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UMAR Gunayev let himself in without knocking. Monk was at a table, studying a large-scale map of Moscow. He looked up.

“We have to talk,” said the Chechen leader.

“You are not happy,” said Monk. “I’m sorry.”

“Your friends have left. Alive. But what happened at the Silver Age last night was crazy. I agreed because I owe you a debt, from long ago. But we are running out of debt. And the debt is from me alone. My men do not need to be put in danger because your friends want to play crazy games.”

“I’m sorry. The old man had to come to Moscow. He had a meeting, very important. No one could handle it except him. So he came. Grishin discovered he was here.”

“Then he should have stayed in the hotel to eat. He would have been reasonably safe in there.”

“Apparently he needed to see Grishin, to talk to him.”

“To talk to him like that? I was sitting three tables away. He practically asked to be killed.”

“I don’t understand why either, Umar. Those were his instructions.”

“Jason, there are twenty five hundred private security companies in this country and eight hundred of them in Moscow. He could have hired fifty men from any one of them.”

With the rise of gangsterdom, another mushroom industry had been that of private guards. Gunayev’s figures were quite accurate. The security companies tended to draw their men from the same ex-military units; there were ex-army, marines, special forces, paratroops, police, KGB, all available for hire.

By 1999 the number of private guards across the Russian nation was 800,000, a third of them in Moscow. In theory the militia was the licensing authority for all such companies, and had a duty under the law to check out all recruits to the payroll, their criminal records if any, their suitability, sense of responsibility, weapons carried, how many, what type, and what for.

That was the theory. In practice the well-stuffed envelope could procure all the licenses needed. So useful was the cover of “security company” that the gangs simply formed and registered their own, so that every hoodlum in town could produce identification to show he was a security guard permitted to carry what he wore under his left armpit.

“The trouble is, Umar, they’re buyable. They see Grishin, they know they can double their fee; they would change sides and do the job themselves.”

“So you use my men, because they will not betray you?”

“I had no choice.”

“You know Grishin will now be completely aware who has been shielding you? If he was ever puzzled before, he will not be now. Life is going to get very hard from now on. Already I hear word from the street that the Dolgoruki have been told to tool up for a major gang war. The last thing I need is a gang war.”

“If Komarov comes to power, the Dolgoruki will be the least of your problems.”

“What the hell have you started here, you and your damned black file?”

“Whatever it is, we can’t stop now, Umar.”

“We? What is all this about ‘we’? You came to me for help. You needed shelter. I offered you my hospitality. It is the way of my people. Now I’m threatened with open war.”

“I could try and head it off.”

“How?”

“Speak to Major General Petrovsky.”

“Him? That Chekist? You know how much damage he and his GUVD have done to my operations? You know how many raids he has conducted against my clubs, warehouses, casinos?”

“He hates the Dolgoruki more than he hates you. I also need to see the Patriarch. One last time.”

“Why?”

“I need to talk to him. There are things to tell him. But this time I will need to be helped to get away.”

“No one suspects him. Dress as a priest and go see him.”

“It’s more complicated than that. I think the Englishman used a hotel limousine. If Grishin checks the records, and he probably will, the log will reveal the Englishman visited the Patriarch. The house in Chisti Pereulok could be under surveillance.”

Umar shook his head in disbelief.

“You know, my friend, that Englishman of yours is an old fool.”

¯

COLONEL Grishin sat at his desk in the dacha and surveyed the blown-up eight-by-ten photograph with unalloyed satisfaction. Finally he pressed a button on his intercom.

“Mr. President, I need to speak to you.”

“Come.”

Igor Komarov studied the photograph of the letter found in Sir Nigel Irvine’s attaché case. It was clearly on the official paper of the Patriarchate and began with the words: “Your Royal Highness.” The signature and seal were those of His Holiness Alexei II.

“What is this?”

“Mr. President, the foreign conspiracy being mounted against you is perfectly clear. It is in two parts. Internally, here in Russia, it is one of destabilization of your election campaign, the spreading of alarm and despondency, based on the selective showing of your private manifesto to certain persons.

