"What? The whole shoddy scene? Looks like the KGB's hot on the trail, say maybe about two feet in back of your ass. Or is it your client, who you're about to try and screw out of a hundred million dollars? Incidentally, that's probably a serious miscalculation, health-wise."
"The situation has grown awkward."
"Of course that touching fable about returning the hundred million to Moscow was just the usual 'disinformation.' "
"You are perfectly correct. It will not be returned. But any thought I might have had of keeping it now also seems out of the question." He sighed. "Instead I'm afraid we must—"
"We? Now that's what I call balls of brass." He laughed. "Surely even a fevered imagination like yours can't suppose—"
"Michael, I told you I would split the commission I took for cleaning it. That offer still holds. Fifty-fifty. I might even go sixty-forty. What more can you want? But those funds must be delivered. Given the new situation—"
"Not by me."
"Be a realist, my friend. I no longer have freedom of movement, so now you are my only hope. If those funds aren't transferred within the week, I'd prefer not to reflect on the consequences."
"The consequences to your own neck, you mean." Vance stared at him. "By the way, just out of curiosity, what's the 'prototype'?"
"That's the one thing I cannot possibly discuss, Michael." Novosty caught his breath. "But what if the contract for it is abrogated because of those funds not being delivered, what then? What if the USSR just makes a move to seize it? I fear there could be war, my friend. Bang, the apocalypse." He flicked his lighter. "Even worse though, as you say, both parties to the agreement would probably spend a week devising the most interesting way possible for me to depart this earth."