The Hunted

28

Warden Byron James leaned back in his seat and contemplated the glistening toes of his spitshined wingtips. He peered into the reflected face of Special Agent Terrence Hanrahan and informed him, "Won't take long."

"You're sure?"

"Damn sure. Ask around. This here prison's the rottenest sewer in America," he said very loudly, smacking his lips and looking quite proud about that boast.

"What have you done with him?"

A slow smile. "A week in solitary for starters. Moved him to D Wing today."

"What's that? High-security?"

The warden's feet hit the floor and he leaned forward. "Just say he's not in the best of company."

"Tell me more."

"D Wing's for the undesirables. Big-time dealers, gangbangers, Mafia hoods, Black Power brotherhood, and recalcitrants who can't seem to behave. Plus, he's got a special new cellmate, Bitchy Beatty."

"That supposed to mean something to me?"

"If you were an inmate… then yeah, damned sure it would." Hanrahan was pretty certain it was best not to know. In the event he was subpoenaed later, total ignorance was his best defense. Curiosity got the better of him, though, and reluctantly he asked, "Tell me about Bitchy…?"

"Beatty. Bitchy Beatty. Guess you might know him better as Benny Beatty."

"Oh… that Beatty?"

"Same guy. You know, before that awful assault thing happened." Hanrahan vaguely recalled the case, about three years back.

Beatty, formerly of one of those big Kansas college football factories, and in his second year as an All-Pro tackle for Arizona, had rushed into the New York Jets locker room with a baseball bat after getting creamed in a championship game. Like a whirling dervish, he spun and bounced around the room and brutally assaulted fifteen of the Jets' top stars. By the time he was wrestled down, the locker room was filled with busted teeth and broken bones, three shattered kneecaps, and more gallons of blood than anybody cared to measure.

Beatty got more than the max, ten to twenty: turned out the judge was a rabid Jets season ticketholder; turned out it would be five to ten before the Jets could rebuild and field a reasonable team. The furious judge threw away the sentencing guidelines and gave Beatty double what he gave the Jets. An appeal was pending. The grounds were solid, but it would be heard in a New York appellate court, of all places. His lawyers weren't optimistic.

Hanrahan asked, "How'd he get that nickname?"

"Short for 'bitchmaker.' Ol' Beatty misses all those groupie sluts something awful." A broad smile at the faces in the room. "Guess you'd say his cellmates are his surrogates."

Two special agents leaned against the wall and joined in the laughter, halfheartedly, little more than forced chuckles. They stopped as soon as it seemed polite.

This was the third prison inside a year. And the third cocksure warden who swore he would break Konevitch like a swaybacked pony. Konevitch had adapted to each new facility quickly, with surprising ease. Go figure.

As a prisoner in the federal system, though, he enjoyed one protected right they badly wished they could withhold: monthly visits from that pretty little wife, who appeared like clockwork. No matter where they moved him, no matter how closely the secret was kept, she somehow learned where he was. The Feds monitored his mail, an easy task, as there had been no mail-none coming in, none going out. That nosy lawyer of theirs peppered the system with requests for his location, but none had been answered. Somehow, though, she always knew where he was.

He attacked the library with curious regularity. The FBI accessed the records and followed his literary pursuits with their own deep interest. The law stacks were a common destination. Little surprise there. All prisoners fashioned themselves Clarence Darrows, able to outdo all those esquired incompetents who screwed up and got them in here. Every other day, it was books on computers, computer languages, FORTRAN and COBOL, and that new thing called the Internet all their kids were raving about. A few times a week, he hopped onto the library computer and typed away at blazing speed, nearly burning up the keyboard. Why, they had no idea.

Hanrahan turned away from the warden and, talking maybe at the wall, maybe at nobody, emphasized, "You know how important this is to us."

"Guess I do. I got a call from Fielder at headquarters. Said your guy, Tromble, wants this real bad."

Still looking away, like this wasn't a conversation. "Find a way to scale back his liberties. Turn up the heat as fast and hard as you like."

The warden, also now talking, not at Hanrahan but at some invisible spot on the ceiling, hypothesized, "Yeah, well, he could, I dunno, maybe misbehave or somethin'. I'd have to come down hard with a few necessary disciplinary measures."

"Yeah, but like what?"

"A few more weeks in solitary will get his attention."

"Don't. Believe me, don't. That was tried at both previous prisons. He folds himself into some kind of yoga posture and goes into a trance. Actually, he seems to enjoy the solitude."

"Two…? Hey, I thought this guy was a cherry."

"Sorry, no, you're the third. The other two prisons he's shown a talent for building coalitions and finding people to protect him. He's clever. We have no idea how he does it."

The warden leaned back in his chair and threw his hands behind his head. "Well, your boy ain't met me yet," he boasted. "Ask around, fellas. The state always sends me the biggest hardasses. I got my ways of making 'em crack."

The two agents on the wall shared quiet smiles. It was the same speech, almost word for word, they had heard from both previous wardens. And in each prison, inside a few weeks, Konevitch was hanging out with the biggest badasses in the yard, getting extra food helpings in the mess hall, the recipient of all kinds of special largesse and favors, even from the guards.

