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Beta kicked the priest down the passage. The priest tumbled down the stone steps, crashing into them and letting out a string of pained cries in the narrow passage. Before the echoes could fade, Beta pulled a flashbang from behind his waist and tossed it into the dark passage.

The flashbang bounced twice off the granite walls with a sharp crack, then rolled to a stop deep inside the underground chamber. A muffled boom erupted alongside a blinding white flash, instantly bathing the end of the passage in harsh, daylight-bright light.

Beta descended the steps with his rifle at the ready.

The priest was curled up on the ground, clutching his ears in pain, while the two gangsters guarding the door slumped in a corner. Beta dealt with the two incapacitated guards, grabbed the priest by the collar, and dragged him to the heavy barred door.

He pressed the barrel to the priest's temple and nodded toward the keypad.

The priest shakily pushed himself upright and struggled to enter the code on the number pad with bloodied fingers. A beep sounded, and the barred door's hydraulic mechanism rumbled to life, slowly sliding open.

The priest slumped in a corner. "Are you going to take all this?"

Beta didn't answer. He headed straight for the storeroom.

He swept rows of gold coins from the display shelves into his backpack. The clink of metal rang especially clearly in the enclosed space. Then he knocked all the paper files, CDs, and hard drives to the ground, piling them together.

Beta pulled a large bottle of lighter fluid from a side pocket of his backpack and poured it over the pile. The clear liquid snaked through the documents. He even used the toe of his shoe to stir the lighter fluid into the pile, making sure every sheet of paper was soaked in the flammable liquid.

When he was done, Beta turned around and looked down at the priest. "Do you have a phone?"

Trembling, the priest pulled an old flip phone from the inner pocket of his cassock.

"Call Viggo." Beta lightly tapped the priest's temple with his gun. "Tell him there's trouble here."

Facing the dark barrel, the priest's trembling fingers could barely hit the right buttons.

When the call connected, he spoke into the phone in a tearful voice. "Mr. Viggo. The church—the church is in trouble."

Viggo's voice came through the phone, cold and dark. "What happened at the church?"

The priest looked up at Beta, trembling. Cold sweat ran down the wrinkles on his face. "A Mr. Paull Ostrovsky... told me to call you."

Silence fell on the other end of the line.

Viggo clearly understood the situation: the attacker was right there beside the phone. When he spoke again, his question was direct. "Mr. Paull Ostrovsky, what do you want?"

Beta held his gun to the priest's temple.

Speaking into the phone, and to Viggo on the other end, he said, "Pavel Korchagin is the protagonist of How the Steel Was Tempered, a novel by Soviet writer Nikolai Ostrovsky."

"'Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for years without purpose, so as not to be scorched by the shame of a mean and petty past. Did you hear me, you two idiots?'"

Before he'd finished speaking, Beta pulled the trigger. The priest's head jerked back with the gunshot, and blood and brains splattered across the stone wall behind him. A second shot rang out, and the phone, still connected, exploded into fragments, its electronic components scattering everywhere.

Silence returned to the room. Only the acrid smell of lighter fluid and the lingering gunsmoke remained.

--

Viggo clenched his phone so tightly his knuckles turned white.

When the last gunshot came through the receiver, he slammed the phone onto the solid wood desk and roared hysterically, "Сукаблядь! (You goddamn bitch!)"

The mahogany desktop was left with a dent, and phone parts flew in every direction.

Viggo braced himself against the desk and panted hard, the veins in his temples bulging. He yanked off his tie and paced back and forth in his spacious new office, his Italian leather shoes leaving deep impressions in the carpet. Every few steps, he kicked the priceless antique cabinet, making the whole room ring with the impact.

"Find him!" He stopped and roared at the empty office. "Find that bastard! I'll skin him alive myself!"

His furious voice reverberated between the floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside, New York's lights still glittered.

Viggo's bodyguard approached. "Boss, should we head to the church now?"

Viggo nodded, his face dark. "Get everyone together. We're leaving!"

Four black Chevrolet Suburbans roared out of the underground garage, their tires screeching across the asphalt. Viggo sat in the back of the second car, anxiously tapping the leather seat and repeatedly calling the church guards.

"Damn it!" For the fifth time, he threw his phone onto the seat. No one was answering any of the numbers. The streets raced past the car window. Viggo's temples throbbed. He could only hope the lunatic was after money and, for God's sake, hadn't touched those files.

Those records were far more than ordinary transaction logs.

They were the power network he'd spent years building: videotapes of city council members taking bribes, bank statements proving judges had laundered money, and high-definition photos of the police commissioner drinking with drug dealers at a strip club. Every file was leverage he could use to control half of New York; they were the reason he could throw his weight around on both sides of the law.

"Drive faster!" Viggo slapped the back of the driver's seat. Sweat had already soaked through his shirt.

The four black Chevrolet Suburbans tore through the night, their tires screeching over the gravel path in the church garden.

Before the cars had even stopped, Viggo climbed out, limping.

Beta stood on the roof of a building across from the church, watching Viggo and his men go inside. His glacier-blue eyes were hidden in the darkness, a predator's delight churning deep in his pupils.

Beta slowly descended from the rooftop.

Viggo entered the church, and the overpowering stench of blood hit him. His men lay strewn across pools of blood, and shards of stained glass littered the floor.

Worst of all, thick black smoke billowed up from the basement. Several men frantically dragged out a fire hose, trying to extinguish the flames in the vault.

Standing on the basement steps, Viggo's face twisted in the firelight. Better than anyone, he knew what the files turning to ash meant.

The officials he'd controlled would immediately turn on him. The police commissioner would be the first to lead a raid on his hideout, and the judges would scramble to issue arrest warrants. The empire of power he'd spent years building would crumble to dust after tonight.

"Блядь! (Damn it!)" Viggo's roar echoed beneath the church dome.

He stormed out of the church, shoved both hands deep into his coat pockets, and kicked a flower bed. Delicate tulip petals scattered through the night.

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