The First Casualty

30

The beach at Gouverneur is a three-quarter mile crescent of golden sand embracing turquoise waters. At the moment, it was populated by winter visitors in various states of dress and undress at the eastern tip, to the more avant-garde at the western, where the sand ended in a sheer hundred-foot hill, and swimwear was notable only for its absence.

In swimsuit and T-shirt, and with a beach bag containing his weapons, Jason was not interested in the lithe, nude, and semi-nude bodies frolicking within a few feet of the beach blanket he had borrowed from his hotel in the hills above Saint-Jean. Instead, his eyes were fixed on a pair of burly men in black shirts and shorts who were busily planting beach umbrellas in a twenty-foot square.

These men were definitely staking out territory. As a practical matter, a slice of sand was being carved out for the owner of a large villa, a former Rockefeller property that fronted on the beach, the only habitation that did so. Information Jason had received during the Paris — Saint Martin flight had revealed a certain Viktor Karavich, recently of Yekaterinburg, had joined the growing number of Russian industrial oligarchs acquiring property on the island, either by purchase or mere possession, such as what was transpiring in front of Jason.

A third man, also in black, trudged over the sand dunes that separated the villa owner’s property from the beach. This one was carrying a stack of folding chairs. His shadow fell across Jason. Jason looked up. The man was larger than the other two, perhaps somewhere north of 250. His biceps filled the short sleeves of the shirt that didn’t quite reach his waist. Jason shaded his eyes to get a better look. The man’s face had the look of one that had been rearranged violently: a nose pushed to one side, scars in the brows that overhung ratlike eyes, ears that would delight a cauliflower farmer. And there was only one thing that left those pock-shaped scars right above his belt buckle: bullets. Beyond that, he had the slightly Oriental look of a Russian peasant.

The man set his burden of chairs down next to Jason. “Is necessary you move, please.”

There was nothing polite in the tone.

Jason shook his head slowly. “Is public beach.”

The guy was obviously not used to being refused. It seemed to take a second or two for the response to register. “You not move?”

A threat.

“I not move.”

“Is Mr. Karavich’s property. You must move.”

Jason did move. To a squatting position, his legs bent as he looked up at the man. “Is the property of the public.”

“Mr. Karavich not like.”

“Mr. Karavich can get fucked.”

The big man moved with a speed belying his bulk. Had Jason not anticipated it, a knee would have smashed into his skull hard enough to cause a concussion at the least. As it was, Jason ducked. Springing up from knees bent beneath him like springs, he was able to put every bit of his weight into the open-handed punch that smashed the heel of his right hand into the Russian’s nose.

The snap of breaking cartilage was quite audible.

Though rarely fatal or even dispositive, there are few blows more painful than one to the nose. Pain, in and of itself, is disabling, distracting an opponent’s attention from an effective counterattack. So it was here. The big man staggered backward, both hands unable to staunch the blood that was making Rorschach blots in the sand. The steep incline of the beach caused him to stumble, nearly losing his balance.

Only a fool gives his antagonist a chance to recover from the initial assault, and Jason was no fool. He chose that instant to charge the tottering Russian, lowering his shoulder to slam into the other man’s midsection. Two things were simultaneous: a whoosh of expelled breath and a splash as the man fell backward into the water.

Jason thought he heard one or two screams from the beach bunnies as he pounced. Ignoring the painful sting of the salt water in his bandaged wound, he knelt in the surge. He locked his right and left forearms around the Russian’s neck, tightening the grip by grasping his elbows. With pressure on one arm, Jason could crush the larynx. Sufficient pressure on the other separated the second and third cervical vertebra and, quite likely, the spinal cord.

Jason’s opponent realized the futility of struggling. He went dead still, other than the arms he raised above his head. Surrender.

Jason maneuvered him around so they were both facing the beach. He was not surprised to see the man’s two comrades racing toward him.

“Right there,” Jason shouted above the crash of the surf. “Hold it right there, or your pal is so much shark bait!”

The two came to an abrupt stop, each looking at the other as though seeking a solution to the problem. The bleating of a police siren was getting louder. The curse of cell phones.

