“You’re comfortable here,” Timokhin said.

His voice was a guttural grumble. Over-sized vocal cords, Igor imagined.

Timokhin’s office was on the top floor, the lofty heights, with the Spetsnaz men and the sycophants. Igor hoped to join them one day, once he’d sufficiently demonstrated he’d sold his soul.

But until that day, Timokhin was a danger to him, a scorpion in the cradle, a ferret in the hutch.

Timokhin stood still, his eyes narrow.

Igor shifted his weight from one foot to the other. When he was a boy he’d kept lizards as pets. The way Timokhin looked at him now was exactly how the basilisks looked at the mice at feeding time.

No one spoke, but Igor could hear the heave and pull of Timokhin’s breathing.

“I’ll get to the point,” Timokhin said.

“Please do.”

“This concerns your operative in New York.”

“New York?” Igor said, as if he’d never heard of the place.

“Tatyana Aleksandrova,” Timokhin said.

Igor’s jaw clenched.

Timokhin continued. “I’m afraid her name’s been brought up.”

Igor felt his heart thump. Decades of practice had taught him to keep a steady hand. At moments like this, one had to show nothing, betray nothing.

“I don’t see why Tatyana Aleksandrova would be of concern to anyone,” he said as evenly as he could.

Timokhin smiled. “Oh, but she is, Igor. She is. She’s being watched from the highest level.”

There was that look again. The lizard sizing up its prey.

The mice could never fight back. They could only freeze in the gaze of the predator. There was no terror on earth like that. When the lizards were young, he fed them baby mice that were so tiny, so helpless, they hadn’t even grown fur. Their eyes were closed. They didn’t know what was happening to them. That bored him. It was when the lizards got older, and the mice were large enough to know what was happening, that things got interesting.

Igor thought of that, he thought of what this was going to mean for Tatyana, the mouse, his mouse, and felt an overwhelming urge to attack Timokhin. He imagined flinging himself over the desk, his hands outstretched, clawed, ready to grip Timokhin’s thick neck and jerk it back and forth until it snapped.

“You look like you need to sit down, my friend,” Timokhin said.

Igor shook his head. “We’re not friends, Fyodor.”

“Come, Igor.”

“What’s your interest in Tatyana? The operation in New York is minor by anyone’s standards.”

“If it’s so minor, you won’t mind my incursion.”

“I mind all incursions,” Igor said.

“Igor,” Timokhin said, observing him closely. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had feelings for her.”

Igor took a deep breath. “Even you know better than that.”

“Do I?” Timokhin said, as softly as if soothing a child. “Do I really?”