Chuck started yelling. Loud, accusatory, and profane.

Chuck and Susan felt the weight of their own cab change as both the driver and the woman, knowing what was happening, bolted and fled, leaving their doors open.

Susan's voice, high and anguished, "What the-?"

Chuck's voice followed close, frenzied. "It's a trap!" he screamed.

With one hand, Chuck worked his door handle. It was locked.

His other hand groped for a gun, the one that he had chosen not to carry that night because so many of the clubs did searches. In his peripheral vision, he saw two men swiftly approaching the car. Dressed in black, they pulled down their ski masks, stealthy and efficient as a pair of urban panthers.

In his last moments, Chuck noticed that one of the men had an obvious nervous tic under the ski mask. And he recognized their weapons, Sig Sauer P226s. But he didn't have time to think about any of it. All he could think about was how the enemy had known that somehow he was unarmed that night. Then, in a final realization, that came together in his mind also. The woman they had met in the club. She had fixed their execution via her cell phone.

The gunmen lifted their weapons. Silencers.

In a final reflex for life, Chuck smashed his huge body against the car door to his side. It didn't budge. He swung an elbow and shattered the window. The gla.s.s tore into his sleeve and slashed his arm as the rest of the window poured to the asphalt. He groped wildly for the outer door handle and worked it.

No luck. The cab was a high tech roach motel. The door wasn't going anywhere and neither was Chuck.

The gunmen raised their weapons. Chuck and Susan raised their arms to protect themselves. They heard little past the first shots as their bodies exploded in searing pain.

The first volley of bullets tore into their arms.

Their screams and their blood filled the night. The next volley of shots ripped into their heads and necks. The rear door lock finally gave way when bullets tore apart the locking mechanism.

Chuck's body fell face down onto the street, his legs remaining in the taxi. Susan's body remained huddled against Chuck's but convulsed with each of a half dozen hits from the a.s.sa.s.sins' weapons. Their bodies were still moving slightly when one of the gunmen stepped forward and pumped two final bullets into each of their heads.

Then, working swiftly, the a.s.sa.s.sins dragged their bodies from the taxi to the van behind them. They loaded the corpses into the truck. As the gunmen disappeared into the night, one of the follow-up crew threw a gallon of gasoline on the stolen taxi. Then he threw a match. A mini-inferno followed; lights started to go on around the block and the team of killers fled the scene of the executions.

TWELVE.

A few hours after the sun rose in Washington, Alex sat in her office at Treasury and received the official word from her boss, Mike Gamburian. She was to rea.s.sign every other case on her docket and immerse herself in Ukrainian language and background immediately. She would have two days to wrap up current operations and complete their rea.s.signment to others. Half the cases she was happy to be rid of. And strangely enough, she was quickly coming around on the idea of getting back out into the field.

"As a precaution, you should visit the firing range again," Michael Cerny had also said, walking Alex to her car earlier in the day. "Colosimo's. You know the place, right?"

"I know it."

"Do you still have a weapon in good working order, or should we requisition a new one for you?"She had grown up around long weapons and had trained meticulously with handguns during her years with the FBI. But since she had come over to FinCen, target practice had been an extracurricular that she hadn't had much time for. Frankly, she had always enjoyed it and had missed not doing it. She was good at it.

"I have a Glock 9," she said. "It's only two years old."

"Excellent. I suppose you use it to keep the squirrels out of the bird feeder in your off hours."

"How did you know?"

"We know everything. Federal permit still valid?"

"If you know everything, you should know that."

"I'll take that as a yes," he said.

"Good idea."

"Then you're in business. I doubt that you'll see anything other than a few ceremonial cannons going off in Kiev," Cerny said, "but one can never be too cautious. Keep in mind, you won't be able to travel with your Glock. So if you need one in Ukraine, your control officer will need to deliver it to you."

"I understand," Alex answered.

"I do admire your att.i.tude," he said.

And in truth, with recurring images of the chainsawed auto in Lagos still in her mind, the opportunity to hit the firing range again could do no harm. Might as well pack some heat if she was going to a dangerous place. And during a presidential visit, the more friendly weapons in the area, the safer the president would be. At least, that was the theory.

