The ocean, she decided, made her feel happy. It was an odd sensation.

Next to her, Boris Nemov yawned, then looked at his watch. "Eight o'clock. Good. We will land in thirty minutes. Did you get any sleep?"

Tatiana said yes, lying. She was much too agitated to sleep. She could not get Konstantin Kirov's words out of her head. She had never heard him so angry.

"This man is trying to harm us. Not just me, Tatiana, but you, too, and Boris, and everyone in our family at Mercury. He is spreading lies about the company. It is because of him that the American came to Moscow. You know, my sweet bird, that I abhor violence as much as you do, but sometimes…" His voice had trailed off, and she could feel his hurt, his fear, his apprehension.

"Boris will tell you what you must do," he'd gone on. "It will be quick, but messy, and for that I am sorry. Get in. Do the job. Get out. The Americans will think it was one of their own. This type of thing happens every day there. 'Running amok,' they call it."

Tatiana glanced at Boris, who had his nose buried in an American newspaper. "What do you find so amusing in the paper?" she asked.

"Amusing?" Boris cast her a sidelong glance. "Why, nothing. This is the Wall Street Journal. Business news. Nothing amusing at all." He began to read the newspaper again, but stopped after a moment, lowering it to his lap. "I am not going to stay with Konstantin Romanovich forever, you know."

"Oh?" Tatiana was surprised at the admission. Herself, she never intended on leaving Kirov. One of his TV crews had found her in a Petersburg brothel, a twelve-year-old runaway doing ten tricks a day. Incensed, Kirov had seen the house shut down and taken her in as his private ward. He gave her lodging, clothing, food. He was kind. (Which meant he'd never tried to sleep with her.) He was important, and she greatly enjoyed being in the employ of someone who commanded so much respect. No, she reassured herself, she would never leave. "What will you do?"

"A few more years and I am going to start my own company," he confided in an excited whisper. "Security, I think. For Westerners doing business in the Rodina. Maybe insurance. Our people will need insurance one day. I am not certain yet." Giving her arm a friendly punch, he smiled. "Maybe we work together. I give you a job."

"Maybe."

"Not what you are doing now. You cannot continue with your work forever. I think you should move into public relations. You are young. You are pretty. How many languages do you have?"

"Four, maybe five, if you count Baku."

"There, you see. If nothing else you can be a translator."

Tatiana smiled, wanting to convey a measure of interest. In truth, the prospect sounded appallingly dull. Business. Public relations. A translator. Her world possessed a more pungent vocabulary. Slut. Thief. Whore. Words that had been tattooed across her soul long ago. And more recently, killer.

She made a show of returning her magazines to her carry-on bag, then leaned back her head and closed her eyes. Enough talk of the future. Of dreams that might never come true. It was time for work. Time to begin steeling her mind to the task ahead.

Killing came easily. All she had to do was imagine a man's body on top of hers, his brow knit in concentration, his mouth open, dripping with lust, his eyes swallowing her whole as if her beauty was his for the taking. She would feel his pounding, taste his sweat. Her vision would grow hazy, the periphery dissolving into a grainy white cloud. Only her target would remain in focus. At the final moment, she would drift outside of herself and watch as another woman pulled the trigger.

Boris had told her it was rage, because she was upset about her time in the convent. She wasn't to blame, he said; anyone who had spent fourteen years in a state-run orphanage would feel the same. She recalled the bowls of kasha, twice a day, every day, the haircut every six months, the dull scissors shearing her hair to the scalp, the bar of lye that came next to burn away the lice, taking two layers of skin for good measure.

She remembered the sacred sisters' midnight ministrations. The awkward touches under her gown, the cold raw hands, the bony fingers and ragged nails probing her private places, the sour breath smelling of cabbage and wine and whispering for her to stay quiet, that she was doing God's work, and all the while the chafing of their bristly mounds against her leg, punctuated by the staccato, irreligious grunts.

Tatiana swam through the smells, the sensations, the images, pleased they no longer frightened her or moved her in any way. Yes, she agreed, anyone would feel the same as she. But it was not rage they would feel, or anger. They would simply feel nothing.

Killing was easy if you were not alive.

Gavallan rose at seven. After a long run on the beach, he showered, then breakfasted on the veranda. The effects of the exercise and the lush surroundings left him feeling restored. Hardly himself, but not the shell who'd crawled into bed the night before. He put in a call to Emerald, explaining he'd be back that night, then left word for Tony or Meg to call him pronto.

At nine sharp, he knocked on the front door of 1133 Somera Road, the residence of Raymond J. Luca. He decided to play it straight from the get-go, explain that he too had learned that something was amiss with Mercury and ask where Luca had gotten his information. But the door never opened. In Gavallan's new world, nothing went as planned.

Returning to his car, he'd spotted a neighbor walking a pair of toy poodles. He was an older man with gray hair, glasses, and a wary eye behind the welcoming smile. Gavallan asked him if he knew Ray Luca, and if so, where Luca worked.

"You a friend of his?" the man asked.

"You might say that. We were at M.I.T. together." Gavallan thanked his stars for Jason Vann's inquisitiveness.

"Another egghead, eh?" The older man chuckled. "Don't know what I'd do without Ray. Helps me with my taxes. Saves me a couple hundred bucks each year. And the kid won't take a dime. It's not right, I tell him."

"That's Ray. He's a sweetheart. Say, I went by his house, but he's not home. Know where he works?"

Gavallan didn't want to come on like the authorities and made sure not to press too hard. Soon enough, the older man, who'd introduced himself as Ralph O'Mara, gave up the information.

"You can find him at Cornerstone. 714 Atlantic. He's a whiz, that boy. All we talk about is the market."

"Got any recommendations?" Gavallan asked before heading to his car.

"No, just one to stay away from."

Gavallan said good-bye before O'Mara could give him the name. He already knew what it was going to be anyway.

The Delta Airlines 727 inched forward on the runway. Out the window, Howell Dodson counted seven jets lined up in front of him, waiting to take off. Friday morning gridlock at Ronald Reagan National Airport.

"Rush hour- my, my," he said to DiGenovese. "Who'd have thought it? Least we've left the gate. Won't be but fifteen, twenty minutes till we take off. We'll be on the ground by nine, you'll see. Do some of that New York City driving, you can have us in Delray Beach in an hour's time."

Dodson had decided not to alert the Dade field office to their arrival. Protocol demanded that an assistant deputy director be met by the office's ranking agent. He'd have to explain why he was in the area. That meant going into the flimsy case on Kirov and the even flimsier reason for looking up Mr. Raymond Luca. Breathe one word of premeditated murder and someone would suggest setting up surveillance on Luca's house.