If he thought Herbert would listen, Hood would have ordered him back to the hotel. And if it weren't for two big "ifs," Hood would have gone so far as to ask Hausen to send some people to collect him: if he trusted Hausen's security, which he no longer did; and if he weren't afraid they'd blunder into an otherwise quiet stakeout and thus create a situation.

"Is Viens watching Herbert?" Hood asked.

"Unfortunately, no," McCaskey told him. "Steve's only got one eye in the region and he couldn't keep it tied up. As it was, he had to put Larry off to get Bob some of what he needed."

"Thank him for me," Hood said sincerely, even as he was swearing inside. That was it, then. Hood was just going to have to let this play out, hope that Herbert remained anonymous and safe.

"Paul," McCaskey said then, "hold on a moment. I've got a priority call coming in."

Hood waited. CNN was running on the hold fine. There was something about a celebrity's death in Atlanta. Hood only got to hear a few words about it before McCaskey was back.

"Paul," McCaskey said, "Mike's on the line as well. We may have a situation."

"What is it?" Hood asked.

"I just heard from my contact Don Worby at the FBI," McCaskey said. "They've just been notified about five white-on-black killings at the same time in five different cities. New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Atlanta. In each case, two-to-four young white males ambushed a black rap singer. In Atlanta, they got Sweet T, the number-one female rapper, as she was leaving her apartment--"

"That must have been what I just heard," Hood said.

"Where?" McCaskey asked.

"On CNN."

"Those bastards," McCaskey said. "Maybe we ought to hire HUMINT resources from them."

Rodgers came on the line and said somberly, "Do you realize what we've just had here? Those attacks were a modern-day Kristallnacht."

The connection hadn't occurred to Hood, but Rodgers was right. The assaults were similar to Crystal Night, when the Gestapo orchestrated acts of vandalism against Jewish houses of worship, cemeteries, hospitals, schools, homes, and businesses throughout Germany. Thirty thousand Jews were also arrested, beginning the Jewish incarceration in concentration camps like Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald.

The attacks were similar, he thought, yet there was something different- "No," Hood said suddenly with alarm. "This was not another Crystal Night. It was only a prelude."

"How so?" Rodgers asked.

Hood said, "Neo-Nazis killed rappers. That'll enrage the so-called gangstas and their hard-core audience. They turn on whites, many of whom don't approve of rap to begin with, and you end up with more racial incidents, riots, and American cities on fire. That's when the neo-Nazis return. When white America is tired of rioters being contained rather than attacked. When too few arrests are made. When the media shows black radicals demanding white blood. That's when the new Crystal Night, the coordinated, armed attacks, begins."