They reached the crest of the ridge, rounded a tight curve, and saw the Navigator and Beemer parked outside a dark gray home on the downhill side of the street. The cars were empty, suggesting the occupants were inside the house. Like every other home in Mount Olympus, the house was set on the curb with almost no setback. Low-slung and contemporary, the face of the house was a windowless, monolithic wall with a buffed-steel entry and a matching three-car garage. Gates and walls on either side of the house blocked any view to the rear.

Stone said, “Darko, baby. I can smell him.”

“Drive past, and drop me in front of the next house.”

Jon slowed enough for Pike to slide out. Pike glanced at the surrounding houses to see if anyone was watching, but all of the homes were still, and closed to the world.

Pike walked back to the gray house’s mailbox and found a thin stack of magazines and envelopes. He shuffled through, and saw that everything was addressed to someone named Emile Grebner.

Pike returned the mail, then set off after the Rover. It had turned around at the far intersection and was waiting at the curb.

As he walked, Pike phoned George Smith. George recognized the incoming number this time, and answered right away.

“My friends tell me you’re a one-man wrecking crew.”

“Your KGB friends?”

“Odessa is loving this. One of the brothers has a competing service station business with Mr. Darko’s operation.”

“I’m not doing this for Odessa.”

“It never hurts to be liked, my friend.”

“What does the KGB know about Emile Grebner?”

“Grebner—”

George thought for a moment.

“If this is the same Grebner, he works with Darko, yes. I do not recall his first name.”

“An authority man?”

George laughed.

“That’s what they call them. You’ll be speaking Serbian soon. Maybe Russian.”

“Meaning Grebner and Darko are tight?”

“Darko will have three or four like Grebner, each running three or four cells of their own down at the street level—the people who do the crime. Secrecy is everything with people from our part of the world, my man. They may not even know each other.”

The old KGB and Communist Party had been organized the same way as far back as Lenin, and Pike knew the earliest Soviet gangs had adopted the same system when the Party tried unsuccessfully to put them out of business. The Soviet gangs had outlasted the old Party members, and had spread their system throughout Eastern Europe and, now, America.

“A cell system.”

“Yes. Like these gas stations you hammered—they’re probably Grebner’s responsibility, so you’re his problem to handle. Is that how you know him? He sent people for you?”

“That’s how I know him.”

“Pity for them.”

Pike put away his phone as he reached the Rover.

Stone said, “Casa Darko?”

“Not Darko.”