The AK-47 emptied half its banana clip into the dirt.

Dar jumped down and kicked the weapon away. Syd bounded down the hill in great strides, keeping her pistol trained on the screaming, rolling man the whole way.

“Help me, Jesus fuck,” said Constanza as she slid to a stop next to him. “You shot my balls off, you bitch.”

“Not likely,” said Syd. She kicked him over on his belly, held the pistol to the back of his head as she expertly patted him down, and then pulled his wrists behind him and cuffed him.

“Syd,” said Dar softly, “didn’t they train you at Quantico to shoot for center body mass at that pistol distance?”

“Of course they did,” said the chief investigator. “But we need this guy alive.” She holstered her weapon. “Is this the only way you know how to deal with felons?” she said. “By crashing into them?”

Dar shrugged. “It’s what I know best.” He knelt next to the whining man. “He’s going to bleed to death from that thigh wound,” said Dar, “if we don’t do something.”

“Yes,” agreed Syd, with no emotion visible on her face.

Dar held Constanza still while Syd removed the man’s belt and lashed it tight high on his upper thigh, using it as a tourniquet. He screamed when Syd put full pressure on the belt, and then he fainted.

Dar sat heavily on the dry grass. “He’s still going to bleed to death before anyone finds us. It’ll be hours before Steve or Ken gets worried.”

Syd shook her head. “Sometimes, Darwin, my dear, you are such a Luddite.” She took her cell phone out of her vest pocket and punched a speed-dial number. “Warren,” she said. “Jim…Syd Olson here. Yeah. Well, we’ve got Tony Constanza with us, but he’s hurt pretty bad. If he’s going to be our star witness, you’d better get a medevac helicopter to…” She lowered the phone. “Where the hell are we, Dar?”

“East face of Mount Palomar,” said Dar. “About the four-thousand-foot level. The helicopter has a box of colored flares in the back…Tell Warren that we’ll pop smoke when we hear the dust-off chopper.”

“Did you get all that, Jim?” said Syd. “OK. Yeah…we’ll sit tight.” She looked at Dar. “They’re sending a Marine medical chopper from Twenty-nine Palms.”

“Tell him that this area is thick with rattlesnakes,” said Dar.

“We’ll sit tight,” repeated Syd, “but Dar says that this hill is rife with rattlesnakes, so please tell the Marines to move their asses if you want your witness and his captors alive.” She rang off.

They looked at each other, at the unconscious gunman, and then at each other again. They were both wet with sweat, blue with bruises, red from blood flowing from small cuts and gashes, and sticky with dust. Suddenly they grinned at each other.

“God, you’re beautiful,” said Syd.

“I was just going to say that to you,” said Dar.

Then they were holding each other and kissing so passionately that a stray boot almost woke up the moaning but still unconscious hit man.

Almost but not quite.

Dar was invited to be in on the arrests, but he declined. He had work to do. He heard the details later.

In England, Syd explained later, the police prefer to wait for a suspect to enter his or her home before making an arrest. There is less chance of violence and of innocent bystanders being hurt that way. In America, of course, exactly the opposite is true. A home, all too frequently in America, is an arsenal and fortress. American cops prefer to make arrests in semipublic but controlled places, where the suspect can be—at the very least—outgunned. The exception in this case was to be the ranch house where the five Russians—including Zuker and Yaponchik—were known to be hiding out and where the FBI wanted to hit them with surprise and overwhelming force.

The FBI claimed precedence and jurisdiction on the Thursday morning raids, and because of the death of three of their agents, no one argued. Los Angeles–based Special Agent in Charge Howard Faber personally led the tactical team of eighteen helmeted, Kevlar-vested, submachine-guntoting special agents into the Century City tower at 6:48 A.M. Pacific time. SAC James Warren would have liked to have been there, but he had taken charge of the stakeout and raid on the Russian mafia men’s isolated ranch house near the Santa Anita Racetrack. Chief Investigator Sydney Olson, also decked out in a Kevlar vest labeled “FBI” in bright yellow, was second in command to SAC Faber on the Trace assault. Like the others, she carried a Heckler & Koch MP-10 submachine gun.

Dallas Trace was on the air live, his CNN Objection Sustained program airing at its usual 10:00 A.M. Eastern time. Special Agent in Charge Faber and each of his tactical team leaders carried a tiny TV monitor and they watched as the show’s titles rolled, the intro music ended, and the New York anchor—another ex–defense lawyer—announced the day’s topic and welcomed her friend and colleague from California, famous defense counselor Dallas Trace. The silver-haired attorney was at his usual post at his desk, slouched back in his leather chair, wearing his usual buffalo-hide leather vest, the windows behind him showing a smoggy early L.A. morning.

Ten of the FBI tactical team agents swept through the offices, herding early-bird legal secretaries, young lawyers, secretaries, and receptionists out of their rooms and cubicles, corralling them in the outer reception room where two agents in black Kevlar stood guard. Having secured the hallways and offices, two of the agents then kicked open the door to the conference room that served as the “greenroom” during the television broadcasts. Three of Counselor Trace’s four American bodyguards were sitting in there, watching the monitor, drinking coffee, and wolfing down donuts. They looked at the tactical team in openmouthed surprise and then they were down on the floor, hands behind their heads, being brusquely frisked by the FBI team members. Each of the bodyguards was carrying at least one firearm, and the biggest and meanest of the bunch was carrying a second pistol in his back belt and a tiny revolver in an ankle holster. Two of the three also carried long-bladed folding knives that were illegal for street use.

Watching their portable monitor, sure that none of the disturbance had been heard in Trace’s office, Faber, three of his agents with H&K MP-10s, and Syd waited just outside the lawyer’s office.

Dallas Trace was just drawling, “…an’ if ah had been the defense attorney for these poor, prosecuted, persecuted, and harried parents—who are obviously innocent of theah daughtah’s tragic death—I would be bringing lawsuits against the city of—” when the FBI kicked in the door and the four agents and Syd came in with guns drawn.

The two cameramen and the single sound man looked to their floor producer for guidance. The producer hesitated two microseconds and then she gave the finger-spinning gesture for “keep rolling.” Dallas Trace merely looked up at the intruders with his mouth wide open.

“Counselor Dallas Trace, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to defraud,” said Special Agent in Charge Faber. “Stand up.”

Trace continued sitting. He tried to speak, obviously finding it difficult to switch gears from the mythical lawsuit he was about to announce for the poor, persecuted, and prosecuted parents of the murdered child, but before he could make a sound, two of the FBI men in black grabbed the attorney’s arms and dragged him to his feet. His arms were pinned behind him, and Syd snapped on the cuffs.

After what probably had been the longest period of speechlessness in Dallas Trace’s adult life, he found his voice—in fact, he roared. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you have any goddamn idea who I am?”

“Defense Attorney Dallas Trace,” Special Agent in Charge Faber said again. “And you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent—”