To end the same day, Michael Cerny took Alex to another room in the State Department. There he introduced Alex to the woman who was to be her Ukrainian language instructor over the next two weeks.

Her name was Olga Liashko, and she was built like one of those Soviet tractors from the mid-1950s. She was a large thick woman, taller than Alex by half a head, wider by the same amount. She was somewhere in her sixties and had grown up during the Soviet era. It stood to reason that she hadn't led the easiest or happiest of lives. She had been raised in a military family from Odessa and spoke Ukrainian natively.

A ma.s.s of gray hair framed Olga's bulky face. The whites of her eyes were more pinkish than white, and she had heavy bags beneath both. She wore a work shirt like a blazer and had on a pair of men's painter's pants. Her stomach was low and chunky like an old man's. An idle but amusing thought shot back to Alex. A girlfriend in college used to call the condition Dunlap's disease. Her belly "done lapped"over her belt.

"Olga has been with us since emigrating in 1982," Cerny said helpfully. "She's FSI's top Ukrainian gal," he said, referring to the Foreign Service Inst.i.tute. "None better. Knows the language forward and back. Her dad was in the military in the big war. Olga will be your tutor. You start tomorrow afternoon."

Olga said nothing. Instead, she stared disapprovingly at the younger woman, running her gaze up and down. Alex was six inches shorter, and half her weight.

"Very nice to meet you," Alex said.

"Be prepared yourself to work hard, study hard, and including nights I advise you," Olga said. It was clear which language Olga would be teaching and which one she wouldn't.

The teacher handed Alex a Ukrainian language textbook. More homework. Cerny had arranged a special room in the State Department for the lessons so that they wouldn't have to go out to FSI in Virginia. He gave the room location.

Alex flicked through the book. It looked even more tedious than she had reckoned. Olga must have read her mind, because she snorted.

Alex looked up. She could tell: Olga didn't just have a chip on her big round shoulder, she had a couple of chips on each with plenty of room to spare.

Where does the government find these people? Alex wondered.

Wondered, but didn't ask.

"I'm looking forward to the lessons," Alex said.

It was that most unusual of statements for her: an outright lie.

THIRTEEN.

At 8:00 that evening, Alex presented herself to Colosimo's. She checked in with her federal permit and waited for her turn on the firing range. She had not used her weapon for several months. She purchased a new box of nine-millimeter ammunition. She had a respectful relationship with firearms-she had drawn her weapon many times but had never had to fire one against another human being. She prayed that she never would.

But she knew she could, if necessary. Her possession of a weapon in the line of duty for the FBI had been a professional necessity. She might have been dead without it. And tonight, she just plain felt like blasting away at some paper targets.

At half past the hour, in a heavy white UCLA sweatshirt, her new basketball sneakers, and a pair of red Umbro soccer shorts, she took her place on a firing line. Trim, twenty-nine, and with long legs that seemed chiseled from all the workouts, she drew the usual set of approving and admiring glances from the predominantly male clientele.

Though flattered, she ignored it. She also made sure she also had her goggles and an anti-noise headset. An agent she knew had once practiced on a range without the ear protection and been cursed with permanent ringing in the ears from then on. Heaven knew there was no apparel s.e.xier than those two items.

She opted for bull's eye targets, the old-fashioned ones with concentric circles, rather than a man-shaped target. The target was twenty-five yards away. Before shooting, she fiddled with the two adjusting screws across the top sight until they appeared to be fixed just right.

The range was warm. She ditched the sweatshirt and was down to a blue and gold UCLA T-shirt. Much more comfortable.

She hadn't held the Glock for several weeks. It felt different in her hand, as if it were ready to fight her. She adopted the ungainly squat ting position that had been standard for shooters for the past several decades, raised the pistol in both hands, held it forward, and focused on the sights with her right eye; she didn't close the left, but paid no attention to what it saw, not that anyone ever can aim a pistol in a quick draw combat situation.

Front sight. Front sight.

