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)
“Or if the person’s got a relative that needs a transplant,” I said, remembering something. “The head of the gaming board: his wife was ill.”
“And once the operation’s done, you’re an accessory to murder,” said Alison. “Grushin owns you. That’s how he’s amassed so much power, so quickly. Jesus, he must have done this for hundreds of people across the state. Most people rich enough to afford it are going to have some sort of power he can use. He’s not doing it for the money, he’s doing it for the influence.”
I fell silent as we reached the minivan and climbed in. Innocent people who’d done nothing wrong being smuggled into the US, killed, and their organs stripped out. Just so some elderly rich guy could live a few more years. The rich, eating the poor. “Blyat’.” I felt the rage slowly building, taking hold of me. I am not a good man. But some things are wrong, even to me. “We have to stop him.” I looked at Alison, took a deep breath, and said something I thought I’d never say. “We need to go to the police.”
But Alison shook her head. “Grushin controls the DA. Plus, those people who came off the submarine, the next batch of donors: Grushin will kill them to cover things up if the authorities get close. We have to get them out first. And then we have to take Grushin alive so he can testify.”
I rubbed my stubble. “Someone at the clinic might know where they’re being held. Let’s go.”
63
ALISON
The clinic was on a pretty, leafy street just outside the city. By the time we got there, the sky was turning from orange to deep blue. We parked down the street and, as we got ready, everyone was tense.
Everyone except Mikhail. “Feels like old times,” he said in that richly smooth, Russian growl. “When we started out, we had no money, no fancy cars. Just the Aristovs against the world.” He turned to me. “And now you, as well.” He grinned at me, and I smiled back, a warm glow spreading through me. Mikhail opened up his holdall, pulled out a shotgun, and racked the slide. “Now let’s go to work.”
The clinic had to look like a legitimate business, so it only had light security: a rent-a-cop with a handgun. I pulled out my gun and pointed it at his head, and he immediately put his hands up. We left him with one of Mikhail’s dogs growling at his balls, daring him to move.
Most of the staff had gone home for the night, but a nurse pointed us to the head surgeon. Gennadiy grabbed him by his lapels and walked him backwards down the hallway, through a set of doors, and into an empty operating theater. He threw the man on the operating table, knocking over a cart and sending kidney bowls and scalpels clattering. “Start talking!” he roared.
The surgeon panted, white-faced. “I didn’t know. I swear.” He hung his head. “Not at first. I used to be on a hospital transplant team. Then Grushin found me. He had blackmail information on me; he knew about an affair I’d had. He offered me a job here, for a lot of money.” He shook his head. “I thought I’d just be patching up gangsters who’d been shot.”
“When they do a normal, legal transplant,” I said, “it’s a race against time to get the organ where it needs to go.” I had to fight to keep my voice level. “That’s the big factor in it being a success, right, how fresh the organ is? So ideally…” My voice shook with anger. “Ideally, you’d transplant from a person who’s still alive.”
The surgeon couldn’t meet my eyes. He nodded. “The donors are brought in unconscious, on ventilators. The rest of the staff think they’re brain dead.”
“But they’re not brain dead.” Gennadiy got right in the surgeon’s face, angrier than I’d ever seen him. “Are they?!”
The surgeon flinched. “They’re just s—sedated. Alive, until...we take the organs.”
“Jesus,” I whispered. I was thinking of the kid I’d seen get off the submarine. “They must hold the donors somewhere, alive, until they can schedule the client for surgery. Where?”
“I don’t know,” said the surgeon. Gennadiy wrapped his hands around his throat. “I don’t! But I know it’s close! They’re here within a half hour.”
“How do they show up?” I asked.
“In an ambulance. From a private patient transport company: the ambulances look kind of beat up.”
A memory scratched at the back of my brain. “ACS Transport?” The surgeon nodded. I turned to Gennadiy. “That’s the other company Grushin called. I presumed it was freight shipping; I never thought of patient transport.” I looked at the surgeon. “Anything else you can tell us?”
He shook his head. “I’ve only been working here a few months. Grushin moved me from the New York clinic.”