“That has resulted in the sabotage of the printing presses, the pressure by the banks to terminate the nationwide broadcasts, and the denunciation from that old fool of a general. It has caused damage but it cannot stop your victory.

“The second part of the conspiracy is in its way even more dangerous. It proposes the replacement of yourself by a restoration of the Throne of All the Russias. For his own self-interest, the Patriarch has fallen for this. What you have before you is his personal letter to a certain prince, living in the West, supporting the concept of restoration and agreeing that if this is accepted the church will propose the invitation go to this man.”

“And your proposal, Colonel?”

“Quite simple, Mr. President. Without a candidate, the conspiracy collapses.”

“You know of a man who can ... discourage this noble gentleman?”

“Permanently. He is very good. Accustomed to working in the West. Speaks several languages. He works for the Dolgoruki, but can be hired. His last contract concerned two renegades from the mafia who were charged with depositing twenty million dollars in London but decided to divert it to themselves. They were found two weeks ago in a flat in Wimbledon, a suburb of London.”

“Then I think we need the services of this man, Colonel.”

“Leave it to me, Mr. President. Within ten days there will be no candidate.”

Then, Grishin thought as he returned to his office, with Sir Nigel’s precious prince on a marble slab and Jason Monk traced by FAPSI and hanging in a cellar, we shall send Sir Nigel Irvine a packet of photographs that will really make his Christmas.

¯

THE Head of the GUVD had finished his dinner and was sitting with his small daughter on his knee watching her favorite cartoon show when the phone rang. His wife answered.

“It’s for you.”

“Who is it?”

“He just says, ‘The American.’ ”

The militia general eased Tatiana onto the floor and rose.

“I’ll take it in the study.”

When he had closed the door and lifted the receiver he heard the click of his wife replacing the extension.

“Yes.”

“General Petrovsky?”

“Yes.”

“We spoke the other day.”

“We did.”

“I have some information you might find useful. Do you have pen and paper?”

“Where are you speaking from?”

“A phone booth. I don’t have long. Please hurry.”

“Go ahead.”

“Komarov and Grishin have persuaded their friends the Dolgoruki gang to launch a war. They are going to take on the Chechen mafia.”

“So it’s dog-eat-dog. I should worry.”

“Except that the World Bank delegation is in Moscow negotiating the next round of economic credits. Maybe. If the streets are a hail of bullets, acting president Markov, trying to look good both in the eyes of the world and for his election prospects, will not be happy. He might wonder why it had to be now.”

“Go on.”

“Six addresses. Please take them down.”

Monk reeled them off while Major General Petrovsky noted them.

“What are they?”

“The first two are arsenals, packed with Dolgoruki weaponry. The third is a casino; in the basement are most of their financial records. The last three are warehouses. They contain twenty million dollars worth of contraband goods.”

“How do you know this?”

“I have friends in low places. Do you know these two officers?”

Monk gave him two names.

“Of course. One senior deputy of mine and one squad commander of the SOBR troops. Why?”

“They are both on the Dolgoruki payroll.”

“You’d better be certain, American.”

“I am. If you want to mount any raids, I’d keep the notice very short and those two out of the picture.”

“I know how to do my job.”

The line disconnected. General Petrovsky replaced the receiver thoughtfully. If this bizarre foreign agent was right, the information was priceless. He had a choice. Let the gang war rip, or mount a series of body blows on the major mafia syndicate at a moment likely to receive ringing congratulations from the presidency.

He had three thousand rapid reaction force troops at his disposal, the SOBR, mainly young and eager. If the American was only half-right about Igor Komarov and his plans after taking power, there would be no place in the New Russia for him, his gangbusters, or his troops. He returned to the sitting room.

The cartoons were over. Now he would never know if Wiley Coyote had got the Roadrunner for supper or not.

