He knew their schedule and the name of their hotel: he could always catch up with them there. Unfortunately, he was pathologically honest and duty-bound to enter any coverage lapses in the report he assiduously completed and turned in after each job. In his mind he had already spent his annual bonus on a nice holiday in Greece, on a luxurious slow cruise through the sunbaked islands, sipping ouzo and ogling Scandanavian tourist girls in their Lilliputian bikinis; he now was watching it all go up in smoke.

He tried to recall any fragment of every language he knew and quickly blurted at the old lady, "Excuse me… entschuldigen… excusez-moi… por favor…" Nothing, no relief.

A large crowd began catching up to him, impatient travelers who had just cleared customs and now were plowing ahead and jostling for choice spots in the taxi line. He could hear their voices, but kept one eye on the old lady-who clutched his arm harder and acted increasingly distressed-and the other on the glass door Alex and Elena had just exited. He never turned around, never observed the old man who quickly approached his back.

The old lady continued prattling about something, more loudly frantic now, more mysteriously insistent, still stubbornly clasping his arm. Firm procedures were unequivocal about such situations: public scenes and embarrassments, indeed public attention in any form, were to be avoided at all costs. He reached down and gently tried to pry his arm loose from the old hag's grip, even as an old man approached from his rear aggressively swinging his arms with each step. Gripped tightly in the old man's right hand, and mostly obscured by an overly long coat sleeve, was a razor-thin, specially made thirteen-inch dagger.

One step back from the bodyguard's rear, it swung up. The blade entered Bernie Lutcher's back nearly six inches below his left shoulder blade, grazed off one rib, then immediately penetrated his heart.

The old man gave it a hard grind and twist, a signature technique honed decades before, one he was quite proud of, tearing open at least two heart chambers, ensuring an almost immediate death. In any event, the blade was coated with a dissolvable poison primed to instantly decrystallize and rush straight into Bernie's bloodstream. One way or another, he'd be dead.

Bernie's eyes widened and his lips flew open. At the same instant, the old lady gave him a hard punch-an expertly aimed blow to the solar plexus to knock the wind out of his lungs-and he landed heavily on his back, gasping for air and grasping his chest, as though he was suffering a heart attack, which he surely was.

The two assassins immediately scattered, moving swiftly to the departure area for a flight to Zurich that left thirty minutes later. The first assassinations happened in the last three days of August 1992. The Summer Massacres, they were called afterward by the thoroughly cowed employees of Konevitch Associates.

Andri Kelinichetski, bachelor, bon vivant, and very popular vice president for investor relations, ended up first in the queue. A lifelong insomniac, he left his cramped apartment at two in the morning for a brisk walk in the cool Moscow air to clear the demons from his head. He had made it three blocks from his apartment when three bullets, fired from thirty feet behind his skull, cleared his head, literally. Andri stopped breathing before he hit the cement.

Five hours later, Tanya Nadysheva, divorced mother of two and a specialist in distressed companies, started up her newly purchased red Volkswagen sedan for the drive to work, triggering a powerful bomb. Her head landed half a block away; she had been operating her fancy new sunroof at the precise instant of detonation.

By ten o'clock that morning, six employees of Konevitch Associates lay in the morgue-one long-distance shooting, one short-distance, a hand grenade attack, one car bombing, one very grisly slit throat, and a notably devout employee who was literally fed a poisoned wafer as he stopped off at his local church for his habitual morning Communion.

Six victims. Six different types of murder. No failed attempts, no survivors, no witnesses. With the exception of the sliced throat and the fatal Communion wafer, the killers-obviously more than one-had struck from a distance, safely and anonymously. No forensic traces were found beyond spent bullets and bomb residue. The particles from the explosive devices were analyzed on the spot by a veteran field technician. In his opinion, the devices were so coarse and simple, virtually any criminal idiot could've built them.

A few hours later, a pair of special police investigators showed up, unannounced, at the headquarters of Konevitch Associates. They flashed badges, announced their purpose with a show of grim expressions, and were ushered hurriedly upstairs. They marched into Alex's office, where they found him and several of his more senior executives assembled, making hasty arrangements for the families of their dead friends and employees, plainly in shock over what had just happened. One executive, Nadia Pleshinko, was blowing snot into a white tissue, unable to stop weeping.

One officer was fat, mustachioed, and late-middle-aged, the other surprisingly young, runway skinny, with a face that looked glum even when he smiled. Laurel and Hardy, they were inevitably nicknamed by the boys at the precinct, a resemblance so glaring that even they celebrated the epithet.

They were both lieutenants with the municipal police, they informed the gathering, here to discuss what had been learned or not about the morning butchery.

"The Mafiya," the fat senior one opened his briefing. "That's who's behind this. It's not just you, it's happening all over Moscow. There have been over sixty murders in the city just this past month. Sixty!" he said, rolling his bloodshot eyes with wearied disgust. "Nearly all were businesspeople, bankers, and one or two news reporters who were getting too close to one of the mobs or to a corrupt politician on their payroll."

Skinny picked up where his partner left off. "Under the old system, the city averaged maybe three murders a month. And that was a bad month. Nearly always angry wives or husbands getting even for an affair or some marital slight or squabble."

"And the Mafiya is behind all these murders?" Alex asked, totally uninterested in a prolonged recounting of Moscow murderography. All that mattered was what happened to his people that morning. And what might happen tomorrow. Were the killers finished, or just warming up? Were these six the final toll? Or should Alex buy bulletproof vests and begin building thick bunkers for his employees?

A serious nod from both officers and Skinny said, "In the old days they were into drugs, prostitution, the black market, that kind of funny stuff. Capitalism has given them a whole new lease. The big money these days is companies like yours. It's-"

"What do they want?" Alex interrupted.

"Hard to say," Fatty replied with a sad frown. "Usually it's a shakedown. Some variation of a protection or extortion racket. 'Pay us a few million, or give us a cut of the monthly profit, and we'll stop killing your people.' I'm afraid that's the optimistic scenario."

Alex paused for a moment, then reluctantly asked, "And what's the pessimistic one?"

Skinny took over and said, "It could also be that somebody-a competitor perhaps-is paying them to wipe you out. Or maybe to soften you up for an attempted takeover. Either way, they'll keep killing until you're out of business, or until they believe you're ready to meet their terms. These people are ambitious, creative, and vicious." He looked over at Fatty, who offered an approving nod. "For instance," he continued, "they hit a banking company two months ago. Before you could say turnip soup, twelve executives were dead."

"The Mafiya," Alex said, rolling that ugly sound off his lips. "Aren't they organized into families or groups? It's not just one big mob, is it?"