Page 12 of Emerald

And never one who looked like this.

I don’t even need to read the file to know that this man will be tactically trained, experienced, well-protected.

This is a dangerous job. Nothing like slipping a pill into the drink of a pudgy politician.

I should tell Zima I’m not interested.

But $500K . . . it’s half a million dollars. I could take a break after that. A very long break.

I could leave St. Petersburg for good. Set myself up somewhere sunny—Portugal, or Spain.

I never should have stayed here so long to begin with.

I stare at the picture a while longer, wondering how much nerve I’ve got when it comes down to it.

My father would tell me to forget it.

Don’t be stupid.

Don’t pick a fight you can’t win.

Well, fuck my dad. He’s not here to give advice anymore.

I place my fingers on the keys and type:

I’m in.

There’s a long pause, long enough that I wonder if Zima is going to withdraw the contract. Then he types:

Good. I’ll send over the rest of the file.

I let out a sigh. Once I have it all on my computer that’s it, I’m committed.

I’ve got to be out of my mind to take this job.

But I’ve been feeling reckless lately. It was reckless to steal the flash drive, too.

While I’m waiting for Petrov’s file to download, I insert the flash drive into my computer to take a look at what secrets it’s holding.

It’s full of several large files. My computer makes steady clicking and whirring sounds, trying to download the information. But almost at once, I see that the files are encrypted. And not in any way I recognize.

I consider myself a pretty handy little hacker. I take a poke at the files, trying to crack the encryption. After twenty or thirty minutes of trying the various tricks I know, I’ve gotten precisely nowhere. I have no idea what the information is and no clue how to unlock it.

It’s going to take a real professional.

That’s a project for another day, however.

I eject the flash drive and close it up in a little fireproof box, hiding it behind a brick in my fireplace.

Then I turn back to Ivan Petrov’s file.

If I’m going to kill this guy, I need to learn absolutely everything about him.

* * *

4

Ivan Petrov