No thank you, said Dodson to himself. He didn't care to waste the Bureau's resources on snipe hunts. DiGenovese's hypothesis about Gavallan's murdering ways left him unconvinced.

"Roy," he said, "I think I'm going to avail myself of the free time to catch up on some rest. Twins never did get to sleep last night. Tell you, it's danged tough being a new father at my advanced age." And tucking a pillow under his head, Dodson settled in for a little shut-eye.

DiGenovese sat in the seat next to him, glowering.

Upon landing, Boris and Tatiana rented a car and the two drove the sixty miles north to Delray Beach. The morning was hot and muggy. The sun sat high in a hazy blue sky. The heat made Boris uncomfortable, and Tatiana wondered if it was too much for him. Every two minutes he had to wipe his brow and take a swig of the bottled water. Tatiana, though, was too taken by her new surroundings to notice the heat. From her first step inside the airport, she was mesmerized. Everything was so clean, the floors waxed a brilliant white and free of cigarette butts, gum wrappers, newspapers. Everyone appeared tanned, fit, and prosperous. And so many smiles. Not a worried brow among them.

They stopped once at a sporting goods store in Fort Lauderdale, where a man was waiting for them in the parking lot. He introduced himself as Andrei and spoke with a Georgian accent. Later Andrei explained he worked with the American branch of the Solnetsevo Brotherhood, the business group that controlled Moscow's northern neighborhoods.

Andrei led them to his car, opened the trunk, and handed Boris a green training bag. Inside was a map of Delray Beach, with instructions on how to find Mr. Raymond Luca and a layout of the building where he worked. He was a "day trader," Boris had explained with some envy, a man who made his living trading the stocks of important companies. Tucked in the bottom of the bag were two 9mm pistols and several boxes of ammunition.

Back in the car, Tatiana took a nail file from her purse and carved an x into the nose of each bullet to make it flatten on impact. Then she fed the bullets into the clip. She enjoyed the crisp click each emitted upon entry. Finished, she used her palm to drive the clip into the pistol.

"I'm sorry, my little bird," Kirov had said, "but on one point we must be clear. There can be no survivors. No witnesses. It is for the best. For your safety and mine."

With the help of Andrei's map and the rental car's onboard navigation system, they found the offices of Cornerstone Trading. Parking the car a block away, Boris told Tatiana to wait while he entered the building and checked if Raymond Luca was in. She watched him cross the street, thinking he did not look so bad dressed like an American in blue jeans, a white button-down shirt, and high-top tennis shoes. It was nice to see him in something other than a black suit.

She was dressed in nearly the same attire, except that her shirt was a blue and white chalk stripe and her tennis shoes were white and dainty.

Boris returned five minutes later.

"He is there. Fourth cubicle to the right."

"What is a 'cubicle'?" Tatiana asked.

"Like a little jail cell. Four walls that rise to your chest and a chair inside. He is seated working at his computer. He wears a baseball cap. Yankees of New York, I think." Though his face was grave, his eyes were bright, overexcited. "You are ready, little sister?"

Tatiana nodded her head. Somewhere back up the road, her tourist's fascination had faded, replaced by a professional's icy detachment. She did not wish to speak. The pistol tucked into her pants, she simply nodded.

"I will be in the alley in back of the building," Boris continued. "Once you enter, you have one hundred twenty seconds. Eight men downstairs. Two upstairs- the managers. Shoot, then move. Shoot, then move. Do you understand?"

Again, Tatiana nodded. Shifting in her seat, she adjusted the bandages that flattened her breasts, then pulled the baseball cap lower on her head. Boris took her hand and kissed it. "Go now."

Tatiana opened the door without a backward glance.

Eight downstairs. Two upstairs. Shoot, then move. Shoot, then move.

One hundred twenty seconds.

Go.

27

Yesterday was the zone. Today was multitasking.

Ray Luca backhanded a glob of ketchup from his mouth and planted his double chili cheeseburger on the only available sliver of free desk. Chewing contentedly, he flicked his eyes from monitor to monitor and screen to screen, from the market being made for Intel to the closed-circuit feed of Thoroughbreds taking their morning run at Hialeah, to the "Money Honey" on CNBC reporting live from the floor of the Exchange and back again. At the same time, he sipped at his coffee, tapped out a series of buy orders, and managed to hum a little ditty.

Let the good times roll. Yeah baby, let the good times roll.

The market was up strongly. The sky was as blue as a Tiffany gift box, and on his lap was a completed copy of the Private Eye-PO's latest editorial concerning the Mercury Broadband offering. He particularly liked the title. "Mercury in Mayhem."

Another bite of the double chili cheese, a gulp of coffee, then a moment's glance to reread and edit.

Private sources report an explosive confrontation Thursday afternoon outside Mercury Broadband's Moscow offices on Kropotkin Ploshad between OMON militia troops led by Russian prosecutor general Yuri Baranov and members of the FIS (read KGB) loyal to Konstantin Kirov. Armed with a search warrant, Baranov had hoped to seize financial records incriminating Kirov in the theft of $125 million from the coffers of Novastar Airlines. Kirov, law-abiding citizen that he is, denied the OMON troops entry, preferring to let his legion of house-trained espiocrats do his talking for him. No doubt he'll call Baranov's visit just another case of political harassment motivated by his advocacy of free speech and a free press.

The question Luca had yet to answer was what members of the state security apparatus were doing at Kirov's offices and why they had stood to his defense. It was akin to the CIA's defending Ted Turner on American soil.

Whatever Kirov may say, the Private Eye-PO continued, there can be little doubt, dear hearts, that not only he, but Mercury Broadband as well, is skating on very thin ice. Do tell… if he didn't steal the $125 million, who did? Maybe we should ask Jett Gavallan for the answer? After all, if he's Kirov's banker, who better to point us to the missing loot?

Stay tuned, campers, for more news from the Russian Kleptocracy.

Luca put down the pages, pleased but tired. It had all started just after eleven last night, when Jack Andrew, a correspondent for the Financial Times in Moscow, had called him in a furor to demand how he had known beforehand about the raid on Kirov's offices. Luca dodged the question, instead pounding Andrew for every detail imaginable about the encounter. Afterward, like any solid journalist, he double-checked his source. He phoned his contacts at the Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Moscow Times. All of them said they'd heard whispers about the raid, but as yet could get neither Kirov nor the prosecutor general to confirm or deny.

Adding a few comments here and there, Luca folded up the article and put it back into his briefcase. He'd meant to get it onto his server and uploaded to his web page this morning, but he'd overslept, and his cardinal rule was never to miss an opening. Good thing, too. The market was riding an updraft the likes of which he hadn't seen in a year. Fifteen minutes after the opening the Nasdaq was up 80 points and the Dow up 100.