I had never thought about keeping the disc on my person, that was much too dangerous and made the contents vulnerable. Same went for Alex, too many chances he also would be taken just as certainly as it had happened. Shit happens. An old man playing the innocent granddad type of shit, sliding under the radar even though my senses told me he looked too good to be true and I'd let my guard down, too happy to be back in the good old U.S. of A. tracking down the man who held or at least had kidnapped my two daughters Jill and Pamela.

Now Alex was out there in the unknown, either dead or possible wandering the desert trying to get back to Vegas. And if he did, what then? We had a plan that had been developed along the way. A secret plan that if anything went wrong he'd contact my buddy in Chicago. I'd alerted him on a stopover in New York. Hey old pal, I may need another rescuing, or you up to it?

The words came back just as I suspected they would. "Hey Palladin, you old pervert, name the time and place, I'll be on the first flight."

Anthony "Baseball" Mirano - just call me Tony, was a crime boss of the North side Chicago family and one of the top dozen Dons in the North/Northeast Mafia familia. Hew was known by the feds and his pals as "Baseball" because of the bat he swung between his legs and the bat he'd once carried as an enforcer when making his bones for the Northside crime family. Tony had pulled my nuts out of the fire in L.A. when a bunch hired by Hans had tried to deep six my wife (or ex-wife as was the case) and I. They had ended up killing both my ex and her husband and orphaning little Julie, a girl I was still legally a guardian. This was all in a debt he owed me for rescuing his own young daughter form terrorists in Thailand. [Author's Note: See both Books VI and VII in the Palladin Series].

Yet even with Tony's avowed help deep inside I felt a cold knot at the pit of my stomach. Alex had nothing that tangible tying him to me or any vow to stop a terrorist plot against America. Being European and being an aristocrat he had a decidedly liberal slant on life in general and was not too favorable towards the actions of America and those living here. He was smart enough to not blame every workingman for the place America now found itself in the worldview but much akin as to how we felt about the Muslims in various countries and their hatred for all things American, he felt little compassion about our current plight.

What would stop him from boogying to points East if he made it to McCarran Airport? One thing on his mind was probably the fifty thousand I had deposited in the Swiss account for him with a letter to my solicitor stating the conditions for transfer to his account:

(1) My death

(2) My safe return and a letter releasing the funds

Condition one was almost a certainty right now and Alex may gamble on my not returning, getting out of town and watching the newspapers for any sign of my demise. A nuclear bomb in Lass Vegas with his statements to Interpol that I had been taken captive by the CSJ in the city would be a long road to establish my demise. Especially with the acknowledgement of the Interpol agent Charley that I was truly still alive after my death notice in Spain. Most likely every Interpol operative in the European theater was searching high and low for my non-dead butt, hoping I would lead them to the CSJ. About now I was praying for them to get lucky and show up with the cavalry but I hadn't heard any trumpets sounding just yet.

Shit, I could sure use old Charley about now, he wouldn't split on me. I knew he'd bust a nut to stop this crackpot and his team of stooges from lighting up the Vegas Strip like it hadn't seen since John Wayne was running around the Utah desert making shit kickers with Howard and the boys. But Charley had been dumped by guess who? Yea, the prince of idiots had chosen another ally, one closer to his own pedophile roots but one without the zeal to see the mission through. God Bless you Count Alexander, wherever you are. Enjoy your ill begotten gains as you laugh over the grave of the last of my family including the idiot here. ......(cont)