"Two minutes, Commissioner," he announced.

"Thank you," the commissioner said.

Captain Hanrahan returned with a tray holding mugs of coffee thirty seconds before a very tall, trim, very tough-looking man with a full head of curly gray hair walked into the office. He was wearing a shirt, tie, and tweed jacket that had left a clothing store a long time ago. The butt of a Colt. 45 ACP semiautomatic pistol rose above his belt.

"To what do I owe the honor?" he demanded, then, "Hanrahan, you better have fed the kitty."

"The kitty's been fed, Inspector," Captain Hanrahan said.

"Gentlemen, this is Chief Inspector Kramer, who commands the Counterterrorism Bureau," the commissioner said. "We go back a long way. About the time of Noah's ark, we were sergeants in Major Crimes. And this is Captain O'Brien, who heads the Organized Crime and Intelligence Unit. This is Supervisory Agent Castillo of the Secret Service and Special Agent Miller."

Kramer examined Castillo and Miller carefully but didn't so much as nod his head. O'Brien offered his hand to both.

"Listen carefully, both of you," the commissioner said. "You are to give them not only whatever they ask for but whatever else-anything-you even suspect they might have use for."

Captain O'Brien said, "Yes, sir."

Chief Inspector Kramer said nothing.

"You heard me, Fritz?" the commissioner said. "You understand me?"

Kramer didn't reply directly.

"You going to tell me what this is all about?" he asked.

"Mr. Castillo will tell you what you have to know. Which will not be all you'd like to know. Understood?"

Kramer nodded, just perceptibly.

"And the fewer people around here who even know they're here, the better. Understood?"

Kramer nodded again.

"I want you to assign somebody-somebody who knows what's going on around here-full-time, until this is over. I ordered an unmarked car sent here."

"I get another car? This must be important," Kramer said.

"It is, Fritz, believe me. And I don't want to hear from Mr. Castillo that either one of you is not giving him anything he wants. And I've told him to call me the minute he suspects that."

"Okay. I heard you," Kramer said.

"We'll be in touch," the commissioner said to Castillo and Miller, and then, waving to Hanrahan to follow him, walked out of Kramer's office.

Chief Inspector Kramer went behind his desk, sat down, leaned back in the chair, and put both hands behind his head.

"Okay, Mr. Castillo, ask away. What does the Secret Service want to know?"

"What I'd like to know," Miller said, nodding at the John Wayne movie poster, "is who's the ugly character wearing the blaze of the Tenth Group."

Kramer's glower would have cowed a lesser man. Captain O'Brien's face showed clearly that he understood it was not wise to comment on the poster, or say anything that could possibly be construed as criticism of U.S. Army Special Forces in Kramer's hearing.

"What do you know about the Tenth Special Forces Group?" Kramer asked, icily.

"He was in the Tenth," Castillo said. "Then they found out he could read and write and wasn't queer and sent him to flight school."

"Two wiseasses?" Kramer asked, but there was the hint of a smile on his thin lips.

"Charley spent too much time in the stockade at Bragg," Miller said. "His brain got curdled."

"Delta Force? No shit?" Captain O'Brien asked.

"Delta Force? What's Delta Force?" Castillo replied.

"The name Reitzell mean anything to you, Mr. Castillo?"

"If your Reitzell is Johnny, and has a wife named Glenda, yeah, I know him."

"And if I called the colonel up and asked about you, what would he say?"

"He'd probably tell you he never heard of Delta and to mind your own business," Castillo said.

"Yeah, that's probably exactly what Colonel Johnny would do," Kramer said.

He got out of his chair and offered his hand first to Miller and then to Castillo.

"As I was saying, Mr. Castillo, what does the Secret Service want to know?"

"You've heard about the 727 that's gone missing from Angola?"

Kramer and O'Brien both nodded.

"Not for dissemination, anywhere; there's a scenario that it was stolen by Somalian terrorists who intend to crash it into the Liberty Bell."

O'Brien's face showed incredulity at that announcement. Kramer's face didn't change, but he took a moment to consider it.

"You wouldn't come in here with a yarn like that unless you and some other people who can actually find their asses with one hand in the dark believed there was something to it," Kramer said, finally.

"It's not even close to being for sure, but it's all we've got at the moment. The same source who told us the airplane was grabbed by Somalians and is probably in Chad-or was in Chad; they're running that down-said there may be a Philadelphia connection. That's what we need."

"Maybe," Kramer said. "We have some AALs-that stands for 'African American Lunatics'-in town who would love to see something like that. Right now, all they're doing is throwing Molotov cocktails at patrol cars, sniping at-correction, shooting at patrol cars; they're not snipers, as we understand the term-but they're ambitious. I'll see what I can turn up."

"Inspector:"

"Call me 'Dutch,' " Kramer interrupted. "That's what they called me in Special Forces."

"I'm Charley," Castillo said.

"Dick," Miller said.

"Dutch, we need what you have yesterday," Castillo said.

"I've got some people inside," Kramer said. "And so does Captain O'Brien-sometimes intelligence and counterterrorism overlaps. There's four major groups of AALs, and, between us, we've got one, two, or three people in each bunch, but they're in deep, you follow me? We can't get on the phone and say, 'Jack, I need what you have on a Somalian connection.' It'll take us several hours, at least, to get in touch with any one of them. And anywhere from an hour or more after that to set up a meet."

"You're talking about cops or informants?" Castillo asked.

"Cops," Kramer said. "Good cops who have their balls on the chopping block twenty-four hours a day. We don't want to blow their cover, and we don't want them killed. Understand?"

Castillo nodded.

Kramer said, "Nothing has come across my desk:"

"Mine, either," O'Brien interrupted.

": which could mean there is nothing," Kramer went on, "or it could mean they're afraid to say something because it sounds like something that would come from a coke-fried brain."

"I understand," Castillo said.

"The fing FBI was in here a couple of days ago:"

"The what?" Miller asked.

"A couple offing assholes from the fing FBI, wanting to know what, if anything, I had on Lease-Aire, Inc."

" Fing?" Miller pursued.

"That's not nearly as offensive in mixed company as 'fucking,' is it?" Kramer asked, innocently.

"And what did you tell the fing FBI?" Castillo asked, smiling.

"The fing truth. I didn't have a fing thing on Lease-Aire, Inc."

The four men were now smiling at one another.

"But maybe you should go out and have a talk with them. I'll send one of my people with you," Kramer said.

"Makes sense," Miller said. "Thank you."

"Who's that young woman?" Castillo asked.

O'Brien and Miller followed the nod of his head.

A good-looking young woman in a skirt and sweater, which almost, but not entirely, concealed the Glock semiautomatic she wore in the small of her back, was bent over the second drawer of a filing cabinet.

"Why do you want to know?" Kramer inquired.

"I think I met her last night," Castillo said.

He saw the look on Miller's face, which said, Jesus Christ, Charley. We lucked out and got to play the Special Forces card with this guy and now you and your constant hard-on are going to fuck it up big-time!