Someone shouted words Jason didn’t understand. A man stood at the top of the line of dunes. The light breeze whipped a bathrobe around him, but what Jason found most noticeable was he had the immediate attention of the two men headed to aid their comrade. They stopped dead, tide swirling at their knees. Then they turned back toward Jason.

“Don’t worry, American, they will only collect the mess you have made,” the man in the dunes yelled.

Jason grinned and waved his acknowledgment before handing his choking, sputtering former adversary off to the two men from the beach. He sloshed his way back ashore, picked up his bag, and scrambled up the dunes. A small crowd of the curious had gathered. Only on a French beach would a fight draw more attention than topless young women.

“Hello, Viktor.”

The man in the bathrobe smiled, a metallic grimace of Soviet-era dentistry, and held out his hand. “Did you have to, er, destroy one of my men? He will be useless to me for days. Could you not come to my door instead?”

Jason shook the hand. “And how do I get to your door? I’m sure you have more deterrents than the no trespassing signs in English, French, and I’m guessing Russian. Knowing your background, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some really nasty surprises for those who come uninvited.”

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of two men in police uniform from the eastern end of the beach, the only access for the public. Viktor put a finger to his lips, motioning Jason to stay where he was. Sliding down the sand to the beach, the Russian greeted the two cops, apparently by name from what words the wind brought to Jason. The body language, including handshakes and shoulder patting, gave the definite impression Viktor was well acquainted with the local gendarmerie. Now Viktor was dismissing a young man who appeared to have a version of what had happened somewhat different from his. Within minutes, the police were gone and the beach returned to normal.

Viktor trudged up to resume his spot beside Jason. “Now, American, perhaps we may attend to whatever you have in mind. Come.”

Jason followed him along a bougainvillea-lined path. The red and purple flower-bearing branches of the bushes made it impossible to walk side-by-side. Rounding a turn, Jason was looking at what at one time had been a village brought intact from the South Pacific: bungalow-style houses scattered around round, elongated, or irregular-shaped pools. Winding trails were dotted with native-style statuary. Jason would not have been surprised to see long-dead author Somerset Maugham step out from under the low thatch roof of the veranda. Between him and the house, a lawn cut to putting-green standards surrounded another pool, this one fed by a trickling stream from rocks high above on the hill.

Viktor was aware of the impression the place made, for he stopped, smiling. “Is nice, no? Far nicer than a simple soldat would deserve, no?”

Viktor had never been a simple soldier, a fact of which Jason started to remind him when they were suddenly surrounded by a laughing, chatting group of ten or more teenaged girls, all dressed for the beach.

Viktor took a girl by the hand, a pretty blonde who had not yet put on the weight that seemed to follow Russian puberty. Like her female companions, she wore a brief bikini. “My daughter, Vasillisa. Say hello the American, Vasillisa.”

She dipped a shallow curtsy. “Hello, Mr. American.”

Before Jason could reply, she tried to slip from her father’s grasp. He spoke to her in Russian. Ignorant of the language, Jason still knew a reprimand when he heard one.

Vasillisa replied in English. “But, Papa, it is no more naked than my friends…”

A tirade of Russian followed, making Vasillisa blush. She did not reply. With the hint of a tear in her eye, she made a dash for the house.

Viktor snorted. “The young! Wants to parade about without decent clothing because her friends do.”

“Didn’t look to me like her swimsuit was any smaller than the others,” Jason observed mildly.

“I have no control, really, what her friends do, but I will not have my daughter parading about like some… some French… French… What do you say, like a pastry?”

“Tart?”

“Tart, yes. Those French tarts on the beach. I bring Vasillisa and a few of her friends here each winter. Winter in Yekaterinburg miserable, snow, wind blow off Urals. No sun for weeks. Anyway, I bring to sun, warm, along with teacher so school, it not missed. Only thing they learn is to show tits.”

Jason was trying to stifle a smile. This was serious to a Russian parent. “What does her mother have to say?”

Viktor looked at him as though he had not heard correctly. “Mother?”

Jason had forgotten that in the Russian peasant class from which Viktor had come, the man’s word was more than law: It was an edict from heaven. “Nevermind. Where can we talk?”

