“The gas is Russian, but the pipeline that carries it to Western Europe is Ukrainian. And last year Ukraine tried to force Russia to give them a bigger cut of the profits by shutting off the flow. The EU went ballistic. Forty percent of what they consume comes through Ukraine. They threatened to build a line of their own through Turkey from gas fields in Central Asia.”

“But that would just put them at the mercy of a different set of crooks.”

“Exactly. That’s why the EU chose the known over the unknown and brought Jack in to restructure the market. He realized that the key was to eliminate all of the intermediaries used to skim money and replace them with a single transparent authority, a kind of joint venture run out of a third country that would have its books open to the world.”

They ceased speaking as an elderly doctor parked his car in the next space.

Spike waited until he had walked toward the hospital and out of earshot, then said, “I can understand why the Russian and Ukrainian governments might cave in; for them it’s a foreign policy issue. But not the gangsters. I just don’t see them backing off.”

“Let’s just say that they came to understand that all of Western Europe would be inspecting this thing with a microscope, and decided to show restraint.”

Spike raised his eyebrows in a knowing look that assumed what he was trying to discover: that Gage had been Burch’s emissary. “They decided on their own, or were persuaded?”

Gage cast Spike a reproachful look. “I don’t know. Maybe one led to the other.”

From the moment Burch asked Gage to join him in Moscow, he had understood that a public disclosure that they’d approached the underworld would cast doubt on the legitimacy of the plan, for everyone watching would assume that there had been a secret quid pro quo.

Spike shrugged. “If you say so.” He jerked his thumb toward the Richmond District north of Golden Gate Park, now a Little Russia. “But persuasion isn’t exactly the weapon of choice around here these days.”