The office for the Corinthian Rug Company was on Walker Street south of Canal. It was situated in a ground-level storefront with a couple of faded geometrically patterned Turkish rugs and goat hides in the window. Yuri slowed as he approached. The door had lettering stenciled in gold. It was closed, but Yuri knew that didn’t mean anything. When Yuri had initially scouted the concern by making innumerable drive-bys, he’d always found the door closed.

Pulling into a loading area across the street from where he could watch the entrance, Yuri put his car in park. He’d decided to wait although he didn’t know exactly what he was waiting for. Somehow he had to find out about Mr. Jason Papparis’s state of health. Yuri was certain the man had gotten the ACME Cleaners envelope on Friday at the very latest.

The waiting calmed Yuri, and the thought of the next step in his grand scheme excited him. He’d be able to tell Curt Rogers that the anthrax was potent. That would mean that the only thing left to test would be the botulinum toxin. For the fateful day, Yuri had decided on two agents rather than one. He wanted to eliminate any possibility of technological screw-ups. The two agents killed in completely different ways, even though both were to be aerosolized.

Reaching under his seat and pushing his defensive tire iron out of the way, Yuri pulled out his flat pocket flask. He deserved a shot of vodka. After making sure no one was watching, he took a quick slug of the fiery fluid. He breathed out a sigh of relief as a sensation of warmth spread deliciously through his body. Now he felt even calmer. He was even capable of appreciating that there had been some recent bright spots in his life.

One of the luckiest things that had happened to Yuri since his arrival in the U.S. was meeting Curt Rogers and Curt’s buddy Steve Henderson and striking up a relationship. It had been this relationship that had turned Yuri’s fantasy of vengeance into a realistic possibility. The initial meeting had occurred purely by chance. After a very long day of hot summer driving Yuri had stopped at a hole-in-the-wall bar called White Pride in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. His flask had long since been drained, and he needed a shot of vodka so bad he couldn’t wait until he got home to Brighton Beach.

It was after eleven at night, and the local hangout was crowded, dark, and noisy with the heavy-metal beat of Skrewdriver reverberating off the walls. Most of the customers were tough working-class white youths with shaved heads, sleeveless T-shirts, and a profusion of tattoos. Yuri should have guessed the kind of clientele he’d encounter. Outside he’d seen a number of gleaming Harleys emblazoned with Nazi decals nosed in against the curb directly in front of the bar’s open door.

Yuri could remember hesitating on the threshold while debating whether to go in. His intuition told him that danger hung in the air like a miasma above a swamp. People eyed him with hostility. After a moment’s indecision Yuri had taken the risk to enter for two reasons. One was the fear that fleeing would have provoked a chase just like running from a vicious but indecisive dog. The other was that he really needed the vodka and that all the other bars in Bensonhurst would probably have been equally intimidating.