"They don't mention him by name. They just talk about the homegrown Russian mafia taking over this or that banking syndicate or oil cartel."

Jack started to say something but Torriti plunged on, "I've been following that Vladimir Putin fellow, too. In case you haven't noticed, which I doubt, he's the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. Folks who keep track of these things say he's close to Yeltsin and conspicuously upwardly mobile and has a filthy rich patron, so they say." The Sorcerer's eyes widened playfully. "I read about you, too, Jacko."

"You read about me?"

"I wasn't born yesterday, kiddo. Every now and then the good guys score and I figure your Enterprise could be behind it. The a.s.sa.s.sination of that drug tsar in Colombia, the disappearance of that Communist journalist in Egypt, the bomb that went off under the car of that neo-n.a.z.i in Austria. You still got all that money stashed in Switzerland?"

"Loose lips sink ships, Harvey."

Torriti's eyes focused on the past. "I remember the day you showed up in Berlin Base, I remember the night we met that poor son of a b.i.t.c.h Vishnevsky in the safe house over the movie theater-you were one h.e.l.l of a circus act. Jack, with those splotches of green behind the ears and a cannon of a pistol tucked into the small of your back. No harm telling you now, I wasn't positive you'd survive."

"Thanks to you, Harvey, I survived. Thanks to you, we made a difference."

"You think so, Jack? I tell myself we made a difference. Nowadays people have short memories-they forget the G.o.dd.a.m.n Goths were at the G.o.dd.a.m.n gate. You and me, kid-we put our warm bodies on the firing line and turned them back. f.u.c.k, something like the Cold War has to have a moral. Otherwise what was it all about?"

"It was about the good guys beating the bad guys," Jack said softly.

The Sorcerer snorted. "We sure screwed up an awful lot in the process."

"We screwed up less than they did. That's why we won."

"Never could figure out how the frigging Soviets lasted as long as they did."

"Russia wasn't a country," Jack said. "It was a metaphor for an idea that may have looked good on the drawing boards but in practice was deeply flawed. And flawed metaphors are harder to slay than flawed countries. But we clobbered them in the end."

Torriti's inflamed lids drifted over his eyes. Jack burst out, "Jesus H. Christ, Harvey, I hope you're not planning to die on me. The least you could do is wait until I'm gone."

The remark drew a feeble grin from the Sorcerer. With an effort he forced his eyes open and said, "All these years I been wondering what the h.e.l.l that H in Jesus H. Christ stands for."

"Hey, it's like a lot of middle initials," Jack explained. "They don't stand for anything. They're tacked on to dress up the name. The H in Jesus H. Christ. The J in Jack J. McAuliffe. The S in Harry S. Truman."

Torriti coughed up a crabby snicker. "I read what you're saying, sport. Its like the I in CIA-that doesn't mean nothing neither."

Jack had a last laugh; he didn't see himself laughing again, ever. "You may be on to something, Harv."

The End