Stephen Trent sat down behind his desk, but then immediately stood up again. A quick glance at the clock on the wall confirmed that he had less than a minute. Aleksei Fedorov had told him 9 p.m. and he was never late. Never.      Trent took a deep breath and smoothed the imaginary wrinkles from his shirt, a nervous tic that was impossible to resist but entirely pointless. Fedorov didn’t care about anything that didn’t involve making him money, holding onto money, and keeping money—and the power it implied—out of the hands of his enemies.      The lights in the hall were off and Trent walked through the gloom, taking deep, calming breaths, finally stopping in the lobby and watching the front door. The second hand on the receptionist’s desk was almost thirty seconds past the hour when the sound of a key in the lock became audible over the muffled sound of traffic outside.      “Aleksei! It’s good to see you!” Trent said, a little too loud to seem calm and a little too cheerful to sound spontaneous. If there was one positive thing about spending so much of his time in the godforsaken backwater of Africa where they worked, it was that Fedorov almost never set foot on the continent.      Unfortunately, this was not true of their offices in New York. Despite endless hints designed to prevent these visits, Fedorov seemed to enjoy using them as a display of his power—proof that he was untouchable. And maybe he was. But why endanger everyone else?      Fedorov shook Trent’s outstretched hand more as a reflex than any real interest, his deep eyes taking in his surroundings more like a camera than the windows to the soul that poets postulated. They twitched back and forth over a long, straight nose that hinted at his foreign birth, and an expression that suggested it hadn’t been a pleasant one.       “We’ve had a thirteen percent drop in donations. Why?”      It seemed that his accent became more imperceptible every time they met, and that was worrying. Fedorov had relocated to the U.S. less than ten years ago, and now at age fifty was close to perfecting his fifth language. Trent had been blessed with an impressive intellect that he had leveraged for everything it was worth, but it tended to make him uncomfortable around those rare people who were clearly smarter than he was. It was an advantage he was loath to give up.      “Let’s go back to my office, Aleksei. I’ll make you a drink.”      “First, you’ll answer my goddamn question.”      “We’ve got a few things working against us,” Trent said, as he started back down the hall, anxious to get Fedorov away from the windows looking out onto the street. “And they’re all hard to control. The U.S. economy’s weakened pretty significantly in the last six months and that makes people feel less generous. Also, after getting a good run in the press for a while, the problems in Africa are taking a back burner. The Middle East, political scandals… Even global warming is getting better ratings.”      He stopped and let Fedorov go through the office door first. He couldn’t read the man’s expression in the dim light and had no idea how he was taking what he was hearing, making it impossible to make necessary adjustments in his tone and approach.      “We’re doing what we can, but…” He let his voice trail off as he poured two whiskeys. Fedorov wandered around the office and examined things that he clearly had no interest in.      After a few seconds, the silence became uncomfortable and Trent found himself speaking again, purely out of nervousness. “We’re working on a large partnership with USAid right now, Aleksei, and I’m optimistic about it. We’d be the primary administers of a twenty-million-dollar project. Right now it’s between us and CARE, but I think we’ll get it over them. The danger is more that the U.S. will pull funding entirely. Conditions in-country are getting worse and it’s getting harder to convince people that the money they put there is going to make a difference.”      Fedorov turned and accepted the whiskey Trent held out to him, looking down at it as though he thought it might be poisoned. “I looked at your new campaign, Stephen. It’s shit. Another bunch of happy niggers with shovels.”      “Aleksei—”      “Our work is done,” Fedorov continued, cutting him off. “Is that what you’re trying to say? Because that’s what I’m seeing—Africans so happy and healthy that I think they should be giving me money.”      “Like I was saying, Aleksei, we have to show a certain amount of progress and stability. Our focus groups—”      “Your focus groups?” Fedorov shouted. “Why don’t you give me your focus groups’ addresses? Then I can have a conversation with them about why I’m not making any money.”      “Please, I think—”      “Am I wrong, Stephen? Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that I can’t do math.”      “That’s not what I’m saying…”       “Don’t we have photos of dead children? Why are you the only person on the fucking planet who can’t find dead Africans to take pictures of? You can’t walk ten feet in that country without tripping over one.”      “It isn’t—”      “Remember that picture of the starving kid with the vulture standing next to him? That made people want to give money.”      Trent tried to remember how many times that particular image had come up and how many times he was going to have to defend his decision not to use something similar.      “Going with something like that is going to work against us in this situation, Aleksei. And we’d have to deal with a certain amount of backlash and scrutiny that I think we both agree we don’t want to deal with. We have to be very careful about controlling our image.”      “Charities can’t run on good intentions, Stephen.”      It was impossible to know if the statement’s irony was intended and whether an acknowledgement of the joke was required. In the end, Trent decided to pretend he hadn’t heard. “We’re still refining the campaign and I agree that it could be more hard-hitting. Give us another week and we’ll send you something with a little more polish. I think you’ll be happy with it.”      Fedorov clearly wasn’t convinced, but appeared willing to move on. “Have you hired someone to take over the farming project?”      “I met with the last candidate yesterday.”      “And?”      Trent sat down at his desk and slid a file across it. Fedorov made no move to pick it up, glancing disinterestedly at it from his position in the center of the office.       “His name is Josh Hagarty,” Trent said. “He graduated from high school with a very average GPA—essentially As in things he was interested and Ds in things he wasn’t. After he graduated, he went to work for an auto shop near his home and, well, wasn’t exactly a model citizen.”      Fedorov remained silent, but for the first time that night, his expression showed a hint of approval.      “He had a few minor arrests for things like disorderly conduct and marijuana possession, but nothing stuck. Then he got drunk and drove into a tree. He survived, but his friend in the passenger seat was killed. Josh spent a year in jail for vehicular manslaughter.”      “And what did he learn in prison?” Fedorov asked.      “Apparently, that he didn’t want to go back. When he was released, he enrolled in a community college, got straight As, transferred to a four-year college, and graduated near the top of his class in engineering.”      “He didn’t find Jesus, did he? I hate those fucking people.”      “He doesn’t attend church and there’s no mention of religiosity from our private investigators.”      Fedorov nodded noncommittally.      “Because of his background, he didn’t get any good job offers and that prompted him to pursue an MBA. He’s just now graduating, again near the top of his class, despite holding a full-time job the entire time.”      “And?”      “And he’s drowning in student and every other kind of debt. He has a sister he’s extremely close to who’ll be graduating from high school next year and he doesn’t have the money to send her to college.”      “Are any other companies sniffing around him?”      “He’s had a fair number of interviews but, even with his qualifications, his background has kept him from getting any offers. He does have a meeting next week with a small company near his school called Alder Data Systems. They don’t have a terribly sophisticated hiring process and, according to our people, they may have overlooked his problems with the law.”      “I take it we’re going to fix that?”      “It’s being taken care of as we speak.”      “So what’s the final verdict?”      “There’s no such thing as a perfect candidate, but he’s smart as hell, charismatic, good-looking, and well-educated. But more importantly, he’s desperate—for money, to rise above his upbringing, to prove he’s changed. He’s no angel, and he has a sister who’s important to him. I’m not sure it would be possible to find someone who fits the profile you created any better.”      Fedorov’s expression darkened subtly. “I told you the last one would be a problem. But you didn’t listen to me.”      “You have to understand that—”      “What I understand,” he cut in, “is that I’m not here to fix your stupid mistakes. What you should understand is that I’m holding you personally responsible this time.”