I decided to leave the station by the back way that night, just in case there was press lying in wait out front on Alabama Avenue. As I stepped outside, a small balding man in a light-green suit popped out from behind the adjacent stone wall.

“That’s a good way to get yourself shot,” I told him. I was only half kidding.

“Occupational hazard,” he lisped. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Detective.”

He smiled thinly as he handed me a white letter-sized envelope. “Alex Cross, you’ve hereby been served with a Summons and Complaint. Have a nice night, Detective,” he said in his sibilant whine. Then he walked away as surreptitiously as he’d appeared.

I opened the envelope and quickly scanned the letter. I groaned. Now I knew why Jules Halpern had been retained, and what we were up against.

I had been named in a civil suit for “false arrest” and “defamation of the character of Colonel Geoffrey Shafer.” The suit was for fifty million dollars.

Chapter 77

THE NEXT MORNING I was summoned to the District of Columbia Law Department offices downtown. This was not good, I decided. The city’s chief counsel, James Dowd, and Mike Kersee from the D.A.’s office were already ensconced in red-leather club chairs.

So was Chief of Detectives Pittman, who was putting on quite a show from his front-row seat. “You mean to tell me that because Shafer has diplomatic immunity he can avoid criminal prosecution in criminal court? But he can traipse right into our civil court and get protection against false arrest and defamation?”

Kersee nodded and made clucking noises with his tongue and teeth. “Yessirreebob, that’s it exactly. Our ambassadors and their staffs enjoy the same kind of immunity in England and everywhere else around the world. No amount of political pressure will get the Brits to waive immunity. Shafer is a war hero from the Falklands. Supposedly he’s also pretty well respected inside the Security Service, though lately he seems to have been in some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” I asked.

“They won’t tell us.”

Pittman was still badgering the lawyers. “What about that clown from the Baltic Embassy? The one who wiped out the sidewalk café? He went to trial.”

Mike Kersee shrugged. “He was just a low-level staffer from a low-level country that we could threaten. We can’t do that with England.”

“Why the hell not?” Pittman frowned and thumped his hand hard against the arm of his chair. “England isn’t worth shit anymore.”

The phone on Dowd’s desk rang, and he raised his hand for quiet. “That’s probably Jules Halpern. He said he’d call at ten, and he’s an efficient bastard. If it is him, I’ll put him on the speaker box. This should be about as interesting as a rectal exam done with a cactus.”