As much as they hoped and plotted otherwise, somehow, some way, they feared Alex Konevitch would find a way to upstage this wingtipped, overconfident ass as well. Bitchy missed football like crazy. All in all, though, prison wasn't all that bad, or even all that different. He more or less spent his time just as he did back in his cherished NFL days, eating voraciously, hoisting enormous weights out in the yard, and bashing heads whenever the impulse seized him. He had packed on another forty pounds of bad mood to the 350 he arrived with, all hard muscle.

Bitchy had scraped by with terrible grades in college, not because he was stupid, because he was smart. A full ride, with all the cute little cheerleaders he wanted, and bright little volunteers to stand in and take his tests. What dork would hide his nose inside books with all that fun to be had? Like many football hotshots, off the field Bitchy had always been spoiled rotten; it shouldn't surprise anybody that he now had a few serious impulse control issues. Anyway, the college was determined to graduate him phi beta pigskin, no matter what, even if he never went near class, which he seldom did.

The new boy was lying on the lower bunk with his nose stuffed inside a book, something about Web site construction. He was cute, real cute. A bit tall for Bitchy's usual taste maybe, but what the hell, variety was supposed to be spicy. So why not? He shifted his vast weight to the side of his bunk and peered down.

"Hey, I heard you're a transfer."

"Third prison this year."

"How come they moved you to this shithole?"

"Mutilation."

"What the hell's that?"

"I mutilated a man. I didn't kill him. Afterward, though, I suppose he wished I had." Alex absently flipped a page and continued reading.

Bitchy scratched his head. "That's a new one on me."

"In the statutes it sits between first- and second-degree assault. You see, in your American laws, it boils down to intent. I didn't want to kill him."

"What are you, a lawyer?" Bitchy hated lawyers. He'd been screwed royally by the five-hundred-buck-an-hour suit he'd hired to defend him, a pompous prick who barely protested when the judge doubled his sentence. He would dearly love to screw one back.

"Hardly."

Bitchy bounced off the top bunk. With incredible agility, both feet hit the floor at once, almost catlike. He was so damned big and blockish, his opponents habitually underestimated his speed, balance, and dexterity. But not after Bitchy got his huge paws on you-suddenly, everything about him came into terrifying focus.

He placed a hand on his zipper and was about to introduce his new cellmate to Mr. Johnson.

Alex calmly closed the book and looked at him. "I castrated a man," he informed Beatty simply, coldly. "He attempted to rape me in the shower. That night, after he fell asleep, I chopped it off. While he howled in pain, I cut it into small pieces. You know why, Benny?" He paused long enough to allow Benny time to consider this intriguing question. "It made it impossible to sew back on."

Bitchy's hand left his zipper and entered a deep pocket.

Alex said, "I hear you were a professional footballer."

A strange way to put it, but Bitchy answered, "Yeah. So what?"

"Did it pay well?"

This was getting weird. "Not well. It paid great."

"How great?"

"A five million signing bonus. Three million a year in salary. Why you askin'?"

"Where is all that money now?"

"None of your business."

Alex put the book down and leaned his back against the wall. "I suppose your legal costs consumed most of it."

Bitchy also leaned back against the wall. He was in the mood for a little man-love, but this guy seemed to want to chitchat a bit before they got down to action. At least he wasn't hollering and bouncing around the cell like his last cellmate. The Russian accent sure sounded cool.

"I got millions left. When it hits three mil, the lawyers can go screw themselves. The appeals stop."

"Smart. So how is it invested?"

"In the bank. Where else would it be?"

"Did nobody advise you that's stupid?"

Bitchy bounced off the wall. The hand came out of the pocket and suddenly balled into a beefy fist. "Watch your mouth. You're stupid if you call me stupid."

"Relax, Benny. I never said you were stupid. I said leaving the money in the bank is stupid."

"It'll still be there when I get out. How stupid is that?"

"A lot more of it could be there. Is that smart, my friend?"

"All right, Mr. I-know-so-much, what's smarter?"

"In the right stocks, it will multiply enormously. Real estate is a fairly good and safe investment also."

"That's not my thing."

"Have you ever heard of Qualcomm, Benny?"

Bitchy laughed. "Sure. I get it from the pharmacy whenever I get jock itch." He laughed harder.

"We'll look into jock-itch providers if you'd like. It's certainly a market you know well. That's more of a slow growth, long-term investment, though," Alex replied, very seriously. "It's a company that invented a brilliant new way to send sound and information down a wire, or even fiber-optic cable. The stock is set to quadruple. Do you understand time-division versus code-division encoding?"

Not a chance.

"Well, let me explain the deal. If you want me as a lover, I probably can't stop you. Of course you'll have to sleep with one eye open. When will that crazy Russian guy cut my dingee off?" Alex waved his hand up and down in the air. "He will, most definitely, he will… but when?"

It was said so matter-of-factly, Bitchy took no offense. Shifting to the third person helped; it took a little personal edge off the threat.

