And on a whim, as Gregoire introduced himself in fluent French, Pierre shook his hand, and said, “Priviet, kak dela?”

The man blinked; he made a good recovery.

“U me nya vsyo harasho. Me nya zavout . . . Grigory.”

Pierre nodded; he had asked the man’s name, and he had surrendered—in Russian.

“Me nya zavout Pyotr,” he replied. And then switched back to French. Oh yes, he was French, of course, but he had spent his childhood in Morocco, and then some teenage years in the Soviet Union.

“I do not talk about it,” he said.

Gregoire bowed. “Of course.” But his eyes were alight with curiosity.

He was promoted, and soon became Pierre’s deputy. Pierre enjoyed the freedom to speak Russian with the man, to drink vodka, and taste caviar; he knew that Gregoire, in his sneaky little way, had tried to discover more. But the trail was cold; he had covered his tracks too well.

And Gregoire did not dig too deeply. Pierre gave him a first-class seat on the gravy train. He took a peverse pleasure in the man’s suspicions; he wanted someone to believe he had come from the dark, cold land to the east and carved himself an empire in the City of Light. Gregoire was a useful hatchet man, a dogsbody, and lapdog; he jumped to Pierre’s commands, and the younger man ensured they were often shaming; Gregoire, as favourite, like Katherine, like all his satellites, must know who was boss.

Over time he came to trust Gregoire completely. From disdain, rather than admiration, he knew he was safe with this puppet. And he chose to tease him, speaking Russian ever more frequently, dropping in references that only a true Russian would know.

And then, at last, Gregoire came to him.

“It’s a new find,” he said. “Siberia. Diamonds. Hundreds of square miles.”

Pierre blinked. “What?” He scoured the news daily, and the wires had had nothing. “Is this a joke?”

“No joke. They found kimberlite in the northern forests.”

“And the government has taken it?”

This was Russia now, not the Soviet Union, but would the new capitalism survive a find of this magnitude? Diamonds were one of the great sources of wealth. An entire nation, South Africa, had been built on the stones.

More than anything in the world, Pierre wanted his own diamonds. He was bound to De Beers, as a lackey, like any other site holder. He paid their prices, and he did so without comment. Their way or the highway.

The loss of control disgusted him. The monopoly of another disgusted him. He imagined what it might be like to have his own mines, and the thought was intoxicating. To think that he, Pierre Massot, who had come from . . . that wasn’t important, he told himself. He deserved it, though. He deserved them. He had to have them, and then the circle would be complete. His journey would be over.

“They don’t know.”