Abuse of Power
investigation was a bunch of militia wannabes, most of Jack’s colleagues would be centering their attention on the Constitutional Defense Brigade. Which meant, if he was lucky, he might just have the carjacker all to himself.
    He looked at Tony. “You interested in a trip to Sunnydale tonight?”
    Tony shook his head. “I’m headed to Camp Parks to run a training session. Gotta be up at dawn.”
    “So what—you’re leaving me out in the cold?”
    “I’d just slow you down anyway. I’m a doddering old man.”
    Jack stifled a laugh. “A doddering old man who thinks two hundred knuckle pushups on a hardwood floor are just a warm-up every morning.”
    “Sorry, Jack, but duty calls. Besides, if you’re heading into Sunnydale, what you really need is a negotiator. Somebody who knows the area and is a helluva lot easier on the eyes.”
    Jack took a moment to process this. “Are you talking about who I think you are?”
    Tony grinned. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

 
    9
    London, England
    “Someone followed me to Sofia,” Haddad said.
    He had waited for his imam for over an hour. It had taken some time to reach the decision to tell him about the Turk and the whore, but once Haddad had made up his mind he was anxious to be done with it.
    When he first arrived, Imam Zuabi was away from the office and Haddad had grown more and more impatient with each passing minute. He had been to the Muslim Welfare Center and Mosque many times since the day it opened, but events of late were taking their toll on him and he felt little comfort within its walls.
    When Zuabi returned, the sun had gone down and it was time for Maghrib —evening prayer. So the two went to the wudu room together and quietly washed their bodies before heading upstairs to kneel before Allah.
    Afterward, they returned to Zuabi’s office, and after a few brief pleasantries Haddad broke the news.
    “I think they may have traveled with me on the plane to Belgrade,” he said. “That is the only explanation I can think of for their being there. But I wasn’t aware of them until after I arrived in Sofia.”
    Zuabi considered this. “Do you know who they were?”
    Haddad shook his head. “A Turk and a woman, that’s all I can tell you. I thought she was a Gypsy, but now I’m not so certain.”
    Haddad saw no point in mentioning their night together. The whore lingered in his memory as an effigy of dangerous lust and blind, stupid, dangerous trust. The pleasures he had enjoyed, and they were considerable, were swallowed in a swamp of disgust and self-reproach.
    Zuabi frowned. “This is a concern, Hassan. If someone knows about our plans, they could destroy everything we’ve built. I assume you took care of the matter?”
    “The woman,” Haddad said. “But the Turk got away. And I can’t be certain how much he knows.”
    Zuabi’s frown deepened. “Our friends won’t be happy about this. They’ll want assurances that we haven’t been compromised. Our relationship is already on shaky ground after the incident with Abdal.”
    Zuabi often spoke of their “friends,” but had never bothered to give Haddad details about who they were. The Hand of Allah had several sources of revenue, much of it funneled through charities around the world, but these particular friends—or benefactors—continued to remain anonymous to Haddad, an endless source of frustration for him. Did Zuabi not trust him? Was he not, after all, one of the Hand of Allah’s most dedicated soldiers?
    But like any good soldier, he remained silent, not allowing himself to ask the questions that so plagued him.
    Instead he said, “Is it necessary for them to know?”
    Zuabi thought about this a moment. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in raising an alarm until we understand who we’re dealing with. You continue as before and I’ll look into the matter. If you see this Turk again, find out what you can and then kill him.”
    “What about Abdal? Have you decided what to do

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