“I am very glad you could come,” he said in English, taking her extended right hand and holding it in both of his. “You look as lovely as when last we met at the Trade Congress in Belgrade in 1994.”
“You have been well briefed,” she said.
Petrov shrugged and said, “I confess. Come.”
He led her across the lobby, which included a desk for two uniformed guards and a smattering of well- placed pots with plants sprouting large succulent green leaves. Somewhere a voice, probably in conversation on a telephone, echoed through the lobby and remained with them until the elevator doors closed behind Iris and Petrov.
“Are you enjoying Moscow this visit?”
“I have only been here one day and one night,” she said as the elevator slowly rose.
“And I trust you have been well treated night and day by the members of our incorruptible Office of Special Investigations?”
“Yes,” she said.
He knew. She was certain he knew she had been with Daniel Volkovich before Volkovich was murdered, certain that he knew where Olga Grinkova, otherwise known as Svetlana, was, certain that he knew that Sasha Tkach had spent the night in her room.
“Good,” he said.
The elevator doors slid open and Petrov stepped to one side to allow her to pass onto the highly polished wooden floor.
“This way,” he said, moving to her side and gesturing with his right hand toward an unmarked and unnumbered door. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass window of a reception area they saw where a young man, in a suit not quite as expensive as that worn by Petrov, looked up from behind his desk as Petrov opened the unmarked door.
She followed him into a large but not ostentatious wood-paneled office that carried the scent of forests. The desk was ancient and highly polished mahogany and the chairs a matching wood and hue.
He pointed with a palm to the left of the office, where a dark leather love seat and matching chairs faced a low glass table on which sat a pair of cups and a plate of assorted chocolates.
“I took the liberty,” he said, sitting at the sofa. “I am, I confess, addicted to chocolate. Coffee? I believe you drink coffee and not English tea?”
“Coffee is fine,” she said, sitting.
“Black.”
“Black.”
He pressed one of the buttons of the console on his desk and said, “Are the chocolates all of the latest choices?”
He smiled at Iris, pressed another button, and folded his hands on the smooth, shiny brown surface of the desk.
“Now,” he said, smile broad and voice apologetic, “if you will turn off the tape recorder in your briefcase. I will make a statement and try to answer your questions.”
“How will I be able to provide evidence of what you say?” she asked.
“I intend to deal with you honestly, but there is always the chance that I will say something I regret,” he said. “It has happened to me before. Now, the tape recorder please.”
He held out his hand.
“You object to my taking notes?” she asked.
“Not at all.”
His hand remained out, palm up, waiting. Iris took a tape recorder from her purse, pushed the button to turn it off, and sat back.
“Next,” he said after checking to be sure the tape recorder was off and placing it within her reach. “If you will please disengage the listening device hidden somewhere on your person.”
“I don’t have one,” she said, meeting his eyes.
“Then you are a fool, and I do not believe you are a fool. No, I’ve read your work. I do not believe you are a fool. Disengage or you will leave without coffee, chocolates, and conversation, and I assure you the cookies are the best to be found in all of Moscow.”
He watched with a smile as Iris reached down her dress between her breasts and removed a small microphone taped to her skin. She held it out for him to look at, which he did. Then he took it and crushed it easily in the palm of his hand.
The door opened without a knock and Pavel Petrov dropped the microphone fragments into a polished mahogany trash basket. A tall woman in a green knit dress came to the desk and set down a tray with a fresh plate of chocolates, although Iris, on the one hand, had not touched the first plate. Pavel Petrov, on the other hand, had devoured the small confections.
“I did not have time for breakfast,” Petrov said with a nod to the woman in the green dress, who retreated out the door. “I know it is not healthy to have a breakfast of chocolate and coffee, but it is very satisfying. I shall have a generous portion of chicken for lunch to atone for this.”
Petrov held out the plate.
Iris reached for a chocolate with a glazed cherry resting precisely in the middle of its raised circular surface. The chocolate did not melt between her fingers. She placed it in her mouth and bit down, half-expecting to taste a hint of poison.
“Good, eh?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Hmm, you want to begin. All right. We will begin. Whatever answers I give to your questions will not leave this room. If they appear in print, two things will happen. First, I will bring suit against the magazine or newspaper. I will win. I have almost endless resources.”
“Then why am I-?” she began, holding her growing anger in check.
“So that your curiosity will be satisfied and you will understand.”
“You said two things would happen if I published this interview,” she said, taking a bite of chocolate, happy that her hand was steady.
“Why, I will have you killed of course,” he said.
She was certain that he meant it, but she was not at all certain that she would not try to find a publisher who would be willing to print the story.
“Did you kill Daniel Volkovich?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You yourself?”
“Yes,” he said with a smile.
“And you want to kill Olga Grinkova?”
“Certainly,” he said.
“I see,” Iris said. “You are the head of a prostitution ring?”
“Business, a prostitution business. I provide a public service. The girls and women are well paid, given excellent medical care, and treated with respect.”
“All of them all the time?” asked Iris.
Petrov shrugged and reached for a chocolate.
“No, not all of them all the time,” he said. “Loyalty is sometimes betrayed.”
“And the price is death?”
“On occasion.”
“How big is your organization?”
“At the moment, six hundred and twenty-eight prostitutes in eight cities, with a staff of one hundred and eighty-two.”
“Income?”
“Approximately three hundred and forty million euros a year,” he said, eyes wide, examining her for signs of