"Or," Alex pushed on, "I can be your investment advisor. I'll double or triple your money. That's a lowball estimate, incidentally. I know a great deal about the Russian market also. A little cash in the right ADRs would be very smart. Derivatives are doing quite well these days also."

Alex patted the mattress. Bitchy's broad rear landed on the bunk beside him and he said, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"That's why you need me, Benny."

"Just for not raping you?"

"There are many attractive men in this prison. Do whatever you like, just not with me, okay?"

"Do I have to protect you?"

"That's not part of the deal, no."

"Make me that kind of dough and I'll slaughter whoever comes near you."

An indifferent shrug. "Probably a wise move on your part."

"So how's this work?"

"Easier than you might think. There are probably fifteen or twenty contraband cell phones in the block, am I right?"

Bitchy nodded. Fifty was more like it. The guards were always hunting for them, but as they grew smaller they became so much easier to conceal. Bitchy knew of at least four tucked away in the prison laundry, another six in the kitchen. Twist a few arms, and he'd have all he wanted. No was not a word Bitchy heard very often.

"Get me three of those phones, Benny. The batteries wear down quickly and can't be recharged inside our cell. You'll handle the expenses. Believe me, you'll be able to afford it. I use the phones to manage your money and whoever else I decide to call."

"And what if you mess up and lose my money?"

"I'll be on the bottom bunk. If I fail to keep my end of the bargain, you're not obligated to keep yours."

Bitchy crossed his arms and stared off at the far wall. Of the vast multitude of "investment advisors" at the pro draft who pounced hungrily on the newest batch of twenty-two-year-old, undereducated millionaires, not one of those greedy blabbermouths had offered a deal remotely resembling this. And if they lost it all through their own utter ineptitude, it was tough luck, pal, sayonara.

Really, how many investment advisors promised outright that if they failed in their promises, they'd bend over and take it, like they just gave it? "All right," Bitchy said, hands back in his pockets.

"Another thing. I'm going to teach you how to do this. If I make you all that money, I don't want you to turn around and lose it afterward."

"Will it hurt?"

"Only a little, Benny."

Benny laughed.

"One last thing," Alex said, returning to his book.

"Name it."

"Spread the word. The last two prisons, we pooled our money and increased our buying positions enormously. The more the better for you." The day that marked the anniversary of eleven months since the Konevitch trial, Kim Parrish threw her long-overdue fit.

The team of state prosecutors had arrived from Russia six months before, four of them in all, all men, all wearing blockish suits made of a cheap, indescribable fabric. Only one spoke any semblance of English-just please, thank you, yes, but mostly no, and a dismaying variety of filthy curses.

The FBI paid for the works and put them up in the downtown Hilton. They immediately raised hell about the lousy accommodations. To shut them up, they were bounced a few blocks over to the Madison, a decidedly more upscale lodging. The complaints did not abate until the Madison succumbed and switched them each to thousand-dollar suites.

They ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the most expensive Georgetown restaurants, rented two Mercedes sedans, a snazzy black Corvette, and a shiny red Maserati. They spent their five-day weekends raising hell in California and Florida, before they fell deeply in love with Las Vegas and the legalized brothels nearby. They billed it all to the FBI-the first-class airfares, the whores, the gambling losses that quickly turned mountainous. Everything was billed directly to the Feds. They drank from dawn till dusk, got in fistfights in bars, picked up four DUIs, smashed up the Maserati, trashed one Mercedes sedan, and billed all that, too, to the FBI.

They arrived with two dozen large crates stuffed to the lids with documents. Everything in Russian. Everything, every word and comma, had to be meticulously and painfully translated into English.

Two more weeks were lost while Kim scoured the city for a competent translator. As the documents proved to be a thick maze of Russian legalese, not any translator would do. Kim interviewed a dozen candidates. Several American college graduates whose levels of fluency weren't nearly as impressive as their resumes. Five Russian emigres who utterly failed the English test. A retired book editor who had translated two complete Tolstoy novels had seemed like her best bet. That one took a brief glance at the two dozen crates and bolted.

Eventually, Kim drove across to the river to the leafy, sprawling CIA headquarters at Langley. She had called ahead and was met by man from the Russian analysis section. Downstairs, in the large marble lobby, she briefly described her problem. Mr. Spook smiled reassuringly and claimed he knew the perfect guy. On a sheet of paper he wrote the name and number of a Russian expat, a man named Petri Arbatov, a major in the KGB before he defected to the U.S. Petri had a law degree from Moscow University and in the fifteen years since his defection, he had also picked up an American JD from Catholic University. Petri demanded $600 an hour, a price that would've impressed the most expensive firm in New York. He insisted he wouldn't translate "da" to "yes" for a penny less. The price was outrageous, far beyond what she had intended to pay. She promptly agreed.

What the hell: Petri, too, could send his rather impressive bills to the FBI. If the Fibbies could blow through all that dough on a bunch of Russian cowboys whooping it up like rich Arab playboys, they better not even blink about all-too-legitimate legal expenses.

