Sergei could not help but linger another moment on droll thoughts of his father, who presumably would have considered Molkov and Alexandre exemplary human beings from a glance at their feet, overlooking everything else about them. He, Sergei, appreciated irony the way some men did fine wine, caviar, or Cuban cigars, and there was one of most exquisite flavor to be found in these reflections--for he was also wearing shoes that were scrupulously cared for. Always wore the very best of shoes, in fact. It was a personal compulsion that, not unlike the tattoos of his companions, was a lasting mark of his own upbringing, although imprinted on his psyche rather than his body. But had his father been alive to know the moral threshold he was about to irrevocably cross, it might have been enough to make him rethink his singular method of gauging a man's worth.

Preoccupied with these thoughts, Sergei took several moments to realize that the car was finally slowing to a halt, its overstressed motor clanking and knocking as the driver guided it toward the sheer mountain wall rising to some great height on the left. He looked down at the hard-shelled suitcase between his feet and gripped its handle, a sense of unreality washing over him.

"Is this the place?" he said, leaning toward the man behind the wheel.

A dark-skinned ethnic Gheg with a black scruff of beard on his cheeks and a knitted white skullcap of the sort favored by his nation's Moslem majority, the driver shook his head--an affirmative gesture in Albania--his look in the rearview mirror intended to make Sergei feel foolish for having asked an unnecessary question. He possessed the unmistakable scorn of the zealot toward one whose motives were seen to be venal and selfish, although that hadn't seemed an obstacle to the procurement of the deadly technology Sergei had offered up for sale. There were, he thought, endless degrees of hypocrisy bridging the gap between world and want.

Sergei studied the heavy brush on the slope as the driver came to a full stop alongside it, pulling close enough for the tangled outgrowth of leaves and stems to rake across the Citroen's flank. The wait that followed prompted another attack of nerves. Sergei knew the car's approach would have been observed, and his inability to detect any sign of his hidden watchers made him feel uneasy and vulnerable. Still, he fought to take hold of himself. The Albanian guerrillas had every reason to be cautious. Furthermore, his two comrades were adequate insurance against deceit, and imposing reminders of his own linkage to the organizatsiya, a force whose enmity it would be madness to provoke.

He had waited for nearly five minutes when his eye caught a slight shuffle of movement in the brush above him. Then, at last, the guerrillas came threading down the slope, scurrying from the foliage one and two at a time and descending onto the pass just yards in front of the car.