Page 64 of Sigma

“What was the miscalculation?”

“You.” He’s too close. I can feel his breath on my cheek. “Everything that you are.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I had photographs of you. In St. Croix and St. Thomas. On the beach with your friends, from a distance. I thought you were…just a girl.”

“I am just a girl.”

He circles behind me. His nose touches the side of my throat; I smell him, his cologne and his body. “You are more than just a girl.”

“Then what am I?” I ask, my voice a faint whisper.

“A siren.”

“What do you want with me, Apollo?”

His hands grasp my arms, gently. “Everything,” he whispers.

12

Begrudging Admiration

I’m woken by the burbling of a cell phone. I finally was able to fall asleep after driving for eight hours, my eyes burning, starting to see double. We don’t talk much—Anselm is typically a man of few words, and I’m too upset and angry and scared for chitchat.

“Ja,” I hear Anslem say, as I sit up and rub my eyes. “Ja, good, okay. We will wait in Madrid for you and the team, then.”

“The hell we will,” I snap. “If they have a location, we’re going in.”

Anselm hands the phone to me, and I hear Harris on the other end. “Kyrie, listen to me.”

“No, Nick, I’m sorry. No. That’s my fucking daughter. Would you wait for backup?”

“In this particular situation, Key, yes, I would. I would hate it and I’d be as pissed about as you are.”

“You’d better make a damn good case, then.”

“Apollo Karahalios is new to the game, and he comes at it with a fresh perspective. He does things differently. He doesn’t waste people. He doesn’t tolerate his people violating his ethical code—rape is not allowed, and anyone in his organization who’s even accused of that kind of behavior is executed immediately, by Apollo himself.”

“That tracks with what Kai told me.”

“Right. And the point of this is that it inspires rabid loyalty in the ranks. And in the populace of those who live around the places he operates. He shares the profits, Key.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It means he was left a colossal amount of money—Vitaly’s will stipulated that his fortune went to Gina. And Gina’s will stipulated that her fortune went to Apollo. Which means that even though Gina died before Vitaly, that the entire Karahalios family fortune, something like a hundred billion, went to Apollo. All of it. Except, from what I can tell, he wasn’t raised by Gina as a Karahalios. As in, he knew nothing of his family’s operations until he was already an adult, and had taken the fortune he inherited and made his own on top of it.”

“Holy shit. So this really isn’t about money.”

“Not even close.” Harris sighs. “He was a teenager when his mother died. But he didn’t find out about who she was or who his grandfather was until he was in his late twenties and had taken the fortune he inherited and multiplied it through a bunch of different totally legal avenues. Real estate, commercial agriculture, shipping, imports and exports, construction, automobile parts supply for the European market. He’s…honestly, he’s a business prodigy. But other than the profile of businesses and money, there’s very, very little known about him as a person. He’s even more reclusive and private than you and Roth. He does business remotely, via video conference, and the screen is blacked out. Some report even his voice is filtered. If you live or work in the areas where he operates, you don’t see him. If you interact with his business interests, it’s through proxies.”

“So then how do you know any of this?” I ask.

“Interviews with people who know people who work for him.”

“It’s been a day since I told you who he was.”

“Lear works fast. It helps that he has Cuddy who can use her contacts with RMI—Johnny Raze sent some people out to do some hard and fast in-person digging. They couldn’t find any direct contacts, so it’s all hearsay, but it all tracks.”