is more than capable of handling the department. Hell, he already is. He’s an organizational wizard, isn’t he?”
“That he is,” Paull admitted.
The president spread his hands wide. “Well, then, there you have it.”
“What’s to be my new title?”
Crawford’s smile spread across his face like jam. “Officially, you’ll be ambassador at large. Unofficially, you’ll be in charge of a SITSPEC, reporting directly to me.”
This might have some potential after all, Paull thought. SITSPEC was gov-speak for a situation-specific black ops group that, in theory at least, could comprise two people or two thousand.
“If this is the way it will be, I want some terms.”
“Name them, Denny.”
“I don’t want oversight.”
“Define oversight.”
“The group is at Black ICE level. We’re dark to Congress, the CIA, and DoD. I report to you, and act on your mandates or ones I deem appropriate and necessary, period.”
The POTUS stroked his chin. “Well, now, Denny, I don’t rightly know whether I can do that.”
“Okay.” Paull stood up. “Then I’m out, sir.”
For a moment, Crawford looked up at him, then he gestured with one hand. “Aw, sit down, would you?” When Paull did, he added, “Give the group a name, Denny.”
Paull thought a moment. “Chimera.”
“The monster that changes its shape. An apt creature to destroy Arian Xhafa.” The president nodded, pleased.
“The fewer people around you who know, the better.”
“Agreed, but you’ll have to stick Chimera somewhere,” he continued. “Let’s start with the department you know best, Homeland.”
“I want Jack McClure,” Paull said without hesitation.
“That’s it? One person?”
“For now.”
“Take him, then.” The president began to talk about the details. “This crime spree is spreading like a virus. You pull the plug and America’s image starts to shine again. As of this moment, you have Alpha Authorization to procure anything you require for this mission. I want you to bring me Arian Xhafa’s head.”
Paull was leafing through the file. “I’ll need a better photo of Xhafa.”
The president looked pained again. He produced three more photos, placing them side by side with the first one—grainy, slightly blurred surveillance photos obviously taken with a long lens. He pointed to each one, in turn.
“Xhafa could be this man, or this one, or this one. More likely he’s none of these three. We just don’t know.”
“A bio?”
“Ditto. We don’t know his parentage or where he came from.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“This is a very special person we’re talking about, Denny. A dark prodigy, a creature of pure evil.”
“Like Kurtz in his jungle temple.”
“No, Denny. Kurtz came from civilization. Xhafa was born in a dark place and there he resides, with the power of a mythical monster.”
Paull scraped a hand across his chin. “How could he have amassed so much power and influence?”
“McClure likes solving real-life puzzles, doesn’t he?”
Paull rose. As he reached the door, the president’s voice caused him to turn back.
“There’s something else that isn’t in the dossier. Arian Xhafa has more money than an Albanian crime lord ought to have.”
“The sophisticated weaponry,” Paull said.
The president nodded again. “What’s the source of his capital, and, just as troubling, how was he able to obtain the weaponry? You need the highest-level contacts for that. Two more mysteries you’re tasked with solving.”
“You’re not asking for much, are you, sir?”
The president produced a thin smile. “Has to be done, Denny, and now. Along with the sudden influx of capital came the ambition to expand his organization outside the borders of Macedonia and Albania—starting with Italy because it’s so close, just across the Adriatic, as well as Spain, France, and Germany.
“The Albanians moved in on the Italian Mafia’s territory when the Italian police successfully splintered the mob. Power abhors a vacuum. Xhafa saw his opportunity and jumped in with both feet. Now he has to be stopped before he turns his people into a full-fledged international criminal operation.”
“So this isn’t a strictly humanitarian mission.”
President Crawford smiled an ironic smile. “Jesus, Denny, when is it ever?”
FOUR
THE MOMENT the shrink left, Alli broke down and cried. She wept as she hadn’t wept in nearly a year. Her sobs were deep and heartfelt, all the more so because she had forced herself to keep them in abeyance for the hundred minutes or so that the shrink was questioning her. He was a small, dark man with a scraggly beard and a sharp nose. He smelled faintly of tobacco and loss.
Now that she was alone, she desperately wanted to hear Jack’s reassuring voice. But the lawyer had taken away her cell as evidence and there was no phone in her uncle’s study where she sat on a voluminous, high-backed chair, so familiar to her from the days when her father took her here and she hung out while he and Uncle Hank went downstairs into the cellar to talk. As a young girl, it had never occurred to her to question why they chose the cellar. Later, however, it became clear that they had ensured that the cellar was the most secure place in the house. Security was the last thing on her mind as she thought about the current nightmare in which she was enmeshed.
The study was exactly as she remembered it, filled with Old World–carved, hand-turned wood, a coffered ceiling, bookcases from floor to ceiling, and an immense stone fireplace over which a stuffed buck’s head with impressive antlers gazed down on her with, she was sure, steady compassion.
Forty-five or so minutes later, her uncle and his lawyer appeared.
Alli was struggling to blot out the sight of Billy Warren, drained of blood, cut all over, his carotid breached as if by a vampire’s fang, but the image refused to be banished. It hung in her mind like a guest who, overstaying his welcome, now threatens to take over your home.
“Alli,” Henry Holt Carson said, as he sat down on the sofa facing her. “How are you feeling?” Behind him stood Harrison Jenkins, as immobile as a cigar store Indian.
“How d’you think I’m feeling,” she said dully.
“I’m afraid I have no idea.”
“That’s just the problem!” She honed the accusatory note to a fine point. “Why are you keeping me here? Why can’t I even call Jack?”
“McClure is busy, trying to clear your name, one hopes,” Carson said. “Besides, by court order you cannot leave here.”
“Then I want to speak with him.”
“In time, perhaps.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Alli, I wish you’d learn to curb your tongue.” He shifted, obviously uncomfortable. Then he set two prescription vials onto the low table between them. “The psychopharmacologist who interviewed you…”
At the word she stared at the vials. “You want to give me drugs?” She leapt up and, with a backhand swipe, sent the vials flying across the room. “I’m not taking any fucking drugs!” She was white and trembling.
“Alli, I don’t think you understand the true nature of your situation.”
