Minotaur Read Free Page A

spoon in his mouth. Poured the soup onto his tongue rather than sucking at it, just the way Angel had recommended.
    She’d forgotten to warn him it might be hot enough to scald him.
    Chapel tried desperately not to make a sound. A groan started up in his throat as his tongue lashed about inside his mouth. He grabbed for his napkin and pushed it hard against his lips to make sure he didn’t spew the volcanically hot liquid all over the table.
    He couldn’t help but stamp his foot on the floor. The pain in his mouth needed some kind of outlet, and that, it turned out, was what it chose.
    Instantly the light conversation on the other side of the table stopped. Every eye in the room—­Fiona’s, Favorov’s, those of the servants—­fastened on him and wouldn’t let go. Fiona started to rise from her chair but he waved her back down.
    He forced himself to swallow. The soup seared his throat all the way down and he felt a terrible need to cough. “Hot,” he gasped.
    It was enough to make Favorov grin. The man had the grin of a cheetah watching a limping antelope.
    Damn.
    Chapel threw his napkin down on the table in self-­disgust. He couldn’t believe it. He’d failed already, and the entrée wasn’t even on the table.
    Fiona did rise from her chair, despite his protests, and came toward him with a bottle of wine, clearly intent on refilling his glass. Across the table, Favorov put down his fork and knife and folded his arms. He looked like he was watching an especially engrossing play. “I’ll warn the cook not to serve it so hot next time,” he said. “That is, if you ever come back.”
    In his ear Angel whispered something he couldn’t make out over the rush of blood in his head. What a screwup—­he’d been given very specific orders and he hadn’t carried them out. There were few things in the world that hurt a good soldier like Chapel more.
    “I can send down to the kitchen for something cold, if that would help,” Favorov said. “Maybe a gazpacho. That’s a kind of soup that’s served cold, if you don’t know.”
    Chapel felt his face turning red, and not from the heat of the soup.
    “Here, please, drink. It will help,” Fiona insisted, handing his wineglass to him. The tarry smell of the wine made Chapel want to turn his head away.
    All right. Enough, he decided. There was still one thing he could do, to regain control. He reached inside his jacket. Favorov’s eyes followed his hand as if he expected Chapel to pull out a gun.
    But it wasn’t a gun Chapel drew from his pocket. It was the steel casing of a single bullet, a 7.62 × 39 mm round of the kind used in AK-­47 assault rifles around the world. The actual bullet had been fired—­only the casing remained—­but it was still big enough and solid enough to make a thunk when he smacked it down on the table.
    That shut Favorov’s mouth, at least.

 
    5.
    F avorov stared at the bullet casing for a long while. Then he took a careful sip of his wine and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I sense,” he finally said, “you’re trying to make a point here. But I have no clue what it is.”
    Chapel nodded. He hadn’t expected the man to break down and confess everything right away. There was a reason this case had been made airtight. “I didn’t come here tonight to debrief you on things that happened thirty years ago. I came to ask what this was doing in your trash.”
    Favorov’s eyes revealed nothing. “The Pentagon is going through my garbage cans now? I wouldn’t have thought that was your job.”
    Smiling, Chapel reached into his pocket and took out a handful of additional casings, identical to the first. He spilled them out on the table. One rolled off onto the rug, but he ignored it. “Your garbage man found these. And about five pounds more of them. Hundreds of discharged rounds from an assault rifle. He got suspicious when your garbage clanked. He opened the bag and found these, and did exactly what he was supposed to