The Hunted

30

On September 18, 1996, one year and two months to the day since Alex's incarceration in federal prison, MP Jones bounced up the steps of the D.C. Federal Courthouse, one of the loveliest, most impressive buildings in a city littered to the gills with marble monuments. The day alternated between warmth and chill, the first hint that another long, humid summer in a city built in a swamp was coming to a close. Elena, along with a stout paralegal hauling a box of documents, accompanied him.

Two days before, Elena had called and frantically insisted on an emergency meeting. MP dropped everything and Elena arrived, pale, tired, angry, upset, and wildly determined. She told him Alex's idea and MP instantly launched a hundred objections.

It was too fast. Too risky. Federal court wasn't his thing. Besides, who knew what the Russian prosecutors and INS had cooked up, how much damning material they could throw at Alex? Elena insisted that she and Alex had entertained all the same reservations, told him about the four attempts on Alex's life, and that ended the discussion. MP called his clients with pressing cases over the next week and foisted their files off on other immigration specialists around town.

So they moved with deep nervousness through the wide, well-lit corridors, straight to the office of the federal clerk. MP signed in at the front desk, moved to the rear of the room, and waited patiently with Elena and his paralegal amid a clutter of other nervous lawyers until the clerk called his name.

He nearly sprinted to her desk. He proudly threw down a document and with a show of intense formality informed her, "I am introducing a motion for habeas corpus on behalf of my client Alex Konevitch. I ask the court for expeditious handling on behalf of said client, who has been incarcerated beyond any reasonable length and forced to endure immeasurable suffering."

The clerk, a large, feisty black woman, lifted up MP's motion and automatically plunked it into a deep wooden in-box, a vast reservoir filled to capacity with other such requests, motions, and lawyerly stuff. "First time here?" she asked without looking up.

"Uh… yes."

"This ain't no courtroom. Plain English works fine in here."

MP looked slightly deflated. "It's a habeas corpus motion." She chewed a stick of gum with great energy and stared intently into a computer screen. The sign on her desk suggested she was named Thelma Parker.

"I heard what you said," Thelma noted. "How long's your guy been in?"

"A year and two months."

"Uh-huh." Thelma did not appear overly impressed. "What facility he at?"

"At the moment, based on a federal contract, the state prison in Yuma. It's his third prison."

The reaction was delayed, but she slowly shifted her gaze from the screen and directed it at MP. "His third? Inside a year? That what you sayin'?"

"To be precise, inside fourteen months."

"What'd he do? Kill a warden?"

"An alleged visa violation."

"Come on, you bullshittin' me."

"On my momma's grave."

"That's an immigration matter. What's your guy doin' in a federal joint?"

"That's what we'd like the government to explain."

"He a U.S. resident?"

"That's one point of contention. The government said yes. Now it's saying no."

She poised her chin on a pencil. "That prison in Yuma, it's a badass place."

"So Alex tells me. He's locked up in D Wing, mixed in with the most rotten apples."

She leaned forward, almost across the desk. In a low, conspiring, all-knowing whisper, she said, "Truth now. Who'd your boy piss off?"

MP played along. He bent over and whispered back, "John Tromble."

"Figures." She picked MP's motion out of the pile and smacked it down on her blotter. She paged through it, frowning and considering the request with some care for a moment. "Gotta cousin works over at the Bureau," she eventually remarked.

A sharp pain suddenly erupted in MP's chest. Idiot. Why hadn't he just kept his big mouth shut?

After a moment Thelma Parker added, "He hates that Tromble. Says he's the worst thing happened since J. Edgar pranced around in a skirt. Tell you what, you done this before?"

After manning this desk for fifteen years, she had seen thousands of lawyers pass in and out of her office. One sniff and she could smell a cherry a mile away.

MP allowed as, "My usual cases are in immigration court."

"Thought so. You never done this before?"

"Pretty much."

A large, plump elbow landed on her desk and her large chin ended up poised on a curled fist. "Now, don't you worry. Way this works is, your motion goes to a judge. Now, you could maybe get lucky and it might end up in the box of, say, oh, Judge Elton Willis. He's a fair and judicious man. Then, assuming this thing gets stamped expeditious"-she winked at MP-"which might maybe happen about three seconds after you walk outta here… well, then the government gets three days to respond. Got all that?"

"Three days," MP said, winking back.

"Then it's show-and-tell time. This kinda motion moves fast. You got your stuff together?"

With all the humility he could muster, MP replied, "It's going to be an ass-kicking of historical proportions. They'll carry Tromble out on a stretcher."

