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splashes. And their hair done up so daring or so simple.

But two things struck to her core: the absolutely self-assured expressions on their faces, as if to dare the world to call into question their individual self-worth, and the air of assertive freedom. People were giving their adulation not only to the young models' beauty, but also their style, their sassiness, their ease of movement under obvious pressure to perform well. Lydia wanted the chance to aspire to such marvelous things. She wanted out of Russia.

And, while Sasha was not exactly a white knight in shining armor, he did come to her rescue. The tall, handsome Sasha with the velvety voice and fine manners and seemingly limitless quantities of both charm and money to sway a girl. Sasha, in his ankle-length mink coat and black BMW, blowing into gray, torpid, decaying Rostov like a devil's wind into the desert, sweeping up anything that lay in his path. No one had to ask what his profession was. Object of both envy and scorn, Sasha was representative of the new class of post-communist entrepreneur in the new Russia. A clever young man who knew how to advance in a system suddenly devoid of controls and in which everyone had a price. A master of
blat
-- "pull," influence. In the Dodge City of the new Russia, the Sashas were both sheriff and bad guys. With money and muscle they cajoled or threatened government ministers and kiosk vendors, generals and janitors. The distinction between mafia and mere capitalist was a vague blur. The now chatty newspapers screamed mafia at them.

But, like the new class they sensationalized, the papers themselves now hustled for income. Anything to sell a story.

"Lydia of the Lillies," Sasha breathed so sweetly.

"Come with me to Moscow and I will give you work," he promised so earnestly.

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"I won't ask questions," she replied solemnly. "Just take me from here."

He was intoxicated with her beauty, he confessed. She was too smart for a bumpkinville like Rostov.

She went with him, leaving only a farewell note to her family, promising to stay in touch.

Sasha treated her like a princess. New clothes. Fine restaurants. The ballet. For a week.

Then came the terms.

Beautiful Slavic women were making good incomes in the West working as "escorts." A young lady who was in great demand could pocket up to $5,000 a month. And we're not talking about plying oneself in sleazy bars, Sasha assured. No pimps. And no worry about being made to go out with undesirable men. You choose. Wealthy, successful men in Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Milan and, yes, Paris. Industrialists, bankers, diplomats. Sophisticated men who desired the comforting company of a charming lady as they made their rounds and went on travels to the fleshpots of the world. And the key thing, Sasha was careful to point out, Lydia would have contact with people who could open doors for her in the fashion business or movies. All Sasha asked was that she commit herself to a year as an escort. After that, she could continue or part company on a handshake. Naturally, Sasha and his representatives took their commission, which would be explicitly understood from the outset. After all, the escort service arranged passport, visas, transportation and lodging.

Lydia accepted. Sasha turned her over to Borin, one of his aides. She didn't like Borin from the outset. He was square and fat and ugly and smelly and rude. Borin told her that she had to pass a test. He took her to the Hotel Oktober, near the train station and feted her with greasy sausage and cheap vodka. He then informed her that he PERMANENT INTERESTS

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would administer the second "interview." Upstairs to the dingy room. What happened after that was a blur. Was it force on his part, or resignation on hers? Maybe a combination of both. In any case, she knew it all had all been too good to be true. Sasha, the sweet-talker.

"Compromise," she counseled herself. Every goal in life has its price, whether in Russia or out. Father always said that life was full of compromises.

The visa line was long and slow. It usually was on Monday mornings. It seemed that all of the riff-raff of the fallen Soviet Empire spilled into the consular sections of America's embassies and consulates in the Newly Independent States on Mondays. And while the proportion of the human mix varied from post to post, invariably Russians jostled with Ukrainians who rubbed elbows with Armenians who waited with Uzbeks and Georgians and Azeris and a few Balts and on it went. Stale sweat and the lingering scent of horrible Russian cigarettes and not unoccasionally liquor breaths permeated the air. They nervously clutched their applications for "B-2" tourist visas, "F-1" student visas, "immediate relative" immigrant visas and so on, knowing that fully eighty percent could be expected to be rejected. The so-called non-immigrant visas, for people who claimed to want to stay only temporarily in the U.S., such as tourists, businessmen and students, were given to those who could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they would return to their home country. This was a difficult proposition for people who lived in a conglomeration of failed economies, some racked by unrest, where the urge to seek a new life abroad was strong.