That was the key, one FBI instructor had told her once, the rock upon which the Church of Almighty Handguns was built. A shooter had to see the front sight and let the target remain hazy in the background.

Otherwise, might as well call in an air strike.

So, front sight, front sight.

In the notch of the rear sight, a frame, she saw the bull's eye of the target.

Her hand was steady. She squeezed the trigger, fighting the temptation to flinch. Even under the headset, the blast of the weapon was frightful. The recoil was less than expected, however, and her aim had been near perfect on the first shot. Not bad after a long layoff.

She fired six more rounds quickly and succinctly.

She brought the target forward.

Wow! She was pleased. Pretty good for a chick who hadn't fired a shot in many weeks. Three hits right in the center. The others were off by less than an inch. She should do this for a living.

She sent the target back and reloaded, firing another seven rounds. Even better. One shot on the perimeter of the smallest circle, the others within it.

A real life shootout didn't usually allow the luxury of a studied methodical aim, so she quickly graduated to a more challenging shooting pattern. She would raise the weapon quickly, no time to aim, and try to hit the center of the target.

This she did with great skill as well.

She had, in fact, forgotten how good she was at this. She continued on the range for another twenty minutes. Her skills were in excellent shape, she decided. She was more than pleased.

She went through two boxes of ammunition. Seventy-two shots, then stopped. She didn't want her wrist to be sore the next day. She had done enough. She turned.

An even larger group of guys was watching her, their jaws open in admiration. Must have been a dozen of them. When she caught them looking, she was at first slightly resentful, then almost embarra.s.sed.

Then they gave her an impromptu round of applause and a couple of "good ol' boy" whoops of approval. She was their type of female, at least for the moment. She shook her head, laughed, and accepted the compliments.

"Beginner's luck," she said, carefully locking her weapon in its case.

"Yeah. Some beginner," one of the younger guys said knowingly.

"Do they all shoot like that at UCLA?" another one asked.

"Only on the basketball court. Have a good evening, boys," she said.

And she disappeared.

FOURTEEN.

She phoned Robert from her car. He was home, following a difficult shift at the White House. Some wacko had breached the security at one of the side fences by climbing over and making a run for the Rose Garden.

The nut case hadn't gotten more than twenty feet when he was tackled. But such occurrences always ramped up the anxiety level of the entire Presidential Protection Detail. And of course, investigations had to follow and the breach needed to be studied. One never knew whether one small incident was a prelude to something larger. In the post-9/11 world, acute paranoia was the new normal.

"So I'll bring dinner over. How's that?" she asked Robert. "We'll have dinner; then I have to scoot. I have this Ukrainian stuff to study and a final FBI report to read."

"Dinner would be great," he said.

She picked up some Thai takeout for dinner after leaving Colosimo's.

Robert lived at a big apartment complex on Dupont Circle, a building known as the Bang Bang Hotel because there were so many well-armed government security people living there and so many single women. It was two blocks away from the Iraqi consulate.

They split dinner. They lingered together for a while afterward, but Alex was back at her place by midnight.

She showered and spent half an hour looking at her Ukrainian books and working with one of Olga's CDs. What an unforgiving language. Not like French with its charm, English with its complexities, Italian with its musicality, or Spanish with its history. But the tough parts-the existence of "perfective" and "imperfective" and the whole tangle relating to verbs of motion-were the same as in Russian, so at least Alex wasn't starting cold.

To ingratiate herself with her teacher, she made a point of memorizing several phrases in the fifth chapter. She found that she could concoct a primitive conversation with reasonable ease.

Ja vpershe u vashij krajini. I'm in your country for the first time.

Ne serdytesja na mene. Please, don't be angry with me.

Toward 1:00 a.m., she thought she heard a sound at her front door, almost like someone trying the k.n.o.b. Cautiously, she went to the door and looked through the peephole. She relaxed. It was her neighbor, Don Toms, the retired diplomat, wandering in, a little tipsy, humming a Lucero tune, his keys clicking against his own door.

She rechecked her own locks. She brewed a decaf cup of tea. She settled down at her kitchen table, positioning herself where she could see the door.