He bent down and pulled off Golitsin's shoes, then yanked off his socks. The plump white toes were wiggling, trying to curl under his feet. Vladimir carefully selected the big toe on the right foot. Using two strong fingers, he clamped the toe, poised the saw, then looked up. "I should warn you that I get a little carried away. Once I take one, I generally get all ten. You can answer everything, and I just can't stop," he warned, looking slightly remorseful. "It's, oh, I don't know, something wrong inside my head."

"Okay, okay, I have the money. Don't… oh, please, don't touch that toe."

Vladimir gave the toe a little pinch. Golitsin nearly bucked out of the chair. "Switzerland. A Swiss bank," he muttered in a fast rush.

"You wouldn't be lying, would you? I hate liars."

"No, no, I swear. Switzerland."

"What bank?"

A momentary hesitation and Vladimir suddenly had the saw pressed firmly on the flesh, right at the base of the big toe. "Lucerne National. All of it. Every penny."

"How much?"

"Two hundred."

The saw bit ever so lightly into his flesh.

"All right, all right… 220."

"You blew thirty million already?" Vladimir looked like he was ready to just whack the toe off. Nothing to do with disbelief, just anger.

"I'm… I'm sorry."

"I'm sure you are, Sergei. Now the hard questions."

Golitsin couldn't take his eyes off the saw.

"Are you ready, or should I just cut now?"

"No, please no. Ask anything."

"The account and security code numbers. Concentrate. What are they?"

"I… I don't have them in my head. My office. We have to go to my office."

Whack, whack, whack.

"Oh, God, all right." And like that, a fast rush of numbers spilled out of his lips.

As he spoke, another man, this one hiding in a back room, punched the numbers into a laptop computer, and they shot like lightning bolts through the Internet, straight to a large mainframe in Zurich. It took two minutes before the money-225 million and change, it turned out-was shunted into a new account, in a different Swiss bank, coincidentally only two blocks down from Lucerne National.

The man with the computer stuck his large ponytailed head out of the doorway. He gave Vladimir a thumbs-up.

"What will you do with me?" Golitsin asked.

"Why would I do anything with you?"

"You mean you're not going to kill me?"

"You know what? My instructions aren't real clear on that point." Vladimir stroked his chin and played at indecision for a moment. "You're broke now. A fat has-been loser with nothing to fall back on but a tiny pension and the tragic memory that once you were rich. Should I worry about you?"

"No, absolutely not. Definitely, no. You're right, you've ruined my life. I'm nothing, a sorry loser. I don't even know who you are," he lied.

"Well, I'm not so sure." The man dug a hand deep into his coat pocket. He appeared to be fishing around for something. Perhaps a gun or a knife. "Maybe, just to be on the safe side, maybe I should-"

"No, please," Golitsin pleaded, and words kept spilling out his lips. "I'll leave Russia. I promise, I'll be on the next train. I'll disappear and you'll never hear from me again. Please let me live."

The man stared at him with an impenetrable expression for a moment, then finally he shrugged his thick shoulders. "I guess it saves the trouble of what to do with your big, fat corpse."

Golitsin nearly groaned with relief. "Yes, exactly. I don't want to be a burden to you."

"Around nine in the morning the workers in the factory across the street come to work. Scream loud and hard, Sergei. Who knows, maybe they'll come and save you."

The tools were packed back inside the case, and within five minutes Vladimir and his boys had turned off the lights and scattered into the night.

After half an hour, Golitsin tried his hardest to close his eyes and float away into sleep. He so badly wanted to sleep. The fear and terror left him drained and exhausted, but he couldn't shut his eyes. The anger and resentment kept bubbling up. By 9:30 the next morning, he would make Nicky pay dearly for every humiliating moment, and for every dollar the bastard stole. He wasn't sure just how yet. It would be slow and horrible, though. And very, very painful; he promised himself this.

He leaned back on the chair and dreamed of Nicky's death. The rumor started early that evening. Moscow's underworld loved rumors almost as much as gossip, the juicier the better, and this one took off like a rabbit with its ass on fire. By midnight it was bouncing through brothels, thug hangouts, drug dens, was being murmured by pickpockets on the street, and becoming a consuming point of interest in the bars frequented by the city's syndicate chiefs, who at that hour were just starting their day.

Somebody wanted Nicky Kozyrev dead. Somebody deeply serious; serious in the way that counted most in this town, serious enough to back up this gripping desire with big money. This was the salient point. This kept the rumor roaring all night. Five million dollars-five million to make Nicky's heart stop. Unconditionally, up to the assassin's discretion, nothing off-limits, no bounds-by bullet, by car accident, by poison, who cared? A stake through his black heart had a nice ring but dead in any form was fine. Five million excellent reasons for Nicky Kozyrev to die.

Three syndicate chiefs had been contacted by a Chechen mob that had been hired as underwriters by the source of this generous venture. For good and obvious cause, the benefactor preferred to remain anonymous. A select group of witnesses were invited to a small apartment in the city center, five suitcases of cash were hauled out of a closet and opened for display, though it was far too much to count. But for sure it looked like more than enough. This is it, they were told-this is what five million dollars looks like, up close and personal. Not an empty promise, no bluff, the real deal. Now get out and spread the word.

In a city where five thousand bucks will buy you all the corpses you wish, five million was going to kick-start a gold rush of assassins.

A few bookies put their heads together and gave thought to creating a betting pool. Nope, why bother? There were no competing odds. Open and shut. At five million bucks, Nicky was dead.

At three that morning, Nicky's chief bodyguard-his most trusted lieutenant, a lifelong friend from the same impoverished back alley of Novgorod-gently eased open Nicky's bedroom door and peeked inside. They had raped and killed and pushed dope together for three long, enjoyable decades. They had dodged the cops and KGB, swindled, murdered, and beaten too many to remember. Oh, the warm memories they shared. He snuck quietly inside. He hugged the wall, crept ever so slowly, never setting foot off the carpet. Nicky liked dark rooms. Nicky wouldn't sleep anywhere with windows, and this one was like a coffin. Nicky's loud snores bounced off the walls. The whore sprawled across his legs was shot so full of heroin she wouldn't have heard a T-80 tank pass three inches from her ear.

A pistol was in the bodyguard's right hand with a round chambered and the silencer screwed on tight. A pencil flashlight was in his left hand, with a finger poised to turn it on at the last second. He was ten feet away. Then five and the pistol came up. At two feet away, he suddenly felt something kick him in the chest. He flew backward, smashed against the wall, and crumpled in a bleeding heap on the floor. It was funny, he thought; he never heard the blast until a millisecond after his left lung blew out his back.

A moment later, Nicky was over him, peering down through the darkness into his eyes.

"It hurt?"

"Yeah, like a bitch."

"Why?" Nicky asked.

"Five million," his best friend managed to grunt.

"From who?"