I then tried Satherwaite's business number, which was identified as Confederate Air Charter and Pilot Training. I got an answering machine with a sales pitch and a request to leave a number. I left my guarded message, which I noticed was becoming less guarded. I was tempted to scream into the phone, "Run for your life, buddy!" I hung up and said to Kate, "Where is everybody today?"

She didn't reply.

We were walking up Broadway, and Federal Plaza was a block away. I wolfed down half of my large knish in record time as I scanned the fax paper.

Kate took a bite out of the knish, made a face, and deposited it in a trash receptacle, without even offering it to me. My ex used to have the waiter take her half-finished food away without checking with me first. Not a good sign.

I decided to try the number of the Long Island Cradle of Aviation Museum, knowing I'd get a human voice. A woman answered the phone, "Museum."

I said, "Ma'am, this is John Corey, Federal Bureau of Investigation. I need to speak to Mr. James McCoy, the Director. It's urgent."

There was a long silence on the phone, and I knew what that meant. She said, "Mr. McCoy…" I heard a small sob. "… Mr. McCoy is dead."

I looked at Kate and shook my head. I threw my knish in the gutter and spoke as we walked quickly up the block. "How did he die, ma'am?"

"He was murdered."

"When?"

"Monday night. The police are all over the museum… no one is allowed in the building."

"Where are you, ma'am?"

"I'm in the Children's Museum next door. I'm Mr. McCoy's secretary, and his line now rings here, so that-"

"Okay. How was he murdered?"

"He… he was shot… in… one of the aircraft… there was another man with him… do you want to speak to the police?"

"Not yet. Do you know who the other man was?"

"No. Well, yes. Mrs. McCoy said he was an old friend, but I can't remember…"

I said, "Grey?"

"No."

"Satherwaite?"

"Yes. That's it. Satherwaite. Let me put the police on the phone."

"In a minute. You said he was shot in a plane?"

"Yes. He and his friend were sitting in a fighter… the F-111… and they were both… the guard, Mr. Bauer, was also murdered…"

"Okay. I'll call back."

I hung up and briefed Kate as we entered 26 Federal Plaza. While we waited for the elevator, I called Bob Callum's house in Colorado Springs and a woman answered, "Callum residence."

"Is this Mrs. Callum?"

"Yes. Who is this?"

"Is Mr. Callum home?"

"Colonel Callum. Who's calling?"

"This is John Corey, ma'am, of the FBI. I need to speak to your husband. It's urgent."

"He's not feeling well today. He's resting."

"But he's home."

"Yes. What is this about?"

The elevator came, but you can lose the signal on an elevator, so we didn't take it. I said to Mrs. Callum, "Ma'am, I'm going to put my partner on the line, Kate Mayfield. She can explain." I put the phone to my chest and said to Kate, "Women talk better to women."

I handed Kate the cell phone and said to her, "I'm going up." As I waited for the next elevator, I heard Kate introduce herself and say, "Mrs. Callum, we have reason to believe that your husband is in potential danger. Please listen, then as soon as I'm finished, I want you to call the police and the FBI, and call base security. Do you live on base?"

The elevator came and I got in, leaving the job in good hands.

Up on the twenty-sixth floor, I moved quickly to the ICC and got to my desk. I dialed the number of Chip Wiggins in Burbank, hoping to get a forwarding number, but a recording informed me that the number had been disconnected and there was no further information available.

I looked at the two fax sheets and noted that Waycliff, McCoy, and Satherwaite had already been murdered, Paul Grey wasn't coming to the phone, and Wiggins was missing. Hambrecht had been murdered in England in January, and I wondered if anyone at the time had thought about why. Steven Cox was the only one to die a natural death, if you consider killed in action as natural for a fighter pilot. Mrs. Hambrecht had indicated that one of the men was very ill, and I guessed that was Callum. The next reunion of these eight guys didn't need a big room.

I got on my computer, and remembering from past experience that homicides in some rural places in Florida are handled by the County Sheriff 's Department, I discovered that Spruce Creek is in Volusia County. I got the phone number of the Sheriff's office and dialed, waiting for some cracker to answer. Meanwhile, I knew I was supposed to alert the Counterterrorism section in the Hoover Building ASAP, but a call like that could take an hour, followed by a mandatory written report, and my instinct was to call the potential victims first. In fact, it was more than instinct, it was my own standard operating procedure. If someone was looking to whack me, I'd want to be the first to know about it.

"Sheriff's Department, Deputy Foley speaking."

The guy sounded like he was from my neck of the woods.

"Sheriff, this is John Corey of the FBI field office in New York. I'm calling to report a murder threat against a Spruce Creek resident named Paul Grey-"

"Too late."

"Okay… when and where?"

"Can you identify yourself further?"

"Call me back through the switchboard here." I gave him the general number, and hung up.

About fifteen seconds later, the phone rang and it was Deputy Sheriff Foley. He said, "My computer says this is the number of the Anti-Terrorist Task Force."

"That's right."

"What's the angle?"

"I can't say until I hear what you have to say. National security."

"Yeah? What's that mean?"

This guy was definitely a New Yorker, and I played that card. "You from New York?"

"Yeah. How can you tell?"

"Wild guess. I was NYPD. Homicide. I'm double-dipping."

"I was a patrolman in the One-Oh-Six in Queens. Lots of NYPD down here, working and retired. I'm a Deputy Sheriff. Funny, right?"

"Hey, I might join you."

"They love NYPD here. They think we know what we're doing." He laughed.

So, the bonding over, I said to him, "Tell me about the murder."

"Okay. It took place in the victim's house. Home office. Monday. Coroner put the time of death about noon, but the air conditioner was on, so maybe earlier. Body discovered at about eight-fifteen P.M. by us, acting on a tip from a woman named Stacy Moll. She's a private pilot who flew a customer from Jacksonville Municipal Airport to the victim's home. The house is on an airstrip in this fly-in community called Spruce Creek, outside of Daytona Beach. The customer said he had business with the deceased."

"Indeed he did."

"Right. So this customer tells the lady pilot his name is Demitrious Poulos, an antiques dealer from Greece, but afterward, this woman sees this photo in the newspaper, and she thinks her customer was this guy Asad Khalil."

"She got that right."

"Jesus. I mean, we thought she was hallucinating, but then we find this guy dead… why'd Khalil want to whack this guy?"

"He has a thing about airplanes. I don't know. What else?"

"Well, two gunshot wounds, one abdomen, one head. Also, the cleaning lady got it, single shot to the back of the head."

"Did you recover slugs or shell casings?"

"Only the slugs. Three forty caliber."

"Okay. I guess you notified the FBI."

"Yeah. I mean, we didn't actually believe the Asad Khalil thing, but that aside, the victim seemed to be involved in some sort of defense work, and there could be some computer disks missing, according to the victim's girlfriend, who we located."

"But did you report the possible Khalil connection to the FBI?"

"We did. To the Jacksonville field office. They informed us they were getting Asad Khalil sightings every fifteen minutes." He added, "They didn't take it too seriously, but said they'd send an agent down. Still waiting."