“I could hardly blame you for not coming earlier when I didn’t expect you at all,” Tanner said dryly. “I assume you mean Pierre Lazco. He’s a wonderful violinist. I saw him last night after I arrived in Rome from New York.”

“I didn’t think you’d miss him. I told Nikolai I’d bet him you’d come in at least a day early for your big game. I thought I might even see you there tonight. I have a box at the opera house, and we could have enjoyed the concert together.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me? You very generously fund both the Bolshoi Ballet and the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. Why not spread the largesse around to Rome?”

“Why not?” Kaskov repeated with a wry smile. “And you very neatly sidestepped my gracious invitation to share my box. But you’re probably right, you wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much if you’d had to concentrate on outside influences. I saw you at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall one night, and I might have been looking at myself. It was good to know. The dossier I had on you hadn’t mentioned that passion for music. I immediately dismissed the investigator.”

Shit, he didn’t like the idea that Kaskov knew anything but the bare basics about him. “There’s no way you could use that as a weapon. I like all music from Bach to jazz, but it’s not a passion. It was understandable that your man skipped over it.” He shook his head. “And I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you wouldn’t have been that much of a distraction. I could have closed you out.”

“Could you?” Kaskov asked thoughtfully. “Yes, you might have had the willpower, but you would have had to make an effort. Sometimes the smallest things are the ones that take us down. At any rate, as I said, I admire that you researched me so thoroughly. It shows how determined you were to save your friend. You wanted me to use my influence to get Mallory safely out of Moscow before Narzoff took a contract out on him for luring his mistress into bed. But I don’t know many men who would have come to me about it.”

“Neither do I,” Tanner said. “Believe me, I was out of options.”

Kaskov shook his head. “Mallory made a bad choice. Narzoff is a very possessive man, and he wasn’t even one of my family. I’m usually careful about not interfering with the members of other families as long as they accord me the same courtesy. You caused me a good deal of trouble before it was over.”

“But you still did it.” Tanner’s lips twisted. “And I paid your price. I extracted that man Putin was after. That makes us even. So why are you here?”

“I did it because I’d heard enough about you that I was intrigued and wanted to know more. I’m always looking for men with the right qualifications, and you were very, very good. I thought I might hire you. That extraction was necessary, but it was still in the nature of an audition.”