Ridgeway rolled his eyes as he pushed up from the bed and walked over to the coffee table.

“You’re a maniac,” Ridgeway said. “You and your friend there.” He filled his plastic cup with coffee. “This isn’t the first time I’ve heard people talk like this. ‘Oh, we can’t afford principles now,’ ” Ridgeway mimicked Stratton’s voice. “The criminals and crazies have got control. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary people. That’s what the Nazis said and every Communist and right-wing dictator.

“I’ve heard it all before,” Ridgeway said. “In the squad room, on the streets, at muster. I’ve even thought about it seriously. I’ve even been tempted to act outside the law in order to enforce what I thought was justice, but that would have made me a criminal, not a cop. You can be one or the other, but never both. You’re a cop of sorts, Stratton. Maybe you ought to start behaving like one.”

Stratton’s face reflected the world-wise smile of a whore enduring a Salvation Army lecture.

“Ordinarily I’d agree with you,” Stratton countered. “But the facts in this situation are unique. It’s such a strange story that I have trouble believing it.”

“Why don’t you try out some of the facts on me for starters,” Ridgeway said. “Let me see if I can give you a new perspective on things.”

“I can’t tell you unless you agree not to reveal anything you hear,” Stratton said.

“Now, you know I’m not going to agree to that,” Ridgeway said, exasperated. “So why don’t you lay down your book of regulations and your threats and your secret classifications for a while and tell me something I might believe?”

A sudden blast of rain slammed against the wall of the motel room and rattled like buckshot. The men fell silent, listening to the fury outside. “I can tell you the truth,” Stratton said finally, “but you may have a hard time believing it.” Ridgeway searched the man’s wide, open face, looking for signs of deception. If the SOB’s lying, Ridgeway thought, he’s a damned good actor.

“I’ll settle for the truth,” Ridgeway said after a pause.

Stratton’s head bobbed in grateful acknowledgment. He looked at his feet and chewed on his lower lip. Suddenly Ridgeway saw, not the evil manipulator of moments before, but a thoughtful, almost professional man gathering his thoughts. “My unit of the NSA has intercepted a lot of traffic that’s somehow connected with a KGB/Moscow Mafia operation involving looted Nazi art and some kind of religious artifact. Because of the steady series of financial crises, word has gone out that Mother Russia needs hard Western currency. The government’s desperate and they’ll take dollars, deutsche marks—whatever they can get by whatever means they can get it, no questions asked.

“Our information is sketchy, mostly what we could piece together from intercepted cables and taped telephone conversations. Our sources tell us that there are a lot of these kinds of operations going, looking for cash by any means. Well, it turns out that one of these desperation operations involves a group of KGB and its Mafia allies who are associated with Zhirinovsky’s Falcons—those are the guys who almost got you this morning. Like everybody else, they’re looking for money, but this group of sweethearts stumbled over old intelligence reports concerning some paintings looted by the Nazis in World War II. The paintings are worth enough to bail out Russia almost single-handedly. But more importantly, one of the paintings was somehow used by the Nazis to blackmail the Vatican during the war.”