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It was nothing new for Edna Hoff. Eighteen years on the visa line in such places as Manila, Port-au-Prince, Mexico City and Dublin gave her a keen eye for determining who was a good bet and who wasn't.

The consular section at U.S. Consulate General St.

Petersburg was a sterile, all-business set-up where queues of anxious visa-seekers waited patiently for hours for their shot at one of the American consular officers who stood behind the thick bank teller windows which separated them safely from humanity. And the $100 dollar non-refundable application fee in a country where the average monthly wage was only double that tended to discourage frivolous petitions. But hope, rooted in desperation, springs eternal.

Akhmet Ulamov, a Kazakh taxi driver whose family had moved to Saint Petersburg when it was Leningrad, was classic. Twenty-nine, divorced, modest income, shared a cramped two-bedroom flat with two other families.

"How long do you want to visit the U.S?" Edna queried, despite the fact that he had already written his response in the little box soliciting the same information on the application form.

"Three months," Ulamov answered, merely echoing his written answer.

Edna had a reason for repeating questions. Applicants sometimes would display nervousness over this particular question -- a dead giveaway that they weren't telling the truth, that they actually intended to stay indefinitely.

Ulamov kept a straight face.

"And how do you intend to support yourself?" Edna asked, with emphasis on the "how".

"Like I put down on the form, personal savings --"

Edna cut him off. This was her way of dominating the interview and keeping the applicant off guard. If there was anything she hated, it was an uppity applicant.

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"Have you ever been in trouble with the law?" Edna's tone of voice rose with this question as she glared down her long nose suspiciously at Ulamov.

"No. I said so already on the --"

Edna didn't like Muslims. They constituted most of the criminals in Saint Petersburg, along with the Georgians and Armenians.

"You say you aren't married. Have you ever been married? And if so, why no longer?" she insisted on knowing, apropos of nothing in particular.

"Yes…I mean, no. I am not married, I am di--"

Never married herself, at 45, Edna could spot a phony flirt a mile away. Men often tried to charm her in a cheap tactic to gain her sympathy in the visa interview. Some sent her flowers and chocolates. A couple even tried to give her jewelry. Some called to ask for a date -- oldest ruse in the book. Edna knew of several female colleagues over the years who were stupid enough to fall for such blandishments. They issued visas to lovers who would then abscond to the U.S., never to be heard from again. A couple were fired for malfeasance.

"Where do you plan to travel while in the U.S?"

"New York, Disney World, Oklahoma City."

"What's in Oklahoma City?" Edna demanded.

"My brother lives there. With his family. I want to visit them--"

"I see," Edna declared with finality. Abruptly terminating her interrogation, Edna bent her neck downward, her thick glasses a mere four inches from Ulamov's application, upon which she scribbled furiously.

She raised her head and, with a smirk of triumph, curtly informed Ulamov that his application for a tourist visa was rejected. "I regret to inform you that you have been found ineligible for a non-immigrant visa under section 214(b) of 88 JAMES

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the Immigration and Naturalization Act: failing to prove that you have a permanent abode outside the United States to which you intend to return. Good day," Edna rattled off swiftly. She'd said this at least ten thousand times during her career. She would repeat it perhaps sixty times this day.

"Next!"

With no time to digest the verdict, a perplexed and crushed Ulamov was shown the door by a security guard.

The young blonde woman stepped gently up to the window and cracked a faint, polite smile as she passed her passport and tourist visa application through the slot.

Edna was immediately suspicious. Young women anywhere were potentially bad visa risks. They often had beaux in the U.S. with whom they planned to marry. Or, they merely wanted to get to the Land of Opportunity whereupon they would aggressively hunt for a husband. A tourist visa avoided the red tape and time involved in getting the requisite fiancée visa which was created for such a purpose. Edna was sick and tired of seeing good American males being snatched up by opportunistic foreign females. This was a pet peeve of her fellow sisters in the Foreign Service.

