Chapter Four: Preparing to Assassinate Pasha Lazarov

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with the team retrieving a dead drop from a brick porch in Williamsburg. They pretend to study a map while Natalie ducks under the porch to retrieve a packet. After a brief stop at a cheese shop for sandwiches, they return to the Best Western hotel. In the room shared by Billie and Mary Alice, Helen distributes a dozen photographs of Pasha Lazarov at various ages and a dossier. The photos show a dapper, Anglophile man in pinstripes and even a straw boater holding a teddy bear. Natalie immediately hesitates, finding it hard to accept that a sentimental man could be their target. Helen reads key details from the dossier: Pasha was born in 1962 in the south of France to Boris Lazarov (whom the team assassinated in 1979) and a White Russian mother. He has a surviving aunt in Switzerland, no partners or children, and a townhouse in Belgravia. Two Russian oligarchs have died after falling from his townhouse windows, and he deals a designer drug called red razzies. British Intelligence once covered up a minor royal’s near overdose. Billie points out a black wolf painted on the side of his yacht, identical to the obsidian wolf left with Lilian Flanders’s body. That clinches Natalie’s resolve. They also learn that Pasha has a phobia of flying—likely caused by his father’s plane crash—and travels by yacht or train. He crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2 a week earlier. Helen reveals that Naomi has confirmed his next crossing: four tickets for a departure from New York in five days. Billie concludes they have less than a week to devise a method to kill him on the ocean liner.

Key Events

The team retrieves a dead drop from under a brick porch.
They eat lunch from the Cheese Shop in their hotel room.
Helen shares photos and reads the dossier on Pasha Lazarov.
Natalie balks at killing a man who poses with a teddy bear.
The dossier reveals Pasha’s father, his Anglophilia, his townhouse defenestrations, and his drug dealing.
Billie identifies a black wolf symbol on Pasha’s yacht, linking him to Lilian Flanders’s murder.
The team learns Pasha never flies and has booked a crossing on the Queen Mary 2.
Naomi has provided four tickets for the same crossing in five days.
Billie states that they must now figure out how to kill him aboard the ship.

Character Development

Billie takes a practical lead, quickly connecting the wolf symbol and framing the logistical challenge.
Mary Alice offers sarcastic commentary, particularly when mocking Natalie’s hesitation and the teddy bear photo.
Helen acts as the information hub, delivering the dossier and keeping the group focused on the facts.
Natalie reveals a pattern of emotional reluctance: she humanizes the target and needs hard evidence to overcome her qualms. This trait has surfaced in previous missions, as shown by the reference to a dog she refused to kill.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

The obsidian wolf reemerges as a linking symbol, connecting Pasha to Lilian Flanders and reinforcing the network of targets.
Sentiment versus reality is highlighted by Pasha’s teddy bear photo, which initially softens his image, countered by the dossier’s evidence of violence and drug dealing.
The past’s long shadow is felt in Pasha’s flying phobia, a direct consequence of the team’s assassination of his father in 1979.
The Queen Mary 2 introduces a setting of luxury and confinement, foreshadowing a high-stakes assassination.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter pivots the story from reconnaissance to active planning. It fully profiles the new target, Pasha Lazarov, while deepening our understanding of Natalie’s psychology and the team’s dynamic. The decision to kill him on an ocean liner raises the stakes and provides a specific, contained setting for the climax. The chapter also ties back to the earlier murder of Lilian Flanders through the wolf motif, reinforcing the conspiracy.

Study Questions and Answers

Why does Natalie hesitate to kill Pasha Lazarov?
Natalie becomes uneasy when she sees a photograph of Pasha holding a teddy bear. She interprets the object as a sign of sentimentality and struggles to reconcile that image with the idea of murdering him. This pattern of humanizing the target and needing a moral justification has appeared in her past missions.
What evidence in the dossier convinces the team that Pasha is a legitimate target?
The dossier details two deaths from defenestration at his Belgravia townhouse, his dealing of the designer drug red razzies (which nearly killed a minor royal), and the presence of a black wolf symbol on his yacht—identical to the obsidian wolf left with Lilian Flanders’s body. These facts override any sympathy evoked by his personal style.
How does the obsidian wolf symbol connect Pasha to the earlier murder of Lilian Flanders?
In the previous chapter, a carved obsidian wolf was placed next to Lilian Flanders’s corpse. Billie notices that the same wolf emblem is painted on Pasha’s yacht, Galina. This confirms to the team that Pasha is part of the same organization or conspiracy that ordered Flanders’s death, making him a legitimate target in their current purge.