She nodded. A call from the top of the pyramid had to mean some kind of seriousbusiness that couldn't wait. Whatever it was, I didn't want to hear about it right nowRon Burns himself came on the line. This was getting worse by the second. “Alex? Is thatyou?”

“Yes, sir.” I sighed. Just Jamilla, and me, and you. “I appreciate your taking this call. I'msorry to be bothering you. I know it's been a while since your last real vacation.”

He didn't know the half of it, but I kept quiet and listened to what the director had to say“Alex, there's kind of a sticky case in L.A. I probably would have wanted to send you outon this one anyway The fact that you're in California is a lucky coincidence. Lucky ofcourse, being a relative concept.”

I shook my head back and forth. This was sounding reallybad.

“What's the case? This lucky coincidence that I'm outhere?”

“You ever heard of Antonia Schifman?”

That got my attention a little. “The actress? Sure.”

“She was murdered this morning, along with her limo driver. It happened outside herhome. Her family was inside sleeping.”

“The rest Of the family - they're okay?” I asked. “No one else was hurt, Alex. Just theactress and her driver.”

I was a little confused. “Why is the Bureau on this? LAPD request a consult?”

“Not exactly” Burns paused. “If you wouldn't mind keeping this between the two of us,Antonia Schifman was friends with the president. And a close friend of his wife. Thepresident has asked for our help on the murder investigation.”

“Oh.” I saw that Ron Burns wasn't quite as immune to Washington pressure as I hadthought. Even so, he was the best thing that had happened to the FBI in a long time. Andhe'd already done me more than one favor in my short tenure. Of course, I had done hima few good turns, too.