Collateral (Tier One #6)

Unregistered Domestic Detention Center

Tampa, Florida

October 1

1907 Local Time

The buzzer sounded, the lock clicked, and the door opened.

“Hey, Doug,” Amanda said, greeting the big man with a smile.

“Hey, you,” the security guard said, closing the door behind her.

“How are the kids?”

He shrugged. “Been better. Dorothy is upset ’cause she lost her ruby slippers, and Toto ran away. I was out all night, pounding the yellow brick road and questioning every munchkin I could find, looking for that stupid dog.”

“Did you get him back?”

“Yeah, a winged monkey dropped him off at like two a.m.,” he said with a theatrical headshake.

“Wizard of Oz on the brain tonight, huh?” she said with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” he said, “just watched it with my real kids for the first time.”

“Nice,” she said, a little surprised. This was the first time he’d ever pulled back the curtain on his real family life. “It’s definitely a classic. Did they like it?”

“Oh yeah, right up to the point when the flying monkeys started ripping the scarecrow apart. That freaked them out and we had to take a break. I’m telling you, those friggin’ flying monkeys are the stuff of nightmares.”

“Hmmm, funny. They never really bothered me. It was the angry, floating wizard head that creeped me out as a kid,” she said, and then, getting down to business, “How’s Bessonov doing?”

“Same old, same old,” he said with disinterest. “Lounging on the sofa, watching TV all day.”

Amanda nodded, not surprised at his report, and pulled her Sig P365 SAS subcompact from her ankle holster. She set the weapon, along with her purse, inside the plastic crate beside the “apartment” door.

“All right, we’ll see how belligerent she is today.”

Doug unlocked and opened the door for her.

The second Amanda stepped across the threshold, she sensed something wasn’t right. For starters, the television was much louder than normal. The air inside felt different, as if charged with static electricity. Gooseflesh stood up on the back of her neck as the door closed and locked behind her.

“Sylvie?” she called, scanning the room for her charge.

Essentially a studio apartment, the space was simplistic and small. The windowless living room had a twin bed against the right wall, a kitchenette on the left, and a sofa in the middle that faced a sixty-inch TV mounted on the opposite wall. Her gaze flicked to the screen, where Starship Troopers was streaming. Gunfire raged as human soldiers fought giant arachnids in a severed-limb-flying, blood-and guts-splattering gorefest of epic proportions.

Fear blossomed in her chest as her mind pre-imaged a crazed and wild-eyed Russian girl leaping over the sofa and attacking her. She pushed the thought from her head and took a tentative step toward the back of the sofa. “Sylvie?” she called again, debating if she should get Doug.

Don’t be ridiculous, she thought, silently chastising herself.

Then, steeling her mind, she strode with purpose around the sofa, hoping to find Bessonov sprawled out on the cushions, fast asleep. But as she gave the sofa a wide berth, she found it vacant. That left only one possible place the Russian could be—in the bathroom. Amanda picked up the television remote control off the armrest and pressed the mute button, silencing the auditory chaos that made it impossible to think.

Better.

She exhaled and shifted her gaze to the crack at the bottom of the closed bathroom door, where a strip of yellow light glowed between the tile reveal and the slab.

“Sylvie, it’s Amanda. Are you in the bathroom?” she called and knocked twice on the door.

When still no answer came, she looked up at one of the black-domed security cameras that hung down from the ceiling. Undoubtedly, Doug was watching. She gave the camera a WTF shrug, then returned her attention to the bathroom door.

Screw it.

“Sylvie, I’m coming in,” she said, turning the knob and cautiously pushing the door inward.

Her stomach dropped at the sight inside.

The Russian girl, barefoot and wearing only a t-shirt and underwear, was standing on the toilet seat with a corded noose around her neck tied off to a fire sprinkler nozzle in the ceiling. Amanda glanced at the girl’s sweatpants and hoodie, both of which were lying discarded on the floor. Immediately, she understood—the drawstrings from the waistband of the pants and the hood of the pullover were both missing.

“Sylvie,” she said, cautiously raising both hands palms up and out. “What are you doing?”

The Russian Zeta smiled at her—eyes manic, lips curled in a disturbed grin. “Dieter Hemmler—that’s the last and most important name I will give you.”

“Sylvie, no. You don’t have to do this,” Amanda said, taking a cautious step forward.

“I don’t know if he will use the alias again, because he rarely leaves Russia. But if he does, this is how you will find him. It is the only way you will find him.”

“Who are we talking about, Sylvie . . . who is Dieter Hemmler?”

Bessonov’s smile softened—transforming from unhinged to forlorn. “You are a good person, Amanda. In different circumstances, I think we could have been friends.”

“No!” Amanda screamed as the Russian stepped off the toilet. She charged forward and caught Bessonov around the waist, trying desperately to hoist the other woman up. “Douuuuug! Help meeeeee!”

Bessonov thrashed and twisted in her arms, raining blows down on the crown of her head.

“Douuuuuug!” Amanda screamed. She heard a door slam, and a moment later all the weight in her arms evaporated as Doug hoisted the Russian spy into the air as if she were a toddler.

“Cut the cord,” he shouted. “I got her.”

“Nyet!” Bessonov screamed, thrashing and coughing, coughing and thrashing.

Amanda frantically scanned the bathroom for something she could use to cut the cord, but detainees weren’t allowed any implements of the sort—no razors, no scissors, not even plastic knives.

“In my right pocket,” Doug said. “There’s a folding knife.”

Amanda shoved her hand into his pants pocket and her fingers found the knife. Retrieving it, she deftly opened the blade and then climbed up onto the toilet seat. Bessonov shrieked like a wild animal, twisting and flailing in midair.

“Hurry,” Doug said, “She’s slipping.”

Amanda grabbed the cord and swiped the blade across it, severing the drawstring noose in a single cut.

“Nyet, nyet, nyet!” Bessonov screamed, pounding her fists on Doug’s powerful shoulders and the back of his bowed head. Unfazed, he carried her out of the bathroom and dropped her on the sofa cushions, where she immediately scrambled away from him. She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging herself, then rocked back and forth, all the while screaming at both of them in Russian. Amanda walked up and stood beside him, absorbing the bombardment of the girl’s indecipherable curses.

“Thanks,” she said, glancing at him sideways.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no idea she was going to try that . . . no idea.”

“It’s my fault,” she said, trying to swallow down the lump in her throat. “I’m an idiot for not thinking of the drawstrings.”

“Why did you stop me?” Bessonov interrupted them, her rage suddenly transformed to racking sobs. “Why did you rob me of this dignity?”

A half-dozen competing emotions flooded Amanda’s mind. Despite her best efforts not to, she’d become attached to the Russian over the past several months. She felt a kinship, a strange sisterhood of spies. A part of her wanted to wrap her arms around Bessonov, comfort her and tell her everything would be okay. At the same time, another part of her was angry and wanted to chastise the stupid girl.

“Someday, I hope you will feel differently,” she said, meeting the Russian’s vitriolic gaze. “You have so much left to live for.”

Bessonov fired something back in Russian, then dropped her head between her knees and resumed sobbing and rocking.

Amanda looked up at Doug. “I’ll cut down the cord in the bathroom and you get that slip noose off her neck.”

He nodded and said, “And then what?”

“I’m going to give the new name to my boss. After that . . .” She blew air through pursed lips. “I guess we just take it one day at a time.”