Vasiliy sighed and started laying out shot glasses. “The whole thing was just a rumor, a tale told by arms dealers after too much vodka. I wasn’t sure it was true…until now.”

JD had gone pale. “You’re telling me there’s been a nuclear bomb hidden under Berlin for over forty years?” he demanded. “That’s what Becker is after? Why?”

“We heard him in Siberia,” said Danny. “He has a buyer lined up. He’s going to sell it.”

Gabriel whistled. “Do you have any idea how much a suitcase nuke would be worth on the black market?”

“Twenty million,” said Vasiliy, pouring vodka into the glasses.

“And when some terrorist uses it, on New York, or Paris, or London,” said Danny, “Someone’ll work out it was an old Soviet nuke. There’s nothing to lead back to Becker. Except—”

“Except us,” I said. “As soon as you saw him buying that file, we became a threat to him. That’s why he’s been after us all this time. That’s why he wants us dead or discredited. We’re the only ones who know he’s involved.”

“We’re screwed,” muttered Gina, reaching for one of the shot glasses. “The only way to prove any of this is with the nuke. But he’s probably already dug it up.”

I thought hard, then shook my head and turned to her. “Maybe not.” Everyone looked at me and I flushed, not used to being the center of attention. “Look, when we heard him in Siberia, he was telling his buyer that he didn’t have the nuke yet. But by then, he’d already had the file for days, even since he bought it. Why not dig the nuke up straight away? Unless—”

“—he couldn’t find it,” Danny finished for me.

“If we can find it first, we’ve got the proof we need,” said JD. ”We take a rogue nuke to the German government, we’ll be heroes, not fugitives.”

Vasiliy nodded. “You should go to the coordinates and see what’s happening. I will lend you my cars so you can be discreet. The police are still looking for you.”

JD frowned. “What’s the catch?”

Vasiliy raised an eyebrow. “You do not trust me?” He didn’t seem offended.

“You’re Bratva,” said JD. “And an arms dealer. Most of the time, I’m trying to stop people like you. And you said it yourself: a suitcase nuke is worth twenty million.”

“You think I will double-cross you, steal the bomb and sell it myself,” said Vasiliy.

“The thought had crossed my mind,” rumbled JD. The two of them stared at each other: the father figure of the Malakov family and the father figure of our weird little family.