Herb ignored it. He'd known the man the longest and had at least a rudimentary education in "Xenos 101." Years ago, Xenos had called these moods sponge time, and the veteran of all of America's cold wars had come to respect them. He saw it as a time of sifting, shifting, screening. A time that would eventually lead to action... and someone's death.

So he busied himself reworking the package he'd prepared at Xenos's direction, trying to decide which order what facts should be in for maximum effect. Knowing that the man in the room would have still more changes when the time came. Knowing that the requirements his former star pupil had given him were next to impossible to fulfill. But knowing that his dedicatedly amoral staff would somehow fill them.

And he never looked up at the clock.

Because times like this just couldn't be rushed.

Franco had briefed his friend on the arrival of the Corsican hit teams. Twenty-six of the toughest, most violent, most feared men in the world. All wanted by the police of most of Europe. He'd personally selected the eighteen he would work with, a.s.signing the others to Fabre.

No specific plans could be made yet-actually Franco expected only to be involved in the final details of the planning-but their time was well spent... breaking down and cleaning their weapons, whetting their blades and appet.i.tes.

Valerie and Vedette had jointly reported to the Four Phase Man. Barbara's admission had been vague but probably truthful. She knew the children were being held on a farm in northern Virginia. The Corsican surveillance expert knew that the trace on the call Barbara had made led to one of five farms in that part of the state.

But beyond that... nothing.

It was frustrating beyond belief for Valerie. To be so close to her children-all the while not wholly believing they were still alive-was maddening. She alternately felt energized and exhausted. Filled with hope and despairing beyond gloom. But her a.s.sistant had sworn through broken ribs and spit blood and teeth that they were alive.

Valerie clung to that.

As she was sure that the clock had stopped moving out of pure spite.

Albina's had been the strangest briefing of them all. The infiltration master-who they said had gotten into more places than Mediterranean c.o.c.kroaches-had arrived at the warehouse in a spectacularly expensive suit, leather briefcase to match, and credentials around his neck showing him to be Eleventh Floor Special-Cleared, bearing the seal of the Department of Justice.

He'd been brought straight in to see Xenos, had stayed the longest of any of them. When he'd finished, he hadn't waited around for the coming meeting. Instead he'd quickly changed into a maintenance man's uniform, then sat for an hour at an embroidery machine, comparing his work with several pictures from a magazine or program. Finally, with Velcroed shoulder patches that said Veterans Stadium-Event Staff, he'd hurried away.

Fabre had taken his eight men in to see Xenos for three minutes only. They exited almost as soon as they'd arrived and now sat in the back of the warehouse-calmly reading p.o.r.nographic magazines while occasionally readjusting the knives or guns strapped to their waists and ankles.

Waiting like the c.o.c.ked weapons that they were.

The waiting was the hardest for Avidol. He'd nothing to contribute beyond his emotional support; had no clear idea of what was happening around him. But he could smell the tension, the fear, the unknown demon that floated through the large room, tapping them each on the shoulder at unexpected moments, then moving on.

He knew the stakes: he knew that two small children waited to die or be reunited with their mother. He knew that a world stood poised at the brink of a war that could kill hundreds of thousands. He knew that America-the place that his father had called the world's only hope- was faced with a betrayal that would go unnoticed by the over 250 million that would suffer for it.

He knew that a G.o.d less generous than Avidol had always believed had given his son this burden.

So he would sit, wait-ignore the pain that radiated down his neck, the growing numbness of his arms and legs, the occasionally blurring vision-and he would be there for his boy, his Chuni.

His immortality.

Inside the small room, Xenos put the finishing details on his sketch.

The facts, figures, possibilities, and abstractions floated somewhere in the back of his mind. Things that some other part of him dealt with. His consciousness was directed down to the sketch in the half-light. To the delicate flicks of the pencil, the slight smears of the eraser, the blank expression of the face that looked back up at him.

Then he was done.

Letting the pencil drop from his hand, he stared down at the portrait, curiously examining its twists, turns, knolls, and crags. It was less an expression of the man who was the subject than it was a representation of the man's mind. A thing of angles, turns, false paths, and unlimited options.

Xenos looked into the eyes-so much his own-tried to feel the man who might have been his brother. Tried to know his soul.

If he still possessed one.

For Xenos no longer did, he was sure of that.