"Uh-huh." A slow nod. "You got help? Sure hope you do."

"Pacevitch, Knowlton and Rivers. A classmate from law school's a partner over there. They're lending a hand, pro bono."

"Well, that's nice." Her eyes hung for a moment on the JCPenney polyester threads that hung loosely on MP's narrow frame. She smacked her lips and said, "No offense, but you gonna need a few thousand-dollar suits at your table." In a career that alternated between roaring barn burners and droning recitations of intolerable boredom, Boris Yeltsin was producing the biggest thud yet. At least he was sober this time-what a rare and welcome change, his chief of staff was thinking, as he rocked back on his heels and briefly scanned the crowd. Nearly all of them were staring edgily at their watches. A few seemed to be asleep on their feet. He looked longer and harder, and for the life of him could not find one person who seemed to be listening to Yeltsin.

His boss liked him along for these things. Principally it gave him a reliable drinking partner for the long ride back to the Kremlin. Plus he could always rely on his trusted chief of staff to lie and say the speech was stirring and deeply inspiring. They were a pair of wicked old politicians. The lies flowed easily and landed comfortably.

A man in a black leather jacket bumped up against him. He took a quick step sideways, to get some room. The man edged closer.

The man suddenly turned and looked at him with a spark of vague recognition. "Hey, didn't I see you with Tatyana Lukin the other night?"

"Who?"

"Tatyana Lukin. You know, she works for you." The man studied his face more intently and continued, "I'm sure it was you. Walking into a hotel together on Tverskoy Boulevard. Same place you and she spend every Tuesday and Thursday together."

"You're mistaken," he replied in as much a hiss as a whisper. He tried unsuccessfully once more to edge away.

"No, there's no mistake. Here." The mysterious man pushed a plastic case into the hands of the chief of staff. All trace of phony uncertainty was gone. With a mocking smile, the mystery man whispered, "You'll want to listen to these alone. Believe me, you won't want company. You're mentioned a lot on these tapes."

Before he could reply, Mikhail jogged away in the direction of the road, where he jumped into an automobile with the engine running and sped off.

The chief thought about just tossing the case away. Fling it as far and as hard as he could; forget about it and walk away. Instead he opened the lid and peeked inside-just two unmarked cassette tapes and a few photographs. He tucked it into his inside coat pocket and decided he'd get rid of it after he got home. Who knew what was on those tapes? Why risk having some stranger find them? Who knows how bad it might be?

He arrived home at nine that night, fixed a tall glass of vodka, and removed his jacket. He felt the weight of the plastic packet; he had nearly forgotten it. He withdrew it from the inside pocket and walked directly to the trash can. He promptly dropped it inside, then stared down at the case for a moment. He should listen to it, he decided: maybe the man that afternoon was a blackmailer. Who knew?

The photos fell on the floor when he pulled the tapes out, and he let them lie there until he knew what this was about. He selected the first tape and inserted it into the cassette player on his desk, sat back into his desk chair, and sipped quickly from his vodka.

It whirred quietly for a moment before a petulant male voice he didn't recognize said, "Who was it?"

"Just some idiot law enforcement administrator from America." This would be Tatyana: no doubt about it. He reached over and turned up the volume.

"Oh, you're screwing him, too?"

"You're cute when you're mad. Come on and screw me now." A loud laugh. Definitely Tatyana's throaty laugh.

"Don't joke. I'm tired of sharing you."

"You're a fool. You've seen my boss. He's bald and fat and not the least bit interesting. He's so terrible in bed I have to pinch myself just to stay awake. He's so disgusting, I become nauseated afterward. I'm only doing this for us, Sasha."

"You've been saying that for years."

"And it's true. Listen, we're moving in on a huge fortune right now. Billions, Sasha, billions. My cut will be hundreds of millions, and as soon as I have it, I'll dump that old moron and quit my job. You and I will buy a big yacht and sail around the world. We'll never be able to spend it all. We'll die rich and happy."

By then the chief of staff was choking and coughing violently. The vodka popped out his nostrils, dribbled out his mouth, and spilled down his double chin. He clutched his chest and thought he was having a heart attack.

He lurched from his chair and rushed to the cassette player. He punched stop, rewind, then listened again, and then repeated the sequence three more times.

He put the machine on pause and sat back and rubbed his temples. He felt the onset of a crushing brain-splitter. "Nauseated." "Terrible in bed." "Bald and fat, and not the least bit interesting." The torrent of nasty words kept tumbling in his mind. The headache quickly progressed from a five to a ten on the Richter scale.