Kim rented a small, furnished fourth-floor apartment on Connecticut Avenue, they hauled up the boxes, rolled up their sleeves, and dug in. Petri proved to be a rare combination, an unemotional perfectionist-a short, thin, sad-faced man of few words who concentrated deeply and absolutely on his work. He consumed only one meal a day, always a thin broth he brought from home that he carefully spooned into his mouth. On such little nourishment, it was a miracle he stayed alive, much less endured the backbreaking load of work. He surrounded himself with both Russian and English dictionaries and waded through each document, word for word. He dictated. Kim typed. At six hundred an hour, he and Kim avoided expensive banter. They made it through three-quarters of the crates at a furious pace because they wasted nothing: neither time nor words. After four months and twenty days of eighteen hours each, she had no idea whether Petri was married, had cancer, children, was rich or poor, or even whether he lived on the street.

Thus she was hugely surprised when he slammed down one of the documents and turned to her. "You and I need to talk."

"About what?"

"Do you know what I did for the KGB, Kim? You've never asked."

"You were a lawyer?"

"More or less. I was the KGB's idea of a lawyer."

"Okay. What does that mean?"

"I worked in a legal section that specialized in what were termed special cases."

"So what? Specialization is the name of the game. I specialize in immigration law."

"Ask my specialty."

She decided to humor him. She smiled. "What was your specialty, Petri?"

"Framing. I framed people, Kim." He let that nauseating confession sit for a moment, then pushed on. "Only high-value targets. And I was the best, Kim, a remarkably talented lawyer. I could build a seamless case against anybody. A general secretary, a highly decorated marshal of the Soviet Union, a poet with a Nobel Prize, it didn't matter. Literally anybody, Kim. They gave me a name and I went to work. When I was done, any jury or judge would believe the accused was a capitalist pig with ten million in a Swiss account who had sex with his own children and lived only to destroy the motherland."

"Is this why you defected, Petri? Conscience."

He looked away. "Oh, I wish I could say yes." He seemed to sink in his chair. "I'm not so noble, I'm afraid."

"What happened?"

"One day, I went to visit another man in my section, a good friend of twenty years, who worked only three doors down from my office. He had slipped out to go to the latrine. He did something incredibly stupid, he left his door unlocked. This was totally against procedure, you must understand. Inexcusably sloppy. So I walked in. Documents were strewn everywhere. On his desk, his floor, everywhere. He was obviously well along."

"With what?"

"With me, Kim. He was building a case against me."

She moved closer, almost in his face. "Why?"

He refused to look at her. "An hour later, I was hugging a CIA man from your embassy and begging for help. I cried, Kim. I promised anything his bosses wanted-anything. I was about to get what I had done to so many others, and I was suffocating with fear. No level of betrayal was ruled out. They whisked me out the next morning." In a sad, resigned tone Petri added, "So I never asked my old friend, you see."

"You must have some idea."

"Competition, I suppose. You see, I was the best, Kim. I could turn a saint into a whore, a pope into a pimp, whatever I wanted them to be. The chief-of-section job was coming open. We were both vying for the job and all that came with it. A larger apartment, a chauffeured car, two weeks a year in a seedy KGB guest-house in Ukraine. That's how KGB people operate."

"I see."

He rolled forward in his chair and planted his skinny elbows on his bony knees. "Don't look down your nose at my work. You have no idea the expertise or artistry it requires. Everything must be perfect, Kim. Documents forged with just the right dates, matching fonts, identical signatures, all the witnesses coached and carefully choreographed. It's police work and lawyer work and theater work rolled into one. You have to imagine the crime, Kim, dream it up out of thin air. Then dig a moat and build a castle nobody can assail. No detail can be overlooked, no knot untied. I must tell you, Kim, it's so much more difficult than constructing a real case with real facts."

"Well, I wouldn't know about that."

Petri lifted the document and began reading it again. He floated out of his past, back to the present. Nearly an hour passed before he looked up and asked casually, "How do you consider this case against Konevitch?"

"You know what?" She put aside the document she was reading and glanced over at him. "I'm impressed. I thought those four clowns were just drunken miscreants. Totally useless."

"But now?"

"Well, I was wrong. They're good. Very, very good. They've really delivered the goods."

"Will your judge be persuaded?"

Kim smiled. "The Konevitches will be back in Moscow faster than they can blink." After a moment, she asked, "What do you think?"

"Probably so."

"I just wish I had all this material at the first trial."

Petri nodded as if to say: Of course you do. "And what do you believe will happen to them at home?"

"Not my problem, Petri."

"My apologies. I offended you. Of course you can't worry about the people you kick out."

They returned to their work. They fell back into their normal pattern and quietly ignored each other for another hour. Petri thumbed through his beloved dictionaries and scrawled long, messy notes in the margins of a document. Kim pecked away on her keyboard, forcing yet another translated document into her hard drive-or trying to, at least. She began making mistake after mistake. She corrected, then corrected the correction, then repeated the first mistake again. Her brain and her fingers seemed to be coming unglued from each other.

