This first year in her job had been unfortunate. For one thing, she was, quite publicly, the president's fourth choice. This happened only after it was revealed that choice one was doing the bedsheet tango with his underage nanny; Tromble had seen her, and to the man's credit, the nanny did not in fact look at all as if she was only fourteen; more like sixteen. This happened only after it was disclosed that choice two had taken numerous fat bribes from several very crooked oil companies. This happened only after it was discovered that choice three, a superior court judge in California, had spent his misguided youth dodging the draft, calling cops pigs, stuffing all nature of questionable substances up his snout, and barbecuing American flags. Perfect qualifications for a judgeship in California, but the rest of the country did not embrace his background.
After these train wrecks, Laura Tingleman had been found tucked away in a backcountry Montana circuit court, a low-key, competent judge who handled mostly divorces and small-time land disputes. Little to no political experience, no national exposure, zero controversial decisions, no overturned verdicts-all in all, Laura Tingleman was as apt to raise as much controversy as chicken soup. No bad habits, as best they could tell. Never married, thus never divorced; in fact, the lead FBI investigator who rummaged through her background even surmised that she might be a fifty-year-old virgin, if such a thing existed. Best of all, she was a woman! The first ever nominated for attorney general, and feminist leaders around the country growled that whoever opposed her would face a backlash of historic proportions.
It helped that she was a nice person, if deeply out of her depth, polite, respectful, and deeply religious, though not a zealot. Her nomination sailed through without a hitch.
Tromble detested her. There was room for only one legal superstar in this administration, one shining protector of America from the crooks, terrorists, and perverts who lurked in the dark shadows. And he, after all, was the whiz kid who came up the hard way through intellectual brilliance, sharp elbows, and unrelenting work. Yale undergrad, Harvard Law, and he had done his time in the legal trenches; she had been plucked out of Nowhere, Montana, for the plain and simple reason that she had no disputable accomplishments, or indeed any accomplishments at all.
And though it was true he had not been a popular prosecutor or judge, he had been greatly feared. The exception was cops, who adored him because he hammered defense attorneys and meted out terrifying sentences. His record of overturned verdicts was shocking.
In fact, the New York appellate court, tired of an exhausting docket overloaded with his weekly brutality, was about to serve notice of a review hearing when news broke that he was somehow, incredibly, on the president's short list for FBI director. The appellate judges were appalled. They gathered together in a private chamber and considered whether to blow the whistle on a judge they regarded as little short of a Nazi. No, no, one wise, notably liberal senior justice advised with a deep smile; don't shovel manure in a gift horse's mouth; at least John Tromble would be out of their hair. They could look forward again to being home by dinnertime and Friday golf.
In the expiring days of his outgoing presidency, the incumbent's predecessor, normally a moderate who had appointed two mild liberals to the Supreme Court, had spent his last political capital on the Hill to get Tromble this job. He took charge of ushering the appointment personally, called in every chit, used up every threat, and bent elbows until the sound of arms cracking thundered around the Senate. It was his finest hour. Had he poured that kind of energy and spirited determination into running the country, that southern governor who shellacked him at the polls would be back chasing skirts around some small southern town.
He was leaving his successor a poisoned chalice-a bundle of combustible, no-holds-barred, law-and-order ambition who would steamroll anything or anybody in his path, he confided to his chief of staff in a giggly private moment. He intended to sit back in his retirement and laugh at all the trouble John Tromble caused that southern boy. It was going to be horrendous.
And now, after two fairly low-key years in office, two years that were sadly unacclaimed, Judge Tromble had decided the time had come to kick it up a notch. Crime rates had dropped substantially under his watch, but the liberal press loathed him and credited a hundred other causes-from a diminishing appetite for crack, to all the hardened crooks already rotting in prison, to a religious revival in the Deep South and Midwest. He needed something-anything-they could not misinterpret or take away from him. He needed a signature issue, and he turned his fiercely impatient eyes on America's newest threat-international crime, foreign crooks on American soil, or maybe a little off it. First up, the Russian Mafiya.
Unfortunately for Alex and Elena Konevitch, their fates now rested in the hands of an attorney general in search of sea legs, and an FBI director with omnivorous ambitions and a few fairly strange ideas about justice. The long line of limos cruised to a stop on the cobblestone plaza. Tromble's aides and coatholders-the fanny-wiping brigade they were called by the jaded field agents-tumbled out in an unruly mass, took a moment to get organized, then were ushered quickly through the historic Kremlin doors, up two flights of stairs, and directly into the cavernous office of Anatoli Fyodorev, Russia's attorney general.
Introductions were handled briskly in a no-nonsense fashion. Several of Fyodorev's stone-faced assistants were gathered around the office walls, not introduced. Among them stood a very striking young lady in a breathtakingly short skirt who smiled nicely as the procession entered.
Fyodorev sat down on a tall chair behind a desk that looked bigger than Finland. Two chairs-little more than small stools, actually-were positioned before the desk. After a moment of confusion, Tingleman and Tromble edged precariously onto the chairs. Their knees were nearly in their faces, their elbows almost on the floor. They were forced to stare up at Fyodorev.
A representative from the American embassy took a standing position slightly behind them, notepad in one hand, pen poised in the other. They had been assured that Fyodorev's English was exceptional-translation was neither needed nor wanted. The embassy flunky's real job was to take detailed notes, and pay careful attention to anything the professional diplomats would have to clean up afterward. Shovel duty.
Fyodorev was the host and he opened with a long windy soliloquy about how, national differences aside, they were all in the same business. To wit, law enforcement. Spiritual brothers and sisters. Bonded by their common enmity to criminals, and so on, and so forth-etcetera and double etcetera.
Fyodorev eventually wrapped up and Tromble summoned his important face and, before Tingleman could utter a word, quickly announced, "We're here to discuss bilateral cooperation in matters of crime."
"A nice term," Fyodorev noted dryly. "What does it mean?"
"Well… for starters, I'd like to offer you a few slots each year for your people to attend our FBI Academy."
"Why? Is it better than ours?"
The State Department flunky dashed off a few heavy notes on his legal pad. With limited success, he tried to keep the smirk off his face. Boy, this was going to be fun.
"I… well, yes, probably. It has a certain reputation. Also, we think you might want to place some of your people in our profiling center down at Quantico."
Fyodorev's elbows landed heavily on his desk. "Explain this term, 'profiling.'"
"It's, um, well, it refers to specialists who employ psychiatry to get inside criminal minds. We've found it quite effective. Serial killers, for example, tend to exhibit complementary patterns. If you can figure that out, you can stop them and find them."