That bitch. That lying, deceitful, two-timing, impertinent bitch.

Settle down, he told himself. He actually voiced it, out loud in the big, empty room-relax, take a few deep breaths. Get a grip, for God's sake. He walked over and refilled his glass with vodka, then sloppily filled a second and third glass; it never hurt to be on the safe side. He carried them back to his desk, positioned them carefully and in order, freshest to least freshest, pushed start on the cassette player, then settled back to hear everything. It was going to be horrible, he knew. And he swore he would endure every last word.

Halfway through, he rushed to the trash can and picked up the photos from the floor. The first showed a smiling, handsome young man dressed in the uniform of the national soccer team. He had no idea who he was, just a strong suspicion that it was his whiny voice on the first tape. The second showed the justice minister accepting a fistful of dollars from a man whose face he thought he recognized.

An hour later, after listening to the second tape, after repeating it once, as he had with the first tape, he knew more than he had ever cared to about Tatyana Lukin. The sheer stereotypicality of it was hard enough to swallow; he was just one more old, middle-aged, cuckolded fool, stewing with anger, self-pity, and regret. Worse, she had used him from the very start. There she was bragging to her boyfriend, Sasha, about how she was running the entire machinery of the Kremlin while her fat, drunken bore buddied up to his big pal Boris. There simply were too many barbs to remember; but also too many to forget.

"Well, guess what, bitch," he grumbled, lumbering drunkenly up the stairs for bed. "Tomorrow, the fun will begin." The girl was tall and blonde with skinny legs that stretched from the ground to the sky, pretty blue eyes, and she was at least forty years younger than him. She was even younger than his two granddaughters. If it didn't matter to her, sure as hell it made no difference to him. She gripped his arm and squished her ample breasts against its soft plumpness.

"You are so funny, General, I just can't get enough of you."

"I'll bet," Golitsin slurred as they staggered and swayed, holding each other up, in the direction of his shiny little Beemer in the rear parking lot. The Lido was behind them, the newest city hot spot where the big-deal millionaires gathered in their relentless quest for the best orgy in town. Somewhere between his fifth and eighth scotch-such a blur that he lost count-the girl had become attached to his arm. Between his tenth or twelfth scotch, at some now indeterminate point, he decided they were deeply in love.

"What did you say your name was again?" he asked her.

"Nadya. Please remember it, General. I've told you ten times already. I really don't want you to ever forget me."

Golitsin was again admiring the streamlined legs that seemed to stretch up to her armpits, when three men stepped out of a dark alley. Two lunged straight for him. One banged his arms behind his back, the other shoved a filthy rag in his mouth and then, very quickly, a coarse dark hood over his head. The girl started to step back and scream before the third man clamped a hand over her mouth. "Shut your trap, tramp," he growled, and flashed a knife to show her the request was serious.

A black sedan pulled up, seemingly from nowhere, and squealed to a jarring stop three feet away. Golitsin was bundled roughly into the rear seat before two of the men spilled in beside him. The other man released Nadya. She stepped back and winked at him. He winked back, before she disappeared into the night. He climbed into the front passenger seat and they sped away.

Twenty minutes and ten miles later, Golitsin was shoved through a large doorway, dragged about forty steps, then shoved down hard onto a stiff wooden chair. His hands were tied, quickly and roughly, behind his back, and his chubby legs were roped to the legs of the chair.

The hood was removed and tossed onto the floor. With a loud spit, the filthy gag flew out of his lips, though it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Another moment before he realized there were five of them in all. They were gathered in the middle of a large, empty warehouse with a high, corrugated ceiling and an oil-stained concrete floor. They wore dark jeans and black leather jackets. Rough faces all around. There were more tattoos and earrings and facial scars than he cared to count. A few misshapen noses.

Syndicate thugs, that's all, nothing to be overly alarmed about, Golitsin told himself.

And they had made a mistake, a big one. They were nothing more than common, everyday kidnappers who threw out a random net and stupidly dragged in the meanest shark in town. Oh yes, this was a real boner, one they would deeply regret, and he decided to inform them of this right away. He worked up his most scary sneer. "Do you punks know who you're messing with?"

"Punks," one of them answered. Whack! — Golitsin's head bounced to the side. A spray of blood shot out his nose.

"Don't you dare strike me again. You-"

Whack, whack, whack.

"All right, all right. Enough," Golitsin insisted.

Whack, whack.

"Please… I… I said that's enough."

One of them pulled over another wooden chair, reversed it, then eased into it. Their faces were three feet apart. He looked about fifty, older than the others, and carried himself like he was in charge. A hard, weathered face. Dark, piercing eyes. "Listen up, Sergei. This can be hard or it can be easy. Understand?"

