"I'm already on it." Gordon retrieved a Palm Pilot from his suit and went to work.

Ross stared at the backs of his thick-necked bodyguards and then tilted his head toward Gordon and, still whispering, said, "Rapp makes me nervous enough as it is. I don't think there's a person in this town who can control him."

"Not even the president?"

"Especially not the president. Rapp's saved the man's life twice." Ross held up two fingers to punctuate his point. "You remember Valerie Jones, the president's chief of staff, stepping down this past summer?"

"Yeah."

"That was Rapp. He and Jones were like a frickin' ferret and a snake… I mean, they hated each other. Rapp gave the president a choice. Me or Jones, and the president chose Rapp."

Gordon appeared impressed. "I've heard the man is very talented at what he does."

"He is. Don't get me wrong, he's the best, but guys like that need to be kept on a short leash. No, strike that. They need to kept in a cage in the basement and the only time you let them out is when there's a murderer in your house."

Gordon flexed his knees. "He doesn't strike me as the type who's going to let you put him in a cage."

"There lies the problem, my friend. We have to rein in all these damn agencies, most of whom can't stand each other, and get them to cooperate. I need them to follow my orders. I need everyone playing off the same sheet of music and looking at me, the conductor. I can't have Rapp running around banging on his war drums doing whatever the hell he wants."

The elevator doors opened. "There are people in this town, Jonathan, who would love to see me fail. People who would give a lot to see me embarrassed, and I don't like to be embarrassed. Rapp makes me nervous, and if you can't figure out how to put him in a cage, you'd better at least find a way to put a leash on him."

They exited the elevator and started down the hall. "And find out the bona fides on that smart-ass Coleman. There's no way he and Rapp are up to anything good."

12

Erich Abel leaned against a light post and stared at the pretty woman sitting across the street. He'd arrived early and walked the neighborhood, doubling back from time to time and making sure he was familiar with at least two potential escape routes. He made a few small purchases: a gift card and an antique pen. Both stops allowed him to pause and make sure he wasn't being followed. The gift card would end up in the garbage, but the pen he would keep. It was an ivory Mont Blanc fountain pen with inlaid silver bands and shirt clip. It would be the fifty-sixth pen in his collection.

He doubted he had anything to fear this afternoon, but discipline was what kept a spy alive. That and the ability to deal with boredom. The truth about spycraft was that ninety-plus percent of it was utterly mundane. It involved a lot of standing around and waiting. Just like he was doing now, but with his new millions spread across a series of banks he felt more secure than he should have, and he allowed his mind to wander.

Abel was wondering why one of the world's most beautiful and dynamic cities gave him a sense of melancholy. He thought perhaps it was because Paris was the heart of France, and he had some time ago come to the conclusion that France was a country whose greatest moments had come and gone.

Their embarrassingly futile effort to defend themselves against the Germans at the start of WWII had left a permanent scar on the country's identity. The tiny country of Finland, after all, had stopped Stalin's Red Army for three months at the onset of the war, while France had barely lasted two weeks against the Nazi blitzkrieg. In the end it took foreign armies to win their own country back for them, and while it was preferable to living under Nazi occupation, their national pride had been dealt a serious blow. This was, after all, the country of Napoleon, who had once dominated all of Europe. In less than a century they had gone from one of the world's preeminent powers to a country incapable of putting up a fight.

The French were a proud people, and Abel reasoned that to protect their collective psyche from the truth, they had decided that leisure and intellectual refinement were more important than economic and military might. Abel could not deny the worth of intellectual and artistic pursuits, but they were nothing without secure borders and a strong economic engine to fund such lofty endeavors.

The government had instituted a thirty-five-hour work week, and two-hour lunches were a coveted tradition. On top of that almost all workers were guaranteed nine weeks of vacation every year. The country was inching closer to socialism with each election cycle, and the disincentive to work was beginning to take its toll. If you can't, or won't, create on your own, the next best thing is to steal what someone else has created. Abel had seen firsthand how the Soviet bloc countries had used industrial espionage to try and keep up with the West. Similarly, the French intelligence services had become notorious for picking the pockets of visiting executives. So much so that many foreign companies had a standing order forbidding their executives from taking laptops or any other crucial data with them while doing business in France.

Abel came to the sad conclusion that he was watching a once-great civilization slide toward the abyss. The masses wanted the state to provide for them in every way, and the politicians who promised the most largesse were the ones who were elected. They in turn gave the people what they wanted, which then placed an ever-increasing burden on the most productive members of society. This was, he supposed, democracy's Achilles' heel. It struck him at that moment that socialism was far more insidious than communism. In East Germany there had been nothing voluntary about communism. It was simply the only option. But the people of France, through their own selfishness, were choosing this road to ruin.

Abel wondered if there was an investment opportunity to be exploited. Possibly a long-range trend in the financial markets? He made a mental note to talk to several of his clients about the possible implications. The dirty work he performed for his clients was extremely lucrative, but it was also inherently dangerous. In light of the advance for the Rapp job, Abel had started to think about shifting his focus to more legitimate work.

Abel looked across the street at the woman and smiled. He was fooling himself. Going legitimate would be boring. Besides, spying was one of the fastest growth industries in the world, and if Abel was to be honest with himself, there was no other professional fraternity that he would rather belong to.

One thing he would like to partake more in, though, was the company of women. The problem was that he was both too busy and too choosy. He liked intelligent women, but not too bookish, beautiful but not gorgeous, confident but not too extroverted, and they absolutely had to be classy in an austere way. He also wanted a woman who could enjoy silence. Talking was overrated, and Abel believed less was almost always more.

The woman he was currently eyeing seemed to fall into many of his favored categories. She was average in height with black wavy hair down to her shoulders, an oval face with a delicate upturned nose, and a clear milky complexion. He wished he could see her eyes, but she was wearing large black sunglasses, the type worn by movie starlets in the sixties that had recently come back in style. She was in designer black from her coat to her form-fitting, spike-heeled suede boots. Her style was fashion-savvy without being ostentatious. It was the perfect form of urban camouflage for Paris in the fall.