“Try for just one,” he asked.

She named a former President of the United States whom Gamburian had once worked for. Gamburian laughed.

“Think closer to home,” he said. “From your recent experience.”

“You’re steering me toward Yuri Federov,” she said after a second.

“Very good. Your Russian-Ukrainian mobster. Guess where he is right now.”

She shrugged. “I have no idea,” she answered. “After two heavy doses of him I assumed he was out of my life completely.”

“Naive assumption,” Gamburian said. “He’s in New York.”

She was visibly surprised. “He entered the US again?”

“Yup. I suppose if I told you that he arrived here two days ago on a direct flight from Switzerland, you’d share my consternation.”

“Seriously,” she said. “Why is he in the US?”

“We’d like to know that too,” Gamburian said.

“Aren’t there warrants still out?” she asked. “Tax liens? A half-dozen or so felony indictments scattered across the northeast? A whole host of things that might deter his tourism here?”

Gamburian flew his chair back down to earth and leaned forward at his desk.

“Oh, there used to be a lot of crap,” he said. “Warrants, liens, subpoenas, indictments. All that plus a few dozen old enemies hanging around who wanted to blow his head off. Normal stuff for a thug in his line of work. But he’s clear with the United States government these days, and all of the state and local stuff went out the window too. That ten-million-dollar tax assessment against him went down the tubes in exchange for his help in Spain, as did just about everything else. Recall?”

“That’s been resolved already?”

“Two weeks ago, and all the other stuff got washed with it. He’s as clean as Mother Teresa, except he has the added advantage of being currently alive. What do you think about that?”

“Shows you what friends in the right places can do.”

“Absolutely. And next thing you know, after he’s got a legal green light, he’s on a plane for New York. Nonstop from Geneva. First class, naturally. I refer here to the seat location, not the passenger. I still personally think he’s a piece of-”

“I know what you think, Mike.” She considered the situation. “I’m a little surprised at his coming to the US,” Alex said.

“So are we.”

“Ten million dollars was a hell of a ‘fee’ for his cooperation,” she said.

“You helped arrange it.”

“It wasn’t my idea; it was my assignment. There’s a difference.”

“No need to stress,” Gamburian said. “Uncle Sam got what he paid for, and the state and local DAs and AGs were willing to play along. No one was ever going to get an indictment against him anyway. And how much would it have cost to rebuild our embassy in Madrid? Fifty million? A hundred? Not to mention the loss of life? And you know as well as I do he was never going to pay the ten million anyway. So to some degree, it was ‘funny money.’ He worked for ‘free’ and didn’t even know it.”

“That’s one way to look at it.”

“That’s the only way to look at it,” Gamburian said. “But at the same time, we still might be interested in his current movements. Why is he visiting the US? Can’t be women, can it?”

“He’s got them scattered all over Europe. He doesn’t need to fly here for assignations.”

“What about friends or family?”

She sensed where this was going. “As far as I know, his only blood relative are two daughters who live in Canada and hate him. And as for friends, those are the people who’d probably want to kill him.”

“So then maybe you can find out for us.”

“Find out what?” Alex asked.

“Why he’s here.”

“How?”

“Ask him?”

She laughed. “I should just ring him up on the phone. ‘Hi, Yuri, it’s Alex. You alone? Can I come over and give you an evening you’ll never forget?’ ”

“Well, not quite like that. Or maybe exactly like that if it floats the boat.”

“Come on, Mike, what am I?” she asked. “Your Ukrainian gangster expert, specializing in this one?”

“Well, in a way, you are,” Gamburian said. “Look, Alex. We could assign some FBI and Treasury teams to tail him; we could drop electronic surveillance on him; we could see if the NYPD would do some pavement work on him. Or we could send you up to New York, put you up in a nice hotel for a few days, have you make contact, flirt a little, and see what you come away with. Frankly, for whatever reason, he’s more likely to voluntarily leak information to you over three or four martinis than he is to slip up with our surveillance teams.”

She folded her arms. “Uh, huh.”

“He’s staying at the Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue along with another several billion dollars’ worth of Eurotrash guests.”

“I know where this is going, Mike,” she said.

“Of course you do. Is there something on your desk more interesting? Don’t even answer that. Look, why don’t you go up to New York and see him?”

“Do you already have a surveillance team on him?” she asked.

“Didn’t I just say that would be a waste of time?”

“Sure, you did. But the FBI wastes money all the time. Answer my question.”

“It was suggested by the FBI, but I talked them out of it. Federov would spot them a mile away anyway. Waste of time, you’re right. I nixed it.”

“Is he traveling alone?” she asked. “Or is there an entourage?”

“Federov came into the country alone,” Gamburian said. “Take it from there.”

She thought about it for at least three seconds, plus another two to consider the tedium on her desk. “Okay. I never mind a trip to New York,” Alex answered.

“Good!” he said with finality. “And it’s funny you should answer that way. That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about-New York.”

“What about it? I like New York.”

“FinCEN is going to open offices there,” Gamburian said. “We’re going to move some of our experienced people from here in Washington up to the big city.” He paused. “Interested?”

“In being transferred to New York?”

“Exactly,” he said.

A swarm of emotional reactions were upon her, not the least of which was a lingering disquietude over life in Washington. Yes, it was tranquil. Yes, it was comfortable. But day to day, there were still too many memories of the way things had been a year earlier before her fiancé, Robert, had died in Kiev. She was, she knew, fighting a daily round of small avoidances, dodging associations of how things had been and how things could have been.

She even knew that she had stayed on in Madrid and taken the Pietà of Malta case to avoid coming home. And since coming home, she had already started to entertain the wanderlust that was in her, a desire to be part of the action, to keep shaking things up.

Then, “I still have a brief trip to Venezuela coming up,” she said.

“Any dates on that yet?”

“None yet. I’m thinking within the next few weeks.”

“What’s the guy’s name, the philanthropist, who sends you?”

“Joseph Collins.”

“That could be worked into the equation,” Gamburian said. “When might you know the dates on that?”

She shrugged. “I could go see Mr. Collins when I’m in New York and see what his thinking is.”

“Well, as I said, considering your service and sacrifice this year, I’m sure the powers that be can let you work Venezuela into the schedule,” Gamburian said.

“Then, yes,” she said, “I might be interested.”

“The big bosses here see you as the third in command in New York, maybe even the second,” he said. “The top job will go to someone more administrative and, frankly, older, who’s been in Treasury longer. But the number two and three positions? They would be ones of senior investigators. Those positions presume youth and energy, someone willing to go out and shake the world up where it needs shaking up. The type of thing you showed you’re adept at in Kiev, Geneva, Paris, and Madrid, and wherever else you’ve been dumping bodies.” He paused. “The age thing is tricky. They look for a balance in these offices. Gray hair and wisdom combined with youth and diligence. A dash of treachery and savoir faire with both. How old are you again? Seventeen?”