The punk had called him Sergei. He knew his name! It wasn't a random kidnapping after all. Golitsin even, very briefly, entertained the notion of reminding this scum of his proper title: General. But maybe flexing his muscles at this instant wasn't such a good idea. Maybe it was a terrible idea, in fact. That last whack had left him with a splitting headache.

"Can we talk?" Golitsin asked, trying his best to sound reasonable and unctuous.

"Sure, Sergei." He leaned closer. "But it works like this. I'll talk and you'll listen."

The other four men slapped their thighs and roared with laughter. This was funny? This wasn't the least bit humorous. These punks were just begging for it. "Can I at least have your name?"

The man in the chair, said, "For tonight, Vladimir. Let's not worry about what to call me tomorrow. First, you have to give us a reason to let you live that long, Sergei."

"There's no need for these threats. What do you want?"

"Let's start with the easy one. Where's the money?"

"What money?"

A long sigh. "Do we really have to go through this, Sergei?"

"I'm a simple retired officer with a family. I am struggling to survive off my pension. It's not much. Perhaps we can work something out."

From somewhere behind his head, whack, whack, whack.

"Enough! That's enough!" he wailed.

"The money, Sergei. Where's the money?"

"What money?"

"Two hundred and fifty million. The money you stole, where is it?"

How did he know the exact amount? Golitsin briefly wondered. Only a handful knew: Tatyana, Nicky, and of course, the victim knew, not that it mattered. He was rotting in prison, after all, counting the days until his return to Russia.

"Maybe," Golitsin suggested-he squeezed his neck down, hunching his shoulders, trying to avoid another whack-"maybe if you told me who you're working for we can work something out."

Whack-the ducked head and bunched shoulders were a wasted defense. It felt like six hands were slapping the back of his head. He heard his own voice whining and pleading for them to stop.

And eventually the slaps did subside. But Vladimir allowed him no time to recover his wits. "Pay attention, Sergei. This is invaluable advice. You've never been on this side of the torture rack, always the other side, watching and enjoying the show. Fifty years of screaming victims begging for quick deaths. Are you listening, Sergei? Do you understand?"

The voice was so very cold, so flat, so casually captivating; amazing how mesmerizing a voice becomes when it controls the pain.

How many times had Sergei heard that same droll pattern over the years as he watched one victim after another suffer and scream their guts out, until they eventually snapped, until they signed whatever was put before them, signed anything to make the pain stop-accusing their own mothers, sentencing their own children, confessing sins they never came within ten miles of committing. Oh yes, he definitely understood.

He slowly nodded.

"You know how bad this can get, don't you?"

Another nod-yes, yes, of course he remembered. Tears were now rolling down his fat cheeks.

"The pain is going to become intense, Sergei. I don't want you surprised by it. You're going to wish you were dead. You'll beg us to end it. We won't kill you, though. You can't feel the pain unless you're alive. Sorry, but we need you to feel everything."

"Wait!" Something was bothering him. All this talk about torture, and the name of this cruel man. There was a connection there, he was sure of it.

"Why wait? Do you want to tell me where the money is?"

"Vladimir? Yes, Vladimir. Like the Vladimir who worked for me, right?"

A quick shift of the eyes to the floor. "I have no idea who or what you're talking about."

Golitsin stretched as far forward as he could. "He a friend of yours? Is that what this is about? I am so sorry for what happened to poor Vladimir. He killed himself, you know. Suicide. How tragic."

The interrogator jumped out of his chair. Turning to the other four men, he directed a finger at one and said, "Get the BP cuff and monitor his blood pressure. He's old and fat. We don't want him slipping away on us."

The man dashed off.

"Get the tools," he barked at another, who also disappeared into the darkness. To the other two, he said, "You look bored. Work on him while we wait."

They moved up and the slapping began again. No punches, everything open-handed, a relentless fusillade of girly slaps obviously meant to add shame to his pain. Golitsin wailed and screamed, all to no avail.

Vladimir walked to a corner of the large warehouse, yanked a cell phone out of a pocket, punched a number, then cradled it to his ear.

Golitsin was being slapped silly. His cheeks, the back of his head, occasionally his ears, which really stung. He howled and moaned, begging them to stop. Eventually, his chin sank to his chest. His head began lolling wildly with each smack.

He bit down hard on his tongue, choked back his screams, and played opossum for all he was worth. Just stop those infernal slaps, he prayed with all his might. And after a moment, the prayers were answered. They did stop. One yelled out, "Vladimir, he's out cold."

