Free The Hunted by Brian Haig Page B

was apparently a bad omen, as both policemen seemed to frown at the same time. As if by hidden cue, Fatty eventually
     shook his head and spoke up. “Not good. Typically they warn you beforehand. You do this, or we’ll do that.”
    “Sometimes it’s Chinese water torture,” Skinny threw in, showing off his own mastery of the subject. “Other times it’s a sledgehammer,
     and, to be perfectly frank, this has all the hallmarks of the latter. These people are professionals. They choose how and
     when to make their approach.”
    If they were trying to scare Alex and his employees, they were succeeding nicely. A few chairs were pushed back. One or two
     executives uttered loud groans.
    After another quiet pause, Fatty said, “Here’s the pattern we’re seeing. Number one, they knew the names of your employees,
     their addresses, and their personal habits. I don’t need to tell you what this implies. Your company has been under their
     eye for a long time, maybe even penetrated from the inside. Who knows how many of your people are on their payroll, or how
     many of you are targeted for hits. Number two, the potpourri of killing methods is a carefully scripted message in itself—they
     can kill you however and whenever they want, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing.”
    The two officers continued batting around theories and chilling speculations, oblivious to the sheer horror they were inciting.
     Alex and his underlings exchanged piercing looks before Alex, with a discomfited shrug, looked away and contemplated a white
     wall. Nobody needed to say it: resentment cut like a knife through the room. Alex had all those layers of personal protection—those
     six beefy bodyguards, a private home with the best security systems money could buy, an armored Mercedes limousine, and a
     lifestyle that kept him off the streets, out of harm’s way.
    The four senior executives in the room, just like the rest of the employees of Konevitch Associates, were sitting ducks. Totally
     defenseless. Morgue meat, all of them.
    And the cops were right. It took less than a year after the disintegration of the Soviet Union for Moscow to descend into
     chaos. Brutal murders were a daily event, soldiers were hawking their weapons and ammunition on street corners for a few measly
     rubles, unemployment had shot through the ceiling. In the clumsy rush to privatize, prices had climbed to dizzying heights,
     and public services, which had never been decent, deteriorated, then collapsed altogether. A long, fierce winter of misery
     set in. Hundreds of thousands of Muscovites couldn’t afford oil to heat their homes, to buy decent food or clothing, and were
     turning to crime to make ends meet.
    The newspapers were loaded with stories about the self-ennobling extravagances of the newly rich and famous, while hundreds
     starved or froze to death in Russia’s arctic winter. Nobody was going to feel sorry for Konevitch Associates. No matter how
     many of its well-fed executives were shot, bombed, or chopped up, nobody would waste an ounce of pity. And the drumbeat of
     news stories about the shining toys and refurbished palaces of the newly rich worked like a tantalizing announcement to the
     criminals: “Here it is, boys! Come and get it.”
    When the two officers finished batting around the possibilities, Alex said, in an accusatory tone, “So you can’t protect us?”
    “To be honest, no,” Fatty replied with a sad shake of the head and an earthquake of chin wobbles. “These days, we barely have
     enough manpower to haul the bodies to the morgue.”
    “What do you suggest, then?” Alex asked, avoiding the eyes of his executives, who looked ready to dodge from the room and
     flee for their lives.
    “What we tell everybody who asks. Private security, Mr. Konevitch. You have a rich company. You can afford to hire the best.”
    Skinny looked like he wanted to say more and Alex glanced in his direction. “If you have something to add,