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okay with just your Internet receipt?”
    Mullins didn’t answer. He stared at the book cover. Betrayal at Jekyll. The author’s name was Walter V. Simmons. Neither meant anything to him. Then he saw one of the quotes under the title.
    Louis T. McFadden: “We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks.”
    “Sir? The receipt?”
    He looked back at the woman. “No need. I’ve got the one on my computer at home. And I’ll pay cash for the child’s book. It’s not worth putting on the card.”
    He gave her a twenty, collected his change, and let her put both books in a bag.
    “Here’s the receipt for the children’s book,” she said. “It’ll get you a free cup of coffee.”
    “Thanks. I’ll take you up on it.” He left the register and headed for the cafe.
    He got a cup of black coffee and sat at a table for two in the corner farthest from the traffic flow. The bag lay by his feet next to the wall. He wasn’t going to display a book about the Federal Reserve like some hack spy in a hack-written spy novel. Then he saw her and he knew the book wasn’t an identifier.
    Amanda Church ordered a cup of green tea, and then turned to look for a place to sit. Her eyes lit up when she saw Mullins. Anyone observing would have thought she’d been pleasantly surprised to see a friend.
    “Hi. May I join you?”
    “Certainly.” He stood and welcomed her with an outstretched hand. He didn’t call her by name because she hadn’t used his.
    She set her cup on the table, clasped his right hand with her left, and gently pulled him into a hug. “No one here knows me,” she whispered.
    “Me either.”
    “You look good, Sam.”
    He indicated for her to take a seat. “You too.” He decided against inventing a name for her. It was clear to anyone they knew each other and an overuse of names would sound contrived. “My coffee was free.”
    “You must have bought something. They didn’t have the book I wanted.” She pulled her cellphone from her purse, checked the screen, and set it down, rotating it in the process.
    Mullins glanced at the face. In the split-second before it went dark, he read, “End if anything wrong.”
    Amanda was taking no chances. Her tight security measures meant she suspected either or both of them might be under surveillance.
    “I saw Peter last night,” he said casually. “He’s hoping to get back with Mary.”
    She nodded. “Maybe. I think she dumped the other guy.”
    “That’s what I heard too.” Mullins understood they were in sync. The other guy between Peter and Mary was Paul, the folksingers from the 1960s, except this Paul was Paul Luguire. “I don’t know any of the details.”
    Amanda laughed. “I do. But I’m not one to gossip.”
    “Since when?”
    “Since I’ve got to get home and make supper for Herb and the kids.”
    Mullins bent down and picked up his books. “All right, I’ll walk you to your car and you can fill me in.”
    They left, two friends who happened to run into each other and were catching up on mutual acquaintances. Mullins followed Amanda’s lead, trusting her actions to be appropriate for her assessment of the situation.
    Like Mullins, Amanda came out of the Secret Service. She was an agent experienced in the Treasury Department’s efforts to thwart cyber-crime. In her early days, she and Mullins worked cases together. He respected her abilities. Their first case involved a Nigerian ring of credit card fraud. Even before the onslaught of their Internet scams, Nigerian con artists placed Nigerian immigrant workers in custodial jobs in medical offices. Cleaning at night, they would break into billing records and steal patient credit card numbers. Then they would mail-order merchandise until maxing out the card’s limit.
    Amanda came up with the idea to intercept the package deliveries. More than once, Mullins dressed up as a Federal Express