Konstantin's hand began to shake. "Is there something you know? Something you're not telling me?"

Leonid hesitated for precisely the right amount of time. "Of course not. I'm only talking common sense. You are not invulnerable. A contribution to our well-being- to our rebirth, if you will- could not be ignored."

"And you can guarantee this?" Konstantin pushed away his plate and thrust his monk's head across the table. "How?"

"The Service is not without friends. Some in very high places, I needn't remind you."

"How much?"

"Half."

"Half?" Kirov uttered the word with utter contempt. "Half? You're crazy. And you call me the greedy one."

"The first billion is ours," said Leonid, firmly, as if the decision had already been made. "The second is yours to use as you see fit. Who couldn't call you a patriot?"

"And you could guarantee that my operations remain untouched?"

When Leonid nodded, Konstantin withdrew into himself, eyes glowering at everything and nothing, one hand folded on top of the other in a pose of practiced contemplation. Finally, his head rose and he fixed Leonid with his intense, steadfast gaze.

"It's a deal," he said. "The first billion is yours."

Two keys existed to the briefing room. Kirov kept one. The other resided in a certain office in the Kremlin. Unlocking the door, he moved inside and turned on the lights. A halogen spot illuminated an angular white mountain atop a table in the center of the room. Kirov approached reverently, a pilgrim to his shrine. Slowly, with due respect, he removed the sheet, folded it, and laid it on a chair.

As always, the first sight took his breath away. The attention to detail was spectacular. The green and yellow decals with the BP logo; the small diamond-shaped warning signs reading "Danger: Flammable." Every valve turned. The miniature doors really opened. The engineers had taken an industrial complex half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide and shrunk it down so it fit inside a conference room. It was all there: the oil reservoirs- paint chipped, metal rusting; the power plant; the pump station; the dormitories and administration buildings.

Even the terrain was accurately reproduced, noted Kirov as he circled the table. The target rested on a wide, flat expanse of concrete in the midst of a verdant meadow. Drifts of snow ranged from five to fifty feet in height, depending on the time of year. They'd built a life-size mock-up of it in Severnaya, on the southern rim of the Arctic Circle.

They were there now, training, practicing, awaiting the green light. Team 7 from Department R of the First Directorate. Former Spetsnaz men trained to fight in all weathers. He imagined them clad in white, moving over the rough terrain- white anoraks, white snowsuits, white balaclavas.

Kirov thought of the audacious plan. Soon everything would be different. Seventy-two hours until Mercury went public in New York. Seventy-two hours until the FIS- oh, fuck it, he would call it what it was- until the KGB received a billion dollars into its private account. Seventy-two hours until the planes took off from Severnaya, heading east over the top of the world.

Imagining what was to come, Leonid Kirov shuddered. His brother was right: They would reserve a place for his bust in Red Square, next to Andropov and Iron Feliks. Nothing less would do for the next director of the KGB.

He reentered the dark room a few minutes later. The timer sounded, and he anxiously moved to the ropes of dangling film to check the negatives. Every frame was a blank, a pearly white slate, overexposed due to heat, low doses of radioactivity… there might be a hundred reasons why. Kirov chucked the worthless film into the trash bin and scowled. He'd had enough of rinsing mercury off his hands.

32

Gavallan woke in the backseat of a large car. His head was splitting, his mouth bone-dry. With a grunt, he tried to sit up. His back screamed as if gouged by a hundred razor blades. "Shit," he grunted, and fell back.

"Jett, are you all right? Does your head hurt dreadfully? Let me look at you."

Squinting at the bold sun, he made out Cate's form seated behind the wheel. He'd do it, if only to show her. One hand found an armrest, the other the ridge of the rear seat. Teeth gritted, he hauled himself to an upright position.

They were driving north toward Palm Beach along A1A, a two-lane blacktop shaded by gnarled banyans, Norfolk pines, and giant clumps of frangipani. To the right, peeking between the ornate mansions that made up the communities of Gulfstream, Oceanridge, and Manalapan, lay the Atlantic Ocean. To the left were golf courses, more homes, and the intracoastal waterway.

"Jett, who did this to you?" Cate asked, reaching a hand back, laying it to his cheek. "Did you see them?"

Gavallan brushed away her fingers. "You mean you didn't?" Despite her role as savior, she was the enemy. Someone to be distrusted, kept at arm's length.

"I found you alone in the house, lying on the floor. The bedroom window was open. I suppose they left that way."

"They? How did you know there was more than one person?"

"I didn't. They… he… I was just…" She pulled up short, her features crunched into an offended grimace. "I don't suppose thanks are in order."

Gavallan eyed her suspiciously. As usual, she was dressed as if she'd been born to the place: khaki shorts, navy polo shirt, a pair of Ray-Bans hiding her eyes. Two nights ago she'd been the princess of Nob Hill. Today she was a soccer mom. He'd been quick to pick up on her chameleon's gift of adaptability, her ability to look at home in places she'd never set foot in before, to make new acquaintances feel as though they were old friends. She could talk XML with the code pounders from Sun, deliver an address on the future of the Net to an auditorium of grade-schoolers, or bandy about internal rates of return with Meg and Tony, all with equal aplomb. It was her journalist's secret weapon, and when they were dating, he'd often found himself amazed at her social dexterity. Today it made him nervous. He wasn't certain who it was driving the car.

"Thanks." He uttered the words without an ounce of gratitude.

The windows were open, and a stiff, cooling breeze swept through his hair and across his face. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply and was reinvigorated by the fresh, salty drafts. The throbbing of his head subsided. The rhythmic stabbing deep inside his belly eased. The pain became bearable. But the deception remained, and he decided it was far worse a companion.

"Stop the car," he said.

"What?"

"I said, 'Stop the car.' "

Cate signaled and guided the car onto the grassy shoulder. Gavallan pushed open the door and lowered himself gingerly to the ground. He had to move, to be free of their faux walnut and Naugahyde confinement. Cate came round and offered a hand, but again, he waved it away.

"Talk, damn it," he said. "Don't just stand there playing nursemaid. Talk to me. What are you doing here? You're in this every bit as deeply as I am- even more, from the looks of things. Your fax number is all over Ray Luca's correspondence. You've been feeding the Private Eye-PO his information. Why, Cate? I want to know what in the world is going on. And then I want to know why you didn't tell me before."

"I wanted to… I was worried… I don't…" She started and stopped a dozen times, groping for a place to begin. Gavallan had never seen her so flustered. All part of the act, he decided.

"Just the truth, Cate. That's all. It's not so hard."