We took Aslan’s warning seriously. We knew for sure they were going to blame us for their crimes; we feared that they would attempt to kill us too. I didn’t know how to stop mobsters from trying to kill us, and that weighed heavily on me, but I was confident that if the Swiss successfully prosecuted the Stepanovs, the Russians could no longer credibly blame us for their crimes. This might also reduce the incentive to kill us. It wasn’t much, but it was all we had. By early 2011, we had produced a complaint that we were now ready to file with the Swiss authorities.
