The guard squatted down beside him. Seeing the grimace the guard made gave Maks a
measure of satisfaction, but that was all he was destined to receive in the way of solace.
“I have money,” Maks gasped weakly. “It’s buried in a safe place where no one will
find it. If you get me out of here, I’ll lead you to it. You can have half. That’s over half a million American dollars.”
This only made the guard angry. He struck Maks hard on his ear, making sparks fly
behind his eyes. His head rang with a pain that in anyone else would have been
unendurable. “Do you think I’m like you? That I have no loyalty?” He spat into Maks’s
face.
“Poor Maks, you made a grave error killing this boy. People like Pyotr Zilber never
forget. And they have the means to move heaven and earth to get what they want.”
“All right,” Maks whispered, “you can have it all. More than a million dollars.”
“Pyotr Zilber wants you dead, Maks. I came here to tell you that. And to kill you.” His
expression changed subtly. “But first.”
He extended Maks’s left arm, trod on the wrist, pinning it securely against the rough
concrete. He then produced a pair of thick-bladed pruning shears.
This procedure roused Maks from his pain-induced lethargy. “What are you doing?”
The guard grasped Maks’s thumb, on the back of which was a tattoo of a skull,
mirroring the larger one on his chest. It was a symbol of Maks’s exalted status in his
murderous profession.
“Besides wanting you to know the identity of the man who ordered your death, Pyotr
Zilber requires proof of your demise, Maks.”
The guard settled the shears at the base of Maks’s thumb, then he squeezed the handles
together. Maks made a gurgling sound, not unlike that of a baby.
As a butcher would, the guard wrapped the thumb in a square of waxed paper, snapped
a rubber band around it, then sealed it in a plastic bag.
“Who are you?” Maks managed to get out.
“My name is Arkadin,” the guard said. He opened his shirt, revealing a pair of
candlestick tattoos on his chest. “Or, in your case, Death.”
With a movement full of grace Arkadin broke Maks’s neck.
Crisp Alpine sunlight lit up Campione d’Italia, a tiny exquisite Italian enclave of two-
thirds of a square mile nestled within the clockwork-perfect setting of Switzerland.
Owing to its prime position on the eastern edge of Lake Lugano, it was both stupendously
picturesque and an excellent place to be domiciled. Like Monaco, it was a tax haven for
wealthy individuals who owned magnificent villas and gambled away idle hours at the
Casino di Campione. Money and valuables could be stored in Swiss banks, with their
justly famous reputation for discreet service, completely shielded from international law
enforcement’s prying eyes.
It was this little-known, idyllic setting that Pyotr Zilber chose for the first face-to-face meeting with Leonid Arkadin. He had contacted Arkadin through an intermediary, for
various security reasons opting not to contact the contract killer directly. From an early
age Pyotr had learned that there was no such thing as being too security-minded. There
was a heavy burden of responsibility being born into a family with secrets.
From his lofty perch on the overlook just off Via Totone, Pyotr had a breathtaking
panorama of the red-brown tile roofs of the chalets and apartment houses, the palm-lined
squares of the town, the cerulean waters of the lake, the mountains, their shoulders
mantled with capes of mist. The distant drone of powerboats, leaving frothy scimitars of
white wake, came to him intermittently while he sat in his gray BMW. In truth, part of his
mind was already on his imminent trip. Having gotten the stolen document, he had sent it
on the long journey along his network to its ultimate end.
Being here excited him in the most extraordinary way. His anticipation of what was to
come, of the accolades he would receive, especially from his father, sent an electric
charge through him. He was on the brink of an unimaginable victory. Arkadin had called
him from the Moscow airport to tell him that the operation had been successful, that he
had in his possession the physical proof Pyotr required.
He had taken a risk going after Maks, but the man had murdered Pyotr’s brother. Was
he supposed to turn his cheek and forget the affront? He knew better than anyone his
father’s stern dictum to keep to the shadows, to remain hidden, but he thought this one act of vengeance was worth the risk. Besides, he’d handled the matter via intermediaries, the
way he knew his father would have.
Hearing the deep growl of a car engine, he turned, saw a dark blue Mercedes come up
the rise toward the overlook.
The only real risk he was taking was going to happen right now, and that, he knew,
couldn’t be helped. If Leonid Arkadin was able to infiltrate Colony 13 in Nizhny Tagil
and kill Borya Maks, he was the man for the next job Pyotr had in mind. One his father
should have taken care of years ago. Now he had a chance to finish what his father was
too timid to attempt. To the bold belonged the spoils. The document he’d procured was
proof positive that the time for caution was at an end.
The Mercedes drew to a stop beside his BMW, a man with light hair and even lighter
eyes emerging with the fluidity of a tiger. He was not a particularly large man, he wasn’t
overmuscled like many of the Russian grupperovka personnel; nevertheless something
inside him radiated a quiet menace Pyotr found impressive. From a very young age Pyotr
had been exposed to dangerous men. At the age of eleven he had killed a man who had
threatened his mother. He hadn’t hesitated in the slightest. If he had, his mother would
have died that afternoon in the Azerbaijani bazaar at the hands of the knife-wielding
assassin. That assassin, as well as others over the years, had been sent by Semion
Icoupov, Pyotr’s father’s implacable nemesis, the man who at this moment was safely
ensconced in his villa on Viale Marco Campione, not a mile from where Pyotr and
Leonid Arkadin now stood.
The two men did not greet each other, did not address each other by name. Arkadin
took out the stainless-steel briefcase Pyotr had sent him. Pyotr reached for its twin inside the BMW. The exchange was made on the hood of the Mercedes. The men put the cases
down side by side, unlocked them. Arkadin’s contained Maks’s severed thumb, wrapped
and bagged. Pyotr’s contained thirty thousand dollars in diamonds, the only currency
Arkadin accepted as payment.
Arkadin waited patiently. As Pyotr unwrapped the thumb he stared out at the lake,
perhaps wishing he were on one of the powerboats slicing a path away from land. Maks’s
thumb had withered slightly on the journey from Russia. A certain odor emanated from it,
which was not unfamiliar to Pyotr Zilber. He’d buried his share of family and
compatriots. He turned so the sunlight struck the tattoo, produced a small magnifying
glass through which he peered at the marking.
At length, he put the glass away. “Did he prove difficult?”
Arkadin turned back to face him. For a moment he stared implacably into Pyotr’s eyes.
“Not especially.”
Pyotr nodded. He threw the thumb over the side of the overlook, tossed the empty case
after it. Arkadin, taking this to be the conclusion of their deal, reached for the packet
filled with diamonds. Opening it, he took out a jeweler’s loupe, plucked a diamond at
random, examined it with an expert’s aplomb.
When he nodded, satisfied as to the clarity and color, Pyotr said, “How would you like