“Sorry you got nailed, Ivan. Can't say I didn't warn you. Get well soon so we can have that drink. First round's on me. John Doe.”

Austin had almost ended his life and career. Now the same man was poking around where he could derail Petrov's carefully laid plans. Austin could not know how dangerous his meddling was. How precarious the situation was in Russia. Throughout his country's history, it had been afflicted with uncaring, inept, even psychopathic leaders. Petrov was one of thousands of faceless clones who did the bidding of their masters without question and kept them in power. Now his fragile nation seemed poised for another orgy of self- destruction. The furies welling up in the soul of Mother Russia would soon sweep across the country from Siberia to Saint Petersburg.

Petrov read the card again, then lifted the phone. “Yes, sir,” answered a trusted assistant who occupied an office in another part of the agricultural building.

“I want a plane ready to leave for Istanbul in one hour.” Petrov gave orders to call his mistress and cancel their dinner date.

“Is there any particular message you would like me to give Miss Kostikov?” the assistant asked.

Petrov pondered the question. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Tell her I must go to repay a favor to an old friend.”

NUMA 3 - Fire Ice

-7- NOVOROSSIYSK, THE BLACK SEA

" THE BEARDED MAN sat on the carpeted floor of the darkened cabin, legs folded in a lotus position, his rough peasant's hands clasped loosely in his lap. He had been locked in the same pose for more than two hours, the only sign of life the slight rise and fall of his narrow chest. His pulse was barely discernible, and his lethargic heartbeat would have alarmed a cardiologist. The heavy-lidded eyes over the prominent nose were closed, but he was neither asleep nor awake. The thick lips were curled in a beatific smile. Unseen, behind the thorny brambles that guarded the dense thicket of his mind, lurked the unfathomable musings of a madman.

A soft knock came at the door. The bearded man showed no sign that he had heard it. The knock repeated, louder and more insistent this time.

“Yes,” the man said in Russian. His deep voice sounded as if it issued from the depths of a catacomb.

The door opened a crack and a young man dressed in the uniform of a ship's steward peered into the room. Light from the passageway fell on the face of the sitting man. The steward murmured a silent prayer his grandmother had taught him to ward off demons. Mustering the courage to speak, he said, “Forgive the interruption, sir.”

“What is it?”

“Mr. Razov asks to see you in the main cabin."

Deep-set eyes of pale yellow opened and stared out of the bony skull. They were the hypnotic eyes of a predator, large and lustrous.

A pause. Then, “Tell him I will be there.”