“The coffins are taken out of the hearses and set by the graveside, and my witness walks over, puts a rose on the first coffin and kisses it, then steps over to the other coffin, and, as she kisses it, both coffins explode.”

“Holy shit,” Dino said quietly.

“My sentiments exactly,” Holly replied. “It’s carnage, everywhere you look. More than a dozen people are dead and several dozen injured, some critically. Like I said, I’m in the church tower, and the shock wave from the explosions starts the bell ringing and nearly deafens the sniper and me.”

“So he murders a dozen people, and still the FBI puts him in the Program?”

“Harry Crisp puts him in the Program, and once anybody in the FBI makes a move, they never want to reverse it; makes them look bad, they think.”

“And I’ll bet Crisp still has his job,” Stone said.

“No, thanks to a little work of mine, but he still has a job: He’s the AIC in American Samoa.”

“Samoa?”

“It was the most remote place they could find to send him. The AIC in Miami is now one Grant Early Harrison, who was the FBI guy I was trying to save when I stuck Trini Rodriguez. He was undercover at the time.”

“Well, Grant Early Harrison must be very grateful to you,” Stone said.

“Grateful, but not very. He’s how I know Trini Rodriguez is in the Program and in New York, but he stopped talking to me the moment he realized that I planned to take Trini.”

“So there’s no more help forthcoming from Agent Harrison?”

“None at all, the bastard, and after I got him his job, too.”

“And how did you do that?” Stone asked.

“After this business was over, and Ed Shine and a lot of other people had been arrested, a deputy director of the FBI paid me a visit and asked me for my account of events. I managed to toss a couple of hand grenades into Harry Crisp’s lap, resulting in his getting shipped to the farthest reaches of the Pacific Rim, and I said some very nice things about Grant, which, ultimately, got him the AIC’s job in Miami.”

“I don’t ever want you for an enemy,” Dino said. “You’re not Italian, are you?”

“No, but I’m an army brat, and I put twenty years in, myself, commanding MPs. In the army, you learn how to work the system.”

“Do you learn how to stick a knife in somebody’s throat, too?”

Holly put a hand on Dino’s arm. “Oh, Dino, that’s the first thing they teach you in the army, didn’t you know?”

“Are you armed?” Dino asked.

“No, I didn’t want to deal with the hassle at the airport.”

“You got your badge and your ID with you?”

“Sure.”