With a loud curse, she finally pushed away from her desk. She wheeled her chair across the floor until she ended up less than a foot from Petri. "All right. What will happen to them?"

He quietly closed the thick dictionary. "Tell me what you think."

"All right. They'll be tried in court. Probably convicted. They didn't kill anybody, so probably they'll end up in prison."

Petri made no reply.

"Look," Kim said, more forcefully and with a show of considerable indignation, "all these crates of evidence from the Russians. Proof of intention, right? Why go to such enormous lengths and trouble if they don't intend to put them on trial?"

"As you say," Petri replied with a slight grin. The answer was now so obvious, it was staring her in the eye. She knew it. After all these months of sweat and hard work, and of unrelenting pressure from her bosses, it was only natural for her to suppress it. But pieces of it kept bubbling to the surface. Little fragments. Niggling doubts and caustic uncertainties.

The frustration was killing her. "Damn it, Petri, Konevitch stole the money. He's guilty. He plundered his own bank, he ripped off hundreds of millions."

"Is that so?"

She waved a hand at the crates stacked neatly in the corner. "Bank records. Statements from his own employees. Computer printouts of his transactions, police reports, three full investigations from three different government agencies. What more do you want?"

"You're absolutely right, Kim. Who could want more? It's all here."

"Damn right it is."

"A perfect little package, gift-wrapped, and handed to you on a silver platter." This skinny little lawyer who once made his living building perfect cases just wouldn't let go.

"Too perfect, isn't it?" she asked, bending forward and rubbing her forehead.

"Tell me how many cases you've tried."

"Hundreds. I don't know."

"Any cases where every detail matched up so well? Every date coincides, every witness saw exactly the same thing, every investigator came to identical conclusions? Everything so perfectly, so amazingly lined up? For a supposedly brilliant man, Konevitch left behind an astonishing ocean of evidence."

She was suddenly more deeply miserable than she had ever felt. It was inescapable now. She was fighting back a flood of tears. "No case is ever perfect."

She had reached the end of the journey. Petri sat back for a moment, allowing her to ponder the ugly magnitude of her discovery. Americans were so naive about these things.

He then commented, "We never actually tried the cases in court, you know. Not our job, Kim. We built the perfect little cases and handed them off to others. Those trial lawyers, they all loved us. Such flawless gifts we gave them. They couldn't lose."

"I don't understand. Why hand them off? You said you were a great lawyer. Since you created it, you knew the material better than anybody."

"I often wondered that, you know. They never told us why. Perhaps they thought the man who designs the guillotine shouldn't actually be forced to pull the lever and have to stare at the head in the basket. Communists. They could be so incoherently humane in completely inhumane ways."

Kim wanted to jump out of her chair and bolt. Just run away from this case. Run as fast and as far as her feet could carry her.

He rolled forward in his chair and placed a hand on her knee. "They'll murder them, Kim. Oh, they might go through the motions of a trial… or they might not. They'll kill them, though, as sure as you and I are sitting here."

There was one question left for her to ask, one dark mystery to solve. "But Konevitch could be guilty, couldn't he, Petri?"

"You know the golden rule of my old KGB section?"

She forced herself to stare into his dark, sad eyes, to hear the wisdom of a soul soiled and ruined long before they ever met.

"Never frame a guilty man." The first run at Alex Konevitch came shortly after sunrise. It came three weeks to the day after he stepped out of the dark prison van in Yuma. It came in a large sweltering room filled with sweaty men, less than a minute after Alex loaded his tray with his usual selection of soggy French toast and watery scrambled eggs, only seconds after he sat in his usual seat, at his usual table.

The offer had been smuggled in to the Russians a week before by a balding, nervous-looking guard named Tim. A double divorce drowning under a serious gambling addiction, Tim owed his bookie, Marty, five thousand bucks after a sure-thing pony did the big choke on the backstretch. Before he placed the bet, Tim had vaguely wondered if his bookie had mob connections. Good guess. Turned out Anthony "the Crusher" Cardozzi was Marty's second cousin, a lifelong business associate, and quite serious about men honoring their debts. A month overdue on his vig, Tim now was seriously wondering if his state medical insurance would cover the destruction. Thus, when Marty relayed the offer-a favor for a friend, Marty intimated-Tim almost suffocated with relief.

Five thousand bucks forgiven, and two perfectly functional kneecaps-incredible generosity, just for delivering a simple message. Sure, no problem, Tim replied, vowing to give up gambling, and knowing he wouldn't.

The offer ignited a bitter quarrel among the Russians. Day to day a loose-knit group, they were bound by two common traits-they all spoke Russian, and all had ties of one sort or another to the Russian underworld. The big question-indeed, the only question-was, who would get first crack at Alex Konevitch?

After two days of passing increasingly malicious notes back and forth, the Russians gathered in a tight swarthy huddle in a remote corner of the yard to discuss the offer-a cool half million to whomever killed him within thirty days, declining in value with each passing month. They spoke in Russian, and they sparred loudly and heatedly, with no concern at all about being overheard.

