"We're going to my father's clubhouse in Sparrow Hills," she said, turning and meeting his eye. "Across the river where all the nomenklatura used to live. Brezhnev, Chernenko, Andropov."

"Just like Pacific Heights, huh?" Gavallan said icily.

They were in the city now, and it looked like the other parts of Russia he'd visited, only larger, more impressive, more desolate. The highway had been swallowed by a boulevard eight lanes across and they continued without regard for traffic signals. Green meant "go"; red meant "go faster." The grand avenues craved a dignified audience- skyscrapers of steel and glass, noble town houses, even a decent minimall. Instead, they were awarded stooped stone apartments and crumbling office buildings weeping soot and grime, all wedged together, all the same height, all devoid of personality. And then Gavallan remembered why: Personalities were allowed only inside the Kremlin. Or, maybe these days in Sparrow Hills.

Suddenly everyone was sitting straighter, stiffly even. The driver turned off the music. Cate's shoulders left the seat. Even Tanya lifted her head from the glass to look. The motorcade descended a long slope, and ahead he could make out a bridge and, running beneath it, the choppy, evanescent surface of a broad, fast-moving river. To his left, the night sky softened, lit with a warm chiffon glow.

And then he saw it too. Bathed in the arc of a hundred discreet spotlights, a tall, curving fortress wall ran the length of the riverbank. The wall was painted an imperial yellow, with stone battlements rising every fifty feet, and behind it, silhouetted against the blue black sky, soared the swirling onion domes and proud towers that housed the seat of the Russian government.

The Kremlin.

He was in the heart of Mother Russia, and to his eye, it still looked every bit the evil empire.

Jett, my friend. How nice to see you again."

"Cut the bullshit, Konstantin," said Gavallan, walking past the man, ignoring the outstretched hand, the offer to play it as if the events of the past five days were nothing more than a difference of opinion. "We're not friends now. We never were."

"I suppose we weren't," replied Kirov. He looked fatigued. His pallor was funereal, his eyes pouchy and rimmed with wine black circles. "Come and sit. I'll be brief, then we can go to bed."

"I'd rather stand."

The two men faced each other in a stark, glacial space the size of an emperor's ballroom. The floor was a sea of pale travertine, the walls painted a glossy white. A sleek Italian couch and matching chair, both an incongruous orange, sat in the center of the room, a low-slung coffee table showing too much chrome between them. The only other furniture was an antique cocktail cabinet miles away at the far end of the room. If they seemed alone, it was an illusion. A brace of security guards stood outside the door, ready to enter at a moment's notice.

Cate had been shown to a study across the foyer. "I haven't seen my father in six years," she'd said. "I'll happily wait a few more minutes."

"A drink?" asked Kirov. "I heard you had a rough flight in. Something to calm your stomach? Cognac? Brandy? A Fernet, perhaps?" He strode to the liquor cabinet and poured two snifters of brandy from a cut-glass decanter. Even at one in the morning, he was his usual elegant self, dressed in a tailored navy suit and solid maroon tie.

"No," said Gavallan. "I want to talk to Graf Byrnes."

"I'm afraid that isn't possible. He's spending a few days at my dacha in the country. It's quite remote. No electricity. No phones. But don't worry: I'll make sure you two see each other tomorrow."

"That won't do. I want to speak to him now. You and I have nothing to discuss until I know he's alive and well."

"Oh, he's alive. You have my word. As for 'well,' that's a different matter altogether. I'd like to say his condition rests squarely upon you. What you do. What you don't do."

"News flash, Kirov: Mercury isn't going near the market until either Graf or I say so. Without our go-ahead, the deal will be pulled. Enough controversy has surrounded it already. My disappearance will be the last straw."

"Will it?" Kirov sneered, lifting the snifter to his lips and taking a generous draft. "There seems to be some concern that you've gone a little crazy. Hitting Mr. Tustin on the trading floor. Flying to Florida without alerting your staff. Fleeing the FBI. I have it on good authority that the offering will go forward as planned without your go-ahead."

"Whose authority is that?"

"Now, now, Jett. You don't expect me to show you all my cards, do you? Suffice it to say it's someone who can run the show perfectly well in your absence. Besides, you shouldn't be too angry if your friends decide not to follow your orders."

Seething, Gavallan circled the grouping of furniture. Who did Kirov have his hooks into? Bruce? Tony? Meg? Had the words not come from Kirov's mouth, Gavallan never would have thought it possible. Despite his fury, his heart beat slowly. His hands were cool and dry. His vision had sharpened. It had been eleven years since he'd felt this way. It was his calm in the face of a coming storm. "Battle-bright," they called it.

"And just what do you think is going to happen down the road?" he asked. "Mercury won't last two weeks once it goes public. You'll have analysts crawling over your operations like flies on shit. They're a tough group- nosy, ambitious, eager to make their reputation at your expense. They'll suss out the company's problems in no time."

"I'm not worried. With proceeds from the offering, we'll quickly shore up any remaining operational deficiencies."

"The money Mercury receives from the offering is slated for acquisitions that will insure you meet your forecast growth rate. That's cash to move forward, not to come up to speed. Miss one quarter's estimates and the stock will fall into the cellar. Miss two and it's all over. The price will dip below a dollar and you'll be delisted from the Exchange."

"I can assure you we have no intention of missing our estimates," said Kirov. "As per your own instructions, we have a few surprises in the pipeline. 'Unexpected' good news that will increase our earnings and allow us to beat our own optimistic expectations. What did you call it, Jett? 'Sandbagging'?"

"Sandbagging" was a common enough practice, a simple trick designed to goose the price of new issues six months out. The idea was to keep a little good news in your back pocket: a juicy contract about to be signed, word of another cable route about to be granted, a new and unforeseen use for a company's proprietary technology- anything that would augment your revenue stream and boost your earnings. Six months down the road, when the time came to issue your first earnings report, you peeled away the blinds and announced that "due to the dramatic customer response" to your new software or router or "fill-in-the-blank," your earnings had beat forecasted estimates by a nickel. The stock jumped 10 percent and everyone was smiling. Bankers. Customers. The investing public.

"Sandbagging's one thing," retorted Gavallan. "Lying about your customers and your revenues is another. What are you going to say about your problems with Novastar? Having the prosecutor general riding your tail doesn't quite fit with your investment scenario. It's my experience that investors prefer to see CEOs of newly listed companies in the boardroom, not in jail."

Kirov laughed softly, but his irritation was beginning to show. He was blinking incessantly, his fingers appraising the knot of his tie. "I agree that jail isn't part of our 'investment scenario.' If you're talking about Mr. Luca's article, I read it, too. 'Mercury in Mayhem,' I believe it was titled. A shame no one else will have the pleasure. Boris is very thorough. He promises me he erased the story from Mr. Luca's computer and that he confiscated every copy in the apartment."