As the cheers of his people faded on the wind, Kwaanga returned to the heart of KwaLuzu, alone and with a deeply troubled heart.

Chapter 1

The Mafia was represented.

The Cosa Nostra delegations from the United States and Sicily had insisted on a place of honor near the head of the table, and they still commanded enough respect to get it. Truth be told, everyone there knew the Mob's time had nearly come to an end.

Once rich and powerful, it had flourished before most of the men there were born. But that was before there was any real competition in the world. Now...

Now. Well, politeness did not allow the other delegates to speak of the hard times that had befallen the Mob of late. Now it was more out of respect for what it had been in the past that its demands were acceded to in the present. Like a doddering father too beloved by his family to place in a home, the Mafia was allowed its seat of honor.

An agent from the Camorra was there, as well. Looked down on for years by the more powerful Mafia, the Camorra was thought to have had been abolished by Mussolini early in the twentieth century. It had survived, but only with a fraction of the power it had previously enjoyed. It had experienced a resurgence of late, poised to make inroads in what had previously been purely Mafia territory.

Black Hand was there. This was the crime syndicate thought at various times in its history to be one and the same as both the Sicilian Mafia and the Naples Camorra, but which was never part of either. It was strong and stealthy, its leadership unknown. So complex were its transactions that its influence was impossible to calculate.

The current titans on the world scene were the powerful drug dealers. And from France to the Far East, from the Russian Mob in the north to the Medellin cartel in the south, all had sent representatives to this introductory meeting.