The Hunted

"I have a vague memory of the name." A well-feigned expression of dawning recognition. "Oh, yes, I think I do remember. A chubby little boy covered with pimples. Obviously, he looks different now. We were all so young back then."

Her boss swallowed a deep sip of sherry, then bit down hard on his lip. "How about a little music before we retire, dear?"

"Something romantic would be nice." She sipped carefully from her sherry, trying not to vomit. Poor, poor Sasha. She stared out at the city lights and tried hard not to imagine how her boytoy looked with a blown-up nose and only one ear. She failed miserably. The image just wouldn't disappear.

Her boss moved to the entertainment console, gritted his teeth, punched play on the tape machine, and waited for the sound of romance to start.

A moment later came the sounds of Tatyana and her freshly disfigured Sasha thrashing in the sheets and prattling away about what a disgusting, nauseating dork her boss was.

Tatyana spun around. She and her boss looked at each other for a moment, he with his eyes narrowed into betrayed slits, she unable to close her mouth. The damning tape droned on.

Tatyana screamed, "What in the hell is that?" She knew damn well what it was. Disaster. Her apartment was bugged. Some nosy-body had been listening and, worse, recording. But for how long? Who? How sloppy had she been, how much dirt was on those dreadful tapes?

She quickly ended up with the one question all lawyers ask at a moment like this: how screwed am I?

"That?" he answered, jerking down the volume. "Oh, just the sound of you being fired."

"What? You can't."

He smiled. "Yes, I definitely can. Listen, it's fun. I'll do it again-you're fired." He pushed stop, and they stared at each other. Then, once more, because he loved the sound of it, "You're fired."

The snifter of sherry tumbled out of her hand, landed on the marble floor, and crashed into a thousand tiny shards. An apt metaphor to what was happening to her life. She bounced out of her chair, stamped a foot, and said, "Don't be a fool. Without me, you won't last two minutes. I've been carrying you for three years."

"I won't deny it."

"While you and your pal Yeltsin have been keeping the vodka industry afloat, who do you think's been keeping the office running?"

"Won't deny that, either. You worked like a dog."

She tried a smile. "Look, darling, we can get past this."

"I already have. I hired your replacement this afternoon. A real clever young fellow with endless energy and an incredible knack for organization. He'll be happily seated behind your desk in the morning."

"You bastard."

"You bitch."

She grabbed her coat and began stomping for the door. She threw it open with a loud crash and immediately three men in blue uniforms lunged at her. They spun Tatyana around and slapped cuffs on her wrists. She tried screaming and thrashing, but it had no effect, and she soon stopped.

Her boss watched with fierce satisfaction, then mentioned to his former lover, "Ooops, did I fail to mention there's a second tape?"

A second tape? She was suddenly sure she was going to become sick.

"I turned it over to our new attorney general. It's you talking with your crooked friends about all your illegal schemes." He mocked her with a loud laugh. "Hey, you know what else? Maybe I failed to mention that your stooge Fyodorev was also fired and arrested this afternoon."

"You lousy bastard."

"A postcard from prison would be nice. Be sure to let me know where you land." So many of them were gathered in such a tight two-block circumference, it resembled a convention of killers. There were strutting pros with big-league experience, an all-star team of deadly assassins. A clutch of third-rate mobsters ambling for their first kill. And a sprinkling of ambitious young amateurs hoping to get lucky. It was every man to himself, or herself-a few women's suffrage types were lurking in the shadows as well.

They hung out in parked cars and vans, smoking and sipping coffee, eyeing Nicky's hideout, waiting for a break. Going inside was ill-fated stupidity. This had been tried rather unsuccessfully by one bold idiot before he was driven off by a furious hail of bullets. About twenty of Nicky's bodyguards were in there, armed to the teeth, guarding their turf. Poachers weren't welcome. A few snipers were perched on rooftops, fighting off the cold. The apartment building across the street from Nicky's holdout, a real dump, had suddenly experienced an unaccustomed flood of subleases. Responding to loud knocks on the doors, the inhabitants found themselves confronted by tough-looking men shoving thousands into their fists for what was promised would be a brief dislocation. The far side of the hall, the one that did not face Nicky's safehouse, couldn't draw any interest at any price.