White Mountain. Dinah McCall

of the blade against Frank’s throat.

      A sudden stinging sensation was all Frank needed to know that the man had drawn blood. Fear momentarily stilled his voice, but it was followed by sudden anger. He might be old and dying, but he would not be threatened—not now, and not by the likes of a man such as this.

      “I know who you are,” the man said.

      Frank answered in English. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

      The sting against his throat became pain.

      “Don’t lie to me, old man. I knew you in Minsk. I was assigned to guard you at a medical symposium. You were born and raised in Georgia and educated in Moscow. You are Vaclav Waller. You were nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1969 and reported to have died in a plane crash off the southern coast of the United States in 1970.”

      Frank stifled a groan. He didn’t know how this had happened, but he could only blame himself. Someone here must have recognized him. He had come to Brighton Beach to pay homage to his roots and instead had brought down the fragile house of cards that he’d built for himself.

      “What do you want?” Frank asked. “I have money. Take my wallet. It’s in my coat pocket.”

      Rostov cursed. “I do not want your money, old man. I want the truth.”

      Frank blinked. This time the man had spoken in English again. Was he starting to buy his story, or was he just playing along?

      “I do not know the truth of which you speak,” Frank said. “Just take my money and let me go. I don’t want trouble.”

      At that moment a car sped by outside the alley. Behind it the sound of approaching sirens could be heard, and Rostov’s hold tightened.

      Frank saw how the sirens made the big man antsy. The police were obviously after someone else, but maybe he could make this work to his advantage.

      “The police are coming,” he said. “Someone saw you drag me into this alley. Just let me go and I won’t tell. I am an old man. I don’t want any trouble.”

      “Your trouble is just beginning,” Rostov said. “You don’t have to talk to me. You can talk to my superiors…when we get back to Moscow.”

      Frank saw him reach toward his pocket with one hand. He knew the drill. Inside there would be a hypodermic syringe filled with some sort of drug that would render him unconscious. It only took a moment for the decision to be made. Yes, he’d wanted to go home once more before he died, but not like this. He was going to die anyway. Now was as good a time as any.

      Before Rostov knew what was happening, Frank grabbed his hand and lunged forward, plunging the knife blade into his own chest.

      Rostov grunted in surprise and took a sudden step backward, but it was too late. The damage was already done.

      “What have you done?” he cried, as Frank Walton slumped to the ground.

      The taste of blood was in Frank’s mouth. “Killed the messenger,” he mumbled, then exhaled slowly. So this is dying. Thought ceased. He’d cheated cancer after all.

      Two police cars sped quickly past the entrance to the alley, in obvious pursuit of the car that had just passed, but Rostov was in a panic. He’d misjudged the old fool. Who would have thought he still had it in him?

      Kneeling by the dead man’s side, he quickly removed all the identification from the body, then used Walton’s handkerchief to remove his fingerprints from the knife. Nervous now, and not wanting to be seen in the alley where a dead man was lying, he tossed the knife into a nearby Dumpster, then slipped over the fence at the back of the alley.

      Ten blocks away, he stripped the cash and identification papers from the wallet, dropped Frank’s hotel key into his pocket and then tossed the empty wallet into a trash can by a bus stop. The body wouldn’t be found until morning. It would take even longer for it to be identified. Confident that the death would appear to have been a robbery, he headed for Frank’s hotel. That crazy old man had upset his plans completely. Now he was torn between having to lie to his superiors and admitting that he was too old for this job after all.

      It wasn’t until he was standing at a street corner and waiting for the light to change that he realized the old man’s last words had been spoken in fluent and perfect Russian.

      He cursed beneath his breath as he started across the street. All he could do was hope he would find a clue in Walton’s hotel room that would keep him in good standing with the powers that be.

      A few minutes later, he entered the hotel and headed straight for the elevator, confident that he would not be noticed. He’d followed the old man more than once, so he already knew the floor and room number. There was no one in the hallway when he exited the elevator, so he headed straight for room 617 without hesitation.

      Once inside, he began a thorough sweep of the room, hoping to find something that would give answers as to why Vaclav Waller had faked his own death, as well as what he had been doing for the past thirty years. All he found were some out-of-style clothes and a plane ticket to Braden, Montana. The flight was due out at 9:45 a.m. tomorrow.

      He stood for a moment, contemplating the wisdom of what he was thinking, and then a slight smile broke the somberness of his face. He had Walton’s ID. It would be a simple matter to substitute his picture for Walton’s and fly back to Braden on Walton’s ticket.

      He nodded to himself, slipped the plane ticket into his jacket pocket and began methodically packing Walton’s clothes into his suitcase. It wouldn’t do to have the hotel put out an alarm when the old man went missing. All he had to do was leave the room key on the bed and walk away with Frank Walton’s things. The hotel would assume the man was gone, bill the room to the credit card he would have had to show when checking in, and no one would be the wiser. Less than an hour later, room 617 was empty and Rostov was gone, taking the last vestiges of Frank Walton’s presence in Brighton Beach with him.

      Detective Mike Butoli was nursing a hangover and a broken toe when he came in to work. The coffee he’d purchased from the coffee shop on the corner was too weak for the condition he was in. He needed some of his father’s recipe this morning, with a healthy shot of the “hair of the dog,” and then he just might be able to make it through the day. However, his father had been dead for years, and thanks to a weak moment last night, he was going to have to start all over on a new sobriety day.

      He’d made it almost six months this time and was pissed at himself for giving in to temptation. When he drank, he had blackouts, so he had no idea which had come first, the broken toe or the first drink, and from the way he was feeling, it didn’t really matter. His goddamn foot hurt almost as much as his head.

      “Hey, Butoli. You look like hell.”

      Butoli glared at Larry Marshall and thought about tossing the sorry-assed coffee on the prick’s clean white shirt, then decided against it. He had yet to figure out how the man had ever made detective.

      “You should know,” he muttered, as he set his coffee down on the desk and started to remove his suit coat.

      “Don’t get too comfy,” Marshall said. “Flanagan is looking for you.”

      Butoli pivoted without stopping and headed for the lieutenant’s office, limping with every step.

      “Hey, Lieutenant, you wanted to see me?”

      Barney Flanagan looked up, then frowned. Butoli was a damned good cop when he laid off the sauce, but something told him Butoli had suffered a “weak moment” last night.

      “Are you drunk?” Flanagan growled.

      “No, sir. Not now, sir.”

      “Then why in hell are you leaning against my door? Stand up straight, damn it.”

      “I broke my toe. This is as straight as I can stand.”

      Flanagan muttered beneath his breath as he laid a file on the opposite edge of his desk.