"And that would be-?"

"Mr. Green."

"Ah. But that gentleman doesn't know the cost of transportation to this place. Not yet."

"Just spell it out. Then I'll tell you what it costs."

"The j.a.panese are our best market, by far. They will outbid anyone, and they will buy-"

"Yeah. Sure. Fine. Right. Okay."

"I do not understand."

"Then try this: I'm not getting paid to listen to parables. Get down to it. Now. Or I'm gone."

Chang instantly comprehended that the circular negotiation tactics he had been taught since childhood would be futile with the empty-eyed man sitting across from him.

"On the Kamchatka Peninsula live the largest bears in the world. Their paws are worth a fortune-the j.a.panese will pay whatever is asked. The chain was simple enough to establish. The Russians have a man here in Chicago. His name is-"

"Viktor."

"You do know him. This is most excellent. Viktor is a very greedy individual. We have great hopes that his successor will be more reasonable."

"I like your robe, Chang. Very colorful. Powerful color. This insect that disturbs you? I could probably crush it under that robe of yours with only, perhaps, a twenty-pound weight."

"That is-"

"Troy weight. Half on the table, right now. I take it and go. You won't see me again until I come to collect the second payment."

"That is a great deal of trust you ask, Mr. Cross."

"You called. I came. You asked a price. I gave you one."

"Still, there is always room for reasonable men to discuss such things, is there not?"

"I'm not a reasonable man, Chang. Only two choices on the menu today. And 'maybe' isn't one of them."

THE WINDOW of the large storefront was crudely painted over in a sun-faded shade of red. The only indication of its contents was a black-lettered sign: Cross entered without knocking. The back wall was quite close to the window, indicating the storefront had been divided so that the majority of its s.p.a.ce was behind that wall.

There was a single round table to the right, all but one of the eight chairs occupied. Cross took the empty chair.

Across from him, a square-faced, block-jawed man sat. He was missing most of one ear, his nose had been broken so many times that it was snouted into a blob with nostrils, and what appeared to be a steel ball bearing served as his right eye.

Although a freshly washed empty gla.s.s sat to the man's right, he made no attempt to fill it. "Russian vodka is only real vodka. All else are weak pretenders: ours is the finest in the world. And-ah, you would say it like 'Imperia'-our Imperia vodka is the best of that best. You enter our house unmolested, which means we recognize you as a legitimate criminal. And yet you still refuse to share a drink with your brothers, Cross?"

Cross nodded his head, so slightly that the movement would have been undetectable unless watched for.

"Hah! I am not insulted. Do you know why?"

Cross lit a cigarette.

"You do not drink. So it is not my hospitality you refuse; it is merely that you have a delicate stomach."

Cross did not react. The man across from him translated what he himself had just said into Russian. The other men at the table chuckled-they had dealt with Cross before, and the idea of him having a "delicate stomach" was certainly worth a good laugh.

"Chang wants to buy some bear claws," Cross said.

"And he sends you?"

"He pays me."

"Chang is one of the cautious ones. That is why he is such an old man."

Cross shrugged. "What do I tell him, Viktor?"

"Tell him ... Cross, that tattoo on your hand, it was made in prison, yes?"

Cross nodded.

"What does it mean?"

Cross stared through Viktor, but he did not speak.

"Gah! In my country, you earn your marks. You see this?" Viktor rose to his feet and pulled up his sweater, revealing an elaborate devil-horned skull, with a snake slithering out of each empty eyeball. The skull was backed by an X-pattern, and surrounded by a strand of barbed wire. Underneath was printed KAYHAC. "Do you know what this means, Cross?"

"No."

"It means 'authority.' How you say this in America? 'Boss,' maybe? But more important than just boss, boss in prison. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now you know more than most others do about me. So, that one on your hand ..."

"It's a bull's-eye. A target."

"This anyone can see. Like the paper circles the police recruits shoot at."

Cross flexed his right hand slightly, then flattened his palm over his heart, as a child would recite the pledge of allegiance. "You see any hits on this one?"

Again, the big Russian translated. And, again, his crew joined him in laughter.

"Now we can talk as equals, yes? Okay, then. For Chang, because I admire that old man so much, only twenty-five thousand. That buys him one of what he wants-we have a virtually unlimited supply. And we are the only source."

Cross pushed back his chair.

"You have nothing more to say?" Viktor asked.

