Free The 4 Phase Man by Richard Steinberg Page B

however he thought they lay.
    Quattro Cani made few comments, asked fewer questions. Merely listened, nodded, and shook his head.
    “When I leave this airport,” Xenos finally said,
“finito. Capito?”
    “Lui’ è morto?”
    “Sconosciuto,”
Xenos said unemotionally. “But whether he’s dead or not, he ain’t a runner. I’m sure of at least that much.”
    “That will please his brother. A pause. “And frighten him.
    “I understand.”
    “And this Alvarez, she is definitely involved?”
    Xenos hesitated.
“Sì. Non disposto, mal disposto.
But, yeah. They turned off into a relatively empty alcove where they could talk more freely, away from the deplaning tourists and businessmen they’d wandered into.”
    “Willing or not, she must be made to cooperate, the Corsican said offhandedly.”
    “None of my business.”
    A broad, charming smile, so similar to Franco’s that for the briefest moment Xenos wondered if it was taught to all members of the Brotherhood.
    “Would you be willing to, uh,
facilitare
her cooperation? For appropriate remuneration, of course.”
    But Xenos had already turned his back and was starting to walk away.
    “Just keep your end of the deal, he called over his shoulder as he mixed with the crowds.”
    “We have already broken ground on the new ward, Dureté,” Quattro Cani called after him. Then, looking around to be sure he hadn’t been spotted—his death warrant if seen by the wrong eyes—he wandered away in the opposite direction.
    To make his calls and set his plans.
    Plans—more or
less
venomous depending on how the game was going—were also being laid in the den of a quiet home in Georgetown.
    Senator Rod Buckley carefully lined up his next shot while waiting for his two guests to finish pouring their drinks. “Three in the corner,” he said as he concentrated.
    “Five hundred says you blow it,” Lane Kingston, former congressman and current director of the Peace corps, called out.
    “If gambling weren’t illegal in this state,” Attorney General Jefferson DeWitt said, laughing, “I’d take you up on that.”
    Buckley simply smiled, pulled back the cue, and easily made the difficult bank shot. “That,” he said with a self-satisfied grin, “is called grace under fire.”
    “That’s called damned lucky,” DeWitt said as he poured himself another drink.
    “Lucky
is
graceful,” Kingston said between bitefuls of his sandwich.
    “More pearls of wisdom from the only M.A. ever to flunk philosophy.”
    “Pearls before swine,” came out hoarsely—half word, half sandwich.
    For almost ten years these three men had casually insulted, prodded, harassed, or needled each other in their once-a-week “our nights.” It was a ritual that none of the men would miss, although none deeply enjoyed either.
    Brought together by politics and life, the men were considered by many to be the next generation of leaders in the Democratic Party.
    Brought together by common appetites—for food, challenges (physical and intellectual), women, and ambition—the men considered themselves the cream of their generation, poised on the verge of assuming their destinies.
    Brought together by George Steingarth—the lame duck president’s closest friend and personal adviser—the men were being
considered.
    And all of that combined with the free-flowing beer and liquor to be deeply intoxicating.
    Actually they had a great deal in common.
    Under fifty, athletic, intellectual, charismatic, all hadbeen Rhodes or Westinghouse scholars, had attended college in the U.S. and abroad. They spoke several languages, were fanatical sports fans, and had an almost boyish admiration of women.
    All women.
    They were slightly more conservative on national security issues than the rest of the party, but quite liberal on social issues. All three were married to trophy wives, had trophy kids, trophy careers, and a natural sense of humor that carefully hid their goals.
    Most important, they all
knew
they’d