“And good night to you, too, Holly. Sweet dreams.” They both hung up.

—

In the United States, in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., fax machines began to ring and be answered, followed shortly by an exchange of phone calls between high government officials. The national editor of a newspaper faxed a document to his editor in chief, who scrawled the words “Fact-check this to within an inch of its life” across the document and faxed it to another editor, who faxed it to his best fact-checker.

The following afternoon, at his desk, the editor looked up to see his fact-checker approaching. “This is good stuff,” she said, handing him the document. “And it’s supported by the public record. I had to pay a translator two hundred bucks to check the Moscow papers, though.”

“I won’t take it out of your pay,” the editor said. He picked up the phone and called James Towbin. “Jim,” he said, “your news item is pure gold. Would you like the deep personal satisfaction of publishing it under your byline?”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” Towbin said.

“I believe Mr. Tirov is about to sign with a major studio, is that correct?”

“According to my best information,” Towbin replied.

“You might call a couple of people there for comment.”

“Certainly.”

“And when it goes to press, you can put it on the wire service, too.”

28

Boris Tirov checked out of Claridge’s at two PM the following day. While the porters loaded his nine pieces of luggage into the van that would follow his limousine, he stopped at the cashier’s desk and checked every single item charged to his suite during his stay, questioning two of them that amounted to an aggregate of less than ten pounds. Satisfied, he signed the bill and left the hotel.

He was driven to Heathrow Airport, followed by the van containing his luggage and his two bodyguards, and thence to the VIP check-in for the new Emirates Air flight to Los Angeles. He showed his Russian passport to the agent at the desk and waved an arm at his pile of luggage and two companions. “All that is mine, including the two gentlemen, who are flying in the economy. You may divide the luggage among the three of us and charge the overage to my credit card, which you have on file.”

“Certainly, Mr. Tirov,” the young woman said. “Your cart is waiting.”

Tirov got into an electric cart and was driven past the throngs directly leading to the tunnel to the giant A380 aircraft. There, he got out of the cart, showed his boarding pass, and walked past the crowd waiting to board, many of whom glowered at him. Once aboard the aircraft he was escorted to a door in the forward cabin and admitted to his private suite, which included a sitting room, bedroom, and toilet with a separate shower. A bottle of champagne was iced and waiting in a silver cooler.