In addition, and against any other off-the-books incursions, St. Vincent had ordered a cadre of seven soldiers to guard el-Habib. He was most concerned with Gregory Whitman, who he knew from the man’s time in the Alchemists. It fact it had been St. Vincent himself who had recruited Whitman, at Preach’s suggestion—though, really, when he thought about it Preach never made suggestions. St. Vincent recalled going to see Whitman. He was a profiler in the FBI’s Washington field office at 601 4th Street NW. He was one of the FBI’s prized possessions, having been instrumental in the capture of half a dozen serial murderers in his four years on the job.

St. Vincent recalled the intensity with which Whitman listened to his recruitment pitch, but it was the mention of Preach’s name that intrigued him the most and, unless his memory was playing tricks on him, caused him to agree to join the Alchemists. And yet no one wanted him at the heart of the matter; no one wanted him to know the Alchemists’ true goal of furthering their own power and wealth. Monroe was convinced that Whitman was an altruist. He did what he did for the good of the many, not of the few. And so essential secrets were withheld from him. What he told Whitman: they were fighting terrorism in ways the government could not.

For a while, St. Vincent and Whitman had been friends—close, even, principally because of their connection to Preach, though from what little St. Vincent gleaned from Whitman, their experiences with Preach were altogether different. It seemed to St. Vincent that Whitman had no fear of Preach at all, and this knowledge gradually turned envy into hate.

And then came the incident at the Well that, for the two men, changed everything.

At the Well, St. Vincent had been witness to much of Whitman’s extraordinary work. Whitman possessed an extraordinary talent for extracting the deepest, most closely held secrets of their terrorist prisoners. It was as if, after he had opened them up, so to speak, they could not resist him.

The other interrogators at the Well opened the terrorists up the way people open a can of peas—cutting through layers with puncture and blade. They were rough, unrelenting, and, most times, successful, though later it was discovered that the victims had simply parroted back what their interrogators wanted to hear, rendering the cruel and bloody process useless.

Not so Whitman’s subjects. He invariably got out of them the most secretive truths that were a boon to the Alchemists’ plans. Possibly it was this same uncanny talent that caused Whitman to become a cause célèbre among his brethren at the FBI. And gradually it dawned on St. Vincent that there were aspects of this talent that reminded him uncomfortably of Preach.