Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
61
ALISON
Fortunately, Clayton Tuxworth wasn’t exactly publicity-shy. Since stepping down as CEO of his tobacco company, he spent his days playing golf, giving speeches, and brokering multi-million-dollar deals, and all of it was documented on social media. It took all of five minutes to find out that he was attending a black-tie reception at a hotel across town.
We screeched to a stop outside, the minivan ridiculous in the sea of stretch limos. The press were there and they stared as we marched up the red carpet: Gennadiy, scowly and intimidating in his charcoal-gray suit and dark red shirt; me, marching alongside him in my ankle boots, jeans and denim jacket; Valentin just behind us with his long coat flapping in the wind; Mikhail looking like some dignified statesman come to sign a treaty; and following behind him, four enormous Malamutes. Security stepped forward to stop us and then faltered when they recognized Gennadiy: no one wanted to offend an Aristov.
We burst into the hotel’s ballroom. The guests were at circular tables, getting tipsy on champagne and whiskey and serving themselves from a buffet table that ran the entire length of one wall, loaded with whole roast chickens and hams, cheeses, fruit, and desserts. At the far end of the room, the guests of honor sat at a long table, with Tuxworth right in the middle. He was in his seventies, lean, with a deep brown golfer’s tan and sleek, chin-length white hair. I counted four private security guys spaced out around the room, and they looked a lot more formidable than the hotel guys outside. We weren’t getting close to him unless…. “We need a diversion,” I said as we marched towards him.
Mikhail nodded. Without breaking his stride, he turned to his dogs. “Uzhin,” he said, and pointed to the buffet table.
The dogs became four streaks of gray fur. Screams and laughter rose as they barged under tables and past legs, tails wagging furiously. Two of them decided it would be faster to go over the tables and sprang up onto them, paws scrabbling at snow-white tablecloths and sending glasses of wine tumbling. They jumped from one table to the next, leaving a trail of destruction, and then jumped onto the buffet table just as the other two arrived from below.
Chaos erupted. All the hotel staff and two of the four private security guys raced over to the buffet as the dogs trotted up and down the table, stepping on gateaux and scattering cheese plates, tipping over salad bowls, and spilling sauces in their eagerness to reach the meat. One stood on the edge of a serving platter of cold cuts and flipped it, catapulting sliced meat onto tables, the floor, and people’s laps, and the dog bolted around the room, determined to locate and wolf down every piece. Two dogs decided the roast chicken was theirs and began attacking it from both sides, tearing off drumsticks with their teeth. And one dog sunk its teeth into a huge cold roast ham and started backing away, dragging it along the table and growling at anyone who came close.
The four of us marched towards Tuxworth’s table. One security guy ran to block us, and Gennadiy felled him with a single punch. The other came from my side, and I twisted and flipped him over my shoulder. Then we were standing in front of Tuxworth, who was half scared, half outraged. “What the hell do you think you’re doing,” he demanded, “coming in here and—”
I grabbed his shirt and ripped it open all the way down the front. All of us stared at the long, vertical incision scar that ran down his chest.
“What do old, rich guys want more than anything else?” I asked bitterly. “Another ten years of life. Those people on the submarine: Grushin is trafficking them. But not for sex. For their organs.”
62
GENNADIY
Mikhail recalled his dogs and, as we walked out of the hotel, Alison laid it all out for us.
“We were wrong, right from the start,” she said. “We assumed Grushin’s clinic was just a front, a way of laundering money from his business. But it is his business. There aren’t enough organs legally donated to even cover all the people who really need one. No one’s giving you a heart if you’re already in your seventies...unless you buy one. If you’re a billionaire, paying five, ten million dollars for more life is nothing.” She pulled out Bronwyn’s medication. “Immunosuppressants. They had them at the clinic to stop people rejecting their new organs.”
I shook my head slowly. It had been right in front of us, but it had taken Alison’s FBI brain to figure it out. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it, insanely proud of her, and she gave me an embarrassed smile.
“And if you’re powerful,” said Mikhail, “Grushin steps in and saves your life for free. Cliburn, the District Attorney, is an alcoholic. What’s the betting Grushin got him a new liver?”