"Don't worry about it," Vladimir replied, sounding distracted, then returned to his phone conversation.

Golitsin fought to control his breathing and prayed they didn't catch on. He could overhear Vladimir speaking louder now, unconcerned about his ability to eavesdrop.

"No, don't worry. We've only gotten started." A long pause. "Look, I've done this before. I-" Another pause. "Nicky, you have my guarantee, he'll tell us everything. Everybody does. We start ripping off the body parts, and they all-" Pause, then a nasty laugh. "I know, I know, Nicky. Look, by the time he's got no fingers or toes, his kneecaps are pulp, he'll spill… Yeah, okay, you, too."

Vladimir flipped the phone shut and returned to the scene of torture. A scream was going off inside Golitsin's head. Nicky! That rotten son of a bitch. That lying, thieving, betraying bastard. These were his people, he realized, and he fought the urge not to scream and threaten these people, to unleash all the rage he could muster.

One of the boys returned a moment later with the BP monitor. He quickly slapped it around Golitsin's right arm and tightened it up. Then the other fellow reappeared lugging a large dark suitcase, which he set down on the floor.

"Open it. Get the tools ready," Vladimir told him.

Golitsin heard the locks snap open and the noise of the lid hitting the cement. He didn't want to look-he had no desire at all to see what terrible ghoulish instruments were inside that damned case-he tried to fight it, just squeeze his eyes shut, he told himself; ignore them and ignore it. But it couldn't be helped. The curiosity was just too irresistible; he had to know, had to see what they had in store for him. Slowly, ever so slowly, he cracked open his right eyelid, just a hair. A tiny, tiny sliver, and he peeked.

Vladimir and two of his boys were bent over the now open case, rummaging through the contents, apparently deciding which tool should lead off.

Oh, Christ. Oh, no. The bastards had bought out the entire torture store. Three or four razor-sharp saws of various sizes and types, wicked things, so sharp and shiny. A small blowtorch. An iron, just like the one Vladimir used to scorch the hammer and sickle on Konevitch. A slew of gleaming surgical instruments employable for everything from eyeball gouging to nut-crunching. Golitsin could put a name and use to every instrument: a vivid picture of their exact use.

How many nights had he spent watching with sick fascination as the boys in the basement at Dzerzhinsky Square found all sorts of inspired uses for these things? Every instrument in that case, he knew them all like a mechanic knows his shop tools.

He squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lip, but it just slipped out. A moan of fear just clawed its way up his throat, into his mouth, and it popped right through his lips.

Five sets of eyes instantly snapped in his direction.

Vladimir smiled. "Ah, Sergei, you're back." With a befuddled expression, he asked, sounding mildly frustrated, "Listen, I can't seem to make up my mind. How would you like us to start?"

"You keep those damned things away from me."

"Well, you see, we're a little past that point. Come on, Sergei, I'm trying to be generous here." He laughed and the others joined him. "So, what will it be?"

"I swear I don't have any more of the money."

"None?"

"It's gone."

"All of it? Two hundred and fifty million?" Vladimir asked, dripping skepticism.

"Yes, it's spent, every penny. I swear it." Golitsin wasn't about to hand over his fortune to Nicky, no matter what. They could cut and slice and dice him however they wanted-not a red cent.

Vladimir bent over, studied the contents inside the case for a moment, then made up his mind and picked up a saw. "Well, that's too bad," he muttered, shaking his head.

"Please, you have to believe me. I was stupid and greedy. I wasted it all on idiotic things. It's all gone."

Vladimir was now ten feet away. With a finger, he was testing the sharpness of the blade as he moved closer. Two of the boys were now hovering directly behind Golitsin. They pinned his arms and squeezed his neck. He squealed but their grips only tightened.

"Where to start, where to start, that's the big issue now," Vladimir said. The piercing, hard, dark eyes began searching Golitsin's body. "Why not toes?" he asked very reasonably. "Start at the bottom, start with the little things, and slowly work our way up."

He bent down and pulled off Golitsin's shoes, then yanked off his socks. The plump white toes were wiggling, trying to curl under his feet. Vladimir carefully selected the big toe on the right foot. Using two strong fingers, he clamped the toe, poised the saw, then looked up. "I should warn you that I get a little carried away. Once I take one, I generally get all ten. You can answer everything, and I just can't stop," he warned, looking slightly remorseful. "It's, oh, I don't know, something wrong inside my head."

"Okay, okay, I have the money. Don't… oh, please, don't touch that toe."

