and quickly shrugged them off. “I enjoy making you feel uncomfortable. Now come. We have an appointment.”

  Boris followed readily, but they remained silent on the descent to the lowest floor of the Lenin Building. Mr. Bright was her father. She loved him. She loved Boris, but he was not her father. Boris was a wonderful man and brilliant in his own right, but he could never have built the empire her father did. No one could. That was what made him so special, so wonderful. That was what made Zero’s crime so great.

  But she did love him, and she couldn’t blame the old fool for thinking of her that way. Besides, with her father dead and her mother unknown and irrelevant, he was the closest thing she had to a parent left alive.

  So, as the elevator slowed, she grasped his forearm, stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek to let him know it was okay. He brightened immediately and ruffled her hair.

  “Hey!” she cried out, jerking back. “You know I don’t like that!”

  “I enjoy making you feel uncomfortable,” he teased. The elevator doors opened, and he gestured for her to step out first. “Now come. We have an appointment.”

  She glared at him as she fixed her hair, but her heart glowed. “I will see to it that every borscht café in St. Petersburg is closed down.”

  “You will never succeed,” Boris replied, following her out of the elevator. “Not even you can overcome the Russian love of borscht.”

  She rolled her eyes, but a small smile came to her lips. Not because the tension between her and Boris had softened, although that was wonderful, but because she was about to see the next stage of her weapon’s evolution.

  She stepped into the laboratory and found Dr. Hernandez standing behind a desk, arms crossed. A technician sat on the desk, manipulating a joystick with his right hand and using his left to type commands into a keyboard. On the screen was an image of Bryan Parkwell, a Welsh businessman who had run afoul of Katerina when he called favors into his government at the last moment and outbid her for a building contract in Cornwall.

  The money wasn’t the issue. Katerina could have called and won the bid with an offer triple what Parkwell offered, triple what he was worth. She could have bought every politician he owned and had them kill him months ago.

  But he had challenged her. Tried to outsmart her. Tried to play her. That was unacceptable.

  Katerina frowned. “Rosa, don’t tell me you started without me.”

  “We’re calibrating, ma—Katerina. You are early.”

  Katerina’s eyes flashed. “Oh. Am I intruding?”

  Rosa blanched. “No. Of course not.” She forced a smile. “I’m glad to see you.”

  Now Katerina remembered why she liked Rosa being afraid of her. The woman was so funny when she was terrified. Katerina smiled coldly at her, stifling laughter at the visible shudder that ran through Rosa.

  Boris cleared his throat and gave her a firm look. He had warned her repeatedly about not teasing her chief scientist too harshly. He worried too much. What was Rosa going to do, use the weapon on her? Katerina’s mind was far too strong to succumb to something like that.

  “Whenever you’re ready, doctor,” she told Rosa.

  Rosa nodded. “Nikita? How much longer?”

  “I’m still getting a flutter in the hippocampus, but that shouldn’t affect this test.”

  Katerina’s eyes narrowed. “What will it affect?”

  “The hippocampus links memories to emotions and provides emotional context to experiences. It’s why we have favorites and how we know that sunny days at the beach make us happy. It also modulates the body’s stress response, but the flutter we’re experiencing shouldn’t greatly impact that.”

  Katerina nodded. It was important that she be in total control of the subject’s mind, but it was fine that they weren’t at a hundred percent yet. They were making steady progress. Rosa was no longer dragging her feet.

  Then again, there was another player now. She couldn’t allow Chen Wei-Ming to reach Zero before her.

  Nikita typed a command into the keyboard. On the screen, Parkwell stiffened.

  “Hmm,” Rosa muttered. “Still need to work on the initial reaction.”

  Nikita maneuvered the joystick. Parkwell got to his feet and straightened his tie. He left his office and smiled at his secretary, a young woman of eighteen who had joined him a few weeks ago when his former secretary retired.

