“I know it is. It’s gotten out of control, everything has. The world is that way now.”

“So what are you going to do about it? What are you planning to do?”

“Right now, wake the kids. Hug them, kiss them. Get them out of this house for a while.”

“Are you listening to yourself?” Nana asked as we arrived at the doorway to Damon’s bedroom. He was already sitting up in bed. “Dad?” he said.

Ned Mahoney came up behind me. “Alex, can I have a second?” What was he doing here? What else had happened?

“I’ll wake them, get them dressed,” Nana said. “Talk to your friend.”

I stayed behind with Mahoney. “What is it, Ned? Can’t it wait for a couple of minutes? Jesus.”

“The bastards hit Burns’s house. Everybody’s all right. We got there in time.”

I stared into Mahoney’s eyes. “Your family?”

“They’re out of the house. They’re safe for now. We’ve got to find him and burn him.”

I nodded. “Let me get my kids up.”

Twenty minutes later my family was escorted outside to a waiting van. They climbed inside like frightened refugees in a war zone. That’s what the world was becoming, wasn’t it? Every city and town was a potential battlefield. No place was safe.

Just before I climbed into the van, I spotted a photographer posted across the street from our house on Fifth Street. It looked like he was photographing the evacuation of our house. Why was that?

I’m not sure how I knew who he was, but somehow I did. He’s not from any newspaper, I thought. I felt myself filling with rage and disgust. He works for Christine’s lawyers.

Chapter 112

Chapter 112

CHAOS.

The next day, and for two days after that, I found myself in Huntsville, Texas, the site of the federal prison where Lawrence Lipton had been murdered while he was in the custody of the Federal Bureau. No one there had any explanation for how Lipton and two agents had been killed.

It had happened during the night. In his cell. Actually, the small suite where he was kept under guard. None of the video cameras had a record of visitors. None of the interviews or interrogations had turned up a suspect. Lipton had had most of the bones in his body broken. Zamochit. The Red Mafiya trademark.

The same method had been used on an Italian Mafia figure named Augustino Palumbo this past summer. According to stories, Palumbo’s killer had been a Russian mobster, possibly the Wolf. The murder had taken place at the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.