The First Commandment

Lunch was at one of three spots-Legal Seafoods of Boston, P. F. Chang’s, or the Cheesecake Factory. Today it was P. F. Chang’s.

After a lunch of lettuce wraps, crab wonton, lemon scallops, and Cantonese roasted duck, the women paid the check, emptied their wineglasses, and headed for the parking lot.

Cutting through Macy’s, they were approached by one of the most gorgeous men either of them had ever seen. He was at least six feet tall with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. He looked Italian and was wearing an impeccably tailored gray suit.

Despite being an accomplished sniper, Philippe Roussard also enjoyed engaging his targets up close. He liked to take his time, to listen to them beg for their lives and then watch them die. Sometimes, though, he didn’t get his way. In this case, he would have to read about the women’s deaths in the paper-if the news was ever published at all.

“Che bella donna,” he said, as he approached, and he meant it. The ladies were both very attractive; much more so than in their surveillance photos.

Italian, Carolyn Leonard thought to herself. I knew it.

While she didn’t normally engage strangers, she’d had a little wine with lunch, and today, after all, was her day off. Besides, how much trouble could the guy be? He worked for Macy’s. She could see the bottle of perfume and sample strips in his hand. Sure, he was trying to get them to buy something, but he was so gorgeous. Whatever he was selling, Carolyn Leonard was in the mood to buy.

The off-duty head of the American president’s Secret Service detail smiled. She was tall, about five-foot-ten, and very lean. Her red hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and she looked like a very fit woman.

Roussard bowed his head and smiled at them both. The other agent, Kate Palmer, was shorter, about five-seven, but just as attractive, with a hard, lithe body, long brown hair, and deep green eyes.

“You are easily the most beautiful women I have seen come through the store all day,” he said in heavily accented English.

Carolyn Leonard chuckled. “It must be a very slow day.”

Roussard smiled. “I am telling you the truth.”

“Where are you from?” asked Palmer.

“ Italy.”

“You don’t say,” she teased. “Where in Italy?”

“San Benedetto del Tronto. It’s in the central Marche region on the Adriatic. Do you know it?”

“No,” replied Leonard. “But I think I’d like to.”

Roussard held up his perfume bottle as if he were demonstrating the newest marvel of technology. “I have to look like I am trying to sell you something. My supervisor has been watching me very closely. He says I flirt too much.”

Carolyn laughed again. “Puh-lease, that’s all part of sales, isn’t it?”

“Not when you mean it,” replied Roussard.

“Oh, this guy’s good,” stated Palmer with a smile. “Real good.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you,” said Carolyn, “But I don’t think either of us is in the market for any new perfume, are we?”

Palmer shook her head. “Maybe next time.”

Roussard’s lips spread into a boyish grin. “At least please try it. It’s quite nice and my supervisor won’t be able to say I’m not doing my job.”

Carolyn looked at Kate Palmer, shrugged her shoulders, and said, “Why not?”

Roussard handed them the bottle and politely stepped back. The women sprayed the perfume on their wrists, rubbed their necks, and Palmer even sprayed some onto her hair.

“It doesn’t have much of a scent,” commented Carolyn Leonard.

“That’s because it works with your body’s own chemistry. Give it a little time and you’ll see. It is quite remarkable.”

Leonard gave the bottle back as Roussard handed her and Palmer a sample card with the name of the product and a phrase that looked to be Italian.

As the ladies headed out to the parking lot, neither of them had any idea of the horror they had just invited into their lives.

Chapter 61

CIA SAFE HOUSE

COLTONS POINT, MARYLAND

The small, unremarkable home sat at the verdant end of Graves Road on St. Patrick’s Creek-a small inlet of the Potomac River, less than fifty kilometers from where the Potomac emptied into the Chesapeake.

The cars parked in the home’s driveway were equally unremarkable-a smattering of SUVs and pickups, the kind of cars one would expect to see at the weekend home of a general contractor from Baltimore.

Had the neighbors seen any of the men getting out of their vehicles and entering the house, none would have given them a second look. They were trim and of varying heights, their faces bronzed from being in the sun, signs that they were all undoubtedly engaged in the same profession as the home’s owner. Had anyone taken any notice of them they would have assumed the men had all come down for the fishing.