Silently, Jason followed Viktor into the dark coolness of the house, his mind racing backward.

It had been April 1989. Near Bagram, Afghanistan. Jason’s first overseas assignment, the U.S. not-so-covert aid program to the mujahideen, those largely unorganized tribal guerrilla fighters who had opposed the Soviet puppet regime whose call for help had provided an excuse for Russian invasion ten years earlier.

The Russians had had it. Not only was their army tired, hungry, and ill equipped, the economy back in the mother country was rapidly collapsing. Intel reports were full of desertions, both by the Russians and the Afghan Communists. The Reds were beat and they knew it. So beat, they had become sloppy in their duties, including guard duty. That had caused a problem.

In the early morning darkness of that day, Jason’s patrol of freedom fighters had slipped past a slumbering sentry, not even pausing to slit his throat. The urgency had come from word by the increasing number of Afghan defectors to the mujahideen that a specific Russian was encamped here, a Viktor Karavich. What made Karavich so special was his talent with explosives. Not only roadside bombs (improvised explosive devices had not yet found their way into the lexicon of war), but cleverly designed and hidden remote explosives. Karavich boasted he had once blown a man’s head off with a bomb concealed in a pair of stereo earphones without getting a splatter of blood on the victim’s shirt. Rumor had it Karavich occasionally wore the garment in question. He was a prestidigitator of plastique, conjurer of combustion, and necromancer of nitramine.

Rumor or truth, the sleepy Russian had been drugged and dragged out of his tent and smuggled past inattentive sentries in the darkness.

That caused the problem Jason faced. Aarash, the leader of Jason’s group and the only member who spoke a smattering of English, wanted to turn the Russian over to Mullah Osman, the local leader of the Taliban, the fundamentalist religious militia that Jason suspected was going to cause problems long after both the Russians and the Americans were gone. The problem with Mullah Osman was his habit of slowly removing body parts from infidels, frequently making video recordings.

Atrocities had been common on both sides. Flaying skin from living bodies and burying alive were only a couple of the quaint local customs Jason had seen. But it was over. Karavich had made his last bomb, at least there. His agonizing death would accomplish no end Jason could see other than an evening’s entertainment for Mullah Osman and his demented followers.

Jason left camp for a short scouting mission, or so he told Aarash. Instead, he had doubled back, entering the tent from ther rear, where the Russian bomber lay awaiting interrogation, hands and feet tied like a hog prepared for slaughter. Karavich’s eyes doubled in size as he wordlessly watched Jason slide a long knife from his boot.

“No sweat, Viktor, old buddy,” Jason whispered, using the blade to pry knots apart. Cutting them would be too obvious to Aarash and his men.

Moments later, Viktor Karavich stood, rubbing arms and legs. Jason listened carefully. There was no sound of anyone nearby. Lifting the canvas at the rear of the tent, he motioned to the Russian, who looked confused, to say the least.

“C’mon,” Jason urged. “I’m not standing here, risking my ass all day.”

The Russian understood the tone of urgency, if not the English. He stooped to slide under the canvas, paused, stood, and embraced Jason. Then he was gone.

It was sometime later Jason noticed his dog tags were missing from around his neck.

Cut to a miserable, blustery December night a year later. It was a Sunday night. Second Lieutenant Jason Peters was in the small efficiency he rented in the basement of a Georgetown townhouse. He was packing his gear for a joint training exercise with select Marines at Paris Island that would begin the next day when the doorbell of his apartment rang.

Certain someone had the wrong address, he trudged to the door and swung it open. He didn’t recognize the big man with the fur coat and hat standing in the swirling snow until a hand came out of a pocket and dangled a military dog tag on a chain.

“Is yours. I come to return.”

Jason examined the piece of tin in the dim light from the street, not believing what he was seeing. “From Afghanistan? You came all the way here to return ten cents’ worth of U.S. Army dog tags?”

The figure in front of him stamped his feet, knocking muddy snow onto the mat. “Da. Is cold.”

Jason stepped aside. “If you’ve come this far, may as well come inside.”

Fifteen minutes and two drinks later (vodka for the Russian, single-malt scotch for the American), Jason learned his visitor had actually come from no farther than Wisconsin Avenue and the Russian embassy where he had been assigned to the military attaché. Although he declined to say how, he had traced Jason through his dog tags.

