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provided a sense of privacy. Walking to one side of the house, he stood beside the garage, picking the lock on a box containing the control panel for the home’s security system. Opening the box, he steadied a small flashlight between his teeth and shined it inside the panel. Examining the wiring layout, he made a comparison to one he held in his huge hand.
    The two were identical.
    Excellent. The Deacon has delivered on his promise.
    He connected wires inside the panel to a small electronic devise at his side. Its purpose was to trick the system into thinking a signal had been sent to the security company’s monitoring center in the event a door or a window had been opened. This completed, he went around to the rear of the house and picking a lock on a French door, he slowly entered the living room. Quietly, he moved through the darkened interior and down a hallway that lead to the bedroom where he saw the Senator and his wife, lying in bed. There in the silence, he waited.
    And waited.
    Satisfied the Senator and his wife were both asleep, he removed his gear from a backpack. Slipping inside the bedroom, he placed a plastic mask very near the nose and mouth of the Senator’s wife. Attached to the mask was a tube supplied by a small tank lying on the floor. He held the mask in place and watched her chest rise and fall as she inhaled the gas, inducing a state of unconsciousness. In a few hours, the gas would dissipate, leaving no trace. Moving around to the other side of the bed where the Senator lay snoring, he repeated the procedure. The task now done, he directed his flashlight on Kowalski’s face. For a moment, Boris studied the man: mid-sixties, pale, overweight.
    He pulled the covers down to the bottom of the bed, exposing the couple. Clicking his forefinger against a hypodermic needle, he spread two of the Senator’s toes apart. Finding a vein, he pressed the plunger, injecting an air bubble into his bloodstream. The bubble reached the Senator’s heart, and he began to convulse violently. Boris kept the flashlight beam on Kowalski, watched as the Senator gasped his last breath.
    The body lay motionless, the struggle for life over.
    Boris spoke in a low voice. “Into the pit of Hell you will go.”
    Beside the Senator, a Bible lay on his bedside table and on top of the book sat a magnifying glass used as an aid for reading small print. Boris flipped through the pages, eventually finding the one he was looking for. He laid the magnifying glass atop the page, which contained one verse in particular.
    MATTHEW 3:2. REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND
    He packed up his gear and walked to the other side of the bed. Mrs. Kowalski lay in a silk sleep-shirt that barely covered her. With his flashlight, he swept across her body, his expression animated. In her early forties, the woman was quite attractive. More than likely, theirs was a second marriage.
    He peered down on her female form, his stare intensifying.
    She lies here with this swine. A miserable wretch.
    Lingering above her, Boris removed a knife from his pocket.
    He then caught himself, replaced the blade.
    The Deacon would have my head.
    The humpback stood there in the darkness, not moving.
    My work here is done.
    He began walking toward the hallway and retreated from the house, resetting the alarm system and covering his tracks as he went.
    Boris disappeared into the cool night air—like a ghost .

CHAPTER 13
    B y mid-morning, the story had broken in the media. The wife of Senator Edward Kowalski woke to find her husband, stiff as a board—dead of a massive heart attack. And the car wreck, not even two days had passed and still it was being reported as an “accident” by the press—a plausible one.
    Before this morning, journalists had been dealing with a single event. Now, even though the preliminary facts pointed to a conclusion of Senator Kowalski dying of natural causes, the cynics and conspiracy theorists—far from convinced—were stirring