Authors: Brian Haig
J
ohn Tromble was a man in a hurry. He had raced through a few years as a federal prosecutor, then sprinted through five more
of a federal judgeship, and now was midway in his third year as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—the youngest
ever, he reminded you quickly, in the event you failed to bring it up. He quickly stretched his long legs and speed-read a
little more of the thick dossier produced by his staff in preparation for this trip.
He planned to spend another two years in this job, make a big splash, then pole-vault to the next level. A vice presidential
candidacy wasn’t out of the question; a senatorship should be easy pickings. Or barring that, open a private security firm
and quickly haul in millions. With a mountain of cash, he could do whatever he wished. He read quickly, ate quickly, slept
in a hurry, even had sex at astonishing speed. Everything he did, full speed ahead.
The plane was thirty minutes out from Sheremetyevo Airport, which apparently was on the outskirts of Moscow. If he were flying
this damn thing he’d sure as hell find a way to make it in fifteen minutes.
Having slept since Washington, he had woken up thirty minutes before, showered, shaved, and slapped on a freshly pressed suit.
He stole a quick glance in the mirror before he left the special cabin of this very special plane to make his final preparations
for this very special trip. The rear of the plane was stuffed with as many American reporters as his aides and cronies could
entice or cajole and cram aboard. The press would be shoved off five minutes before him. Oh yes, there they would be, a large,
impatient mob at the bottom of the steps, snapping away as he made his majestic descent, capturing shot after shot of his
photogenic face. The remains of a low-cal breakfast sat on the tray above his lap. He was sipping quickly and noisily from
a bottled water, nose buried in the dossier, straining to avoid conversation.
Across from him sat Laura Tingleman, attorney general, and putatively his boss. She had worked through the entire flight since
they lifted off from Andrews Air Force base twelve hours before. She was crumpled into her seat with her nose stuffed in her
BlackBerry. She looked wrinkled, tired, and wrung out. She was a large, heavy, unimpressive-looking type, fifty years old,
though she appeared a very poorly kept sixty, with a broad face that managed, somehow, always to convey panic.
This first year in her job had been unfortunate. For one thing, she was, quite publicly, the president’s fourth choice. This
happened only after it was revealed that choice one was doing the bedsheet tango with his underage nanny; Tromble had seen
her, and to the man’s credit, the nanny did not in fact look at all as if she was only fourteen; more like sixteen. This happened
only after it was disclosed that choice two had taken numerous fat bribes from several very crooked oil companies. This happened
only after it was discovered that choice three, a superior court judge in California, had spent his misguided youth dodging
the draft, calling cops pigs, stuffing all nature of questionable substances up his snout, and barbecuing American flags.
Perfect qualifications for a judgeship in California, but the rest of the country did not embrace his background.
After these train wrecks, Laura Tingleman had been found tucked away in a backcountry Montana circuit court, a low-key, competent
judge who handled mostly divorces and small-time land disputes. Little to no political experience, no national exposure, zero
controversial decisions, no overturned verdicts—all in all, Laura Tingleman was as apt to raise as much controversy as chicken
soup. No bad habits, as best they could tell. Never married, thus never divorced; in fact, the lead FBI investigator who rummaged
through her background even surmised that she might be a fifty-year-old virgin, if such a thing existed. Best of all, she
was a woman! The first ever nominated for attorney general, and feminist leaders around the country growled that whoever opposed
her would face a backlash of historic proportions.
It helped that she was a nice person, if deeply out of her depth, polite, respectful, and deeply religious, though not a zealot.
Her nomination sailed through without a hitch.
Tromble detested her. There was room for only one legal superstar in this administration, one shining protector of America
from the crooks, terrorists, and perverts who lurked in the dark shadows. And he, after all, was the whiz kid who came up
the hard way through intellectual brilliance, sharp elbows, and unrelenting work. Yale undergrad, Harvard Law, and he had
done his time in the legal trenches; she had been plucked out of Nowhere, Montana, for the plain and simple reason that she
had no disputable accomplishments, or indeed any accomplishments at all.