Jason tinkled the ice in his glass. “You’ve learned English since we last met.”

The man nodded. “Required for posting to the United States. I do it good, no?”

“Hell of a lot better than my Russian.”

“You speak Russian?”

“Not a word.”

The two drank in companionable silence for a few minutes before Jason observed, “You didn’t come here just to return the dog tags.”

Viktor shook his head. “No. I come to have great capitalist enemy of peace-loving Soviet people show me Washington, DC.”

“On a Sunday night?”

“Is small favor, nothing like what you do in Afghanistan.”

Jason wasn’t quite sure of the logic of that, how a great favor begat a smaller one. “Anything in particular you want to see, the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building?”

“Tonight, supermarket. Tomorrow or next week, Aerospace Museum.”

Jason was unsure he had heard the man. “Supermarket, as in a grocery store?”

“Supermarket tonight. Aerospace Museum closed for night. American film show hectare after hectare of food to sell. Is propaganda, no?”

Jason took his coat from the sofa where he had thrown it earlier. “Maybe not hectares. But big enough. You can’t see one by yourself?”

“Is thinking is only propaganda.”

Jason sighed, trying to remember the nearest. “Come on; we’ll find one.”

They had been in Jason’s secondhand Jeep Cherokee only a few minutes when Jason noticed a car behind them.

“You wouldn’t happen to know who is following us?”

The Russian nodded. “Embassy KGB.”

“But why…?”

Viktor turned in his seat to look directly at Jason. “They worry I detect.”

“Defect?”

“Da, defect. Last military attaché in Washington disappear, leave wife in Russia. I have no wife.”

Swell.

Here he was, driving along Rock Creek Parkway in his nation’s capital, to prove that grocery stores really existed to a man he had met only once while being shadowed by one of the world’s nastier intelligence agencies.

What next, encountering Dorothy and Toto at the store?

His attention was diverted by bright lights ahead.

He waited to make a turn. “Here we are, big as life: Food Lion.”

The car behind, a dark four-door Ford, pulled to the far end of the lot. Apparently, they were there for observation purposes only.

Viktor got out of the car and stared at the cars scattered about. “One must have automobile to be allowed into this store?”

“One must have automobile to get to this store.”

“Ha! Store is exclusive province of proletariat-oppressing bourgeois!”

Jason was beginning to detect what might, just might, be a touch of sarcasm in his new friend’s use of Marxist-Communist dogma. At least, he hoped it was sarcasm.

He took the Russian by the arm. “C’mon. It’s cold out here.”

For a full twenty minutes, he and Viktor prowled each aisle of the store, scrutinizing labels and prices. The Russian was clearly shaken by what he saw.

“Like GUM?” Jason asked.

The Russian shook his head at the reference to the high-end, for-tourist-and-ranking-party-members-only Moscow store where only foreign currency was accepted. “GUM never have eight brands of canned beans, four types frozen. No toilet paper claim softness. In Russia, toilet paper, how you say, rare?”

“A luxury?” Jason supplied.

“Luxury. Many people choose between Pravda and Isvestia based on softness.”

“We have a lot of newspapers best used that way, too.”

The Russian shook his head sadly. “A nation that can provide its people with eight types of canned beans, ceiling-high stack of soft toilet paper…”

“It’s called the capitalist system, free enterprise. Everyone is free to produce what he thinks will sell rather than what government tells him to.”

Viktor sighed deeply. “Berlin Wall come down, Soviet army ready to leave Bulgaria, Yugoslavia. All because of canned beans and toilet paper.”

It took Jason a moment to understand what he meant. “You mean the freedom to produce them.”

“Is same thing.”

Outside, the two headed for the Cherokee when three young black men blocked their path. Each wore the uniform of pants barely above buttocks and baseball caps either backward or askew. One of them held a small automatic pistol.

He extended the other hand. “Yo’ wallet, give it up, mu’fucker.”

“Is capitalist-type hooligan?” Viktor was more amused than frightened. “He not speak American?”

“My friend does not understand…” Jason was about to say “English” but realized that was not what the youth was speaking.