  She returned his smile and asked, “Do you need anything else, sir?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Parkwell replied cheerfully. “I’m just going to break your neck now.”

  The young woman blinked. “Sir?”

  Parkwell lunged for her, grabbing her jaw and the crown of her head and twisting so forcefully that when he released her, her jaw remained pointed backwards, her eyes on the ceiling above her. Katerina giggled when she jumped up and drummed her feet on the floor, eyes fluttering. Parkwell regarded her for a moment, then grabbed her shoulders and shook vigorously. She spasmed, then went limp.

  He nodded, satisfied, and dropped the body. Then he headed for his private elevator and pressed the button for the parking garage.

  “We should have had him take the weapon inside,” Boris said. “He could be discovered at any second.”

  “The point is to test the emotional control we have,” Katerina reminded him. “We need to see if we can suppress his ordinary reactions and implant the ones we prefer.”

  “Are you going to have Zero kill his daughters?” Rosa blurted out.

  Katerina looked coldly at her, and this time she wasn’t teasing. Rosa lowered her eyes and looked away, lips trembling. Nikita shifted uncomfortably in his seat, but he didn’t stop the test.

  Katerina turned back to the screen. Parkwell opened the trunk of his car, a brand-new Bentley Continental GT Speed that he’d purchased with money earned from the deal that should have been Katerina’s. He retrieved a shotgun, held it to the light, then shrieked.

  “Aaahhh! Ahhh Ahhh Ahhhhh!!!”

  “Blyat,” Nikita cursed.

  He released the joystick, and his fingers flew over the keyboard. On the screen, Parkwell continued to hold the shotgun up to the light and shout at it like a deranged howler monkey.

  Nikita tapped the enter key, and Parkwell’s mouth clamped shut. He shrugged and headed back toward the building. The door to the garage opened, and a security guard stepped through. “Sir? Is everything—”

  Parkwell leveled the shotgun and blew off the man’s head. The body stood where it was for a second, blood spurting from the neck, then fell over.

  Katerina giggled again. She glanced at Rosa and saw pure hate in the woman’s eyes. When Rosa saw her looking at her, she looked quickly away, but Katerina saw the hate first.

  Boris might be right about Rosa fearing her too much. Katerina still needed Rosa. Not for much longer, but she still did. She couldn’t alienate the woman too much. It might be better to use a softer touch for the time being.

  “That’s enough, Nikita,” Katerina said. “You can end the test.”

  Nikita pressed a button on the joystick. Parkwell, who had been aiming the shotgun at his frightened officer workers, turned the weapon around, said, “Bloody lovely day, isn’t it?” then shot his own head off.

  Nikita shut off the monitor and turned around, avoiding Rosa’s eyes and addressing Katerina. “Test completed.”

  “Wonderful!” Katerina said. “Excellent work. Clearly some things still need to be ironed out, but I have no doubt you will get them taken care of in time.” She smiled at Rosa. “Good. Let me know when we can have a subject avoid shrieking like a monkey at his tools.”

  Rosa swallowed. “Yes, Katerina.”

  “In the meantime, take the rest of the day off. You’ve earned it. Perhaps you should take advantage of the tower’s amenities. I’ll instruct my staff to be at your beck and call.”

  Rosa, of course, swallowed. “You’re too kind, ma’am.”

  “Nonsense! You are very important to me, Dorogaya. I take care of those who are important to me.” She turned to Boris. “Will you join me for dinner?”

  “Of course, Solnyshko.” He grinned. “I know an excellent borscht place.”

  Katerina rolled her eyes but allowed him to lead her out of the laboratory and to his precious borscht. She was in good spirits despite the mixed success of the test.

  Zero belonged to her. She would get her revenge. And soon, she would have the means to obtain it in the most complete way possible.

  Only she would not break his mind like Parkwell. No, she would make sure he was fully aware of everything she was doing to him. She would not allow him the mercy of insanity.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22