“I’m going back to the office,” he told his wife. “I’ll be there all night and most of tomorrow.”

¯

IN winter the city authorities are accustomed to flood the paths and walkways of the Gorki Park with water, which soon freezes rock solid, creating the country’s biggest ice rink. It extends for miles and is popular with Muscovites of all classes and ages, who bring their skates and a good supply of vodka to forget for a while their cares and troubles in the freedom of the ice.

Some drives remain ice-free and terminate in small parking areas. It was in one of these that two men, mufflered and fur-hatted against the cold, met ten days before Christmas. Each got out of his car and walked alone to the edge of the trees, facing the sheet of ice where the skaters glided and swooped around one another.

One was Colonel Anatoli Grishin, the other a solitary man known in the underworld as Mekhanik, or the Mechanic.

While killers for hire were two-a-penny in Russia, several mafia gangs but most usually the Dolgoruki regarded the Mechanic as special.

He was in fact a Ukrainian, a former army major, who years earlier had been assigned to the Spetsnaz special forces and thence to the military intelligence arm, the GRU. After language school he had enjoyed two postings to Western Europe. Leaving the army, he had realized he could parlay his fluency in English and French, his ability to move easily in societies most Russians regarded as alien and strange, and his lack of inhibitions in the matter of killing other human beings into a lucrative profession.

“I understand you wanted to see me,” he said.

He knew who Colonel Grishin was, and that inside Russia the head of security for the Union of Patriotic Forces Party would have no need of him. Within the Black Guards, not to mention the party’s allies in the Dolgoruki mafia, there were triggermen enough who had but to be given the order. But working abroad was special.

Grishin passed him a photograph. The Mechanic glanced at it and turned it over. A name and the address of a manor house in the countryside, far to the west, were typed on the back.

“A prince,” he murmured. “I
am
going up in the world.”

“Keep your sense of humor to yourself,” said Grishin. “It’s a soft target. No personal security worth the name. By Christmas Day.”

The Mechanic considered. Too quick. He needed to prepare. He was alive and free because he took meticulous precautions, and they took time.

“New Year’s Day,” he said.

“Very well. You have a price.”

The Mechanic named it.

“Agreed.”

Plumes of white frosted breath rose from both men. The Mechanic recalled seeing on the television a religious revivalist rally at which a charismatic young priest had been calling for a return to God and the czar. So that was Grishin’s game. He regretted not doubling his price.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“Unless you have more you need to know.”

The executioner slipped the photograph inside his coat.

“No,” he said, “I think I know all I need to. Nice to do business with you, Colonel.”

Grishin turned and gripped the man’s arm. The Mechanic looked down at the gloved hand until the grip was released. He did not like to be touched.

“There must be no mistakes, on target or timing.”

“I do not make mistakes, Colonel. Or you would not have asked for me. I will mail you the number of my Liechtenstein account. Good-day to you.”

¯

IN the small hours of the morning following the meeting by the skating rink in Gorki Park, General Petrovsky’s six simultaneous raids went in.

The two informers had been invited to a private dinner in the officers club at the SOBR barracks and plied with enough vodka to render them gloriously drunk. Rooms had been provided for them to sleep off the effects. To make sure, there was a guard on each door.

A tactical “exercise,” arranged during the day, had been converted into the real thing just before midnight. By then the troops in their trucks had been confined to a series of closed garages. At two in the morning the drivers and detail commanders had been given their missions and the addresses they needed. For the first time in months surprise had been total.

The three warehouses had proved little problem. Four guards protecting the treasure stores had tried to resist and been gunned down. Eight more had surrendered just in time. The warehouses had yielded ten thousand cases of imported vodka, all without duty paid, that had rolled in from Finland and Poland over the previous two months. It was the wheat famine that had forced the biggest vodka-drinking nation in the world to import its own tipple, with prices rising to three times those in the countries of manufacture.

Other consignments in the warehouses turned out to be dishwashers, washing machines, televisions, video recorders, and computers, all from the West and all hijacked.