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Johnson. There's evil here and we don't know the half of it, but there's nothing we can do,' Madge told him.
'It gets harder the older I get.' Parker shook his head. 'I've been a cop long enough to know when something stinks, and this surely does.'
Blake lit a cigarette and leaned back. 'But what about justice?'
'What do you mean?' Madge asked.
'What happens if it isn't done, and the law doesn't work? Is someone entitled to take the law into his own hands?'
'Well, I know one thing,' Parker told him. 'It wouldn't be the law they were taking.'
'I suppose not.'
'What will you do, Blake?'
'Go back to Washington. See the President. Arrange a funeral.' The car pulled in at the Plaza. He shook hands with Parker and turned to Madge. 'Many thanks, Miss McGuire.'
He got out and went up the steps to the hotel. As the car moved away, Madge said, 'Are you thinking what I am, Harry?'
'If you mean, God help Jack Fox, yes.'

At the office, Fox waited for a computer printout he'd ordered on Blake Johnson. It finally appeared and he was reading through it when there was a knock on the door and Falcone entered.
'Just checking, Signore. Is there anything I can do?'
Fox passed him the printout. Falcone read it. 'Quite a record.'
'It sure as hell is. War hero, FBI, took a bullet saving the President. But there's a block there. What's he been doing lately? I'll have to get my top people to work on it.'
'Is he a threat?'
'Of course he is. He didn't believe me for a moment about his wife. Aldo, I've stared at the face of the enemy in Iraq, and I know what I saw in Blake Johnson's eyes. There was no rage in them, only revenge. He'll be coming, and we must be ready.'
Always, Signore.'
Falcone went out, and Fox went to the window as a flurry of sleet brushed across Manhattan. Strange, he wasn't afraid. He was excited.
     
     

 

     
     

     
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    Fox had an impeccable source when it came to computer-accessing: an ageing lady named Maud Jackson, who was a retired professor in communication sciences at MIT, seventy years old – and a confirmed gambler. A nice Jewish widow who lived in Crown Heights, she was always chronically short of money, because she was an easy mark and liked the game anyway.
Fox met her in a local bar by appointment. She sat there, sucking on a cigarette and drinking Chablis, while he told her about Blake Johnson.
'The thing is, there's a block on the guy.'
'Like any roadblock, Jack, it's made to be gone around.' 'Exactly, and who better than you to do it?'
'Flattery will get you everywhere, but if this guy used to be FBI and there's a block, this is serious stuff.'
She took out another cigarette and he gave her a light, revolted by the thinning dyed red hair, the cunning old eyes, but she was a genius.
'Okay, Maud, I'll pay you twenty thousand dollars.' 'Twenty-five, Jack, and happy to oblige.'
He nodded. 'Done. There's only one problem. I want it, like, yesterday.'
'No problem.' She swallowed her Chablis and stood up and nodded to Falcone. 'Now, if this big ape will take me home, I'll get on with it.'
Falcone smiled amiably. 'My pleasure, Signora.'
It took her no more than three hours of devious double play to make her breakthrough and there it was: Blake Johnson, ex-FBI, now Director of the Basement for the President, and what a treasure house that turned out to be. The President's personal hit squad, and such an interesting cross-reference to London. It seemed that Johnson was very cosy with the British Prime Minister's personal intelligence outfit, led by one Brigadier Charles Ferguson, its muscle supplied by an ex-IRA enforcer named Sean Dillon. It was all there, past exploits, addresses, homes and phones. She telephoned Fox and asked to be put through.
'Jack, it's Maud.'
'Have you got something?'
'Jack, I don't know what's going on, but what I've got is pure dynamite, so don't screw with me. Just send Falcone round with thirty thousand in cash.'
'Our deal was for twenty-five, Maud.'
'Jack,