The four all carried black briefcases, which did not contain business papers. They intended to accomplish their mission by whatever means necessary. Jiro Sato, the London oyabun, had not been invited to send his people along with them this morning. He was now humiliated and disgraced, officially removed from the operation, on Tokyo's orders. The regional office had failed, so Tokyo had sent in a Mino-gumi version of the Delta Force. They clearly had orders concerning what to do with Michael Vance.
He didn't like this new twist. For everything to go according to plan, violence had to be kept out of it. There was no way he and Michael could go head to head with street enforcers. If Michael was thinking of doing that, the man was crazy.
He glanced at his gold Omega, noting that it read ten- nineteen. In eleven more minutes he'd know how Michael intended to run the scenario.
But whatever happened, he wasn't going to be intimidated by these kobun hoods, dark sunglasses and automatics notwithstanding. Those days were over. Michael had given him a perfect opportunity to start building a new life. He didn't care if all hell was about to break loose.
"Polovena decyat?" She examined him with her dark eyes.
"Da." Novosty nodded. "They will be here at ten-thirty. That is the schedule."
He was feeling nervous, which was unusual and he didn't like it. Whenever he got that way, things always started going off the track.
They were now in the paneled elevator, heading up to the sixth floor of the Moscow Narodny Bank. The hundred million had been held overnight in the vault of Victoria Courier Service Limited, which was scheduled to deliver the satchels this morning at ten-thirty sharp. The location for the delivery, however, was known only to him and to Michael Vance. He wanted to be sure and arrive there ahead of the money. He also would have much preferred being without the company of Vera Karanova.