"I doubt that," Hood said.

"We'll see," Rodgers said and withdrew his hand. He felt much better having taken a swing at Hood's piety. He saw the man's point, but he still did not agree with it. Friends stood by friends. Period.

Rodgers left and went to his own office. Or rather, Ron Plummer's office. He already felt uncomfortable here, like a noncom cleaning out the locker of a dead soldier. He forced himself to look beyond this, to the meeting with Senator Orr and whatever lay ahead.

A little anarchy, Rodgers hoped. Rodgers hoped.

He was in the mood.

SEVEN.

Washington, D.C. Monday, 9:27 A.M.

Hood was about to buzz Ron Plummer when his outside line beeped. He glanced at the Caller ID. It was his former wife. He did not feel like talking to her now. The conversations were usually difficult. Sharon was still bitter because he had not been around very much since they moved to Washington. Hood was angry because she had not supported the work he was doing at Op-Center. But none of that mattered. The call could be about the kids.

"Good morning, Sharon," Hood said when he picked up the phone. He tried to sound pleasant.

"Hi, Paul. Do you have a minute?"

"Sure," he said. Sharon sounded unusually relaxed.

"I need a favor," she said. "You met my friend Jim Hunt."

"The caterer."

"The home party restaurateur, yes," she said.

Hunt was someone Sharon had known for years, dating back to when she had her own cooking show. They used to have an occasional lunch together. Now the kids told him they were having frequent dinners together.

"His son Franklin will be studying poli-sci at Georgetown in the fall," Sharon went on. "The school will give him college credit if he interns in a political inst.i.tution over the summer. Is there anything he might be able to do at Op-Center? He's a very sharp young man, Paul."

Hood's former wife, who had always resented the hours he spent at Op-Center, was asking him to help the son of her boyfriend get an internship there. And she happened to make her request on a day when Hood had been ordered to lay people off. Bob Herbert once said that CIA stands for Convergent Incongruities Abound. That certainly applied here.

"Does he have any particular interests?" Hood asked. He did not really care, but he needed to think for a moment. Did he really want to do this?

"He is a student of languages and maps," she said. "He speaks French and is learning j.a.panese. In fact, he's been teaching Harleigh basic j.a.panese grammar. But he would be happy to work anywhere, in any capacity."

"I'll ask around," Hood told her. He would, he decided, though Op-Center rarely used interns, and only then as favors to influential members of Congress. "I just want you to know we had some major cutbacks today. So it may be difficult to place him."

"He wouldn't require compensation."

"I understand," Hood said. "What I mean is that people are going to be preoccupied."

"Okay," Sharon said. By the way she dragged out the second syllable Hood could tell she was not happy with that answer. "Can I have a time frame? If Frankie can't intern with you, he'll have to look into other places."

"Give me a day or two to see how the new landscape looks."

"A day would be good," Sharon said. "That will give us time to explore other options. Thanks."

She did not ask about the layoffs. To her, Op-Center was The Enemy. It had been the rival for her husband's affection. Now it was like an organ donor, dead except for whatever his former wife needed from it. Sharon had also said "us" not "Jim." Hood was a little jealous, not because Sharon had found someone but because she was involved in Jim's life. She was engaged in a way she had never been with Hood's work, she was simpatico. Even the kids were hitting it off. He should have been glad for them all, but he was not.

They chatted a little about the kids. Sharon said that Harleigh seemed to be doing better and had actually picked up the violin again. Alexander was playing too many computer games, listening to too much rap, and not paying enough attention to his grades. Hood said he would stop by and have a talk with him Tuesday or Wednesday. Sharon said Tuesday would be fine, that she was helping Jim on a catering job that night. Then she hung up.

Hood actually envied Sharon. She had an old friend to go to, someone who had known her even longer than Hood. For all he knew, Jim Hunt may have gotten divorced because he learned that Sharon was free.

Hood sat back and listened to the quiet. A decibel lower, and it would be death. Rodgers probably had not spoken to anyone about what happened, but intelligence people knew when the geometry of a room had changed. That was their job.

Hood wished he had someone to talk to. He had never felt more alone than he did at this moment. And he suspected that there were going to be rough hours ahead, when Lowell Coffey and Darrell McCaskey and especially Bob Herbert found out about the cutbacks. And the loss of Mike Rodgers.

Hood had never been one for self-pity. Adults made choices and lived with the consequences. But he had never been cut off from a support system.

That was how I ended up marrying Sharon, he reminded himself. Nancy Jo had left him, and he married the first woman who made him forget the hurt. Unfortunately, Sharon did not fill the void.

He wanted to talk to someone. Not a professional but a friend.

Hood considered calling Ann Farris. The former Op-Center press liaison had pursued Hood for years. Hood was married while Ann worked there, and after the divorce, there was no danger, no edge to the relationship. There was only Ann's need. Hood did not care for the divorced young mother enough to be with her, which was why he did not call her now. It would not be fair to Ann.

