CHAPTER 10
THE HEADLINE did not ease her hangover. The Post scoop was predictably focused on human interest. A world-famous researcher who doubled as a Washington socialite got caught in the crossfire outside a Georgetown kindergarten. They had turned her into the all-American hero who waded through a hail of bullets to protect her child while Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov, the alleged head of the Russian Mafia, was gunned down in the heart of the capital. The police confirmed that the old man’s five-year-old daughter Krupskaya was among the casualties.
The Post had firsthand information from several sources that this was a suspected dispute over drugs. The Russian Mafia had used Afghan contacts to elbow in on the West Coast market and fighting over spoils lead to this gangland murder. No surp
