Chapter One
March 2003
Vermeil, Ontario
Alesh Stefanich heard the garage door open followed by the noise of a car engine: his
wife was leaving for work. Only seconds later the door of the matrimonial bedroom
squeaked and his twin four-year-old boys, Fred and Dan, climbed into his bed, one on
each side. They fell asleep right away, their heads in the crooks of his arms. Their
morning visit, punctually occurring every time Mom left early, was a little secret the
three of them shared. Nobody talked about it anywhere, anytime.
Alesh Stefanich didn’t fall asleep. He lay in bed, careful not to move, and thought of
the interview ahead of him. It was going to be difficult to show he had all the knowledge
required to be hired while avoiding questions about his former job and employer.
Fred stirred, then emitted a light cry followed by a deep sigh, as if he was caught in a
nightmare. Alesh stroked him gently as the child moved to lie on his chest.
He desperately wanted to have a successful interview, and get the job, because his
children should grow to be proud of him.
***
Malcolm Clark, the head of the investigative agency Invicta, was perplexed. Alesh
Stefanich was the man he needed to break into the criminal ring known as The Rampant
Lion. Stefanich was articulate, attentive and spoke several languages. And although the
information in his possession showed that The Rampant Lion had a strong hold in
Vermeil, its tentacles were thought to span from Europe to Asia. Alesh Stefanich had all
the qualifications he was looking for, including an appreciation for modern technologies.
What worried Malcolm was why Alesh Stefanich was still for hire.
He nervously flipped a pencil between his fingers, as he did every time he had to
make a decision he was not comfortable with. He sighed, knowing he couldn’t wait any
longer. From the Eastern countries he had received several papers that needed to be
translated, and, most urgently of all, a trap had to be set. A lab developing domestic
appliances powered by proton-exchange-membrane cells, PEMs for short, would attract
almost anybody interested in stealing original designs or prototypes. Those fuel cells,
based on the interaction between hydrogen and oxygen, had been much advertised in the
media: they were an innovative, clean source of energy, they claimed, and their size, now
of a lap-top battery, was supposed to decrease considerably in the near future. Alesh
Stefanich is definitely my man, Malcolm Clark thought. Stefanich could give the lab the
necessary credibility, and make the so much needed breakthrough.
He glanced at the agenda lying on his desk. Before seeing Stefanich, however, he
should meet with his new client, Bernard Corvin, and soon after have a chat with
Ludmille Bremin, to see if the snooping she had been carrying on at the Endless Trail had
finally given any results.
It was going to be a long day.
***
Johannes Volpieren was thrilled. He had been invited to the Mayor’s spring reception—
the major social event of the city of Vermeil. He would have a chance to meet with
influential members of the community as well as celebrities. New contacts were
extremely important for his business.
Volpieren set the invitation upright in the middle of the coffee table, as to mark a
milestone in his career. Life hadn’t been easy. It had taken him more than ten years to
recover from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent lack of support. He had
set up his business in Canada, a country where people have the utmost respect for
privacy. They never questioned the origin of his fortune, the reason he had immigrated,
or his credentials as an honorable business man. Step by step he had contacted most of
those who had worked for him and established an organization responding to the
demands of the current market. Different groups in several countries turned to him to
obtain designs without paying the patent fees. Once he received the order and half the
payoff, Volpieren penetrated the targeted firm and corrupted or blackmailed the people in
charge. His most powerful weapon was the private information he had collected on highprofile executives who might otherwise deny him a favor. In a short time, industrial
espionage had become his specialty.
Now that he had gained a respectable position, he would think about how to get at the
woman who had brutally rejected him. She had been hiding from him, but he would find
her. Only revenge would appease his long-repressed anger.