“Gimme yo’ watches, too.” The kid motioned with the gun as he glanced around nervously.

Jason had rather face an armed professional than a skittish kid with a Saturday-night special.

He and Viktor exchanged glances. The Russian’s nod was almost imperceptible.

Jason was reaching for his hip pocket. “Your money and your watch, he wants your money and watch.”

Viktor feigned comprehension, his hand going to his own pocket.

In anticipation of receiving what he had demanded, the kid with the gun stepped forward, hand outstretched.

The Russian moved almost too fast for the eye to follow. His hand came up not with money but a knife. His other hand grabbed the gun and swung the arm holding it upward as the blade sank into the would-be robber’s throat.

Snatching the pistol as the kid collapsed, Viktor pivoted and fired a single shot. The parking lot’s lights showed the neat, round hole in the forehead of one mugger.

The remaining thief had had enough. Feet slipping, he turned to run. Viktor took a standard two-handed target-range stance and let the kid take a couple of full steps before firing. There was a whine as the bullet ricocheted from a lamppost. From somewhere, a woman screamed.

Taking his time, the Russian fired another, and then another round. The last sent the young criminal sprawling.

As though only out for a stroll, Viktor walked over to the form facedown on the asphalt and extended the pistol.

“Drop it!”

The voice was mechanical, one transmitted through a bullhorn.

Spinning around, Jason saw two police cars, blue lights flashing. Behind one of them, two uniformed men had shotguns trained on the big Russian.

Viktor saw them at the same time. Dropping his weapon, he slowly raised his hands.

The final line: Viktor was released on diplomatic immunity grounds. Jason spent an uncomfortable night in the DC jail before being released. In Jason’s mind, the big Russian owed him once again.

“All you had to do,” Jason said with mild reprove, “was to show your ID as a foreign diplomat and you walked. I spent the night in the DC slammer on D Street before we got it sorted out.”

Air-conditioning made the room cold enough to be uncomfortable. Why Viktor fled the Russian winter only to re-create it in the tropics was incomprehensible. The two men had been sitting in cane-back rockers looking through a picture window at verdant hills tumbling into an azure sea. The view made Jason’s hands itch to get hold of paint palette and brush.

Two of the men from the beach bracketed the room’s entrance like sentries until Viktor shooed them away and closed the door. Jason supposed he should be flattered that Viktor trusted him enough to dismiss his bodyguards.

Viktor went to a refrigerator built into the rear wall. Next to it was a sofa upholstered in a garish Hawaiian pattern of palm trees. The motif was repeated in tropical-themed artwork that had its place among images of Elvis on black satin, coconut shell lamps, and glass bowls filled with seashells. The place could have been furnished by Daytona Beach street vendors.

Viktor was pouring from a frosty bottle of vodka. He held up the bottle in invitation.

“No thanks,” Jason declined. “But if you have a beer, I’d love it.”

There was a sibilant hiss as the Russian popped the top of a can of Carib and sat back beside Jason. “You did not come here to drink a beer, I think. Nor are you here into remind me I left you in church in Washington shopping mall.”

The beer stopped halfway to Jason’s lips. “Church?”

“Is not what Americans say? You leave someone in trouble, you leave in church, no?”

Jason had to think that one over while he took his first sip from the icy can. “Lurch. You leave them in the lurch.”

“Where is this ‘lurch’?”

Jason thought that over, too. “You’re right: I didn’t come here just to bust your chops about ancient history. But before we talk about why I’m here, give me an update. Last time I saw you, you were with the Russian military attaché in the Washington embassy. Now you have an estate of some of the world’s most expensive real estate here in Saint Barts—”

“Also in Aspen for skiing,” Viktor interrupted, adding proudly, “Also on Ibiza and on Fifth Avenue in New York.”

“You didn’t come by that on a soldier’s pay.”

Viktor emptied his glass and got up to refill it. “Not on soldier’s pay, no. Yekaterinburg big city, produce much steel like Pittsburgh. Or like Pittsburgh before Japanese make cheaper steel. Soviet Union collapse, no one run steel mills, workers not paid. My drook and I hire soldiers out of work also. We open steel mills, pay workers.”

