Page 11 of The Beast of Moscow

“Give it, then,” came the order.

“Twenty milligrams of—”

Good God.

Did they have him strapped down to a gurney?

His struggle increased at the same time a paramedic plunged a needle full of something straight into Vaslav’s neck.

The beeping and rocking came back as his gaze settled on the glass window on the rear door of the vehicle. He couldn’t see the faces of the three men anymore—not the two working on him or the one trying to stay out of their way, tucked into the rear corner.

He just saw the glass.

That’s what the window made him remember.

What he saw first.

The glass.

When he had stumbled into the doorway with shadows, then down the dark hallway that he thought would save him from further pain in his confusion, he hadn’t realized it had only been something of an alternative exit. It led him to a gallery, but he’d ignored the carpeted benches and tight stairwell that led downward for the wall of glass windows waiting in front of him.

He found something there. That’s why he remembered the windows.

What was it?

*

“You can’t be serious!”

Vaslav didn’t even bother to dignify Igor’s indignant outburst with a reply as he worked on buttoning up his silk shirt before reaching for his phone that someone had left on the portable stand next to the hospital bed.

“Tell him that he’s crazy!”

“Well,” the doctor started.

Vaslav passed the man standing in the hospital room doorway a look, but otherwise, didn’t pay him any more mind. The last eighteen hours had not been easy for the doctor on a twenty-four-hour shift, never mind the ward’s nurses. Vaslav was not at all a model patient and made every test and interaction far more difficult than it needed to be for everyone involved.

Without even trying, really.

Some might call it a talent.

“Well, what?” Igor barked at the man. “You just spent fifteen minutes explaining what might have caused his delirious episode, including that it could have been a mini stroke your tests didn’t find, and now you’re just going to allow him to walk out of here?”

“He is choosing to discharge himself, actually,” the doctor replied calmly, “and considering the trouble he has already put this entire ward through since his arrival—including your demands for total secrecy while he was a patient, Mr. Ivanov—I am not left with very many options.”

While the hallway outside of Vaslav’s private room appeared quiet and empty, he seriously doubted that it was. Igor might have managed to keep anyone important from finding out about his sudden admittance to the hospital, but that did nothing for the people who found him inside.

He was a well-known figure in Moscow.

His name came with warnings.

As private as the doctor and nurses assigned to him had promised they would be, he trusted no one. Absolutely none of them. And he refused to remain within these walls for any longer than he had to.

They could not force him to say, so he was going. It was as simple as that.

“Listen,” the doctor told Igor while Vaslav made his way around the suite to pick up his remaining belongings that had been scattered throughout the space over the last night and day. “Medically, he’s clear. There are no more neurological symptoms, his pain is back down to a manageable scale, and there isn’t any immediate intervention he needs or that we could justifiably do. Yes, we could run more tests, but—”

“So can my other doctors,” Vaslav murmured.