The Russian - Ben Coes Page 0,1

seen many men die, but he felt, in that moment, as if he was looking into the eyes of the devil himself.

Tacoma removed his cell and dialed Hector Calibrisi. As he pressed the button for speed dial, he forced himself to look up at Cosgrove’s face. It was badly beaten. There had been a fight.

The floor felt sticky beneath his shoes. He looked down and registered a wet, glassy sheen of liquid. A pool of blood covered the floor, and Tacoma suddenly realized he was standing in the middle of it.

He studied the growing pool of crimson. He felt paralyzed. For several seconds, he had a hard time breathing. He remained still and, as he waited for Calibrisi to answer, checked his weapons.

Tacoma knew Cosgrove’s wife was remarried and lived with their two young children in Atlanta. Tacoma would never wish divorce on anyone, but as he looked up at Cosgrove’s swollen face, he was glad he was the one—and not Cosgrove’s wife or children—who had found him.

“What is it?” said Calibrisi.

“Cosgrove is dead,” said Tacoma as he stared at the steel spike that was stabbed into the center of Cosgrove’s chest.

“What?”

“Billy Cosgrove, the guy you sent me to meet. I’m at his house.”

There was a long pause. Through the phone, Tacoma could hear the din of conversation at a restaurant in the background.

“Say that again, Rob,” Calibrisi whispered.

“He’s hanging by a rope,” said Tacoma. “They hung him by the rafters and stabbed him with a spike.”

“Don’t touch him,” said Calibrisi. “And for chrissakes, get out of the goddam house right now!”

Tacoma saw movement. He looked up past Cosgrove’s dangling corpse to the stairwell that ran up straight to the second floor. He hung up the cell and pocketed it, then stepped behind Cosgrove to the base of the stairs. It was just a patch of light—or darkness—a flutter in his peripheral vision.

Tacoma knelt. He removed a gun from beneath his armpit, a P226R, with a custom-made, snub-nose alloy suppressor screwed into the muzzle. Tacoma moved to the stairs, stepping around the dangling corpse, which continued to slowly turn and create a prism of patterns across the wall, and across Tacoma’s face as he moved up the dark stairwell.

CHAPTER 1

Saint-Tropez

France

Three Days Ago

Tacoma took the RISCON Gulfstream G150 across the ocean and landed in Nice at 4 P.M. local time. He rented, with an anonymous Mastercard, a Ducati 1199 Panigale and took it at a furious clip down the coast of France to Saint-Tropez, along the D559, which zigged and zagged above the rocky Mediterranean coastline, like a rattlesnake on the side of a steep cliff. It was a sun-filled day and the waning bright light wreaked havoc on the roadway, blinding Tacoma for moments at a time as the light hit the tinted visor of the helmet, a black and silver Reevu MSX1, yet he pushed the Ducati to 156.7 mph, screaming into turns no sane man would take at 80. He slowed as he saw the outline of Saint-Tropez in the distance, cutting right onto a road called Boulevard des Sommets, which led through a pretty golf course. After a few winding country roads into the hills, Tacoma saw guards at the end of a driveway. He didn’t acknowledge them, as if he belonged, and they did nothing. He pulsed the bright yellow Ducati past the guards and up a steep hill, then pulled up in front of the crowded, brightly lit château, uninvited. He climbed off the bike and removed the helmet.

Tacoma was in a blue blazer with white piping along the edges. Beneath he wore a red T-shirt and white jeans. He had on a pair of Adidas running shoes.

He cut around into the backyard of the beautifully kept, sprawling limestone mansion built in the 1700s. Down a gravel walkway that led from the terrace, he walked through a sweeping garden of perfectly manicured boxwoods and wild bluffs of lavender, now at the seasonal apex of their purple-colored beauty. Ahead stood a large white tent, filled with people.

Music could be heard from inside the tent along with the sound of conversation, laughter, and celebration. Somewhere there was a band—and Tacoma entered the tent with his eyes scanning.

Tomorrow, the vows would be taken in the chapel, a small, pretty stone and brick structure, built by hand along with the villa, which loomed now behind Tacoma, back behind the geometric green gardens lit by lanterns in the dusk.

This was a celebration. A rehearsal dinner for the daughter of a