Jack dug into his jacket, pulled out a grand in crisp, clean Benjamins, and slid the Russian pocket money between bucket seats. He said, “We can perhaps skip formalities to make for the easier trip?”

The driver glanced at the bills.

Debate marched across his face.

This was also good.

Jack offered another couple thousand and then reassurance that the destination wasn’t the issue. “Cleveland is not so far,” he said. “But a difficult passenger with many demands makes a good reason to take the rest of the day from work, yes?”

The driver sighed, took the cash.

Jack tugged a single page a few inches out of the envelope and, as if reading off an address, said, “Downtown. West Tenth Street. Aloft Hotel. You know it?”

The driver reached for the GPS. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

The Yukon neared Interstate 280. The driver took them south. They rode in silence, incremental miles putting distance between Moscow’s plan and Jack’s own, and he emptied the envelope and perused months of detailed surveillance—times, dates, and locations meticulously tracking the senator’s movements, a record of cell phones and vehicle plates, home and office addresses, the wife’s routine and kids’ after-school schedule, and a hefty dose of kompromat on the staff members—all of it information someone preparing for a hit would find helpful in getting up close in a hurry and getting away faster still.

No question as to where it’d come from, only why.

He was the decoy, tasked with a kill the Russians didn’t expect him to make on a mission they didn’t expect him to survive.

Not that they’d exactly put it that way.

The suit and his bodyguards had returned in the morning, as promised.

He’d been on the bed, staring at the ceiling, watching them in his mind’s eye, as they made their way through the front and into the hub and down the hall, passing one body after the next. They’d entered his room, weapons drawn.

He’d said, “Have a seat. Let’s talk.”

It’d been a very different conversation from the one they’d planned.

The suit had asked him about Anna, and he’d told the truth, said he didn’t like people suffering unnecessarily and he didn’t trust them not to hurt her. And he’d asked again to meet Dmitry, which the suit had refused outright.

No surprise.

Dmitry was the control mechanism, the one piece of leverage they held, a threat that didn’t need to be spoken to be understood. Maybe don’t go getting your father killed before you even have a chance to meet the man.