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people’s doors in three countries in the Middle East and blow their heads off. Two million dollars a name in U.S. dollars had already been wired to an account that no American bank regulator would ever audit. Now it was Trent’s job to move the stolen names on down the food chain.
    Business was booming for Seagraves. As the number of America’s global enemies continued to pile up, he was selling secrets to Muslim terrorists, communists in South America, dictators in Asia and even members of the European Union.
    “Happy reading,” Trent said, referring to the file he’d just given him. It was here that the encrypted identity of the “thunderstorm” would be revealed to Seagraves along with all the whys and wherefores.
    At his home later that night Seagraves stared at the name and began plotting the mission in his usual methodical way. Only this time it would take something far more subtle than a rifle and scope. Here Trent came through like a gem with a piece of intelligence on the target that simplified things greatly. Seagraves knew just whom to call.

CHAPTER 5
    P UNCTUALLY AT SIX-THIRTY ON a clear, cool morning in Washington, D.C., the front door of Jonathan DeHaven’s three-story home opened, and out he stepped dressed in a gray tweed jacket, pale blue tie and black slacks. A tall, spare man in his mid-fifties with a carefully combed head of silver hair, DeHaven inhaled the refreshing air and spent a few moments gazing at the row of magnificent old mansions that lined his street.
    DeHaven was far from the wealthiest person in his neighborhood, where the
average
price of a towering brick structure would set the purchaser back several million dollars. Luckily, he’d inherited his place from parents savvy enough to be early investors in the choicest D.C. real estate. Although much of their estate had gone to charity, the DeHavens’ only child had also been left a sizable amount to supplement his government salary and indulge certain whims.
    Even though this windfall had allowed DeHaven to pursue his life without worrying about earning money by any means possible, this was not true of other dwellers on Good Fellow Street. In fact, one of his neighbors was a merchant of death—though DeHaven supposed the politically correct term was “defense contractor.”
    The man, Cornelius Behan—he liked to be called CB—lived in a palatial space that cobbled
two
original dwellings into a fifteen-thousand-square-foot behemoth. DeHaven had heard rumors that this had been accomplished in the strictly controlled historical area by well-timed bribes. This conglomerate not only boasted a four-person elevator but also had separate servant’s quarters with actual servants living in them.
    Behan also brought an assortment of ridiculously beautiful women to his manse at odd hours, though he did have the decency to wait until his wife was out of town, often on one of her shopping sprees in Europe. DeHaven trusted that the wronged woman enjoyed her own dalliances while across the Atlantic. This summoned up an image of the elegantly attractive lady being mounted by a young French lover while perched nude on an enormous Louis XVI dining table with “Bolero” playing in the background.
And bravo for you,
DeHaven thought.
    He cast aside thoughts of his neighbors’ peccadilloes and set off to work with a lively bounce in his step. Jonathan DeHaven was the immensely proud director of the Rare Books and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress, arguably the finest rare books collection in the world. Well, the French, Italians and Brits might debate the point, but the obviously biased DeHaven knew that the American version was the best.
    He walked about a quarter mile along a series of rumpled brick sidewalks, with a precise tread learned from his mother, who’d meticulously marched every step of her long life. On the day before she died DeHaven was not completely sure his famously imperious mother wouldn’t simply skip