Page 72 of The Pakhan's Secret Babies
Bashir reads it twice. He puts it down, looks at the table for a moment, and then he looks at me, and he says, “This is treason.”
“Yes.”
He says, “Then there is nothing to discuss.”
I say, “There is one thing.”
I look at Sorokin.
Sorokin has been reading the page since I put it on the table. He reads it slowly and he sets it down.
“This is significant,” he says, looking up at me.
“Yes,” I say.
“You are asking me to support a formal removal.”
“I am asking you to look at fourteen months of documented evidence of a council member coordinating with a rival syndicate against Petrov operations and tell me what the appropriate response is.”
He looks at the page again. “I would need time to review the full file.”
“You have the full file in front of you.”
“I would need time,” he says again.
Federov shifts in his chair. Bashir looks at the table. I look at Sorokin. Sorokin looks at the decoded message on the table. He doesn’t look at me.
Someone has spoken to him.
I don’t yet know whether Grigori reached him before this meeting, or whether Sorokin is simply a man who needs more time than others to commit to difficult decisions. Both are possible. The distinction matters because one of them is a problem I can solve with evidence. The other is a problem I can only solve by moving faster than Grigori can.
“Take the time you need,” I say. “The scheduled session is in two days.”
He nods, picks up the file, and puts it in his jacket pocket. I note that. I stand, shake hands with all three of them, and leave.
Viktor is at the curb. Kostya is already in the passenger seat. I get in the back. The door closes. Viktor pulls into traffic. Kostya turns around and looks at me.
I say, “Two.”
He turns back around.
Two out of three. Federov and Bashir are enough to begin the formal process, but not enough to guarantee the outcome, not against a man who has been building alliances inside this council for fourteen months and who has the advantage of still being in his seat and able to call in favors I cannot see yet.
Grigori still has a window.
The council session is in two days and Sorokin has the file in his jacket pocket and has dinner plans I would give a great deal to know about tonight. Elena’s next prenatal appointment is tomorrow morning and the surveillance operative we picked up two nights ago has given us everything he knows, and what he knows tells me that Marchetti has not moved yet but they are positioned to move quickly when the order comes.
When Grigori decides the window is open.
I look out the window at the city moving past, and I think about Elena at the kitchen table this morning with her laptop and her flatokay, and I think about what Kostya said in this car two hours ago.
She does not know what happens to the people whose names stop appearing on the documents.
I look at the back of Kostya’s head.
“After the session,” I say.
He doesn’t turn around. “After the session,” he agrees.
