This thought was uppermost in his mind as he strode down the corridor in the subbasement of the building built and occupied by the FBI. He was on his way to his second interview with Martin Price, field name Bluto.

Going toe to toe with NSA was a sure way to have his career cut short, as his father’s had been. Nevertheless, the incidents of today had led him in that direction. But maybe, no, it was his involvement with Preach that had led him down this path, which might be good or bad because he hated Luther St. Vincent with a passion.

As he stood in front of the cell where Bluto was currently cooling his outraged heels, Kinkaid had reason to think of his father again. Regal Kinkaid was a big man. When Kinkaid was growing up, he seemed as huge as Paul Bunyan, and just as heroic. That all came crashing down when Regal Kinkaid was hauled off to prison the week after the energy company he ran went bankrupt. The company’s ambitious expansion into new forms of energy was revealed to be nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, using investors’ money to construct a house of cards without value. There weren’t any new forms of energy the company was pursuing, only Regal Kinkaid’s golden tongue. And how was he brought down? Through the NSA’s domestic spying program. And who was the head of that spying program? Luther St. Vincent. And because of that success and others, St. Vincent was given his own fiefdom, Directorate N, where he directed God alone knew what evil mischief.

People lost their lifesavings; several committed suicide. Regal Kinkaid was convicted, began serving what was supposed to be a twenty-five-year sentence. But somehow he and his lawyers cut a deal with the feds, and he was out in three years.

“I got in over my head, son,” he said to Kinkaid the day he was released. Then he winked. “But I had a life preserver. You got to have a good one if you’re unfortunate enough to get in over your head.”

So there were, in fact, four life lessons, Kinkaid thought, as he unlocked the cell door. Which is why he had sought out his own life preserver: Preach.

*   *   *

Orteño made his methodical, almost mechanical, circuit of the villa and compound looking for life, and finding none. As he progressed, he policed his brass—that is, he picked up his spent shell casings, as any good professional would do. Leaving no trace of their presence was essential. He had learned to police his brass at an early age. It was so ingrained in him that he hardly thought about it—it had become automatic, which was just as well because his mind was elsewhere.