And though it was true he had not been a popular prosecutor or judge, he had been greatly feared. The exception was cops,
who adored him because he hammered defense attorneys and meted out terrifying sentences. His record of overturned verdicts
was shocking.
In fact, the New York appellate court, tired of an exhausting docket overloaded with his weekly brutality, was about to serve
notice of a review hearing when news broke that he was somehow, incredibly, on the president’s short list for FBI director.
The appellate judges were appalled. They gathered together in a private chamber and considered whether to blow the whistle
on a judge they regarded as little short of a Nazi. No, no, one wise, notably liberal senior justice advised with a deep smile;
don’t shovel manure in a gift horse’s mouth; at least John Tromble would be out of their hair. They could look forward again
to being home by dinnertime and Friday golf.
In the expiring days of his outgoing presidency, the incumbent’s predecessor, normally a moderate who had appointed two mild
liberals to the Supreme Court, had spent his last political capital on the Hill to get Tromble this job. He took charge of
ushering the appointment personally, called in every chit, used up every threat, and bent elbows until the sound of arms cracking
thundered around the Senate. It was his finest hour. Had he poured that kind of energy and spirited determination into running
the country, that southern governor who shellacked him at the polls would be back chasing skirts around some small southern
town.
He was leaving his successor a poisoned chalice—a bundle of combustible, no-holds-barred, law-and-order ambition who would
steamroll anything or anybody in his path, he confided to his chief of staff in a giggly private moment. He intended to sit
back in his retirement and laugh at all the trouble John Tromble caused that southern boy. It was going to be horrendous.
And now, after two fairly low-key years in office, two years that were sadly unacclaimed, Judge Tromble had decided the time
had come to kick it up a notch. Crime rates had dropped substantially under his watch, but the liberal press loathed him and
credited a hundred other causes—from a diminishing appetite for crack, to all the hardened crooks already rotting in prison,
to a religious revival in the Deep South and Midwest. He needed something—anything—they could not misinterpret or take away
from him. He needed a signature issue, and he turned his fiercely impatient eyes on America’s newest threat—international
crime, foreign crooks on American soil, or maybe a little off it. First up, the Russian Mafiya.
Unfortunately for Alex and Elena Konevitch, their fates now rested in the hands of an attorney general in search of sea legs,
and an FBI director with omnivorous ambitions and a few fairly strange ideas about justice.
The long line of limos cruised to a stop on the cobblestone plaza. Tromble’s aides and coatholders—the fanny-wiping brigade
they were called by the jaded field agents—tumbled out in an unruly mass, took a moment to get organized, then were ushered
quickly through the historic Kremlin doors, up two flights of stairs, and directly into the cavernous office of Anatoli Fyodorev,
Russia’s attorney general.
Introductions were handled briskly in a no-nonsense fashion. Several of Fyodorev’s stone-faced assistants were gathered around
the office walls, not introduced. Among them stood a very striking young lady in a breathtakingly short skirt who smiled nicely
as the procession entered.
Fyodorev sat down on a tall chair behind a desk that looked bigger than Finland. Two chairs—little more than small stools,
actually—were positioned before the desk. After a moment of confusion, Tingleman and Tromble edged precariously onto the chairs.
Their knees were nearly in their faces, their elbows almost on the floor. They were forced to stare up at Fyodorev.
A representative from the American embassy took a standing position slightly behind them, notepad in one hand, pen poised
in the other. They had been assured that Fyodorev’s English was exceptional—translation was neither needed nor wanted. The
embassy flunky’s real job was to take detailed notes, and pay careful attention to anything the professional diplomats would
have to clean up afterward. Shovel duty.
Fyodorev was the host and he opened with a long windy soliloquy about how, national differences aside, they were all in the
same business. To wit, law enforcement. Spiritual brothers and sisters. Bonded by their common enmity to criminals, and so
on, and so forth—etcetera and double etcetera.
Fyodorev eventually wrapped up and Tromble summoned his important face and, before Tingleman could utter a word, quickly announced,
“We’re here to discuss bilateral cooperation in matters of crime.”