He thought about calling Daphne Connors. However, several dates with the public relations queen had told him they could never be more than friends. In every restaurant they went to, at the movies, at each bar they visited, Daphne always had one ear on the conversation taking place beside or behind her. She never stopped looking for new accounts or useful intelligence to service existing clients. Hood may be a workaholic, but Op-Center did not come with him when he left the office.

Hood was tempted to call Sergei Orlov, head of the Russian Op-Center in Saint Petersburg. The men had been good friends since working together to thwart the coup against the Kremlin. But Sergei was not the kind of man you talked to over the phone. He was the kind of man you sat down with over a huge bowl of uha-fish soup-and vodka shots taken from twenty-five-gram gla.s.ses.

Okay, Hood thought. Hood thought. There's still a lot of work to do. There's still a lot of work to do.

Unable to think of anyone he particularly wanted to call, Hood placed the call that had to be made. He asked Ron Plummer to come and see him. Plummer was a team player. He would feel uneasy about Rodgers's resignation, but he would a.s.sume whatever responsibilities Paul Hood asked.

As he punched in Plummer's extension, Hood found himself suddenly feeling very insecure about his own future. It was in the nature of men to want to build things, not oversee their downsizing. Hood had always envisioned Op-Center as an increasingly vital part of the intelligence and crisis management community. What happened today was not a move in that direction. It was not about making Op-Center more streamlined, about reducing bureaucracy and internal redundancies. The NCMC was being gutted. Hood would still have a great deal of work to do, but how important would that work be? Where would it take Op-Center? Where would it take Paul Hood personally?

"That's up to you, isn't it?" he asked himself aloud, to chase away the silence.

Hood asked Plummer to come in. He would deal with the situation one minute at a time. After all, this was what Op-Center was about.

Crisis management.

EIGHT.

Las Vegas, Nevada Monday, 7:43 A.M.

The five-story, white-brick Atlantica was one of the older, less flashy hotels on the southern end of the Strip. There were no dancing fountains, no caged jungle creatures, no landmarks re-created half-scale. When the hotel opened thirty-seven years before, it was, as the flashing red neon sign in the window announced, Deluxe! Deluxe! Now it was simply convenient, located close to all the major casinos. Now it was simply convenient, located close to all the major casinos.

The Atlantica was also relatively inexpensive. Tourists came here looking for a place to drop their stuff before heading to the larger hotels to gamble or see shows. As a result, there were a lot of tourists and constant activity. It was easy to be anonymous here. That appealed to Tom "Melter" Mandor.

The thirty-seven-year-old drove his white Toyota van to the third level of the parking structure. He pulled into a s.p.a.ce overlooking the hotel, then undid the seat belt, lit a hand-rolled cigarette, and waited for Richmond. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. It was idle tapping but not impatient. Mandor was never in a hurry. During the twelve years he had spent working as an oil rig roughneck, Mandor had learned to take things easy. All the workers had. Otherwise, the downtime would have driven them mad, and the bored, isolated oilmen would have torn each other apart. It was during his three years on the Alaskan North Slope that Mandor had met Michael Wayne Richmond, who drove an oil truck for the Trans-Eastern Shipping Company. He shuttled crude oil to ships that went to South Korea and j.a.pan. That was where the men had come up with the business plan for their new line of work.

Richmond's vintage Thunderbird pulled up fifteen minutes later. The five-foot-ten Mandor left the van and went down the concrete stairs. This was his partner's contact, and he had not wanted to go in without him.

It was already hot, over eighty-five desert-dry degrees. Even though it was cool and dark when he had left his home on the northwestern sh.o.r.es of Lake Mead, he was glad he had worn Bermuda shorts and a white T-shirt.

Las Vegas was not an early rising city, but the man they had come to see was from Maryland. He was still on East Coast time. There was no one in the small casino of the Atlantica. Mandor waited at the entrance, looking at the slot machines as though he were trying to decide whether to play. There was a large, convex mirror in an overhead corner. It allowed the people at the hotel desk to see into the casino. Mandor used it to watch the lobby. The tall, powerfully built Richmond was on the house phone, beside the small bank of elevators. When he hung up, Mandor walked over.

The men did not acknowledge one another. There were security cameras in the lobby, by the casino. They walked to the elevators, and Richmond touched the b.u.t.ton. When the door opened, both men stepped in. Richmond pushed the b.u.t.ton for the fifth floor. When they arrived, he turned left. Mandor went right. There was a security camera inside the elevator as well. There were no security cameras in the fifth-floor hallway. When the door shut, Mandor turned and followed Richmond.

"How was the drive?" the bald-headed Richmond asked over his shoulder.

"Sweet," Mandor replied as he caught up to his partner. He gave him a pat on the shoulder. Mandor liked his old friend, and he respected him. "There was no traffic at this hour."

"Yeah," Richmond said. "I made it from Oceanside in four hours flat."

Richmond lived in a small cabin high in the Coastal Range of Southern California. He built the place himself four years ago. After years of freezing his a.s.s in Chicago-where he was one of five kids raised by a single mother in a one-bedroom walk-up on the South Side-then as a driver in Alaska, Richmond wanted to live in consistently warm sunshine. That had been Mandor's desire, too, though he had always wanted to be on the water.