The sooner the better-this point seemed elemental and was quickly agreed among the ten men. Why wait and waste a hundred grand? Point two was almost as easily settled-the first crack would be their best shot. Catch Konevitch before he knew of their intention to kill him. Catch him before he had his guard up. Catch him at his most vulnerable.

If that flopped, future efforts would become increasingly difficult.

The experienced hit men raucously laid claim to the honor. The killing game wasn't as easy as it seemed, one explained, and the other killers nodded with great gravity and solemn agreement. An amateur making his first plunge was likely to do something unfathomably stupid. Two of the veterans confessed how they had choked on their first jobs. Seemingly insignificant details that suddenly ballooned into big problems. A wrong glance here, a careless stutter there, that alerted the target. A case of last-minute jitters that turned paralytic. A lot could go wrong, and often did.

The thieves and pushers and kidnappers weren't buying it. What was so hard? Bring something sharp, pick a vital organ, and poke it. No problem, as easy as cutting steak. The bickering intensified and verged on violence, before Igor, a clever accountant with a talent for money laundering, came to the rescue with a way to buy peace. One hundred grand from the bounty would be carved off and split among the nine Russians who didn't get to stab a hole in Alex.

Everybody wanted to argue about this for a while, but the compromise was irresistible, and inevitably accepted.

Now everybody benefited. And now everybody had a stake in doing it right.

Thus the lottery rapidly whittled down to four. Three had made a handsome living on the outside, killing people. Number four was a blowhard who loudly proclaimed two murders and launched into vulgar, descriptive bragging about his handiwork. They suspected he was lying, and they were right. Nobody could prove it, though; thus he had a tenuous, shaky seat at the table. But having settled on this logic, it was a short bounce to the next argument.

To nobody's surprise, this proposal came from the lips of Lev Titov, hands down the most productive killer in the group, if not the entire prison. It was plain common sense, Lev argued-the one with the most scalps on his belt should have the first shot. Having jumped off to an early start, at age fourteen, fulfilling every schoolboy's dream by strangling his math teacher, Lev went on to compile an impressive pedigree of homicides. He was legendary among certain circles, a remorseless assassin who killed without flair or even a telltale method. He had slain for himself, for the Russian army, for the Mafiya, and occasionally, when his short fuse got the better of him, for the hell of it. He was fussy and painstaking, and able to murder with a bewildering variety of weapons, from a deck of cards to sophisticated bombs. He once killed a man he suspected of cheating at chess by stuffing the checkmated king down his throat. Unpredictability and a certain amount of messiness were his only signatures.

A quick show of hands. Eight for. One puzzling abstention. Only the blowhard against.

Lev was the man.

One hundred grand would be split nine ways; the other four hundred would go into an account of Lev's choosing. A man who smiled rarely, Lev could not wipe the grin off his face. With seven years left on his sentence, he could at least look forward to a little gold at the end of the rainbow.

And so it was that at the moment Alex placed his tray on the table and casually fell onto the hard metal bench, Lev never even turned around. Why bother? After watching and studying his target for four days, he could write a book on Alex's culinary habits. He knew Alex would quietly sip his lukewarm coffee and wait for his big cellmate. Alex liked eggs, his cellmate adored French toast. It was a routine they shared, like an old married couple. The roommate would pour and scrape his runny eggs onto Alex's tray, and the French toast would land on the big guy's before they launched into their breakfasts.

The other nine Russians were strategically situated in a rough concentric pattern, precisely in accordance with the neat diagram Lev had meticulously sketched and handed out. Lev raised a clenched fist to signal the start. Immediately the other nine launched their trays in the air, then began indiscriminately pummeling every prisoner within reach. In a claustrophobic chamber filled with sweaty, grumpy men with a strong penchant toward violence, the spark was volcanic, the result horrific. It opened with an artillery duel of hundreds of hurled trays. Then four hundred men commenced an orgy of punching, kicking, tackling, biting, hollering, shoving, and general havoc.

Lev, seated almost directly to Alex's rear, watched with quiet amusement. He wouldn't budge until the riot approached full pitch. The sudden shift from order to madness overwhelmed the guards, who shuffled their feet and watched helplessly from the sidelines. From past riots, Lev knew he had three minutes before reinforcements equipped with batons and riot gear arrived to break up the fun.

Lev slowly stood and stretched. He drew a deep breath and steeled his nerves. From his right pant pocket he withdrew a ten-inch shaft, a masterpiece of lethal perfection he had lovingly honed in the prison shop. The tip was pointy as a pin. Edges that could shave a baby's ass. The hilt was attractively bound in a coarse, fingerprint-resistant cotton fabric, a throwaway tool, a stab-and-leave-it special. And because of the commotion, a fast, quiet stabbing would be lost in the sea of violence. The odds of witnesses were about nil; the odds anyone would snitch on Lev even less.

Lev eased away from his table and through a series of short, stealthy steps quickly closed the seven feet to Alex. His target was standing now, back turned to Lev, thoroughly fixated on the raucous festivities, totally oblivious that this little party was all about him. Lev gripped the knife low. An upward thrust would be best, he promptly decided-up though the rib cage, then straight for the heart, or lungs.

