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numbers that meant nothing to him. He leaned to peer out. They were still in Enfield, crawling down a crowded street. Another dull explosion. The men in the front seat turned to scowl at each other. He heard sirens shrieking, and they had to stop.
    The signal lights went green and red and green again, but all traffic had been halted. He saw ambulances and fire trucks racing up the street ahead. The driver listened to the blasting radio and turned again to squint at his partner. They nodded together. The driver bent to the wheel. The car roared, lunged ahead, careened across the median into the other lane.
    Their own siren howling, they barreled back across the town. He shouted questions through the steel mesh, but the men in front ignored him till the car slowed and stopped beside the road. The driver stayed at the wheel. The other scrambled out and ran to unlock the door that held him in.
    “Okay, Pancho. Let’s see your cuffs.” He held out his hands. “With all hell bustin‘ out behind us, corrections won’t have time to ask what we’ve done with you.”
    “Qué hay? Spanish came in spite of himself. “What’s going on?”
    “God knows!”

7
    The Cato
    Club
     
     
    T he day Enfield died, Adrian Clegg called the executive council of the Cato Club into emergency session. They met at the Holy Oaks Hotel. That historic monument, just off Pennsylvania Avenue, was now owned by the club. Built to be the Washington residence of a railway tycoon, the noble old mansion had been refurbished for another tenant every generation since: to house an Asiatic embassy, an exclusive residential hotel, a philanthropic foundation, a museum of primitive art.
    Now, for all the world knew, it was once more a hotel, through its public rooms were always closed for renovation and most would-be patrons never found reservations available. The sole occupants now were the sworn and tested members, a few of their well-screened guests, and the discreet black staff. As the Cato Club, they remained zealously invisible. No club activity was ever announced; no untrusted outsiders were ever admitted. Staffers wore the historic gold-braided Holy Oaks livery, but also badges and guns.
    The meeting on that fateful afternoon was in the old library, itself monumental, the high wainscoting and tall bookcases and great table all dark mahogany. An isolated island, the room seemed untouchable by any hazard from Enfield, remote even from the capital around it. Traffic noise was muted to a faraway whisper, and the air carried the faint fragrance of good cigars and the mellow aroma of old leather from the massive chairs and the gold-stamped books moldering on the shelves.
    Though the club itself strove hard for nameless-ness, few of those seated there had ever shunned their own publicity. Clegg himself, like the lobbyist and the ex-Secretary of State, had always courted it. The pollster made a science of it. The oil baron, the shipping magnate, the banker, the media tycoon, the newspaper editor, two or three journalists and a few others too secretive to be classified: they all were or longed to be brokers of power. Their talk ceased when Clegg came in.
    “Got anything?” the editor greeted him eagerly. “Anything new?”
    “Enough to make us move.” He stalked to the end of the long table. “Gus is on his way from the White House now. He’d have the latest, but we won’t find comfort in it. They’re buzzing like a nest of stirred-up hornets with nobody in sight to sting.”
    He paused to clear his throat, and his voice rose enough to fill a larger hall. “Gentlemen, when we’ve heard whatever update Gus may bring, I’ll have news for you. Before we get to that, however, this is a moment when we should all renew our solemn pledges. Beginning with our oath of secrecy.”
    Hands on their hearts, they echoed the ritual he intoned. Again he made them wait, while he turned to frown at the liveried black waiting at the door.
    “So?” The editor ventured