"Hmmm." Edna scrutinized the documents with a hardened, studied eye, flipping the pages of Lydia's fresh passport vigorously. A new passport was often an obvious tipoff that the applicant (a) had never traveled before; or (b) was seeking to hide past travels. Either way, the person could be susceptible to violating her visa status once in the United States. Edna couldn't abide her hard-earned tax money going to subsidize the welfare costs of illegal immigrants.

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Without lifting an eye, Edna blurted in a barely audible monotone, "How long do you intend to remain in the United States?"

"Three months," Lydia replied without hesitation.

"And what is the purpose of your visit?"

"To see America."

"What cities do you intend to travel to?"

"The art museums of New York, Washington, Chicago and San Francisco."

The woman's composed, self-assured delivery irritated Edna. This Russian girl obviously was not intimidated.

There was something else. She was beautiful. Blonde tresses done up in delicate curls. Her upturned nose wiggled ever so slightly when she spoke. Edna once read somewhere that this feature drove many men to distraction.

The woman's deep-set, sea-blue eyes radiated a serene earnestness. Her blemish-free face was barely made up.

The pouting lips required no rouge.

Edna was five-feet-eleven, 120 pounds, with the angular face of an imminent crone, crowned with a thatch of straight, ear-length hair of an indeterminate brown, streaked with grays. Her coke-bottle glasses, with an elastic neck strap, concealed pale gray eyes.

Wasting no time, Edna demanded sternly, "Do you have a fiancé in the U.S?"

"No."

"Are you planning to--"

"No. I have no plans to marry an American," Lydia interjected calmly.

Edna despised such impertinence from mendicants. She refused eighty percent of applicants and was proud of it. In her mind this was the only way of keeping America from being overwhelmed by job-thieving, welfare-collecting, men-stealing migrants.

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"I regret to inform you that--"

Lydia cut her off. "Please see my references." She slipped a letter through the window.

"Edna dear," it began. "This is to introduce Lydia Puchinskaya, the daughter of a good friend, a wealthy businessman, former party man, from Rostov. Lydia is an art student who wishes to see the great museums of America. I will call. With affection, Pavel."

This indeed was an important reference. Pavel was Edna's lover. She might be all business at the office, but at home, Edna was a woman. Being with Pavel, whom she had met at her yoga class, was quite a sensitive thing.

American officials in Russia still operate under a "non-frat"

-- non-fraternization -- policy. This means no love affairs with the locals. The KGB might be gone, but in name only.

Sexual seduction remained a tried-and-true means of recruiting spies. But Edna was as tough and discerning as they came. She could smell an ulterior motive a jail sentence away. Eighteen years of visa work honed the sixth sense for such things. With so many of the good, eligible males in the Foreign Service -- there weren't many to begin with -- being snatched away by calculating foreign females, why, heck! Smart, dynamic and lovable ladies should not be expected to live like nuns. We're human too, she had concluded firmly.

And Pavel was so sweet. So innocently boylike. And, at 25, athletic and six-foot-two, a serious hunk. He dabbled in yoga, and had quit after only the first class. His passion was dancing. He, in fact, taught Edna how to dance.

Pavel never asked for any favors for himself. Indeed, he invariably tried to refuse Edna's gifts -- unheard of in this broken society of conniving schemers. But once in a while, he would recommend for a visa a special friend, usually female. But they were of impeccable credentials and from PERMANENT INTERESTS

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good families. She approved the visas, certain that Pavel wouldn't send any ringers. Pavel was a real Prince Charming. Just like his brother, Sasha.

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CHAPTER NINE

Too many things had been getting under Al's skin. Not enough to make him go back to his den and devour cannolli before the boob tube. But enough to give him sour stomachs and restive nights in bed. He had bags under his eyes and popped fistfuls of antacids. Knowing from experience Al's ferocious temper during these down periods, his people tried to keep some distance, treading lightly around the boss and speaking only when spoken to.