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handle things a bit better. I’m Detective Eddie Zoovas.”
    For the next thirty minutes, Zoovas asked the priest all of the mandatory questions: When had the body been discovered?  Did the Archbishop have any enemies?  When was the last time the Archbishop had been seen alive?  Zoovas jotted answers down in a small spiral notebook.
    “Who would do such a thing?” asked Connolly’s assistant.
    Zoovas shrugged. “Don’t know at this point, Father. My guess is that we’re looking at some kind of cult activity. It’s not as uncommon as you think, although . . . ”
    Zoovas looked at Connolly’s body, which was being photographed and scrutinized by the Medical Examiner. “Although this is one for the books.”
    “What are the police going to do?” asked the assistant. “I will need to make a report to my superiors.”
    “We’re going to canvass the neighborhood, ask questions, search the house. The usual.”  Zoovas faced the priest squarely. “Can you keep a secret, Father?”
    “I . . . uh . . . yes . . . I suppose I can. What are you getting at?”
    Zoovas rubbed his chin, which hadn’t yet felt a razor this morning. “I might put in a call to some people my father works for. He was a cop here in New York many years ago. He now works for a woman who has an interest in very unusual matters. But you never heard me say that, okay?”
    “Yes, of course,” answered the priest. “I appreciate anything you can do.”
    Zoovas began searching the premises. He would find no clues.
     

Chapter 8
     
    Training Gym #4
    Aboard the Alamiranta
     
    Quiz and DJ circled each other with catlike agility, their eyes locked on each other’s every step. DJ had been trying to teach her colleague and lover various moves common to MMA, or Mixed Martial Arts, which incorporated the techniques jiu-jitsu, karate, judo, kickboxing, and other forms of hand-to-hand combat. Today, she was instructing the computer specialist in taekwondo.
    A former German covert operative, the beautiful and dangerous DJ usually worked with Quiz in the Ops Center aboard the Alamiranta, the floating headquarters of Titan Global.
    Titan Global was an international business empire run by Catherine and Demetrius Caine. A corporate conglomerate that owned many subsidiary companies, especially in the oil and gas industry, Titan Global was also the world’s largest private military and intelligence contractor, and utilized special-ops teams for covert missions, such as surveillance, hostage extraction, regime infiltration, data gathering, search and rescue, and numerous other paramilitary operations. Its missions were sometimes initiated within Titan Global itself. Other times, clients ranging from corporations to sovereign governments contracted for the use of the most highly-trained special ops force in the world.
    DJ raised her right knee to her waist and kicked her leg into Quiz’s chest like lightning. A front snap-kick. The young man reeled, stumbling backwards before regaining his footing.
    But not fast enough.
    DJ, long silky hair trailing behind her, had already spun around and settled into the classic taekwondo horse-riding stance, legs spread slightly apart.
    “Easy does it, okay?” said Quiz.
    DJ, her enchanting blue eyes narrowed in concentration, threw her right arm forward, striking Quiz with a fore-fist hand attack. The knuckles of her clenched, rigid hand caught him in the shoulder.
    DJ smiled. “If I would have aimed for your face, you’d have a broken nose.”
    Quiz raised his knee, angled his body by ninety degrees, and attempted a side-thrust kick. DJ merely ducked to the left, grabbed Quiz’s leg, and threw him off balance. He tumbled unceremoniously to the mat. She then dropped to her knees, left forearm held tightly against the man’s throat.
    “Will you yield to me?” DJ asked.
    Quiz couldn’t answer. His airway was cut off.
    “This is where I want you,” said DJ in an almost savage voice.
    She lifted her arm, leaned