The Soviet government had not just fallen; it had shattered. Even so, this was a stretch. “You mean you and your friend, you just walked in and took over the government steel mills?” Jason snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”

Viktor took a sip from his glass, icy-cold vodka straight up, and nodded as though admitting to something as trivial as possession of an overdue library book. “Da! Soldiers in town not paid, either. They help.”

“But what about the administrators, mid-level managers? Surely they didn’t just walk away?”

Viktor tossed his glass back, gulping the rest of the vodka. “Some not walk, carried. Most no longer needed. Was exciting. Now not so much.”

Jason was having a hard time getting his mind around the fact that this man had simply mustered a small army and taken over the city’s steel mills. But, then, in those chaotic days following Christmas Day, 1991, anything could have happened and frequently had. Who would have opposed him? The government had ceased to exist as a functioning body, the unpaid army refusing orders. The events had proven to be the perfect breeding ground for the economic oligarchy that had budded and flowered with the death of Russian Communism. By the time some semblance of order had been restored, possession of a number of the peoples’ assets were in private hands, hands in a much better position to keep them than to take them back.

Privatization had been swift and irreversible; capitalism on steroids.

The door cracked open and a woman in a swimsuit quite modest by Saint Barts’ standards stood there, looking surprised when she saw Jason. She quickly covered her already adequate bathing suit with a beach towel. Somewhere in her mid-forties, she was plump, if not fat, plain, though not quite unattractive. Her eyes moved from Jason to Viktor as she said something in Russian. The tone of his reply in the same language sounded annoyed, if not rude.

The door shut soundlessly.

“The woman knows better than to interrupt business,” Viktor growled.

“I doubt she knew I was here,” Jason replied, feeling an inexplicable need to defend the person he guessed was Viktor’s wife.

Filling his glass again, Viktor returned to the pair of rockers, this time bringing the frosted bottle. He held it out toward Jason.

“Is, how you say, breakfast of champions.”

Jason shook his head. “More like a nightcap if I started drinking vodka shooters in the middle of the day.”

“Shooters?”

This conversation wasn’t going anywhere, at least not anywhere that would accomplish Jason’s purpose in coming to Saint Barts. At this time of year, the small planes that could negotiate the island’s diminutive runway to ferry passengers to and from the major international airport at Saint Martin were booked months, if not years, in advance. If he missed his late-afternoon flight, Jason could be stuck here for days while he tried to find a boat not already employed, a craft to take him across the twenty miles to the larger island. Or he would have to admit his mistake to Momma by requesting a chartered helicopter that would draw unwanted attention

No, Jason did not have time for an etymological discussion.

“You were right: As much as I’m enjoying renewing our acquaintance and the beer, neither were my reason for being here.”

He had Viktor’s attention.

“I’m here because I’m in need of your talent.”

Viktor forgot his newly filled glass. “I do not think you wish me to operate a steel mill.”

“Correct. I’m referring to your handiness with explosives.”

The Russian grinned, again exposing a steel incisor. “You have someone you wish to be exploded?”

“Perhaps. Are you interested?”

Viktor emptied his glass in a single gulp in true Russian fashion and narrowed his eyes as he faced Jason. “You are talking money?”

Jason stood. “A lot, but probably not so much to a man like you. In fact, it was silly of me to think you might be persuaded. I mean, you have this beautiful villa on one of the world’s most exclusive pieces of real estate. You must be making money faster than you can count it, let alone spend it, not to mention a daughter. Plus a wife who would be very unhappy with you if she knew you were traipsing off to some faraway place to risk your ass for less money than you make in a month.”

He was turning toward the door. “Sorry to have bothered you, but thanks for the beer.”

Jason could only hope he had accurately accessed Viktor’s character. The two of them, American and Russian, were alike though they had served different masters. Jason had known only two types of warriors: those who turned their backs on the profession of arms as easily as they might change a shirt to follow peaceful pursuits — men who devoutly wished to avoid conflict, or at least battle — and those of intense competiveness, men who relished competition whether in business or in more deadly endeavors. These men could no more walk way from a fight than they could give up breathing. Bored by extended periods of peace and tranquillity, they became edgy, if not irritable. They could be called mercenaries, extreme thrill seekers, or simply victims of their own DNA.

