The rest really was frustrating. Rows of movies on video, rows of instructional tapes. He was sweating now and swung at the shelves and scattered videotapes across the floor.

Okay. So he'd done what Fox wanted. Time to go. There were some bottles on a side table, and glasses. He poured some bourbon, savoured it, and left by the same route, locking the basement door before returning to Falcone and Russo.

When they arrived at the Park Avenue townhouse, Fox was waiting eagerly. He took the disks and tapes Terry Mount offered and said to Russo, 'Look after him.' He turned to Falcone. 'You stay. It could be bad.'

'Then it's bad for both of us, Signore.' They had been friends since boyhood.

Fox started checking the disks, mostly work notes, letters, accounts, and quickly discarded them. Then he started on the tapes Mount had found in the tape recorder, and on the second struck pure gold.

At first, the sounds were of an innocuous conversation about family business and so on. The woman's voice was very pleasant and intimate, and the man's…

Falcone said, 'Jesus, Maria, Signore, that's you.'

There were restaurant sounds in the background, a little music. Fox said, 'She was recording us.'

Suddenly, the tape changed. Now, the woman was clearly making notes to herself.

'There can be little doubt that Jack Fox, in spite of the war hero and Wall Street image, is nothing less than the new face of the Solazzo family and the new Mafia. I'll lull him to sleep with the first article in Truth and then hit him hard with the rest. There might even be a special on the Truth Channel in this. I've just got to take it easy, and flatter him. His vanity should take care of the rest.'