Midnight Come Again

MIDNIGHT COME AGAIN

Kate Shugak 10

DANA STABENOW

Jane Adams

St. Martin's/Minotaur Paperbacks Titles by Dana Stabenow Midnight Come Again The Singing of the Dead

A Fine and Bitter Snow (Available in hardcover)

MIDNIGHT COME AGAIN

DANA STABENOW

St. Martin's Paperbacks

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

MIDNIGHT COME AGAIN

Copyright 2000 by Dana Stabenow.

Excerpt from The Singing of the Dead copyright 2001 by Dana Stabenow.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

All chapter headings are lines from poems from Mary TallMountains's

The Light on the Tent Wall, reprinted with permission of the American Indian Studies Center, UCLA, copyright Regents of the University of California.

ISBN: 0-312-97876-6

Printed in the United States of America St. Martin's Press hardcover edition I May 2000

St. Martin's Paperbacks edition I May 2001

St. Martin's Paperbacks are published by St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.10 98765432

For jeannie delavern stabenow thanks for loving dad

PROLOGUE. st. petersburg, march 25

The elegant columns and fabulous spires of the old city seemed to float in the pale gold light of the soft spring dawn, adrift on a sea of morning mist.

And why not, thought Kiril Davidovitch, bouncing in his seat as the armored truck lurched through yet another pothole. With Lake Ladoga to the northeast and the Gulf of Finland to the southwest and the Neva River and its many tributaries between, the buildings designed with such grace and style by Peter the Great's imported French and Italian architects almost three centuries before were in perfect position to set sail at the first high tide.

He propounded this thought to the truck's driver. The burly man with the bushy eyebrows deepened his scowl, shifted down to take the bridge over the Kanal Griboyrdova and growled, "Good. Ship the whole goddamn place across the Atlantic and let the Americans buy it. They'll buy anything, even," he sneered, "St. Petersburg."

Fyodor still resented the return to Leningrad's original name. It was an insult, to the state, to Communism and to Lenin himself, that poor mummified bastard. He'd roll over in his glass casket if he knew.

After seven months of riding next to him, Kiril was aware of Fyodor Chirikov's deep resentment over the fall of Communism in Mother Russia.