But souls were for dreamy-eyed poets and limp-wristed priests. People that had no measurable experience in the real world of living demons and killer angels. People who still believed that life was superior to death and that the differences between good and evil mattered.

He cried.

Oh, the pain that still racked his healing body could have been the cause. The guilt he felt over the death of innocent orphans or the near killing of his family would have been more than enough to evoke the tears. And the pain he'd inflicted on the world in the last twenty years or so did well up in him as a wrenching reminder of a lost G.o.d and life.

But none of that really explained the silent tears that dripped off his stubbled face and onto the page, smearing the sketch.

It was the simple, inexplicably rational pain of knowing that he would never see Jerry Goldman in the mirror again that made it feel as if something was breaking inside of him.

For long minutes he sobbed, slowly gaining control, using deep breaths and the disciplined mind that he'd always had. He put the pain in its proper place-the home where it would emerge in nightmares and life-then reached into his pocket.

He watched the match tip flare to life, momentarily caught up in the blue-orange fury of the flame, then touched it to the sketch.

He watched the merged face of Colin Meadows and Jerry Goldman slowly consumed and obliterated by the cleansing fire.

Herb stopped dialing a secure phone in midnumber.

A card froze in Franco's hand in the midst of his game of hearts.

Valerie's heart stopped.

Avidol slowly stood ... as the door opened and Xenos stepped out.

"We go on Sat.u.r.day," he said simply to the silenced warehouse. "It ends on Sat.u.r.day."

Thursday The committee members casually settled into their chairs, arranging staff-prepared notes, sipping ice water, slouching down. This was the last day of testimony on a slam-dunk nomination. The president wanted DeWitt, no pictures of him playing golf with Charles Manson or raping Mother Teresa had surfaced; the man had been equal parts charming, stirring, self-effacing, and arrogant. His poll numbers were higher than the president's or any member of the joint House/Senate Judiciary Committee, and with war probably less than a week away, each person behind the green baize table felt it was a personal responsibility to make the DeWitt confirmation his or her part in the coming war effort.

Well, not each person.

Senator Shawn Roberts of California had his doubts. DeWitt was too slick, too prepared. There was something basically unlikable about the man when you met him close up. But these were not things you denied a man the second highest office in the land for.

Still, Roberts had his staff make extra inquiries into DeWitt's past, just to satisfy his feelings of, well, discomfort at the prospect of Jefferson DeWitt being a heartbeat away from the presidency. But nothing had been found. The man was as squeaky-clean as any child of the sixties could be.

So, moments before the members began their final round of questioning of the man they would vote unanimously for tomorrow, Roberts was literally and figuratively washing his hands of the business when he heard the bathroom door open and close behind him.

He looked up to see Herb Stone standing just inside, studying him.

"Director Stone."

"Senator."

The two men just looked at each other for long moments.

"Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Stone?"

Herb had thought long and hard about that question. If he answered it, he would be committing an inarguably treasonable offense. If he didn't, his sin of omission might be even greater.

The "evidence" he'd come to deliver was carefully false. A construct-by his amoral but deeply loyal staff-that had been perfected, fine-tuned by Xenos, himself. The former intelligence prodigy had then studied the cla.s.sified psychological profiles of the members of the committee, conferred with the ambitious Senator Buckley (through Herb), then decided whom the package would be presented to and how.

But if this went bad, if the man in front of him began to suspect, then a lengthy prison stay would be the least of the concerns Herb would have for the future.

"Mr. Stone..."

Taking a deep breath, Herb began, as he listened to the gentle breathing coming through his hidden earpiece.

"Senator Roberts, do you believe in monsters?"

"Excuse me?" Roberts dried his hands and started pulling on his jacket.

"Monsters, Senator. Slavering beasts which lurk in the dark waiting for an unsuspecting innocent to wander by."

Roberts smiled easily. "If politics has taught me anything, Mr. Stone, it's that there are all kinds of monsters." He hesitated as he studied the old man in front of him. "The trick is to know one when you see it."

Herb nodded. "And to know whose side they're on."

"Good afternoon," the senator said brusquely after a long pause as he stepped toward the door.

Herb moved in front of him. "Monsters, Senator, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some even wearing Armani suits and welcoming smiles."

Roberts froze. "What do you have?"