Richmond did not know Eric Stone, the gentleman who had contacted them. All Stone said was that they had been recommended by Pete at the oil company. Peter Farmer was the foreman on the last rig where Mandor had worked. Richmond had recorded the conversation, and let Stone know it. Richmond made Stone state that he was not a government agent and this was not a sting.

The men knew what this was not. They did not know what it was. Richmond had called Pete to make sure Stone was legitimate. Pete said he was, though he did not know what the man needed.

They stopped in front of room 515, and Richmond knocked. Mandor pushed his shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair behind his neck. He did not like to wear it in a ponytail. He did not like restraints of any kind. That was how he ended up in the oil business. Back home in Toledo, Ohio, when he was twenty, he had beaten up Noel Lynch's former boyfriend when he found them together. Rather than face charges and possible jail time, he fled to Mexico and then to Venezuela, where he was hired to work on an offsh.o.r.e rig. He loved the challenge. He actually enjoyed facing the battering winds, the savage cold, the endless hard labor. When that got routine, he traveled to Alaska. When that ceased to challenge him, he and Richmond came up with their new gig. One that had no overhead, was advertised by word of mouth, and was not taxed. They provided muscle for anyone who needed it.

The men had started doing that in Alaska. When environmentalists tried to block the tanker trucks or impede access to the rigs, the two men would cart the organizer away-or his wife, if she had come with him-and persuade them to take their grievances somewhere else. Roughing them up cost less than attorneys and was quicker and more effective. It also circ.u.mvented the police, whose arrests merely delayed the protests but did not eliminate them.

The work proved to be lucrative and something more. While Mandor was working in Punta Cardon, he learned that Noel had married the stupid jock he'd taken apart. Probably because she felt sorry for a guy who now had only one functioning eye. Each time Mandor hit someone, he was smacking that swaggering linebacker. Some people would call that sociopathic. To Mandor, it was cathartic. He felt that if everyone enjoyed their work as much as he did, the world would be a better place.

The door opened, and a short, well-dressed man stood inside. He was in his late twenties or early thirties, with straw-colored hair and a baby face.

"Mr. Stone?" Richmond said.

"Yes. You are Mr. Richmond?"

Richmond nodded. Stone looked at Mandor.

"Mr. Mandor?"

"Yeah," Mandor said. He could not say "Yes sir" to this kid.

"Come in," Stone said as he stepped aside.

Richmond entered first. "So how do you know Pete?" he asked as he stepped into the small foyer.

Mandor walked in, and Stone shut the door behind him. The room was medium-sized, with a king-size bed, a kitchenette, and a small dining area. The drapes were drawn, and all the lights were on.

"Before I answer, would you mind if I did a Raw scan?" Stone asked.

"What's that?" Richmond asked.

"A check for radio waves," Stone said. "I want to make sure you're not broadcasting to someone on the outside."

"Fair enough," Richmond said.

Mandor shrugged.

Stone went to the luggage stand at the foot of the made bed. He removed a device that looked like a small flashlight with an earplug. He put the plug in his ear and slowly shone a cone of pale yellow light down each man in turn. He seemed satisfied with the results.

"Would either of you care for something?" Stone asked. "A beverage?"

"I'm okay," Richmond said.

"Me, too," Mandor told him.

"Tell me about Pete," Richmond went on.

"Peter is an old friend of my employer." Stone drew a cell phone from the inside left pocket of his tailored black blazer. "You may phone Peter if you wish. He will vouch for us."

"I already spoke to him," Richmond said. "He told me you were okay, but he did not tell me who you work for. Or what you want."

"Or what it pays," Mandor added. That was the only thing he cared about. If the price was right, he would pretty much do anything for anyone.

Stone sat in one of two wicker chairs beside a small dining area table. He invited the other men to sit. Richmond took the other chair. Mandor perched on the edge of the bed.

"I work for a gentleman who is an intelligence officer and political activist who has a great many supporters in the international business sector," Stone said. "Peter Farmer is one of those men. When the time comes to tell you more, you will be very proud to be a part of what we are doing."

"Will we?" Richmond said laconically.

"That's a.s.suming we decide to become a part of this," Mandor said. He did not know what Richmond was thinking, but Mandor did not agree to anything blindly. "You want us to trust you, but you're not trusting us."

"An employer's prerogative," Stone said.

"We're not employees yet," Mandor said.

"True," Stone said. "Let's see if we can remedy that."

Stone was smooth, probably a lawyer. Mandor did not like him. The young man smiled confidently as he slipped a slender hand into his shirt pocket. He withdrew a small manila envelope and placed it on the table. The package clanged lightly.

"There are two keys inside," Stone said. "One of them operates a charcoal gray Dodge van on the bottom floor of the parking structure. The van is in your name, Mr. Richmond. The second key opens a safe-deposit box at the Las Vegas International Trust and Fund Company on Flamingo Avenue. Inside the box is twenty-five thousand dollars in cash. That is half the payment you will receive for what will be three days' work. Would you like to hear more?"

Richmond and Mandor looked at the envelope and then at each other.

"Why the van?" Richmond asked.

"The windows are dark and bulletproof," Stone said.