He took a breath to sober himself. All actions with regard to his holdings in Switzerland must be carried out with the utmost delicacy. The distant mountain democracy was the key to his ambitious plan. It contained the fuel that would power his legions.

The fuel that would ignite Khamsin.

And today, a new contact at the bank. For that he must accept at least partial responsibility. He could not suppress a chuckle at the recollection of poor Cerruti's expression when he was brought to Suleiman's Pool. At first, the banker had refused to believe what lay beneath the pool's surface. He had stared into the water, eyes blinking madly while his head shook from side to side. When Joseph provided him a closer look, it had proved too much. The man had gagged, then fainted. At least the damn blinking had stopped.

Mevlevi walked into the gloom of his office and glanced at the handwritten notes on his desk. He picked up the telephone and pressed a single button programmed with the private telephone number of his partner in Zurich. A husky voice answered after the third ring. "Makdisi Trading."

"Albert?"

"Salaam Aleikhum. Hello, my brother. What can I do for you?"

"Routine checkup. An employee of the United Swiss Bank. Name of Neumann. I don't know the first name. Good English. He might be an American."

"Just routine?"

"Very low-key, if you please. Keep an eye on him for a few days. Invisible, understand. Search his apartment. If necessary, we can offer an encouraging hello. But not yet."

"We'll start today. Call me in a week."

Mevlevi hung up the phone and listened as the patter of Lina's footsteps drifted into the study. "It does my eyes good to see you," he said when she had entered the room.

"Aren't you finished with business for the day?" Lina pouted. She was a young woman, only nineteen. A raven-haired beauty with full hips and a generous bust. "It's nearly seven."

Mevlevi smiled sympathetically. "Almost, cherie. One last matter to attend to. I want you to watch."

Lina crossed her arms and said defiantly, "I have no interest watching you pass your hours on the telephone."

"Alas, then you do not have to worry." He stood and hugged his Lebanese tigress. She discarded her rebel's stance and wrapped her arms around him, sighing. He had found her three months ago at Little Maxim's, a nasty establishment in the back alleys of Beirut's waterfront district. A discreet conversation with the proprietor had secured her services on a permanent basis. She stayed with him six nights a week and returned to her mother in Jounieh the seventh. She was a Christian, from a Phalangist family. He should be ashamed. Yet even Allah could not control the heart. And her body took him to realms he had never before discovered.

Joseph strode across the marble entryway and into his study. In front of him, head slack on a sunken chest, stood Kamal, a homely boy recruited only two months before to serve as a member of Mevlevi's private security detail. "He was found in your study, rummaging through your private affairs."

"Bring him to me."

Joseph guided the teenager forward. "He has lost the will to speak."

More likely the ability, thought Mevlevi. With a sack of ripe oranges and an extension of rubber pipe, the dark-skinned devil could make Netanyahu confess his undying love of the prophet Muhammad while leaving the fat Jew's body unmarked.

"He is in the pay of Mong," said Joseph. "He has admitted to as much."

Mevlevi approached the sallow youth and with a firm finger lifted up his chin. "Is what Joseph tells me true? Are you working for General Mong?"

Kamal's eyelids fluttered. His jaw ground upon itself, but he uttered no sound.

"Only the infinite one's love can heal the rift you have torn in the heart of Islam. Surrender unto His will. Know Allah and paradise will be yours. Are you ready to accept His mercy?"

Did the youth nod his head?

Mevlevi motioned for Joseph to lead Kamal outside. The prisoner was marched to a round pillar behind which glowed the faint outline of Beirut.

"Assume the position of supplication to the Almighty."

The teenager kneeled and looked out over the calm expanse of the Mediterranean Sea.

"Let us recite the Ode to Allah."

As Mevlevi spoke the ancient prayer, Joseph withdrew into the house. Lina remained silent at her master's side. The last words of the prayer drifted away on the evening's languorous breeze. A compact pistol was drawn and its silver muzzle laid against the nape of the traitor's neck. For several seconds the gun grazed among the boy's downy hairs. The weapon was lowered. Aim was taken. Three rounds were fired into the prisoner's back.

The boy fell forward, eyes open but unseeing, the torn remnants of his heart bruising the pale stone terrace.

"The punishment for traitors shall be death," proclaimed Ali Mevlevi. "So sayeth the prophet. And so sayeth I."

Nick bounded down the stairs leading from the employee entrance of the bank, happy to be freed from the fluorescent confines of the Hothouse. He jogged several yards, shaking off the bank's behavioral corset, then slowed to gulp down a lungful of the pure Swiss air. The last two hours had dragged on forever. He'd felt like a thief trapped in a museum, waiting for the alarm to go off after he'd stolen a painting. At any moment, he had expected Armin Schweitzer to storm into his office demanding to know what Nick had done with the Pasha's transfer. Remarkably, no alarm had sounded; Schweitzer had been nowhere to be seen. Nick had escaped.

With an hour until his dinner with Sylvia Schon, he decided to make his way to the head of the Bahnhofstrasse, where the lake of Zurich narrowed and ran into the Limmat River. Bundled in his overcoat, he set off through the alleys that ran parallel to the Bahnhofstrasse. The day's light was fading fast, and patches of ice were rapidly forming. His thoughts, though, were not on the ground in front of him. Like the snow and mist trawling the deserted back streets, his mind cast about in the hazy events of the day, searching for defenses to his actions and calculating the responses that might follow.

According to Sterling Thorne's rules, should any account on the bank's internal account surveillance list receive funds greater than ten million dollars and transfer at least half of that amount to an unrelated financial institution within one business day, the bank would be compelled to report such a transaction to the international authorities. While such cooperation rested on a gentlemen's agreement, USB could ill afford to violate a peace brokered by the president of Switzerland's Bundesrat. Just in case they had any ideas in that direction, the DEA had placed agents full-time in the payments-trafficking department of every major bank.

Nick's decision to delay the transfer of the Pasha's funds by forty-eight hours meant the transaction would not qualify as one of suspect intent. Thorne would no longer have the right to demand all papers pertaining to the account in question. Nor could he call for the account to be frozen pending investigation. The Pasha would elude the grasp of the DEA. And in so escaping, he would protect the United Swiss Bank from scandal.

Nick continued through the dusky alleys, hands dug into the pockets of his overcoat, chin nestled into his scarf. He passed a gaslight lamp long since converted to electricity and watched an elongated shadow take shape on the pitted concrete wall blocking his path. A left turn here should take him to the Augustinergasse, a right turn to the Bahnhofstrasse. He hesitated, not sure of his way, then took off to the left. The pitted wall continued along his right, but as he was no longer in the lamp's path, his shadow disappeared. He began climbing the winding street but slowed when he noticed an odd shadow appear on the wall ahead of him. A man, he guessed, with rounded shoulders and a peaked hat. The tremulous form gave the impression of a southern Klansman backlit by faint candlelight. Nick stopped to watch the distorted shadow grow. Abruptly, the shadow halted, then shrunk back and disappeared. Nick shrugged and continued on to the Augustinergasse.