"I'm in Philadelphia, and I need a favor," Supervisory Special Agent Larkin went on. "I need a good word. For some reason, I got off on the wrong foot with one of your guys, and I'd like to set it right."

"I appreciate it, pal. Hold on a minute."

Larkin handed the telephone to Peter Wohl.

"Chief Wohl would like a word with you, Inspector," he said.

Peter Wohl took the telephone.

"Good morning, Dad," he said.

Larkin, beaming smugly, tapped his fingertips together.

"Yes, I'm afraid Mr. Larkin was talking about me. Obviously, there has been what they call a communications problem, Dad. Nothing that can't be fixed."

Chief Wohl spoke for almost a minute, before Peter Wohl replied, " I'll do what I can, Dad. I don't know his schedule."

He handed the phone back to Larkin.

"Chief Wohl would like to talk to you again, Mr. Larkin."

"I don't know what his plans are for lunch, Augie, but I'm free, and I accept. Okay. Bookbinder's at twelve. Look forward to it."

He reached over and replaced the handset in its cradle.

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Wohl chuckled, and then laughed. Larkin joined in.

"I thought my guy here said 'Wall,'" Larkin said. "I don't know anybody named 'Wall.'"

"Well, while you and my dad have a lobster, that I'll pay for, I' ll have a boiled crow," Wohl said. "Will that set things right?"

"I'm sorry I used that phrase," Larkin said. "Nothing has gone wrong yet, but I'm glad I saw your father's picture on the wall. I think you and I could have crossed swords, and that would have been unfortunate. Can I ask a question?"

"Certainly."

"Have you got a hard-on for the feds generally, or is there someone in particular who's been giving you trouble? One of our guys, maybe?"

Wohl, almost visibly, carefully chose his words.

"I think the bottom line, Mr. Larkin, is that I was being overprotective of my turf. They just gave me Dignitary Protection, and I wanted to make sure it was understood who was running it. I really feel like a fool."

"Don't. The Secret Service is a nasty bureaucracy too. I understand how that works."

"When you're aware of your ignorance, you tend to gather your wagons in a circle," Wohl said.

"Well, I'm not the Indians," Larkin said. "And now that we both know that, could you bring yourself to call me Charley?"

"My dad might decide I was being disrespectful," Wohl said.

"Peter, if you keep calling me 'Mr. Larkin,' your dad will think we still have a communications problem."

"Matt," Wohl said. "Go get Captains Sabara and Pekach. I want them to meet Charley here."

"Yes, sir. Lieutenant Malone?"

"Him too," Wohl said.

As Matt started down the corridor to Sabara's office, where he suspected they would all be, he heard Larkin say, "Nice-looking kid."

"I think he'll make a pretty good cop."

That's very nice. But it's sort of a left-handed compliment. It suggests I will probably be a pretty good cop sometime in the future. So what does that make me now?

Wohl made the introductions, and they all shook hands.

"There is a new game plan," Wohl said. "There is something I didn' t know until a few minutes ago about Mr. Larkin. He and my dad are old pals, and that changes his status from one of them to one of us. And I've already told him that we don't know zilch about what's expected of us. So we're all here to learn. The basic rule is what he asks for, he gets. Mr. Larkin?"

"The first thing you have to understand," Larkin said seriously, " is that the Secret Service never makes a mistake. Our people here in Philadelphia told me that the man in charge of this operation was Inspector Wall. Peter has promised to have his birth certificate altered so that our record will not be tarnished."

He got the chuckles he expected.

"The way this usually works," Larkin went on, "is that our special agent in charge here will come up with the protection plan. I'll get a copy of it, to see if he missed anything, then we present it to you guys and ask for your cooperation. Then, a day or so before the actual visit, either me, or one of my guys, will come to town and check everything again, and check in with your people."

He paused, and looked in turn at everyone in the room-including Matt, which Matt found flattering.

"This time," he went on, "there's what I'm afraid may be a potential problem. Which is why I'm here, and so early."

He picked his briefcase up from the floor, laid it on his lap, opened it, and took out a plastic envelope.

"This is the original," he said, handing it to Wohl. "I had some Xeroxes made."

He passed the Xeroxes around to the others. They showed an envelope addressed to the Vice President of the United States, and the letter that envelope had held.

Dear Mr. Vice President:

You have offended the Lord, and He has decided, using me as His instrument, to disintegrate you using high explosives.

It is never too late to ask God's forgiveness, and I respectfully suggest that you make your peace with God as soon as possible.

Yours in Our Lord

A Christian.

"Is this for real?" Mike Sabara asked.

Wohl gave him a disdainful look. Matt was glad that Sabara had spoken before he had a chance to open his mouth. He had been on the verge of asking the same question.

"If you're getting a little long in the tooth," Larkin said, "and you've been in this business awhile, you start to think you can intuit whether a threat is real or not. My gut feeling is that it's real; that this guy is dangerous."

"I don't think I quite follow you," Wohl said.

"The Vice President and, of course, the President get all kinds of threatening letters," Larkin said. "There's a surprisingly large number of lunatics out there who get their kicks just writing letters, people in other words who have no intention of doing what they threaten to do. Then there are the mental incompetents. Then there are those with some kind of gripe, something they blame, in this case, on the Vice President-and want fixed."

Larkin paused long enough for that to sink in.

"Everybody, I suppose, has seenCasablanca!" He looked around as they nodded. "There was a great line, Claude Rains said, 'round up the usual suspects,' or something like that. We have a list of suspects, people we think need to be watched, or in some cases taken out of circulation while the man we're protecting is around. This guy is not on our list."

"How could he be on a list?" Matt blurted. "He didn't sign his name."

He glanced at Wohl, and saw Wohl's eyes chill, but then move to Larkin. It was a valid question, and Larkin immediately confirmed this:

"Good question. If they don't have a name, we give them one. For example, No Pension Check. Jew-Hater. Irish-Hater. Sometimes, it gets to be Jew-Hater, Chicago, Number Seventeen. Understand?"

"I think so," Matt said.

"We keep pretty good files. Cross-referenced. As good as we can make them. This guy doesn't appear anywhere."

"What makes you think he's dangerous?" Dave Pekach asked.

"For one thing, he's in Philadelphia, and the Vice President will be in Philadelphia in eight days, a week from Monday. We don't have much time."

"I meant, why do you think he's dangerous, and not just a guy who writes letters to get his kicks?" Pekach persisted.

"Primarily, because he sees himself as an instrument of the Lord. God is on his side; he's doing God's bidding, and that removes all questions of right and wrong from the equation. If God tells you to quote 'disintegrate' somebody, that's not murder."

"Interesting word," Sabara said thoughtfully, "'disintegrate.'"

Larkin glanced at him. Matt thought he saw approval in his eyes.