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By Root 1301 0

Secretary of State Scott Adler, the official party was loaded into all the four-wheel-drive vehicles that the embassy had been able to assemble on such short notice, and headed off to the Madison Hotel, a few blocks from the White House. The President, he learned, was at Camp David, and would be coming back to Washington the following morning. The Japanese Prime Minister, still suffering from the lingering effects of travel, decided to get a few more hours of sleep. He'd not yet taken off his coat when another clean-up crew boarded the aircraft yet again. One man retrieved the unused liquor, including one bottle with a cracked neck. Another emptied the wastebaskets of the various washrooms into a large trash bag. They were soon on their way to Langley. All of the chase aircraft except the first landed at Andrews Air Force Base, where the flight crews also began their mandated rest periods - in this case at the base officers' club. The recordings started their trip to Langley by car, arriving later than the tape recorder from Dulles. It turned out that the machine off the 747 had the best sound quality, and the technicians started on that tape first.

The Gulfstream returned to Mexico City, also on time. The aircraft rolled out to the general-aviation terminal and the flight crew of three - it was an Air Force crew, though no one knew that - walked into the terminal for dinner. Since they were Air Force, it was time for some crew rest. Clark was still at the embassy, and planned to catch the first quarter at least, before heading back to D.C. and all that damned snow.

"Be careful or you're going to fall asleep during the game," the National Security Advisor warned.

"It's only my second beer, Elizabeth," Fowler replied.

There was a cooler next to the sofa, and a large silver tray of munchies. Elliot still found it quite incredible. J. Robert Fowler, President of the United States, so intelligent and hard-minded in every possible way, but a rabid football fan, sitting here like Archie Bunker, waiting for the kickoff.

"I found one, but the other one's a son-of-a-bitch," the crew chief reported. "Can't seem to figure this one out, Colonel."

"Come on inside and warm up," the pilot said. "You've been out there too long anyway."

"Some kind of drug deal, I'll bet you," the junior detective said.

"Then it's amateurs," his partner observed. The photographer had snapped his customary four rolls of film, and now the coroner's men were lifting the body into the plastic bag for transport to the morgue. There could be little doubt on the cause of death. It was a particularly brutal murder. It seemed that the killers - there had to be two, the senior man already thought - had to have held the man's arms down before they slashed his throat, and then they had watched him bleed out while using the towel to keep their clothes clean. Maybe they were paying off a debt somehow or other. Perhaps this guy had done a rip-off, or there was some old grudge that they had settled. This was clearly not a crime of passion; it was far too cruel and calculated for that.

The detectives noted their good luck, however. The victim's wallet had still been in his pocket. They had all his ID, and better than that, they had two complete sets of other ID, all of which were now being checked out. The motel records had noted the license numbers of both vehicles associated with these rooms, and those also were being checked on the motor-vehicle-records computer.

"The guy's an Indian," the coroner's rep said as they picked him up. "Native American, I mean."

"I've seen the face somewhere before," the junior detective thought. "Wait a minute." Something caught his eye. He unbuttoned the man's shirt, revealing the top of a tattoo.

"He's done time," the senior man said. The tattoo on the man's chest was a crude one, spit-and-pencil, and it showed something that he'd seen before "Wait a minute this means something "

"Warrior Society!"

"You're right. The Feds had something out on - oh, yeah, remember? The shooting up in North Dakota