February 16, 1998. 8:20 a.m.
St. Petersburg, Russia

ALEXEI SOKOLOV LEANED BACK against the headrest of his new Volvo sedan and held his cellular phone tight against his ear. He was in the passenger seat and watched as his driver, Fyodor, expertly drove into the city.

"Dobroye utro," he said. "Good morning. This is Sokolov. Is Anatoly in the office yet?"

"Good morning, sir," said the receptionist at GlobusBank. "No. Mister Dorokhin has not arrived."

Sokolov checked his watch. It was almost eight-thirty in the morning. Anatoly, his deputy at GlobusBank, should have arrived a half-hour ago. There was a meeting starting at nine with officials from the European Development Bank regarding financing for the renovation of a historical building on Nevsky Prospect in the heart of St. Petersburg. The building had been vacant for forty years and GlobusBank was entering into a partnership with an American development group, Olen Europe, to do a historical renovation. Sokolov needed a last-minute report from Anatoly on the current status of GlobusBank's projection with the addition of the Value Added Tax in response to the Duma's new tax laws.

"I'll be there shortly," Sokolov said, letting his annoyance bleed into his voice. "Tell Anatoly to call me on my cellular phone if he gets there in the next few minutes."

"Yes, sir," the secretary said.

Sokolov closed his eyes and felt the motion of the car as his driver accelerated into the central city. There were always problems. He should have fired Anatoly months ago.

"Is anything the matter?" asked a soft voice from the back seat.

Sokolov turned in his seat and looked back at his wife. Masha was more beautiful at thirty-eight than she had been twenty years before, when they met at the university. Her long hair was black, her eyes a sparkling green. Though she had had two children, she maintained a youthful vitality.

"The usual, darling," Sokolov said, forcing a smile. "Incompetence and laziness."

"You are hard on them," she replied with a sympathetic smile.

The car slowed, and Sokolov turned to look. Traffic was crawling alongside one of the city's canals. Sokolov took a deep breath. Masha could always calm him with a word, a gesture. She understood him better than anyone.

He was forty-one now, and he had lived in St. Petersburg all his life. So much had changed since he was a young boy in the Pioneers and the Komsomol. He and Masha had once shared a small apartment in the city, where they lived on her schoolteacher's wages and his salary as a bureaucrat in the City Property Committee.

In the short time since the dissolving of the Soviet Union, old roles had fallen away with new ones created out of fresh cloth. Sokolov had been well-placed in the city government when a series of private banks were founded in Russia. Within five years he had become the president of the St. Petersburg branch of GlobusBank-which was operated and owned out of Moscow by one of the country's new elite billionaires. Sokolov's new position had brought him money and prestige. He now oversaw an operation that functioned on the profit motive, a new idea for a citizenry that had previously lived under central government control in a command economy. Some people had fallen into obscurity and poverty when the change came and were unable to adapt their ways and seize new opportunities. Sokolov had not been one of them.

Sokolov's driver cursed under his breath as he pulled into the heavy traffic on Nevsky Prospect, the city's most renowned central street. St. Petersburg had been designed long before the invention of the car. Traffic was congested and harried, and driving there required a daunting combination of skilled reflexes and aggression.

He turned around to look at Masha. "So are you going shopping after you drop me off at the office?"

Masha nodded yes. "Could you please stop by the athletic sports store?" he asked. "They should have that new pair of Nike running shoes I ordered."

"I'll remember," Masha said with a small smile.

"Also, look for that mathematics computer program for the children," he added. "I want Dmitri and Mila staying ahead of their classmates."

"I'll buy the software," Masha replied. "But good luck getting Dmitri to use it. All he wants to do is draw and paint."

Sokolov snorted with good-natured derision. "I want my children to have the tools for success," he said. "Drawing is well and good. But business puts food on the table and a roof over our head."

Masha gave him the same indulgent look she always had, ever since their college days. Sokolov felt she both agreed with him and humored him as though he were still an opinionated young man.

"That look of yours," he said, reaching back to brush his fingers under her chin. "You know I am right. I am always right."

"Of course you are, darling," she said, laughing softly.

Sokolov turned around again. The traffic had ground to a halt. He enjoyed sparring with Masha, but he was right. New opportunities were appearing all over Russia. But it took energy and creativity, along with a solid education, to meet them. His son, Dmitri, was a smart boy. But this was not the time for drawing and playing with clay. Those who did not participate in the new economy would be lost.

"What is this?" Fyodor said under his breath.

Traffic was moving around them and coursing down Nevsky toward the winding Neva River. Their Volvo remained stopped. A black Mercedes was stopped in front of them and blocked the way.

Sokolov checked his watch. "Go around," he ordered Fyodor. "The fool must have broken down. Come on, I can't be late."

Fyodor threw the car in reverse and looked in the mirror.

"Come on," Sokolov demanded. "What's the matter?"

He turned around and looked out the back window. He saw what was keeping Fyodor from pulling away: A second car, also a Mercedes, was stopped behind them. They were blocked from the front and also from the back.

Masha saw the look in her husband's eyes. "What is it? What's happening?"

Sokolov turned and saw three young men getting out of the car in front. They were all stocky, their hair cut short, their faces impassive as they walked around to the Volvo's passenger side.

Each one reached into his coat.

Sokolov saw flashes of metal.

"Get down!" he cried out to Masha, straining against his seat belt.

Beside him, Fyodor opened his own door and dropped out of the car onto the pavement.

Sokolov heard the sound of glass breaking. It was his window.

Alexei Sokolov heard a series of harsh cracks, sounds that seemed to come from someplace far away. He felt a terrible pain in the center of his body that radiated outward. I'm being shot. He saw a flash of color, a roar, then nothing at all as his world turned to black.