Vladimir gave the toe a little pinch. Golitsin nearly bucked out of the chair. "Switzerland. A Swiss bank," he muttered in a fast rush.

"You wouldn't be lying, would you? I hate liars."

"No, no, I swear. Switzerland."

"What bank?"

A momentary hesitation and Vladimir suddenly had the saw pressed firmly on the flesh, right at the base of the big toe. "Lucerne National. All of it. Every penny."

"How much?"

"Two hundred."

The saw bit ever so lightly into his flesh.

"All right, all right… 220."

"You blew thirty million already?" Vladimir looked like he was ready to just whack the toe off. Nothing to do with disbelief, just anger.

"I'm… I'm sorry."

"I'm sure you are, Sergei. Now the hard questions."

Golitsin couldn't take his eyes off the saw.

"Are you ready, or should I just cut now?"

"No, please no. Ask anything."

"The account and security code numbers. Concentrate. What are they?"

"I… I don't have them in my head. My office. We have to go to my office."

Whack, whack, whack.

"Oh, God, all right." And like that, a fast rush of numbers spilled out of his lips.

As he spoke, another man, this one hiding in a back room, punched the numbers into a laptop computer, and they shot like lightning bolts through the Internet, straight to a large mainframe in Zurich. It took two minutes before the money-225 million and change, it turned out-was shunted into a new account, in a different Swiss bank, coincidentally only two blocks down from Lucerne National.

The man with the computer stuck his large ponytailed head out of the doorway. He gave Vladimir a thumbs-up.

"What will you do with me?" Golitsin asked.

"Why would I do anything with you?"

"You mean you're not going to kill me?"

"You know what? My instructions aren't real clear on that point." Vladimir stroked his chin and played at indecision for a moment. "You're broke now. A fat has-been loser with nothing to fall back on but a tiny pension and the tragic memory that once you were rich. Should I worry about you?"

"No, absolutely not. Definitely, no. You're right, you've ruined my life. I'm nothing, a sorry loser. I don't even know who you are," he lied.

"Well, I'm not so sure." The man dug a hand deep into his coat pocket. He appeared to be fishing around for something. Perhaps a gun or a knife. "Maybe, just to be on the safe side, maybe I should-"

"No, please," Golitsin pleaded, and words kept spilling out his lips. "I'll leave Russia. I promise, I'll be on the next train. I'll disappear and you'll never hear from me again. Please let me live."

The man stared at him with an impenetrable expression for a moment, then finally he shrugged his thick shoulders. "I guess it saves the trouble of what to do with your big, fat corpse."

Golitsin nearly groaned with relief. "Yes, exactly. I don't want to be a burden to you."

"Around nine in the morning the workers in the factory across the street come to work. Scream loud and hard, Sergei. Who knows, maybe they'll come and save you."

The tools were packed back inside the case, and within five minutes Vladimir and his boys had turned off the lights and scattered into the night.

After half an hour, Golitsin tried his hardest to close his eyes and float away into sleep. He so badly wanted to sleep. The fear and terror left him drained and exhausted, but he couldn't shut his eyes. The anger and resentment kept bubbling up. By 9:30 the next morning, he would make Nicky pay dearly for every humiliating moment, and for every dollar the bastard stole. He wasn't sure just how yet. It would be slow and horrible, though. And very, very painful; he promised himself this.

He leaned back on the chair and dreamed of Nicky's death. The rumor started early that evening. Moscow's underworld loved rumors almost as much as gossip, the juicier the better, and this one took off like a rabbit with its ass on fire. By midnight it was bouncing through brothels, thug hangouts, drug dens, was being murmured by pickpockets on the street, and becoming a consuming point of interest in the bars frequented by the city's syndicate chiefs, who at that hour were just starting their day.

Somebody wanted Nicky Kozyrev dead. Somebody deeply serious; serious in the way that counted most in this town, serious enough to back up this gripping desire with big money. This was the salient point. This kept the rumor roaring all night. Five million dollars-five million to make Nicky's heart stop. Unconditionally, up to the assassin's discretion, nothing off-limits, no bounds-by bullet, by car accident, by poison, who cared? A stake through his black heart had a nice ring but dead in any form was fine. Five million excellent reasons for Nicky Kozyrev to die.

Three syndicate chiefs had been contacted by a Chechen mob that had been hired as underwriters by the source of this generous venture. For good and obvious cause, the benefactor preferred to remain anonymous. A select group of witnesses were invited to a small apartment in the city center, five suitcases of cash were hauled out of a closet and opened for display, though it was far too much to count. But for sure it looked like more than enough. This is it, they were told-this is what five million dollars looks like, up close and personal. Not an empty promise, no bluff, the real deal. Now get out and spread the word.

