The man shook his head. "What'd you do, hit a fertilizer truck?"

"Uh," something like that. She looked around, suddenly seeing the open trunk of the car next to them. "I, uh, could really use a ride."

The man looked suspicious. "Listen, I could call the police for you or something. But I don't think it'd be right..."

"Listen, I just need to get out of this neighborhood, okay? It's not safe, she said, looking back over her shoulder."

The man seemed unsure, then nodded. "Of course. I'm sorry. I should know better, I guess." He offered her his handkerchief. "The Lord says we must treat the most humble as the most exalted."

He opened the pa.s.senger door for her, then moved to close the trunk. "And be charitable to the most wretched of his creations."

"Thank you, uh, Mr...."

"Oliver. Oliver O'Neill."

She hesitated before getting in the car. "You some kind of a minister, Mr. O'Neill?" The interior of the car was neat and tidy, a small crucifix hanging from the rearview mirror. On it was an icon of Saint Margaret, the patron saint of lost, hopeless, and abandoned women.

Her only companion on many nights alone in a hungry past.

"Not exactly," O'Neill said as he rummaged in the trunk before closing it. He handed her a book. "I sell study Bibles to religious schools."

Exhaustion and instinct conquering her rampant fears-the vans and the men somewhere behind her-Barbara collapsed into the comfortable car.

"Where do you need to go?" O'Neill asked.

"Which way you headed?"

"Next stop is Saint Barnabas's Academy in Georgetown."

For the first time in hours, she breathed a relaxed breath and nodded, thinking of the safety of the Georgetown apartment.

"Works for me."

They pulled away, Barbara never seeing a van pull up to the corner behind them to pick up the men who'd chased her.

"Beautiful," Vedette said as he hung up the phone. "We got a full trace on the phone and the target is securely in the jar." He made some notes on a clipboard. "Exactly as you drew it, my friend! Molto bello."

Xenos ignored the praise as he studied the computer display in front of him. "People seldom surprise me," he mumbled as he called up another display. "It's a punch game."

"What?" Vedette walked over to read the display over the big man's shoulder.

"Punch game," Xenos repeated as he gestured at the monitor. "A sophisticated set of interconnected phone relays. Based on an old con game of the twenties. Merchants would be sold punch cards for a quarter apiece. The idea was that their customers would get four punches for a dollar. And somewhere on the card was a prize of one, five, or ten dollars.

"But the merchant would see that there was really no way for the customers to win, so it was pure profit. Especially after their customers got hooked on playing." He started another program and watched as the second examined the readouts from the first. "Kinda like lotto scratchers."

Vedette studied the man who was still recovering from his wounds, but seemed to ignore the pain and slight immobilities as an inconvenience rather than an injury. "And this is like that..."

Xenos made a note of some figures.

"They've tied together the relays from several distant areas-in this case four or five cities within one hundred miles of D.C.-into the one receiving station. Direct calls come through, but tracer tones or burst transmissions could go to any of the other numbers while at the same time alerting the actual receiver of the trace attempt."

"Then we have accomplished nothing. The Corsican looked positively depressed."

"Well." Xenos half smiled. "Yes and no. The other con of the punch game was that the con man had a partner who knew which holes to punch in order to win the big cash prizes. Moral being there's always a way to..." He paused, then nodded in satisfaction at the new readout. "You see?"

262,398 numbers searched for active measures

250,065 show positive impedance gains

12,333 show negative impedance drops

Working ...

"Meaning?" The Corsican surveillance expert had worked with much of the highest-tech equipment in the world. Things that could "see through walls, listen without being present, phone taps of every description and nature." He'd even invented a few "nuances of his own."

But the technology and understanding of it that he was experiencing in this Virginia warehouse was like going back to school.

The first day of school.

"Emergency lines like Krusiec called never make outgoing calls. You can't risk the line being busy when an operative needs you. So I asked the computer to trace the relays for lines that had only received calls in the last eight hours. Now it's narrowing it down further by duration, transfer activity, sophistication of the receiving equipment. Stuff like that."

Vedette nodded as he made a note of the program name and version, surprised that it was an over-the-counter application. "So it will eventually give us the final relay."

"No. But it'll narrow it down to no more than ten possibilities. Those we check out other ways."

Xenos walked away from the computer when he saw Albina come into the room. "Talk to me."

The small man looked unhappy. "I have three teams, twenty-six men in all, sitting on a Greek freighter off Montauk, New York. They are good men, blooded, well equipped. But I still cannot land them."

"Why?"

"I've heard nothing from the negotiations. Those we have here, those we have on the outside, are enough of a risk. There will be war if we bring in three hit squads and the Sicilianos find out about them before the talks are complete. We must wait for Franco."

Xenos checked his watch, then nodded. "Give him two more hours, then land your men."

"Durete ..." But the look in the man's eyes was enough to silence Albina. "G.o.d's mercy on us all," he said as he pulled out his cell phone.

"What about the other thing? Can you do it?"

Albina glanced at a table behind him strewn with photos, maps, and diagrams.

"I never worry about getting in," he said with more confidence than he felt. "It's staying in that bothers me."

