The Wolf slowed his powerful black Lotus to just over a hundred miles an hour while he talked on his mobile phone, one of six he had with him in the car. He was headed toward Montauk on the tip of Long Island, but he had important business to attend to on the way, even at one in the morning. He had the American president, the German chancellor, and the British prime minister on the line. Top to top. What could beat that?

"This call can't be traced, so don't waste your time trying. My tech people are better than your people," he informed them. "Now, what's on everybody's mind? We're eight hours past the deadline. And?"

"We need more time," the English prime minister spoke up for the group. Good for him. Was he the real leader of the three? That would be a surprise. The Wolf had thought of him more as a follower.

"You have no idea -" the American president started to say, but he was cut off by the Wolf, smiling to himself, relishing the show of disrespect toward the powerful world leader.

"Stop. I don't want to hear any more lies!" he yelled into the phone.

"You have to listen to what we have to say," the German chancellor interjected. "Give us the opportunity -"

The Wolf ended the conversation then and there. He lit up a victory cigar, took a couple of satisfied puffs, then set the smoke down in the ashtray. He reconnected the call, using a second cell phone.

They were still there, waiting for him to call back. He didn't actually underestimate any of these powerful men, not really, but what choice did they have but to wait on his call?

"Do you want me to attack all four cities? Is that what I have to do to prove how serious I am? I'll do it in a flash. I'll do it now, give the order right now. But don't tell me you need more time. You don't! The countries holding the prisoners are your puppets, for Christ's sake.

"The real problem is that you can't be seen for what you really are. You can't be viewed around the world as weak and powerless. But you are! How did it happen? How did you allow it to happen? Who put people like you into these positions of great power? Who elected you? The money and the political prisoners. Good-bye."

The prime minister spoke before the Wolf could disconnect again. "You have it all wrong! It is you who have a choice to make, not us. We take your point about the strength of your position versus ours. It's a given. But we cannot put this package together quickly. It can't physically be done, and I think you know that. Of course we don't want to make a deal with you, but we will. We have to. We just need more time to get it done. We will get it done. You have our promise on it."

The Wolf shrugged. The English prime minister definitely surprised him: he was succinct, and he at least had some balls.

"I'll think about it," said the Wolf, then disconnected. He picked up his cigar and savored this idea: he was the most powerful person in the world right now. And unlike any of them, he was the right man for the job.

A business-class passenger who called himself Randolph Wohler de-planed the British Airways flight from New York at 6:05 in the morning. His passport and other pieces of ID backed up his identity. It is good to be home again, thought Wohler, who was actually Geoffrey Shafer. And it's going to be even better if I get to blow London off the map.

The seventyish-looking gentleman passed through Customs without a problem. He was already thinking about his next move: a visit to his children. That was his piece. Curious and strange. But he was past questioning orders from the Wolf. Besides, he wanted to see his progeny. Daddy had been away for far too long.

He had a part to play, another mission, another piece of the puzzle. The brat pack lived with his deceased wife's sister in a small house near Hyde Park. He remembered the house as he pulled up in a rented Jaguar S type. He had a most unpleasant memory of his wife now, Lucy Rhys-Cousins, a brittle, small-minded woman. He'd murdered her in a Safeway in Chelsea, right in front of the twins. That truly merciful act had orphaned his twin daughters, Tricia and Erica, who were six or seven now, and Robert, who must be fifteen. Shafer believed they were far better off without their whining, sniveling mother.

He knocked on the front door of the house and found that it was unlocked, so he barged in unannounced.

He discovered his wife's younger sister, Judi, playing with the twins on the living-room floor, bent over a game of Monopoly, which he believed they were all capable of losing -not a winner in the group.

"Daddy's home!" he exclaimed, and beamed a smile that was perfectly horrible. He then pointed a Beretta at dear Aunt Judi's chest.

"Don't make a sound, Judi, not a one. Don't give me the slightest excuse to pull this trigger. It would be so easy, and such a great pleasure. And yes, I sincerely hate you, too. You remind me of a fat version of your beloved sister.

"Hello, children! Say hello to your dear old dad. I've come a long ways to see you. All the way from America."

His twin girls, his sweet daughters, started to cry, so Shafer did the only thing he could think of to restore order: he pointed his gun straight at Judi's tear-stained face and walked closer to her. "Make them stop whining and screeching. Now! Show me you deserve to be their keeper."

The aunt bent low and pressed the girls to her chest, and while they didn't actually stop crying, the sound was at least muffled and subdued.

"Judi, now listen to me," Shafer said as he moved behind her and pressed the barrel of the Beretta to the back of her head. "As much as I would like to, I'm not here to fuck and murder you. Actually, I have a message for you to be passed on to the home secretary. In a strange, ironic twist, your absurd, pitiful life actually matters for now. Can you believe it? I can't."

Aunt Judi seemed confused, her natural state as far as Shafer could tell. "How would I do that?" she blubbered.

"Just call the sodding police! Now shut up and listen. You're to tell the police that I came to visit, and I told you that no one is safe anymore. Not the police, not their families. We can go to their houses, just like I came to your house today."

Just to make sure she got it, Shafer repeated the message twice more. Then he turned his attention back to Tricia and Erica, who interested him about as much as the ridiculous porcelain dolls covering the mantel in the room. He hated those silly, frilly porcelain doodads that had once belonged to his wife and that she had doted on as if they were real.

"How is Robert?" he asked the twins, and received no reaction.

What is this? The girls had already mastered the hopelessly lost and confused look of their mother and their blubbering auntie. They said not a word.

"Robert is your brother!" Shafer yelled, and the girls started to sob loudly again. "How is he? How is my son? Tell me something about your brother! Has he grown two heads? Anything!"

"He's all right," Tricia finally simpered.

"Yes, he's all right," Erica repeated, following her sister's lead.

"He's all right, is he? Well, that's all right, then," Shafer said with utter disdain for these two clones of their mother.

He found that he was actually missing Robert, though. He rather enjoyed the mildly twisted lad at times. "All right, give your father a kiss," he finally demanded. "I am your father, you pitiful twits," he added for good measure. "In case you've forgotten."

The girls wouldn't kiss him, and he wasn't permitted to kill them, so Shafer finally had to leave the dreadful house. On the way out, he swept the porcelain dolls off the mantel, sending them crashing to the floor.