Jason knew the latter well. Though he tried to deny it, he suspected the breed included himself.

The question was: Did it also include Viktor?

As his hand touched the door knob, Jason realized he had been wrong. Viktor had the means to obtain anything he might desire. The good life had extinguished the warrior spirit. Jason had wasted a precious day in a futile effort.

“Wait! Just what did you have in mind?”

Helping himself to a second Carib from the refrigerator, Jason returned to the still warm seat of the rocker to explain what was wanted. A few minutes later, he and Viktor were haggling over price. Jason had offered a fraction of what he intended to pay and was only halfheartedly letting himself be bargained upward. He was aware the argument was not really about money; Viktor had more than he could ever wish. It was a matter of pride, price reflecting the degree of respect for the Russian’s talents.

At last, they agreed.

Viktor produced another bottle of vodka from the refrigerator and placed a glass in Jason’s hand. “Is Russian custom to seal bargain.”

Jason managed to beg off after a second shot, telling Viktor he would be in touch in a few days and securing the number of an account in the Cook Islands into which he was to wire half a million dollars as an advance.

Jason checked his watch as he climbed into the battered Suzuki Samurai he had rented at the airport. He was relieved to see he had plenty of time to catch his flight. Enough time, in fact, to pause at the top of the hill behind Gouverneur, get out of the car, and admire a view of golden sand, green hills, and blue waters, all framed by the blood red of trumpet-shaped hibiscus blooms along the corkscrew road. The sense of loss that he had no means to put the view on canvas was near tragedy, assuaged only by a promise to himself he would return, supplies in hand. A few minutes later, he was treated to a different, but equally spectacular, sight as the hill dropped down into Baie de Saint-Jean. He would not have been the first visitor to the island to run off the cliff that yawned beneath each hairpin turn, too enchanted with the scenery to pay attention to the snakelike road.

The road ran flat as it briefly paralleled the beach at Saint-Jean, a strand divided by the jutting prow of a rock formation upon which perched the Eden Rock hotel, where rooms ran thousands of dollars per night during high season. That, of course, included a complimentary bottle of reasonably good Champagne upon check-in and a daily breakfast buffet. The road, already narrow, was squeezed tighter by cars more abandoned than parked by beachgoers.

Jason took a right and began the ridiculously steep climb to a group of small cottages, the Village Saint-Jean. It had been the only place he could find without a reservation. Though the bedroom, bath, deck, and tiny two-burner-stove kitchen hardly warranted the price, the view of beach and sea were as magnificent as any on the island, with the airport thrown in. He parked under an arbor of bougainvillea and walked out onto the deck that would lead to his door.

He rounded a corner, key in hand, and stopped as though he had hit an invisible wall.

“Hello, Jason.”

Languishing on one of the two chaise longues was Dr. Maria Bergenghetti.

The ample amount of taunt skin revealed by a bikini was light olive-colored, the hair knotted into a bun black as a crow’s wing, so black as to be iridescent. Skin and hair betrayed her Campania linage. The blue eyes that were staring over the tops of the oversize Foster Grants, though, spoke of ancient Norman or Viking intrusion into the bloodline.

She took off the sunglasses. “You don’t look happy to see me.”

“I… I… I’m surprised. Astonished, actually,” Jason verbally backpedaled. “I mean, how did you…?”

Good question. Jason had both arrived on the island and registered at the hotel under the George Simmons identity.

“You don’t seem overjoyed that I did, find you, that is. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you were here with another woman, but yours are the only clothes in the room.”

Better another woman than she find out why he really was here. An affair might be forgiven; planning violence would not.

She sat up straight, spreading her arms. “Aren’t you going to at least give me a kiss? We haven’t laid eyes on each other in, what, five or six weeks?”

That was one thing he could do. Stepping forward, he leaned over. Her arms encircled him. The next thing he knew, swimsuits were flying. He was kissing her nipple. “Shouldn’t we go inside?”

Her hand searched for and found his crotch. “Why? No one can see us up here.”

Jason wasn’t sure he cared.