"I only got paid to listen," Cross answered. And walked to the door.

AS DARKNESS fell, Viktor was standing in front of his headquarters. Despite the weather, he was wearing a thick coat made of bear fur and a hat of the same material.

"Bolshe!" he barked into a satellite phone. He listened to the response, then said, "Ne vazhno!" into the mouthpiece, and thumbed off the phone.

He signaled to a group of men standing close by. A line of five identical midnight-blue Audi A8 sedans pulled to the empty curb. As Viktor prepared to enter the back seat of the middle car, the satellite phone in his hand seemed to change color, as if a shroud of shadow had been draped over it. A low sound, outside the human hearing threshold, came, short and sharp: "!"

JUST BEFORE daylight, a Chicago cop stared through the windshield of his cruiser. "Holy Jumping Jesus Christ! I've been on the force since before you were born, kid. And I've never seen anything like ... that."

Both the retirement-age sergeant and the rookie sitting next to him were staring at bodies draped over a row of identical dark-blue sedans. Each body had been skinned, graphically displaying that all were missing large bones, from femurs to skulls.

Neither cop noticed the city-camo shark as it slipped past the scene. Running without headlights, it looked more like a shifting shadow than a car.

Inside that shark, Buddha said, "Someone got to him first, boss." His gloved hands delicately fingered the thickly padded steering wheel as his eyes checked the instrument display projected on the lower windshield.

"Viktor always was an optimist."

"Huh?"

"He was a HALO jumper," Cross said. "Absolutely positive his chute would open whenever he decided to pull the cord. This time, the ground got there first."

"Chang sees a picture of this, he'll think you worked some magic, getting it done so fast."

"Yeah. So will the Russians."

"They paid, too?"

"More than Chang. The Russian Bear is a sacred icon to them. In their eyes, Viktor was looting a national treasure."

"But it had to be some of their own people doing the actual poaching."

"Sure. But that's their problem, at their end. We only got paid to solve the one at ours."

"Comes out perfect, boss. It's like Viktor's number came up, and we hit that number at the same time."

"Yeah," Cross said. "Perfect."

"What's wrong?"

"Come on, Buddha. You saw those bodies yourself. All of a sudden we got partners? Silent partners?"

THE ROUND screen in the War Room flickered. "What the h.e.l.l is he up to now? More d.a.m.n driving around the city?" the blond man muttered, moving a joystick to control the screen images.

With the camera's eyes, the team saw Cross step out of the camo car, which immediately pulled away. They watched as he walked to the back of the shack on the pier, grabbed a pole thick enough for a firehouse, and slid smoothly down until he disappeared from sight.

The pole itself went all the way into the water, but Cross only dropped about halfway down-slowing whenever his boots made contact with the stops jutting out of the pole.

Cross then jumped lightly onto a short landing which had been laboriously constructed under the pier. Within seconds, he was inside his hideout.

The blond man was busy at his private computer, tapping in coordinates, watching the screen for data translation. All of a sudden, his expressionless face lit up: "Got him! Son of a b.i.t.c.h lives in a G.o.dd.a.m.n cell, can you believe it? Let's see, now...." He continued to work the computer as street maps flashed on his screen, from macro to micro, zeroing in.

"Yes!" the blond man half-shouted in triumph. "The waterfront, not far from where the ore boats come across the lake. Let's get rolling. We're looking for a spot on the north side of Pier 29."

THE INSTANT the team's van began to move, it dropped even the vaguest resemblance to any ordinary vehicle. Its sheer ma.s.s of "military" and "futuristic" radiated menace.

Cross stepped out of a stall shower, a towel around his waist. He lit a cigarette, sat down in a sling chair, closed his eyes, and blew smoke at the ceiling. His facial expression resembled an Easter Island statue on Botox.

Wanda was working at her computer, handing each new piece of printed-out information to the blond man, who scanned and tossed the sheets over his shoulder the way a wolf works his way through the carca.s.s of a fresh-killed sheep, seeking the most edible parts.

"He's got communications," Wanda said. "Microwave ... Using a bounce on the transmitter ... You have to dial a number.... Okay, I have it. It's a pay phone. Pulling up the location now."

The camera showed a narrow doorway with discreet neon lettering running vertically in a window slit next to it. The neon spelled out: O.

R.

C.

H.

I.

D.

B.