The ringleaders were a long-term institution, a troupe of thirty cutthroats shipped over on a special boat by Castro at the tail end of the Mariel Boatlift. The Immigration Service had been tipped off about their impending arrival by a Cuban convict who hoped his little favor would be met by a bigger favor. This was Castro's biggest flip of the bird, he warned without the slightest exaggeration; a group of handpicked incorrigibles, men who had been killing and raping and stealing since they were in diapers. The dregs of the dregs-once loose on America's streets, the havoc would be unimaginable.

They were picked up the second they climbed off the boat onto a lovely beach just south of Miami, and sent straight to Atlanta's prison. It was unfortunate, but since they had been denied the opportunity to commit crimes on American soil, no legal justification existed to place them in a high-security lockup, where they clearly belonged.

On the second day of Alex's incarceration, a guard, acting on orders from the warden, tipped the Cubans that the new boy in cell D83 was worth a boatload of money. By Alex's third week in the new facility, the Choir Boys of Mariel, as they were known, decided it was time for the new arrival to make their acquaintance. Alex was one minute into his shower when three men surrounded him. "What can I do for you boys?" he asked, trying to pretend polite indifference, when every cell in his body screamed run. Just run. Don't look back, don't even breathe, just run.

The jefe of the trio, a small, wiry man with greasy black hair laced with gray, and long ridges of knife scars on his forehead and left cheek, stepped closer to Alex. "What you in for?" he asked with a strong Cuban brogue.

"Nothing."

"Nothing. Just visiting, huh?"

"All right, I was framed."

A light chuckle sounding like chalk scratched on a blackboard. "You and all the rest of us."

"It's true. I haven't even been to trial yet."

"You're Russian," the man observed, shooting past the normal prisoner baggage and getting to the point.

"I was. Now I'm American."

The man took another step toward Alex, ending up about a foot away. "I'm Cubano," he announced with a nasty smile and his chest puffed up. "I hate Russians. Biggest pricks in the world. You kept that bastard Castro in power."

The prisoners around Alex suddenly began shutting down their showerheads and bolting for the towel room. A fire alarm at full blast could not have emptied the place faster. The three men surrounding Alex were fully clothed in prison coveralls, hands stuffed deep inside their pockets. They stank of old sweat and a thousand cigarettes. Apparently, they didn't visit the showers very often.

Alex swallowed his fear and kept rubbing soap in his armpits. "No, you mean the communists kept him in power," he said and glanced around. Act indifferent, he kept reminding himself. Don't look scared, don't crack a smile, control your breathing. Pretend that standing naked in front of these three goons is no more threatening than a lap around the prison track. The guard who had been loitering at the entrance had mysteriously disappeared, Alex suddenly noticed.

"And what? You weren't a commie?"

Alex shook his head. "Definitely not."

"Yeah, well, what's that?" He wagged a finger at the hammer and sickle on Alex's chest.

"A present from some angry former commies," Alex informed him, eyeing the other two men, who had fanned out a bit and now blocked his exit in any direction.

"For what?"

"Because I bankrolled Yeltsin's election to the presidency."

"You, by yourself?" A quick, derisive snicker directed at his friends. "Just you, eh?"

"That's right, just me. I gave him the money to defeat Gorbachev."

This revelation was intended to defuse the confrontation, but instead produced a nasty sneer. "And you know who I am?"

Alex soaped his arms and decided not to answer.

"Napoleon Bonaparte. You ended communism in Russia, and me… well, I'm the short little prick what conquered Europe."

The man laughed at his own stupid joke-his friends joined him, loud guffaws that bounced off the walls. Alex forced himself to smile. "Actually, you're Manuel Gonzalez. But you go by Manny. Born in a small village, Maderia, you're forty-six years old, thirty-six of which you've lived inside prison. You've killed with guns, rope, and knives, but prefer your bare hands. You like two sugars with your coffee, no cream. Your favorite TV show is Miami Vice, though I suspect you always root for the bad guys." He paused and broadened his smile. "Have you heard enough things you already know about yourself?"

Manny's mouth hung open for a second before he reacquired his normal aplomb and its accompanying sneer. The sneer had a violent edge to it. "Smart guy, huh?"

"I've asked around a bit." With as much casualness as he could muster, Alex placed the soap on the metal tray on the wall. "I suggest you do your homework, too." He stuck out his hand. "Alex Konevitch. Have one of your boys look me up on the Internet."

"Already did that," he said, ignoring the hand. "You're rich, Konevitch, filthy rich. You ripped off hundreds of millions. I'm impressed. That's why we're having this little mano-a-mano. Question is, are you also generous?"

"We seem to have a tense problem, Manny."

"Maybe my English is not so good. What's that mean?"

"A bunch of former KGB goons stole my money and my businesses. The little that was left was seized by the FBI. I was rich, and now I'm broke."

Manny did not appear overly pleased with that response. He pushed his face within an inch of Alex's. "I'm not a man you want to lie to."

"Believe me, I know that."

Manny looked ready to whip out whatever was inside his pocket. "Yeah? Then you better-"

"Slow it down, Manny. Think about it. A man with hundreds of millions, would he be here, in this rotten excuse for a prison? This is America, land of the free and the brave, of all the justice you can afford. The rich boys are all eating steak and getting nice tans in the federal country clubs. I'm here, with you. Put two and two together."

Rather than respond to that, Manny glanced at the man standing to Alex's left, a large, hairy monster named Miguel. Physical appearances aside, Manny was the muscle, Miguel the brain. They had been longtime compadres in Cuba, arrived on the same miserable little boat, and for almost two decades had shared a cramped, smelly cell on the second floor. Manny had the top bunk and stayed out front. He did the bullying, the enforcement, bought off the guards, and terrified the other gangs. Miguel slept on the bottom, and spent most of his time in the library thinking up schemes and scams. It was he who researched Alex's background after the guard tipped them off. And it was he who devised this coarse plot to shake Alex down.

After a moment, Miguel leaned forward and butted in. "Were you really the cashbox behind Yeltsin?" Not a word about that had been mentioned in any of the many articles about Konevitch Miguel had read on the Internet.

Sensing the sudden shift in power, Alex turned and faced Miguel. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

"But maybe not, eh?"

"You're perceptive. After all, look where it got me," Alex replied, shrugging indifferently, as if he'd be as happy here, among these men, as lounging with a bunch of gorgeous ladies in skimpy bikinis at a Caribbean resort. He was nearly gagging on indifference. "The same former KGB thugs who stole my money put me here."

"Why they put you here, man?"

"They want me back in Russia, where they can get their hands on me, or dead."

"That right?" Miguel leaned his large bulk against the wall and thoughtfully twisted the small goatee at the end of his chin. With that admission this tall Russian had just made a fatal slip. A dozen questions suddenly popped into Miguel's mind. Would the Russians pay to have this guy whacked? Who did Miguel and his friends have to contact? How much was Konevitch worth dead? That was the big question.