off. "But, as you say, that was the old days. The world's changed. Now per¬haps we can just be two professionals. Do some business."
He seated himself on a block of marble, still slightly moist with morning dew, and withdrew a wrinkled clip¬ping. It was from The Times of London. "Here, read this, please."
Vance glanced down at it, then realized he had already read it on the Reuters satellite news service. He had looked it over, stored it in his news-update computer file, and promptly forgotten about it.
SOVIET PARTY OFFICIAL SOUGHT IN DISAPPEARANCE OF FUNDS
MOSCOW, Mar. 18—The Central Committee today lodged formal charges against a CPSU official, Viktor Fedorovich Volodin, First Secretary of the oblast of Sakhalin, in connection with his alleged embezzle¬ment of government funds and subsequent disappear¬ance.
The island of Sakhalin, together with the Kuril Is¬lands, is an administrative district in the far eastern region of the Soviet Federated Socialist