But just as the blade was swinging up, something hard and powerful banged Lev's forearm. A nasty cracking sound, and the arm snapped. The shiv popped out of his fist and was instantly lost in the wild scuffle of feet. The county coroner would later note that Lev's radius and ulna bones had both snapped and shattered. Simultaneous breaks with lots of splinters. A blow from a sledgehammer might account for it. A one-in-a-million kick from one of those big-time karate guys was another possibility.

One thing was sure-the force had been a ten on the Richter scale.

Lev yelped with pain and barely had to time to look to his left. A defense of any kind was out of the question anyway. A giant with frightening speed and gargantuan hands lifted him off the floor by his head. A quick jerk to the right, another snapping noise, Lev's neck this time, and he dropped to the floor like a discarded sack of disconnected bones.

His body was jerking involuntarily but Lev didn't feel a thing. No pain, no tingling, not even a mild sense of relief as his bowels and bladder emptied.

The big man was leaning over him, looking down into his eyes. "Hey, Alex," the man asked over his shoulder, "know this guy?"

"I've never seen him before."

"He knows you, for damn sure. He was about to shiv you."

In Russian, Lev managed to croak, "Call a doctor."

The big man looked bewildered. "What?"

Alex eased the big man aside and bent down until his face was two inches from Lev's. "Who are you?" he asked, also in Russian.

"Call a doctor. Please. My body's not working."

"Give me your name."

"Can't breathe," he managed to gasp, and he was right. His spinal cord was severed; his face was turning bluer by the second as spinal shock settled in. "Hurry."

"Why me?" Alex asked.

"Money," Lev confessed.

"From who?" Alex asked, not budging, not making the slightest move to save him.

"I…" Lev tried to force a breath, but his lungs no longer functioned. "No idea."

The big man tugged at Alex's arm. "Let's go. Don't be standing here when the guards come."

"One last question," Alex promised the big man, then, staring into Lev's dying eyes, asked, "Are there more of you?"

Lev did not answer. The final act of his miserable life would not include snitching on his colleagues. He would not give Konevitch the satisfaction.

It was in his eyes, though.

Oh yes, there were definitely more killers out there. They waited until they were back in the privacy of their small cell before either said a word. They sat on the lower bunk, kicked off their shoes, and pretended for a moment that it had never happened. Benny had not just killed a man. Nobody was trying to execute Alex. Life was every bit as good as it was yesterday, and tomorrow would be the same.

Eventually, Alex started it off. "Benny, I owe you my life."

"Just protecting my investment," Bitchy grunted as though it was nothing. His face betrayed him; he was obviously quite pleased.

"How did you know?"

"Oh, that. Well, the riot. There's usually one before a killing in here."

"I meant how did you know I was his target?"

"Didn't, necessarily. Protecting my quarterback in large mobs is how I make my living. You get an eye, or you don't get a contract. Who was that guy?"

"A Russian. I never met him."

"Why'd he want to shiv you?"

"Money, Benny-somebody put a bounty on me."

"A big one?"

"Quite large, probably."

"That's not good."

"Tell me about it."

"Any idea who's fronting the cash?"

"A very good idea, yes."

"Can you make them back off?"

"Sure, after I'm dead."

"Anyone else know?"

"I have that impression. The boys who started the riot, for sure."

They pondered the walls for a moment. Benny obviously was wondering what he had gotten himself into, hooked up with a Russian with a sumptuous bounty on his head. And Alex, just as obviously, was analyzing the same issue. How had the Russians found him? After a moment, that question answered itself. Somebody in the U.S. government had tipped them off; no other possibility made sense. But why now? And why here, in this miserable excuse for a prison? He was incarcerated, awaiting trial. In all likelihood, his next date with a judge would be followed by a quick trip to Russia. He posed absolutely no threat-or none they should know about, anyway.

Wait a few more months, and they could kill him at their leisure, in Moscow, in a small cell, in the prison of their choice. Kill him however they wanted, slow or fast, where nobody would ask questions later. So why now?

Benny broke the prolonged silence. "Will they try again?"

"What do you think?"

"I think I should find another cellmate."

"Good idea. I won't hold it against you."

Another moment of quiet passed. Alex studied his bare toes. Bitchy stood up, stretched, and produced a loud yawn.

"Thing is, Alex, you're trapped in here with these guys," Benny said, stretching his immense arms over his big head. "You can hide for 364 days, and on the 365th they catch you alone, in the shower, on the john, walking out of a meeting with your lawyer. That's it, game over." Then, as if Alex wasn't listening, "It's too easy."

"I'm already scared out of my wits, Benny. Thanks for making me hopeless."

"Just thought you should know."

"Now I know." By 9:00 p.m. that same night, when Kim and Petri finally were allowed into the power chamber, the inquisitors were already settled comfortably in their chairs. After spending thirty minutes crashing in quiet huddles about how to manhandle an unruly INS attorney who was threatening mutiny, they had reached a decision.

