In a parallel universe, Mazursky and his crew were yelling loud enough to rouse the Miracle Mets. Let 'em, thought Luca. With the news about Kirov, he'd be out of there inside a month. The newsletter would do better than he'd ever imagined. Forget three thousand subscribers. Why not four thousand? Five thousand? Ten, even? Luca would buy a little house and a Boston Whaler he'd had his eye on. He'd arrange a weeklong trip to Disney World for the girls. Maybe, just maybe, he could convince his wife to come back to him.

Enraptured by this rosy vision of the future, he found it difficult to breathe. It could happen, he told himself. It really could. The family back together again. Ray and his four girls. It was all he had ever really wanted.

Minutes passed and the market continued higher, headed straight for the stratosphere. Volume. Tick. S &P futures. All were rocketing up, up, up. One after another he put on a buy, not bothering even to take profits on his earlier positions. At ten o'clock, the Nasdaq was up 150 and the Dow the same. A quick tally showed him ahead twenty-five grand.

Once in a while Luca looked down at the briefcase. Part of him said to close his positions, take his profits, and get home to post his newest article- the sooner the better. But Luca ignored the voice. He wasn't leaving today. Today he was a trader. He could be the Private Eye-PO tomorrow, and for the rest of his life.

Hello, Ray."

Luca jolted in his chair as if he'd seen a ghost. "Jett Gavallan. What a surprise. What brings you round these parts?"

"I'm sure you can guess. You've been doing some good work- or should I say your sources have. Looks like I was wrong about Mercury."

Luca eyed him warily. "You're going to cancel the deal?"

"Postpone it. The company isn't all bad. Maybe it isn't everything we billed it to be, but there's some decent stuff there. It's Kirov I'm worried about."

"So you heard?" Luca's eyes flashed triumphantly.

"Heard what?"

"Yesterday there was a…" Luca sat back, rubbing at his chin as a mean-spirited grin darkened his features. "Sorry, Jett, you'll have to wait and see."

Gavallan lowered himself onto his haunches so he could look Luca in the eye. "Ray, this isn't about Synertel. I'm sorry about what happened. It was a lousy turn of events. I can imagine it was a letdown."

"A 'letdown,' was it? Is that what you call losing a billion dollars? Having your wife throw you out on the street? Watching your children shy away from you because they're too embarrassed to give you a hug? A 'letdown'?"

"Like I said, I'm sorry it turned out that way. It was a tough break."

"What the hell do you know about 'tough'? You, sitting up there in your luxury penthouse, driving your snazzy car? You bankers are all bloodsuckers. Best friends when times are good, out of there like lightning when things get rough. Payback, Gavallan. This one's on me."

"I did what I had to do. You would have done the same thing if you were in my place. Look at me, Ray. You know it's true. Now, listen, I need your help. I have to know where you got your information about Mercury. I'm trying to work back up the chain, figure out who pulled the wool over our eyes."

Luca laughed, a little wildly. "You're not serious? You don't just expect me to tell you." Shifting his gaze away from Gavallan, he spent a moment tapping an order into his computer. "Tell me, what do I-bankers earn these days? An hourly rate will be fine."

"This is a lot more important than what I earn."

"Two hundred an hour?" Luca cut in. "Or am I out of date? Three hundred? Four?"

"It's not just about Mercury and Black Jet. You're in this too, Ray… or the Private Eye-PO is. We need to talk. You could be in a lot of danger."

"Danger? Ooh, I'm shivering. Can't you see me shaking in my boots?" He tried on another smile, but Gavallan's grim expression stole his mirth. "What kind of danger?" he asked after a moment.

"I'm not sure exactly. But if I can find you, so can Konstantin Kirov. After all the crap you've been spreading on the Net about his company, I don't think he'll be in a charitable mood."

Something in Gavallan's tone reached Luca. The angry cast to his eye softened and the tension left his shoulders. "Okay, okay," muttered Luca. "But I can't leave now. Take a look at the market. I got to make some money."

"Take a break."

"Got too many open positions. Tell you what, though. I'll stop at noon for fifteen minutes. Believe me, that's all we'll need. Meet me next door at Alberto's. We'll have a cup of coffee."

"Deal," said Gavallan, rising to go, happy to get out of the rancid confines. "See you at twelve. Alberto's, right?"

Luca nodded. "And, Jett? Order yourself a drink beforehand. Something strong. You're going to need it."

Leaving the building, Gavallan turned left and headed down the sidewalk to his car. He didn't see the slender young man in the baseball cap enter the building less than a minute after he left.

28

Luca hardly heard the first shot.

A door slamming, he thought, keeping his eyes on the screens, but then came the moaning, the fevered imprecations not to shoot, followed by another bang. This time the noise was unmistakable. Achingly loud. Frightening. His ears rang, and then he caught a whiff of smoke and his nose began to burn. Cordite, he thought. Yet for all the sensory data, it came to him slowly. A gun. A very, very big gun.

At first, he thought it had to be Mazursky, some kind of joke he was playing, but a glance down the aisle told him he was wrong on that score. The Wizard of Warsaw lay twenty feet away, his jaw opening and closing like that of a fish out of water, eyes wide open, a pitch-black crater on his forehead starting to leak blood.

And for a split second, Luca thought, Jesus, it took a bullet to shut that loudmouth up.

But by then Krumins was yelling and running toward the front door. Halfway there he seemed to leap out of his shoes and slam against the wall, and when he slid to the ground there was a wide, bloody red swath tracing his path.

Gregorio stood up in his cubicle, and his blond head seemed all at once to vaporize in a cloud of red mist. Nevins crawled past Luca down the aisle. The gun roared, and he went flat and stopped moving, without even a grunt.

"Ray?"

Four feet away stood the shooter. The voice gave her away as a woman and foreign, though it was hard to tell by how she was dressed.

"Ray Luca?" she asked again.

"Yes?" he said, frozen, confused, very, very scared. Kirov, he thought. Kirov sent you. "What do you want?"

But she didn't answer. Striking with the speed of a cobra, she wrapped an arm around his neck, brought him to her chest, and laid the pistol against his temple. Paralyzed, he tried to scream, but the words lodged in his throat.

No, no, it can't be. We're going to Disney World. My wife and daughters, we're going to-