Rochev knelt on the ground, holding his broken arm tight to his chest, cradling it like a weapon. Blood dripped from his face, his breath ragged, wet through split lips. Nikita stepped back and lowered his hands. Unlikely he'd use them again--he didn't expect the other man to get up very soon.

"You're not making this very easy on you."

"I told you," the man on the ground said. "I told you he's dead."

Nikita felt the sudden urge to kick Rochev in the face for saying that. Dead. No. Simply no. But kicking a kneeling man wouldn't do his anger any good. Wouldn't purge anything. He had to control that anger. Somehow.

He turned away, took a few steps to the car, and reached for a water bottle, then drank deeply. Beating the shit out of a man who'd clearly learned to take pain was tiring. His eyes fell on the folded newspaper on the driver's seat. The Guardian. Cover story. "Russian Crime Haunts Europe's Streets."

And a large image of Andrei Voronin, still alive. Taken from the website of the law firm he had worked for. Andrei A. Voronin, Corporate Law, Harvard Law School, advised on family trusts, off-shore trusts, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, international tax law. Nikita had memorized the profile. Every scrap of information.

Rochev coughed, ragged, uneven sounds, but it took Nikita a moment to realize it was closer to sobbing. He turned, eyes narrow.

"Don't kill me."

Nikita put the newspaper down and stood near the car for a while, studying the crumpled figure on the oil-stained cement floor. The headlights tore him out of the darkness, bent over, muscular neck bowed, on his knees. If not for the obvious pain and fear, the position would have been inviting, would have made Nikita think of sex. But this was just submission, without the kick, without the charge in the air. Never mind that Nikita preferred his subs to be people he respected. No respect for a common criminal.

"God, please don't kill me."

"Stop whining." Nikita stepped closer, now irritated at the jabbering. "Tell me everything. How did you meet Voronin?" He didn't call him Andrei Alexeyevich. Too personal, despite the fact that using the first name and patronymic was the polite form to address a Russian. Maybe, Nikita reflected, they'd all spent too much time in the West.

"He worked for Zaitsev, my boss. He was his lawyer."

The past tense of those statements balled Nikita's fists. Liar, he wanted to shout, and punch Rochev, punch and kick him until he was flat on the ground, lifeless, beaten to a pulp rather than merely broken. Excessive force. Breaking his arm and kicking him in the balls could already be called excessive. Punching him in the face wasn't; he'd mainly done that to stun him into compliance.

"And?"

"Then he was attacked. It wasn't us! You have to believe...."