third eye his reward for the fatal miscalculation. Decades ago it was probable that four men far better than these would lie dead as he walked away to fight another day. But those days were long in the past.
“Where?” he asked. He never expected a response and didn’t get one.
Minutes later he stood alone outside a building virtually every American would recognize. He didn’t stand there for long. More men appeared, better and higher-ranked than the ones who had just dropped him off. He was now in the inner ring. The personnel became more skilled the closer one approached the center. They escorted him down a corridor with numerous doorways. Every single one of them was closed, and it wasn’t simply the lateness of the hour. This place never really slept.
The door opened and the door closed. Stone was alone once more, but again not for long. A door opened in another part of the room and the man entered. He didn’t look at Stone, but motioned for him to sit.
Stone sat.
The man settled down behind his desk.
Stone was an unofficial visitor here. Normally a log was kept of everyone passing through this place, but not tonight. Not him. The man was dressed casually, chinos, open-collared shirt, loafers. He slid glasses over his face, rustled some papers on his desk. A single light burned next to him. Stone studied him. The man looked intense and determined. He had to be to survive this place. To manage his way through the world’s most impossible job.
He put down the papers; slid up the glasses onto the lined forehead.
“We have a problem,” said James Brennan, the president of the United States. “And we need your help.”
CHAPTER 2
STONE WAS MILDLY SURPRISED but didn’t show it. Registering surprise was never good in situations like this. “A problem with what?”
“The Russians.”
“All right.” Nothing new there, thought Stone. We often have problems with the Russians.
The president continued, “You’ve been there.” It wasn’t a question.
“Many times.”
“You speak the language.” Again, not a question, so Stone remained silent. “You know their tactics.”
“I used to know them. That was a long time ago.”
Brennan smiled grimly. “Just like hairdos and clothes, if one hangs around long enough, things come back in style, including, apparently, espionage techniques.”
The president leaned back and put his feet up on the Resolute desk that had been a gift from Queen Victoria to America near the end of the nineteenth century. Rutherford B. Hayes had been the first sitting president to use it, and Brennan the latest.
“The Russians have a web of spy rings entrenched in this country. The FBI has arrested some of them, infiltrated others, but more are out there of which we have no information.”
“Countries spy on each other all the time,” said Stone. “I would be stunned if we didn’t have intelligence operations going on over there.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“All right,” said Stone, who actually thought that was the point.
“The Russian cartels control all the major drug distribution pipelines in the eastern hemisphere. The monies involved are truly enormous.”
Stone nodded. This he knew.
“Well, now they control it in the western hemisphere as well.”
This Stone didn’t know. “I understand the Colombians had been muscled out by the Mexicans.”
Brennan nodded thoughtfully. Stone could sense in the man’s weary expression the mounds of briefing books he had no doubt pored over today to understand this and a dozen other critical matters thoroughly. The presidency would suck up every ounce of energy and intellectual curiosity one cared to give the job.
Brennan said, “Pipeline trumps product, they finally figured that out. You can make the crap anywhere, but getting it to the buyer is the real key. And on this side of the world Americans are the buyers. But the Russians have kicked our southern neighbor’s ass, Stone. They have killed and clawed and bombed and tortured and bribed their way to the top, with the result that they are now in control of at least ninety percent of the business. And that is a major problem.”
“I understood that Carlos Montoya—”
The president brushed this comment aside impatiently. “The papers say that. Fox and CNN broadcast that, the pundits fixate on it, but the fact is Carlos Montoya is done. He was the worst of the scum in Mexico. He killed two of his own brothers to win control of the family business, and yet he proved no match for the Russians. In fact, our intel leads us to believe that he’s been killed. The Russians are about as