Chapter 44
Evelyn's POV
Now, looking at Caldwell's face as understanding replaced confusion, I felt the familiar emptiness that always accompanied a successful operation. No triumph, no satisfaction. Just the cold knowledge that I'd done what needed to be done, that I'd proven once again that I was exactly the weapon Viktor had shaped me to be.
"You're a professional," Caldwell said, and his voice had lost all its political smoothness. This was just a man, frightened and bound and trying to understand how his evening had gone so catastrophically wrong. "Someone hired you to kill me."
"Yes," I confirmed, because there was no point in pretending otherwise. He deserved at least that much honesty. "Though 'kill' is a somewhat simplified description of my assignment."
"What else is there?" He tried to shift in his restraints, testing their strength. "You either kill someone or you don't."
"True," I acknowledged, pulling over another chair and sitting down facing him, maintaining the professional distance that Viktor had taught me. "But there are different ways to accomplish the same end result. Different... requirements that clients sometimes specify."
"And what did your client specify?" Caldwell asked, and I could hear the desperation creeping into his voice. "If you're going to kill me—and I assume that's why I'm tied to a chair—at least tell me what I did to warrant this. What vote, what investigation, what policy position signed my death warrant?"
I studied his face, noting the genuine bewilderment there. He really didn't know. Whoever had ordered his death, whatever investigation or vote or policy position had made him a target, Caldwell himself was unaware of the specific transgression that had condemned him.
"I don't know the full details," I admitted. "I'm just the instrument, not the architect. But my employer has a message they want delivered before the end. Information they want you to have, reasons they want you to understand."
"What message?" Caldwell leaned forward as much as his restraints allowed, and I saw a flash of the senator who'd built his career on asking difficult questions. "If someone wants me dead badly enough to hire a professional assassin and orchestrate this entire operation, the least they can do is tell me why."
I pulled out the burner phone Viktor had given me, the one programmed with a single number that would connect me to him when the time came. "That's exactly what they intend to do, Senator. But first, I need to confirm that we have enough time for this conversation without being interrupted."
I walked to the window, looking down at the street below. Police cars were arriving now, their lights painting the buildings in alternating red and blue. Julian would have called them in as soon as he'd discovered Caldwell was missing, would be coordinating with them to establish a perimeter. But they'd be searching outward, assuming I'd fled the building immediately. The idea that I'd gone up instead of out, that I'd hidden my prize in plain sight just floors above where it had been taken, wouldn't occur to them until they'd exhausted more obvious possibilities.
I had time. Not much, but enough for what needed to happen next.
"Listen," Caldwell said behind me, his voice taking on a different quality—not pleading, exactly, but something close to it. "I don't know who you are, but you're clearly intelligent, clearly skilled. Whatever they're paying you, whatever they've promised you, I can offer you more. My family has resources. I have connections that—"
"This isn't about money, Senator," I interrupted, turning back to face him. I sat down again, meeting his eyes directly. "You're going to die tonight. That decision was made weeks ago by people who have far more power than either of us. Nothing you can offer me will change that outcome. But how you die, what you understand before the end—that's still negotiable."
The fear in his eyes intensified, but underneath it I saw something else. Resignation, maybe, or a kind of desperate curiosity. He was a man who'd spent his career seeking truth, and even facing his own death he couldn't quite suppress the instinct to understand.
"Then tell me," he said quietly. "If I'm going to die, if there's nothing I can do to prevent it, at least let me know why. Let me understand what I did that was worth killing for."
I looked at him—this stranger whose death was supposed to purchase my freedom, this man whose name I'd memorized and whose schedule I'd studied but whose actual humanity I'd tried very hard not to acknowledge—and felt something uncomfortable twist in my chest. This was always the worst part, the moment when the target stopped being an abstract objective and became a person with thoughts and fears and the same desperate desire to make sense of senseless violence that I'd felt every day since Vorkuta.
"I'll make the call," I said, pulling out the burner phone. "My employer will explain everything. They were very specific about wanting you to understand before the end."
I dialed Viktor's number, and he answered on the second ring.
"Status?" he asked without preamble.
"Package secured," I said, using the code we'd agreed upon. "Ready for final disposition. Awaiting your instructions."
"Good." Viktor's voice carried a note of satisfaction. "Put him on speaker. It's time Senator Caldwell learned exactly why his crusade ends tonight."
I held the phone between us, watching Caldwell's face as he stared at it with the intensity of a man about to hear his own death sentence explained.
"Senator Marcus Caldwell," Viktor's voice filled the room, speaking in flawless English with only the faintest trace of an accent. "We have a great deal to discuss, you and I. And I'm afraid you're not going to like what you hear."