“Why, Henry,” Smith said. “What’s all this? I didn’t see anything about it in the job description.”

Morgan backed away, thinking hard.

There was a pause and the other man said, “Mr. Morgan, my name is Blake Johnson. I work for the President of the United States. This gentleman is Clancy Smith of the Secret Service. I regret to tell you that the President isn’t coming tonight. Seems he canceled the dinner at the last moment and flew back to Washington. So sorry.”

He stepped forward and, in a single motion, Morgan raised the AK and fired at point-blank range – but only the rattle of the bolt sounded.

Smith said, “Forgot to mention. I emptied it when you went down to the vault. And by the way – I never accept coffee from strangers.”

Morgan dropped the AK to the floor with a look of despair on his face. Johnson almost felt sorry for him.

“Hell, man, we got Saddam Hussein. Did you really think you could pull this off? Anything to say?”

“Yes,” Morgan said. “Beware the Wrath of Allah.”

He seemed to bite hard, his jaw tightening, then he staggered back, tripped and fell to the floor, moaning terribly, his face contorted. There was a strange, pungent smell as Smith dropped to one knee and peered closely at him. He glanced up, “I don’t know what in the hell that smell is, but this guy is dead.”

By special arrangement, Blake had the body removed by army paramedics and conveyed to an exclusive private hospital used mainly for rehab patients. It did, however, offer state-of-the-art morgue facilities and he’d called in one of New York ’s finest chief medical examiners, Dr. George Romano, to do the necessary.

He and Clancy had stopped off at their hotel so that Clancy could change from the security uniform, and arrived at their destination a good hour after the corpse and found Romano in the Superintendent’s office already garbed for action. He and Blake were old friends. Romano had done a lot of work for the Basement, the White House security organization that Johnson ran. Romano was drinking coffee and smoking.