"Jesus," said Gavallan as a face came to mind. Family. One of the inner circle. A small part of him died, and he swore revenge. "Never said a word."

"Fucking ingrate," murmured Byrnes.

"Call back," Cate implored. "Cancel the offering. Tell them all- Bruce, Tony, Meg. Call the SEC, too. And the stock exchange. If you won't, I will."

"And then what?" asked Gavallan, throwing the cell phone onto the seat between them. "What happens to Kirov after we cancel the offering? You think that's going to put an end to him? Hell, it won't even put a crimp in his style."

He could see the events of the following days unspooling like clips from the evening news. Kirov being detained in Manhattan, then handed over to the Russian authorities. Kirov being set free as Russian prosecutors bemoaned a lack of hard evidence. Kirov appearing triumphant a year later, trumpeting his latest highflyer. There would follow an IPO in Paris or Frankfurt. A private placement in London. The world was full of believers. Gavallan knew it for a fact, firsthand.

"We have the Novastar evidence," said Cate. "The proof he stole from the country. That ought to land him in jail."

"And we're going to keep it," declared Gavallan. "We're going to use it for ourselves."

"But we have to give it to the prosecutor general," Cate protested.

"Baranov's dead with the president's consent," Gavallan said in disgust. "If his successor has any sense, he'll give your father and Novastar Airlines a wide berth."

Cate shook her head, fashioning an answer, but the words died on her tongue.

"Remember what you said to me back in Florida when we were boarding the plane?" Gavallan asked. "You said canceling the offering wasn't enough. You said that you wanted your father to pay for Ray Luca, for the others at Cornerstone, for Alexei and Graf. Well, now you can add the three that Graf saw killed too. And the others to come."

Byrnes leaned forward to be nearer to Gavallan and Cate. "What are you saying, Jett? That you're not going to cancel the deal?"

"Of course we'll cancel it. We have to. Just not now."

"But when? Look around you, buddy. We're a hundred miles from Moscow. It's three o'clock in the afternoon. I hope you don't plan on delivering the message in person. Given what you told me about Kirov and his family relationship with the KGB, I don't think it's going to be a wise idea to line up at the Aeroflot counter and purchase three first-class tickets to New York- if, that is, there's even a flight leaving tonight."

"I've got until nine-thirty tomorrow morning New York time."

"You're pushing it, Jett. This is way outside the envelope."

The envelope? They'd broken through the envelope days ago. All he wanted was a return to earth. A chance to get back to where he was before all the madness had begun.

Cate laid her hand on Gavallan's, and when she spoke her voice had acquired the edge of dangerous dissatisfaction that he himself felt. "What do you have in mind?"

Gavallan looked at her, and saw she was game. "Plenty."

59

Just because the komitet was bankrupt did not mean they stopped doing their job…

The car was a black four-door Chaika, property of the FSB, the division of the directorate concerned with internal security. The binoculars had been lifted from Directorate 6, the Border Guard, but the men seated sternly behind the dashboard, Lieutenant Dmitri Mnuchin and Major Oleg Orlov, were from FAPSI of the Eighth Chief Directorate, and as such, Major General Leonid Kirov's own.

Mnuchin and Orlov were old hands at this sort of thing- the sitting and waiting, the long idle hours, the marathon sessions of chai and chewing gum. You would not know it, however, from their looks. Both were lean, athletic, and possessed of an alert, aggressive gaze. Both spent their free time in the gym and on the soccer field. They were the new breed: the smart young men who would reinvigorate the komitet.

From their vantage point three miles to the west of Army Forward Observation Post 18- recently ceded to Konstantin Kirov and renamed, according to secret transcripts of Kirov's conversations "the dacha"- Mnuchin and Orlov had an unobstructed view of the wooded hilltop. Their assignment was to maintain Level 1 surveillance on Kirov's men- that is, to keep track of their whereabouts, but not to worry about their specific activities. It was an undemanding job, nothing like their usual work involving the installation and monitoring of sensitive eavesdropping apparatus. Both held doctorates from Moscow State in electrical engineering. Today all that was required were a pair of binoculars and a logbook to note the time and nature of their targets' movements.

"A hundred rubles he doesn't do it," Mnuchin said, a loving hand appraising the stubble of his new crew cut.

"You're on. Konstantin Romanovich is every bit as cold as the General. If he were here, I wouldn't be surprised if he did the job himself."

"Never. No man can kill his own daughter. Frankly, I think he's sick. I would have told the General to fuck off."

"The hell you say," Orlov said with a smirk. "You would cut your dick off with a butter knife if General Kirov told you to."

Shrugging his agreement, Mnuchin picked up the binoculars. "Anything for Mother Russia." A moment later, his posture stiffened and the grin dropped from his face. "They're leaving."

"Already? Impossible. They've been there hardly thirty minutes." Orlov picked up the logbook and noted the time: 12:47. Laying the journal by his side, he drew on his seat belt, taking care that it did not interfere with the pistol he wore beneath his left arm, and checked that the mirrors were adjusted properly.

"False alarm," called out Mnuchin. "Only one vehicle."

"You get the signal?"

"Not yet."

The komitet had its own man inside Kirov's organization. He had promised to signal when the executions had been carried out: Two flashes of his high beams would mean that the American and Kirov's daughter were dead. The Suburban rushed past, its midnight-tinted windows making it difficult to get a clear look into the interior.

"Give the plates to dispatch," said Mnuchin, settling back into his seat. "If they want, they can assign a team."

Orlov called in the license plates and advised central dispatch of the events. The report would be forwarded to their superior officer, who would either contact General Kirov with the news or make a decision for himself. Either way, it meant another few hours of sitting in the car. "You think we should call up there? See what's going on?"

Mnuchin trained his binoculars on the dacha. All he could see were the broken fence and the tail end of the second Suburban. "Why? We wouldn't want to interrupt their fun."

The cell phone rang again.

Cate checked her watch. It was nearly four o'clock. They were driving south on the M4 motorway, nearing the Moscow city limits. For miles they would see no one, then traffic would come to a halt as they came upon a convoy of ten or twelve broken-down trucks, tailpipes spewing exhaust, tires wobbling precariously, lumbering down the center of the road. Jett would steer the Suburban onto the shoulder, negotiate the borderland of waist-deep potholes and basketball-size rocks, until once past the trucks he could reclaim his position on the pavement.

"Leave it," said Gavallan.

Cate stared at the phone as if it were a bomb. She knew her father. She knew his impatience. He was not a man who allowed "atmospherics" to stand in his way. "No," she said brusquely, surprised at the force of her reply. "I won't."

And before Jett could make a move, she picked up the phone and put it to her ear.