For the record, I, Major Michael Endicott, veteran spiritual soldier, didn't take the news about Roderick's survival well.

"Major, please, calm down." My father's replacement at countercraft ops command, General Calvin Attucks, used a touch of reassuring craft with his raspy Harry Belafonte voice, but that magic hadn't ever worked on me, even from Colonel Hutchinson.

"I'm plenty calm, sir," I answered, shaking the pain out of the fist that I had just slammed on my father's former desk. "But we've got to go to Ukraine right now and kill him." Here I was, an Endicott advocating the assassination of a Left-Hand Morton because no one else here in the Pentagon's secret H-ring had the sense to see the immediate threat. I sounded just like my father. Like much else in the army, this wasn't fair. Neither was Hutch's death. As Attucks's cousin-in-law, her picture was on his desk along with his wife's. Hutch had died to get rid of Roderick forever.

"You understand, sir," I continued, "this isn't just a Family thing. Dale agrees with me. He said that if farsight spotted Roderick, we should go after him ASAP. He said his ancestor is like a cancer — he'll only grow."

The general shook his bald head, probably still a little surprised that, after centuries of interfamily feuding, an Endicott was quoting a Morton as authority. Still surprised me a little too. "Major Morton is hardly an objective voice," he said.

"Meaning what, sir?"

"Meaning Roderick will want to kill Scherie as much as he wants to kill Dale, you, the Endicott family, or anyone else."

"OK," I said, "what are the Ukrainians going to do about it?"

"The Ukrainians have made it distinctly clear that they'll fight to keep him, and the Russians have been even clearer that they consider this to be within their sphere of influence, so they get to handle it and no one else."

The Ukrainians. If I ever got my hands on that bastard Roman Roszkewycz, he wouldn't slip away again without some serious damage. "We should nuke him from orbit. He's World War III waiting to happen."

"Michael, we're working on it. For now, that's all I can tell you."

Lord, give me the patience to accept this BS. Amen. My little prayer seemed to help, but only for a moment. "Sir, while I appreciate the news, why are you telling me this?"

"Besides you being a target?"

"Yes, sir. Besides that." I was always a target.

"I have other news. You're going to London. Tomorrow."

"London?" Ah, shoot. Attucks was smiling at me the same way Hutch used to when she'd given me a particularly unpleasant assignment. Some people, like her and the general, had the wrong impression about me and travel. I enjoyed travel, when it was for fun or combat. But my work didn't mix with pleasure, and some places were just plain hostile to what I did. Though it wasn't as bad as Prague, London was definitely on that list. American Endicotts running around there using the power of command probably reminded the English of some ugly arguments during the World Wars, or maybe they still remembered the thumping we'd given them during the Revolution and at New Orleans.

"The Brits have been losing craftsmen lately," said Attucks.

"They've been in some high-risk fights," I ventured, but I knew that wasn't where he was going.

"They're concerned about a traitor at a high level. Until we get it straightened out, we can't cooperate on anything important. We need their Magic Circus cleaned up before any joint ops against Roderick."

I asked the obvious: "Isn't that something for Langley to worry about?"

"The Peepshow wants you," he said. I never cared for those words; when Langley's center for precognition and farsight had last selected the individual for an assignment, it had meant serious trouble for me and Dale.

"And Roderick is connected to this?"

"That isn't established," he said, "but he may try to take advantage of the situation."

Another high-level mole hunt at MI13? H-ring still talked about the disaster of the Philby years, which was even worse in the spiritual sphere than in conventional intelligence.

"They won't be happy," I noted, "to have an American minder."

"They don't have much choice."

* * *

When Endicott left Attucks's office, Eddy Edwards came into the room through a hidden door. He looked more like muscle than the typical man in his post: acting director of the Peepshow at Langley. General Attucks gave him a narrow gaze tinged with a little anger and much doubt. "Edgar, are you certain you know what you're doing?"

"No," said Eddy. "If we were certain, they would be too, and it wouldn't work."

"My honored ancestor didn't take a bullet for this republic's fate to rest on a bad quantum bet."

Eddy raised his eyebrows, and Attucks didn't need him to say his thoughts. For the Attucks Family founder, Crispus, taking that bullet had been a bet too. Crispus had wagered his life on very long odds for American freedom, though it would be a long time before his own descendants would see it.

But the odds seemed longer on this current wager, with perhaps even more riding on it. Even if the good guys won, three good craftspeople would probably be lost because of Attucks's orders.

"If there was another way that even came close ..." Eddy's dark eyes lost the farseeing conviction of his preacher ancestor Jonathan, and held the sorrow of that other Edgar, the storyteller who had come too close to the craft for his own health.

"If there was another way," said Attucks, "you'd tell me, and I'd order it. But there isn't, so God help us all."

* * *

Royal Navy Commander Grace Marlow, MI13, reviewed the American's file with growing unease. This evening, she was working in a small office set aside for her service within "Lubyanka-sur-Thames," MI6's glass-and-permastone headquarters at Vauxhall Cross. Her service had been planning to move into new offices in the City at Fenchurch Street, but when that building began melting parts of parked cars, other arrangements had to be made.

The American major, who would arrive tomorrow morning, bore the code name Sword, as if that in any way hid the identity of a man who carried his heirloom weapon everywhere he went. The surveillance photos and video showed a face that wore the distinctive Endicott features, like a young and beardless version of mad John Endicott. He also closely resembled his great-grandfather, who had been in England during the Second World War.

Grace Marlow's own appearance was distinctive: tall and athletically slim, a narrow face with a mouth that, though sensually full, enemies would still describe as cruel, and black hair with a curl that hung like a comma over her right eye. The one flaw on her face was a short...