Tromble sat at the middle of the table, tapping a pen, boiling with barely controlled fury. The head of INS, and the assistant district director, with the distinctly unhappy honor of being Kim's immediate boss, hunched down to his left. To his right sat the slightly inebriated chief of the Russian prosecutorial team, and a Colonel Volevodz, who had been frantically dispatched by Tatyana after a disturbing call from Tromble.

All were seated with unpleasant expressions on one side of the conference table. The other side was barren.

Two empty chairs were arrayed in the middle of the floor across from them; the setting resembled a kangaroo court. In fact, it was. Kim and her translator were actually led in like prisoners by an FBI agent, one of Tromble's errand boys who in the hallway had coldly introduced himself as Terrence Hanrahan.

The arrangement was frightening. It was meant to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and very briefly, it did.

Kim more or less stumbled timidly into one chair. Petri, with a sad, resigned expression, collapsed into the seat beside her. The INS director opened with a withering glare. "Miss Parrish, do you realize how much time, money, and effort's been put into this investigation?"

A cautious nod. "Of course I do. Nobody has worked harder on it than me."

"And now you say you want the case dropped?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying, sir."

"Because it's too perfect," he noted, dripping disbelief and skepticism all over the table.

"Because the whole thing is phony. The Konevitches are being framed by these people," she said, directing a finger at the two Russians at the table.

"What's the matter? Not enough evidence?"

"To the contrary, too much. It's too pat, too polished. It's obviously manufactured."

"Well, I heard of cases being dropped for lack of evidence. But for too much, and it's too good?" He shook his head from side to side, frowning tightly. "It's the stupidest thing I ever heard."

Petri and the two Russians glared across the table at each other. The lead Russian prosecutor suddenly lurched forward and snapped, "He is the one behind this." Other than an array of imaginative curses, in more than four months it was the most English Kim had heard pass his lips. And it was flawless, with barely a hint of an accent.

"Who's he?" Tromble asked, staring at the skinny, diminutive figure in the chair.

"That man," the Russian growled, directing a shaking finger at the small figure across from him. "The translator. The traitor. He defected fifteen years ago. His life's calling is to harm his motherland. If she's listening to him, she's crazy. He's obviously poisoning her brain."

Volevodz quickly jumped on the bandwagon and the two Russians spent about three minutes hurling insults and invective at the tiny Russian. Petri endured it with an unpleasant smile.

The river of castigations quickly became tedious, and Tromble eventually grew tired of it. He pushed forward and leaned across the table, redirecting the fire at the right source. "You're supposed to be a prosecutor, Miss Parrish, a lawyer. Remember your job. Leave the judgments to the men in robes."

The men in robes? She was already tired of all these boys ganging up on her. "I have an ethical responsibility to present an honest case. This is a travesty. You should all be ashamed to be taken in by these crooked Russians."

"The only people taken in were millions of poor Russians who trusted Konevitch. Of course the evidence is compelling. Guess why. He did it, he's guilty. He's a rotten slimy crook, who deserves whatever he gets. And when the Russians come along and prove it, you say they proved it too well. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?"

"Have you studied the evidence?" Kim asked, sounding frustrated, knowing full well how weak-no, how pathetically silly-her argument sounded. Toss this case away because it's watertight, too perfect, she seemed to be insisting.

"I have not, and I don't intend to." Tromble's elbows landed on the table, with his hands forming a steeple. "Why should I? I have you sitting right here telling me the evidence is rainproof, flawless in every way. No holes, no contradictions, no imperfections."

"I've made my position clear."

"Then I'll make mine clear. It's moving with or without you. Make your choice."

"Without me. Replace me. Find another lawyer."

The assistant director, Kim's immediate boss, was dismayed by how rapidly things were unraveling. Seven months of work about to spill down the drain. Another of his attorneys would have to replace her, then more months wasted while the new guy came up to speed. And frankly, Kim Parrish was the best he had. He produced a warm smile. "Kim, Kim, don't be hasty. You're a great lawyer. You have a fine record. A whole promising career ahead of you. Please, finish this case and put it behind you."

"I also have the prerogative to refuse participation in a case I believe to be fraudulent and shameful. Reassign me to another case."

Tromble was tired of this pussyfooting. He was unaccustomed to having his orders questioned, and he had an invitation to a big White House reception that evening his wife was dying to attend. He detested the president, a feeling that was deeply reciprocated, so this was the first invitation, and very likely the last. His wife had already spent two grand on a gown, dropped a cool five hundred on a faggy hairdresser, and threatened two years without sex if he was a minute late. It was long past time to put his big foot down. "Take this case, or you're fired."

"Then I quit."

"No you don't, you're fired."

"You can't fire me. I don't work for you."

The director of the INS had this one last chance to preserve the independence of his service, not to mention his own prerogative and prestige. Tromble had just violated the most sacrosanct Washington law-keep your fingers out of somebody's else's bureaucratic turf.

The director summoned forth every bit of his courage, looked Kim dead in the eye, and muttered, "Oh, you definitely are fired."