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it!”
    “Yes, sir. It is.” What a jerk, the Chief thought.
    “Who did this to me?”
    “If it’s okay with you, sir,” Chief Brennan replied, “I’d like to let detective Moody speak.”
    “Speak!” To their ears, Specter’s voice was like fingernails, scratching against a chalkboard.
    “Mr. Specter, we want you to know, we’ve put all our resources on this.”
    “Great. I feel much better. Tell me what you have, ” Specter commanded.
    “Well, no leads, so far. Nobody saw anything, but it’s early in the investigation. We’ve covered the area surrounding the ambush with a fine-toothed comb. The only thing we found was a rifle, though the weapon has no value—in terms of evidence.”
    “Why the hell not?”
    “The sniper laid the rifle on a bed of burning coals.”
    Specter raised an eyebrow.
    “In doing so, any possibility of capture while in possession of the weapon had been eliminated. By the time we found the rifle, it was useless from the intense heat.”
    The lawyer stared at his feet, shook his head. Shit.
    “It gets worse,” detective Moody said. “This is the work the people who are capable of meticulous planning and coordination. More telling is the marksmanship. I doubt whether there’s more than a handful of men who could have fired those shots. The distance was close to a half-mile.”
    The detective paused.
    “This person has a lot of skill and talent.”
    “Then why did he miss?”
    “He didn’t,” the detective replied.
    “Explain.”
    “The bullets found their marks precisely as the shooter intended. The first shot, the one that blew out your tire and forced you into a stationary position on the shoulder—to accomplish this, the sniper had to make adjustments for the angle and the speed of the vehicle. As for the second bullet—the one that struck the seat just inches from your heart—to achieve this kind of pinpoint accuracy, many factors were taken into account, such as gravity, humidity, wind speed and the downward angle of the bullet after it made impact with the windshield.”
    “Someone is trying to send a message. Is that it?”
    The detective and the Chief shared a look.
    “We think so.” He proceeded cautiously. “Mr. Specter, do you have any enemies you can think of who might want to hurt you?”
    Specter barely caught himself before laughing in their faces. A complete list of his enemies would be longer than a phone book.
    “Not off hand,” he mumbled.
    Chief Brennan spoke in a serious tone. “Mr. Specter, what we’ve got here are highly trained men with military backgrounds, most likely Special Forces. The Police Department is assigning additional personnel to this case.” The Chief glanced over at the detective. “The officers outside are here for your protection. Another man will stay here inside the house if you wish. I advise you to stay at home until we can sort this thing out. Our job is to keep you alive .”
    “Damn right it is.”
    The detective leaned in, closer to Specter.
    “They might try to make contact.”
    The Chief caught a glint in Specter’s eyes.
    You’ll be the first to know.

CHAPTER 12
    A few hours before the chaos broke out on the parkway in Greenwich, the hunchback named Boris was driving a panel van into a church parking lot in Bethesda, Maryland. The affluent suburb, located eight miles north of Washington, D.C., consisted mostly of single-family dwellings. The hour was nearing three a.m. A cloak of low-lying clouds obscured the moon, providing excellent cover. Boris opened the rear doors of the van and removed a motorbike.
    Attired in black clothing, he slung a backpack over his shoulder. Mounting the bike, he rode two miles before reaching a wooded area where he concealed the motorbike with a camouflage tarp. He covered the remaining distance of three hundred yards on foot before arriving at his destination—the home of Senator Edward Kowalski and his wife. Settled amidst a stand of mature trees, the red brick house