“A nice term,” Fyodorev noted dryly. “What does it mean?”
“Well… for starters, I’d like to offer you a few slots each year for your people to attend our FBI Academy.”
“Why? Is it better than ours?”
The State Department flunky dashed off a few heavy notes on his legal pad. With limited success, he tried to keep the smirk
off his face. Boy, this was going to be fun.
“I… well, yes, probably. It has a certain reputation. Also, we think you might want to place some of your people in our profiling
center down at Quantico.”
Fyodorev’s elbows landed heavily on his desk. “Explain this term, ‘profiling.’”
“It’s, um, well, it refers to specialists who employ psychiatry to get inside criminal minds. We’ve found it quite effective.
Serial killers, for example, tend to exhibit complementary patterns. If you can figure that out, you can stop them and find
them.”
A dismissive grin. “Russia has no serial killers.”
“Works pretty good against serial rapists, also. Or serial arsonists, if you have any of those.”
“We have neither. Those are American problems.”
The State guy was now composing entire paragraphs.
Who is this guy kidding? Tromble thought. He was sure his leg was being pulled and he laughed. Fyodorev developed a very deep
frown.
The hottie in the short skirt suddenly shoved herself off the wall and moved to a position beside Fyodorev’s desk. She said
to him, “Anatoli, we’re being terrible hosts. It’s been a long, tiring trip for our American guests. Maybe they would like
coffee.”
Whoever she was, she had an interesting relationship with Fyodorev, because his demeanor turned on a dime. The angered frown
converted instantly into a gracious smile. “Yes… yes, you’re right. Coffee, anybody?”
Tromble said yes, black, no sugar, no cream. Laura chose tea, doused with sugar and cream. One of the aides shoved off from
the wall and scurried off to retrieve the refreshments.
The young lady with the glorious legs slid around the desk and, with a glowing smile and firm handshake, introduced herself.
Tatyana something-or-other—she explained she worked not here, in the attorney general’s office, but upstairs, for his boss.
She was a lawyer who frequently advised Yeltsin on legal matters. This seemed to justify her presence.
“Why don’t we all adjourn to the conference table?” she suggested, quite hospitably.
Why not? For sure, the current arrangement was a bust. They shifted from their stools and desks to comfortable chairs abutting
a huge walnut block table by a large window. Tingleman and Tromble sat side by side, in an uncomfortable silence.
Miss Tatyana Whoever sat closely beside Fyodorev on the other side of the long, gleaming table. They made small talk about
the flight and weather and a dozen other uninteresting topics. Once the coffees and teas were delivered and the room had cooled
to a level of moderate tension, Tatyana said, “Let’s not beat around the bush. What is it you’d really like to discuss?”
Tromble’s briefing papers, prepared by a bunch of stuffy eggheads over at State, had stipulated that the Russians were consummate
horse traders. Never arrive empty-handed: give a little, get a little. In that spirit, he had started—more accurately, he
had tried to start—by offering them a few handsome concessions before he got down to his own request.
But if she could come right to the point, so could he. “Your Mafiya,” he said very importantly.
“What about them?”
“Since the wall came down, they’ve become your biggest export. They’re crawling all over our cities. They’ve turned Miami
into a free-fire zone. Brighton Beach is a funeral parlor.” Tromble worked up a nasty grimace. “They’re a very nasty lot.”
“Tell me about it,” Fyodorev said, shaking his head with disgust. “Total vermin. The most ruthless, brutal criminals in the
world.”
“Yes, so we’re learning,” Tingleman replied, slightly irritated, not really clued in to what her FBI director had in mind
for this visit. She had been told it was no more than a diplomatic meet-and-greet, part of the required protocol for her office,
a chance to get away from the daily grind of Washington. “Our own Italian Mafiosi are civilized gentlemen compared to your
guys. With your people, no finesse, no rules, no attractive traditions. They kill over nothing.”
“We’re not proud of them,” Fyodorev replied with an uneven shrug.
“I’m under great pressure from my president to do something about them,” Tromble insisted, regaining the initiative.