In a city where five thousand bucks will buy you all the corpses you wish, five million was going to kick-start a gold rush of assassins.

A few bookies put their heads together and gave thought to creating a betting pool. Nope, why bother? There were no competing odds. Open and shut. At five million bucks, Nicky was dead.

At three that morning, Nicky's chief bodyguard-his most trusted lieutenant, a lifelong friend from the same impoverished back alley of Novgorod-gently eased open Nicky's bedroom door and peeked inside. They had raped and killed and pushed dope together for three long, enjoyable decades. They had dodged the cops and KGB, swindled, murdered, and beaten too many to remember. Oh, the warm memories they shared. He snuck quietly inside. He hugged the wall, crept ever so slowly, never setting foot off the carpet. Nicky liked dark rooms. Nicky wouldn't sleep anywhere with windows, and this one was like a coffin. Nicky's loud snores bounced off the walls. The whore sprawled across his legs was shot so full of heroin she wouldn't have heard a T-80 tank pass three inches from her ear.

A pistol was in the bodyguard's right hand with a round chambered and the silencer screwed on tight. A pencil flashlight was in his left hand, with a finger poised to turn it on at the last second. He was ten feet away. Then five and the pistol came up. At two feet away, he suddenly felt something kick him in the chest. He flew backward, smashed against the wall, and crumpled in a bleeding heap on the floor. It was funny, he thought; he never heard the blast until a millisecond after his left lung blew out his back.

A moment later, Nicky was over him, peering down through the darkness into his eyes.

"It hurt?"

"Yeah, like a bitch."

"Why?" Nicky asked.

"Five million," his best friend managed to grunt.

"From who?"

"Who knows? Who cares?"

"For real?"

"Oh, it's real, Nicky."

"Why you?"

"Stupid question."

"Five mil. Yeah, you're right."

"Yeah, and you're dead."

Nicky pumped two more bullets into his best friend's mouth, straightened up, then tossed the semicomatose whore out of his room.

He locked the door behind her and moved a large dresser in front of it. He stopped and thought for a moment. Who put the price on his head? Five million was a very big level of enthusiasm. Who hated him that much? Who had the motive? Who had that much money?

After a split second, a name popped into his brain. Golitsin. It made perfect sense; in fact, no other name made any sense. He lifted his cell phone and dialed a number from memory. A voice answered, and Nicky said, "Georgi, it's me."

"Hey, I heard you got a big friggin' problem." Georgi laughed.

"Word's gotten around, I guess."

"It's five million, Nicky. You're the talk of the town."

"Good point. Here's the deal, Georgi. You owe me two million for that dope deal, right?"

"Hey, I got it right here. Deal was you don't get it till tomorrow night."

"Scratch that."

"Seriously?"

"As a heart attack. Put out the word, one and a half million to anybody who whacks Sergei Golitsin. Rest is yours to keep."

"Maybe I'll whack Golitsin and keep all of it."

"Your option, Georgi. But Golitsin better be dead, or you're next." They rang off.

He returned to his bed, sat down, and cradled the pistol on his lap. Five million!

His best friend was right. Nicky was dead. It might take an hour, a day, maybe a week, but he was, without debate or uncertainty, a dead man walking. By eight in the morning, Tromble had assembled the full team in his office. The usual cast of characters: his pair of compliant hey-boys, Agents Hanrahan and Wilson, Colonel Volevodz, and the head Russian prosecutor, and a fresh pool of INS legal jockeys, now backed up by a pair of eager youthful hotshots from Justice. They sat, pens gripped, notepads poised, and awaited guidance from the great man himself.

"Really, it was to be expected," said one of the Justice boys, named Bill. Bill's area of expertise happened to be anything that happened five minutes before.

"Well, I didn't anticipate it," remarked Jason Caldwell, wiping a remnant of his morning shave from behind his left ear. After the harsh dismissal of Kim Parrish, Caldwell had been handpicked personally by the INS director, a hotshot gunslinger flown in from the San Diego office, where he was legendary for booting Mexican ass back across the border. Caldwell was a loudmouthed blowhard pretty boy without an ounce of pity for anybody accused of anything. He did deliver, though. He took the toughest, most ambiguous, most troubling cases and never once thought twice about the truth or consequences.

He made his ambitions well-known among his peers, among whom he was not now, nor had he ever been, overly popular. The INS job was a stepping stone, a temporary government job from which he intended to run for Congress, and he intended to eventually head the immigration panel, and they would all have to line up to kiss his ass. He was, by every stretch of the imagination, perfect for this job.