Herb hesitated, then handed the thick file over to the cautious man. He watched closely as the man began reading. First casually flipping through the mixture of forged, composited, and real doc.u.ments and photographs, then slowly taking in or reading each one completely.

These are dangerous times, Xenos's voice whispered through Herb's earpiece.

"These are dangerous times, Senator," Herb said softly. "Times when words such as..." He paused, seemed to c.o.c.k his head slightly, then continued. "Words such as duty, honor, country must be given their true meaning or banished to oblivion."

Roberts nodded absently as he read. "Unbelievable," he muttered."

They said terrorism in America was unbelievable.

"They said terrorism in America was unbelievable," Herb continued. "That it could never happen here."

"I was at the World Trade Center," the senator mumbled, "trapped for two hours... His voice trailed off."

Herb looked genuinely surprised. "Indeed?"

And they said monsters...

"And they said monsters are unbelievable. Fictions created by fevered imaginations and ignorance." He paused, listened, then continued. "How ignorant are you, Senator?"

"This will have to go to staff for further investigation..."

"So that it can be properly explained and cleared up," Herb interrupted, "without the public ever being the wiser?"

The man looked up at him, his expression a mixture of fear and anger. "What are you suggesting?"

Herb seemed to be distracted for a moment, then he smiled, a thing quickly put away in place of a stern, reproving look.

"Senator," he said simply, "are you the stuff that heroes are made of?" He hesitated. "Or are you too afraid of the dark?"

Two minutes later Herb stood alone in the bathroom.

"You have an obscene understanding of human nature, my boy," he said with a growing grin.

Wonder where I got that from, was the whispered reply. Pickup's waiting at the South Portico. You have a plane to catch. The connection went dead.

"The committee will come to order," the senator intoned emotionlessly. "This final round of questioning will be limited to ten minutes each. All members are requested to relinquish any time they may not require." He turned to DeWitt, who sat smiling in his new Armani suit, with a welcoming smile beaming from his clean-cut-image face. "Mr. Attorney General, do you have any final statements to make?"

"No, Mr. Chairman. Except to say that I appreciate the thoroughness, courtesies, and the fine job done by yourself and the committee. It makes me proud to be a part of such a fine and democratic process."

"Thank you, Mr. Attorney General." The chairman looked to the end of the table. "Senator Hawkins."

"Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have only one question for our esteemed nominee. Mr. Attorney General, having experienced the confirmation process, can you give this committee-and through it the Congress as a whole-any advice on how we might improve it? With an eye toward rapidity of confirmation and fair treatment of nominees."

DeWitt thought about it.

"Essentially, Senator, I believe this committee has not only done a fine job, a complete job, and shown that when exigencies require it, it can move with alacrity and dispatch without sacrificing thoroughness. My experience with you has been pleasant, gratifying, sobering, and a privilege. I wouldn't presume to change a thing. Do your jobs, ladies and gentlemen. Probe, question, investigate, and compel those who appear before you to be equally forthright in their responses. In that event, I can see nowhere to improve."

"Thank you." The senator smiled back. "Mr. Chairman, I relinquish back the remainder of my time."

The chairman looked toward the other end of the table. "Senator Weiss?"

"Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions of my good friend from Wisconsin and gladly relinquish back my time so that we may expedite his confirmation."

The chairman sighed and turned to his right. "Senator Roberts?"

Roberts held the closed file in both hands. This was one of those rare moments that he believed came once or twice in a man's life. Those times when he must either accept his place as a powerless member of the silent majority or step off into the dark chasm of moral certainty and minority.

There was no way to know if the allegations contained in the file were true or not-although they had the veneer of truth about them-but there was no way to test that truth either. Not and allow the public to judge fairly for themselves.

If the file was accurate, then DeWitt was a monster. If not, then Stone was the monster. And the only way to find out was to shine the sun on them both and see who dissolved.

Or so thought the senator who had once written a paper in college ent.i.tled "Monsters: A History of Corruption in American Politics."

A paper-folded, yellowed, decaying-that had found a home in an ultracla.s.sified psychological profile of the man.

"Good morning, Mr. DeWitt."

"Good morning, Senator."

Roberts opened the file, took a deep breath, then pulled out the last sheet. A list of questions and follow-ups.

"I just have a few things I'd like to clarify, for the record."