Xenos nodded his agreement, then walked across the warehouse to a small office, a tiny room empty of everything except a chair and a small table. On the table was a pen-and-ink sketch he'd been working on for the past three days.

He closed the door behind him, picking up the pad, continuing the delicate work of sketching the face.

The hard eyes.

The scarred neck.

The perennial five o'clock shadow.

The hint of tattoos at the shoulder.

It was still unfinished, still forming, recognizable only to Xenos. But as he worked, hour by hour, moment by moment, it became clearer, fixed, more understandable.

As did the man it represented.

At some point the picture-physical and mental-would be complete. Then the time would come to look into those eyes, to challenge the mind and the flesh behind it. But that was still remote, removed, distant. A thing not considered or planned for.

Because the sketch wasn't yet ready.

In a small New York restaurant-little more than a store-front-the future was now.

Franco sat relaxed, confident, and comfortable. Despite the three gunmen standing behind him.

He'd been kept waiting for an hour, as he'd expected. Relations abroad between the Corsicans and the Mafia were strained at best. But here, in a country even more native to them than their precious Sicily, the relationship was openly hostile.

Members of the Brotherhood were banned from all illegal activities in cities controlled by the Mafia. And violation of this twenty-five-year-old "treaty" would most likely lead to an international war between the two deadly groups.

Not that there weren't members of individual Unions operating in "open cities in the States."

Franco had drawn from Unions in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Houston for his initial personnel. But none of them were working for the Brotherhood as a whole-all of them independents-or in cities where the Mafia had no clear leader or leaders.

And they needed to be free to work-without interference-in New York, possibly New Jersey or Connecticut, as well as Washington and its suburbs.

So Franco sat and sipped coffee as he waited for this third and final meeting to begin.

There was a shuffling of men and chairs as the sixty-year-old, bathrobe-clad Mafia chieftain walked over and sat down.

"You got b.a.l.l.s, DiBenetti. I'll give you that." Franco shrugged. "My b.a.l.l.s I've gotten better compliments on than from you, old man," he said easily. "You finally ready to do business, or you want to keep playing crazy for the Feds?"

"You Corsies blow me away."

"It could happen," Franco said with a smile. "But let's a.s.sume the best for the moment, okay?"

The Mafioso nodded. "Okay. I got two problems. You solve them, I give you my blessing. You don't," he sighed, "I have Leopold here cut off your magnificent b.a.l.l.s and bronze them for my Christmas tree."

The Corsican never moved.

"First problem," the old gangster said in a rock-steady, almost accusing voice, "is that you Corsies don't never share. That's always been the f.u.c.king problem. You don't pay tribute, you don't show the proper respect, and once we let you in somewhere, we got to whack out maybe half a dozen or more of you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds before you get the message and leave. c.o.c.kroaches, that's you. You either wipe 'em all out or they foul the whole house!"

He laughed uproariously at the picture, immediately joined in by the three gunmen behind Franco.

"Second problem," the Corsican leader prompted.

The man calmed, leaned forward, and spoke so softly he could only be heard by the man across from him. "We don't do politics. Never. It's like a holy order, see? And this here thing of yours stinks of it."

Before Franco could say anything, the old man held up a hand. "The only thing I know about c.h.i.n.ks is that I don't like the food. Too much tasteless oil."

But the look on the face of his adversary banished the laughter before it began.

"The G," the mob boss continued, "they barely know we're alive these days. They spend their time dealing with each other, white-collar guys, a.s.sholes beatin' f.a.gs, and rednecks burning n.i.g.g.e.rs. Us, they look at as part of the landscape. Not pretty maybe. But acceptable, so long as we stay out of certain things." He shrugged. "And politics is number one on their s.h.i.t list."

"You done?" Franco sounded annoyed. "I mean if you're gonna make another speech, I wouldn't want to interrupt. I know how hard that is for you."

The man across from him gestured for Franco to begin.

"First, I don't give a s.h.i.t for your little civics lessons. You and me and who we stand for got nothing to do with governments or what they want. In the Brotherhood, we have men, not politicians." He looked around at the other men. "Maybe you guys have changed, eh?"

His voice hardened and his manner became more deliberate. "So I don't want to hear about your troubles with G."

He leaned back. "As for the other, well, you do business your way, we do it ours. We don't share. Why should we if we do all the work?"

"But this one time," to avoid misunderstandings and wrong impressions, we're willing to give you a taste. He paused, waiting for the man across from him to lean slightly forward in antic.i.p.ation. "Fifteen percent of the San Diego and Houston operations for six months, and the use of Port Girolata as a transshipment point for your heroin processing for one year at no charge." He smiled. "Beyond expenses, of course."

"You really do want these c.h.i.n.ks."

"Even more than I want to send you to h.e.l.l."

The old man thought for a few minutes. "And at the end of the year?"

"Five percent biannually for the continued use and protection of Girolata."

"Jesus."

Franco shrugged. "I don't think he'd be interested." After ten minutes of total silence, the don nodded. "And the Council will confirm the deal."

"I am the f.u.c.king Council. What about the commission?"

"Done."