He had spent one month reviewing the vast hoard of evidence compiled, translated, and organized so strenuously by Kim and Petri. The hard work had been done for him, a perfect slam dunk; all he had to do was show up in court and smile brilliantly for the cameras. The past month he had mainly strutted in front of full-length mirrors, rehearsing and polishing his lines, admiring his courtly prose, and gearing up to kick a little Russian ass.

The motion for habeas corpus and switch to a federal court came like a bolt out of the dark. No warning. No threats, no hints preceded it. But MP's sneak attack bothered him not in the least. He looked forward to it, actually. Glad Alex and his hired gun did it. The chance to escape from the largely ignored immigration courts into the federal big leagues, and with such a high-visibility case, appealed to him immensely. He had no doubts he would do great. He was Jason Caldwell-if Konevitch had any clue he was up against the scourge of Mexico he'd book his own flight to Russia.

Tromble brought the meeting to order briskly. A few comments about the importance of the case. A blistering reminder about the need for victory at all costs. A hard stare around the table as he dwelled on the somber imperative of sending Konevitch home to pay for his many sins.

The Russians listened without comment. Volevodz detested America-he wanted desperately to get back to Russia, where he expected to pin on a general's star in recognition for bringing home the bacon. The head Russian prosecutor hoped Caldwell would blow it. Just choke and fumble and get his ass kicked. He prayed the case would drag on forever. He and his three comrades all had lady friends out in Vegas, a bunch of big-breasted showgirls who partied without stop and weren't overly picky about their men. And after losing nearly a hundred grand in FBI dough at the tables, he and his pals were finally starting to win a little back.

"You. Who's the judge?" Tromble asked, squinting at the two Justice boys whose names he couldn't remember because frankly he didn't care to.

"Elton Willis," replied Bill, only too proud to be here in the office of the FBI director.

Tromble looked like a lemon had been stuffed in his throat. "Oh, not Willis."

"He has a fairly good reputation," Bill argued, obviously not getting it.

During his brief tenure as a judge, Tromble and Willis had attended a few legal conferences together and, on one sour occasion, had even shared a podium for a spirited debate on civil liberties, one of many legal topics about which they held diametrically different views. The audience were other judges and the results were predictable. Willis was intelligent, methodical, measured, with a former Jesuit's grasp and approach to law. To put it mildly, the scholars and justices in the audience didn't seem to grasp the subtlety of Tromble's theories. It wasn't the first or last time he'd been pelted with boos, but it was probably the loudest.

"He's a lefty wimp," Tromble growled, daring anybody to contest this conclusion. He leaned back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. "You ready for the show?" he asked Caldwell.

"It's a knockdown case. In and out inside one or two days."

Tromble traded glances with Hanrahan. "What's the one thing we've overlooked?"

No clue.

"Publicity. Press. We need to bang Konevitch on every front page," he said, almost predictably.

Caldwell loved this brainchild. "Great idea," he announced quite loudly. "If we don't, the defense will. Better to preempt them."

"Our Russian friends need to see we're serious. All this time, but we haven't forgotten them."

"I could hold a few press conferences," Caldwell agreeably offered.

Tromble cleared his throat. "Well, we'll see if we need you." He paused briefly. "Hanrahan, tell the boys downstairs to kick it in gear. See if Nightline or Good Morning America has an opening for me. And call that blonde lawyer over at Fox News, you know the one. She always has an opening for me."

"Pretty short notice. We've only got two more days, boss."

"Tell them it's the biggest trial of the year."

Hanrahan looked away and pondered the tabletop. "Maybe that will work, maybe not." Truth was the newspaper and TV people were tired of his boss and his unrelenting attempts to steal ink and camera time. He was a preening spotlight hog, a master at shoving himself before every camera in sight. The boys downstairs in the public affairs office were working eighty-hour weeks, but had flat run out of angles, lies, and lures to get him press time.

"All right," Tromble said, thinking up a fresh angle quickly. "Tell them I intend to be a witness at this trial. A historic occasion. First time an FBI director has ever been on the stand."

"Good idea," Hanrahan said.

Caldwell offered no objections. Go ahead, give it your best shot, he was tempted to shout. Bill this as the biggest trial of the century, if not forever. You'll be a witness, but I'm the prosecutor, it's my show, and I'll damn sure find a way to make you second fiddle.

The meeting broke among frothy promises to make sure Konevitch would at last have his long-overdue appointment with justice.