The fact that the state also ran the security for the hotel was an added benefit, especially since Medikov virtually owned the far-flung MVD security apparatus. They monitored every room in the establishment as a matter of course, both with sound and video. Still, they wouldn’t even think of bugging his penthouse. Not that he left that to chance. His people swept the place each day. More important, the MVD kept his competitors far from his lair. Yes, it was convenient to have them bought and paid for.

There were other benefits, too. High on the list was the excellent French chef the Mezhdunarodnaya imported exclusively for his use while he roosted here. Boris Medikov didn’t like the standard Russian fare. His tastes had grown far beyond the poverty of his upbringing. Even now the remnants of an excellent coq au vin and the dregs of a bottle of Beaujolais of very good vintage sat on the Louis XVI sideboard.

To help him think, he poured a generous draft of Napoleon cognac into a crystal snifter and walked over to the picture window. Someone was bringing unwanted attention to OptiMarx by trying to kill the SEC inspector. There were two possible motives to consider for such a foolhardy move. Either someone wanted the entire project to fail or someone wanted to hide something going on inside the project, something that the inspector had stumbled onto.

There was only one way to learn which it was, who was doing it, and why.

Medikov turned from the window and stepped back into the suite’s drawing room. There, three of his most trusted lieutenants were seated around the silk-brocade-upholstered conversation pit.

“Boris, we must do something and do it quickly,” Nicholas Vujnovich growled when he saw his boss return to the room. The heavyset old Mafioso had served Medikov from the very beginning, standing by his side when Medikov was little more than a second-rate thug on the streets of Kiev. He was not all that bright, but he possessed the determined cunning and deviousness of a badger. “If this OptiMarx operation is going to make us any money, we have to deal with this interloper with finality. He must be terminated.”

Medikov smiled. Vujnovich was predictable. If there was an obstacle in the way, it must be removed. If that obstacle proved to be a man, bullets were a perfectly acceptable means of accomplishing that end.

“Uncle Nicholas, if we go about wildly shooting up New York, people may talk,” Medikov said. “It could have a far worse result than if we merely sat here and did nothing but drink cognac and smoke cigars.”

“I hate cognac,” Vujnovich growled. “It is a drink for a woman! Give me good Russian vodka. So what if the people in New York talk about us? What do we care, anyway?”