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Ayala kidnapped. The eldest son has told me we’re to keep our hands off.”
    Aida Farallon—something of a legend in the Philippines, though undeservedly obscure elsewhere—scowled, too much the lady to curse the storm she felt.
    “Unusual circumstances?” she asked of the detective.
    The plainclothesman shrugged. “Maybe not. They knew when he’d be here, but in itself that’s no big deal. The old man was something of a creature of habit. His girl, up on the twenty-first floor is . . . well, frankly, not bright enough to lie well. She knows nothing.”
    “Who do you think did it?”
    “Ten years ago I’d have instantly blamed the Moros,” the detective answered. “Now? Now, it could be anyone out for a fast buck.”
    Aida, skilled in reading people, shook her head. “You don’t believe that for a minute.”
    Shaking his head, the detective answered, “No. No, I don’t. Moros or Huks. This thing reads the kind of organization and precision ruthlessness criminal gangs—besides maybe TCS—can rarely muster. It smells political. Moreover”—the cop held up a brass-washed steel casing between thumb and forefinger—“this is not your normal ammunition. Russian 7N31. Sure, it looks normal. But try to fire this from a normal pistol or submachine gun and the thing will likely blow up in your face; Plus P Plus Plus. Designed to pierce body armor.”
    Aida took a pencil from her pocket and held it, eraser end first, toward the detective. He placed the casing carefully over the rubber end. Aida then flicked on the dome light in the police car, and held the brass close to her eye, examining it closely.
    “Looks normal enough,” she said.
    “Sure,” the detective agreed. “But it isn’t. Not only does it have much higher pressure, the bullet’s a steel penetrator in a polymer frame. Weighs very little, a bit over half of a normal 9mm. It moves fast , hits armor, leaves the polymer behind, then the steel continues on.
    “Fortunately, it’s rare.”
    “Any chance of tracing it?” she asked, holding the pencil out for the other to retrieve his evidence.
    The detective shook his head, taking the casing back and slipping it into a plastic bag. “Not really. This travelled only through black channels. The blackest. Even if the Russians could help, they won’t.
    “I’d wonder if it wasn’t Victor Inning who put these into the stream of commerce. But he’s been so out of the picture for the last several years that I seriously doubt his involvement.”
    The cop smiled, a bit ruefully. “Some ways, I wish Inning were still in business. He , at least, had some scruples.”
    “Some,” Aida agreed, “but not all that much.”
    The old woman leaned back in her chair and flicked off the dome light. Staring upward, through the windshield, she rocked her head for several long moments.
    “ Cui bono ?” she asked, of no one in particular. Then she sneered, saying to the detective, “To hell with what the boy wants. I want the Ayala mansion and its communications monitored twenty-four, seven. And everyone in the entire clan’s cell phones.”
    Still sneering, Aida nodded in the direction of the cordon around young Ayala. “Silly rich-boy turd thinks he can intimidate me ? I’m a grandmother. I’ve got more important things to worry about than a career.
    “Besides,” she added, “I know the boy’s mother.”
    “Potentially a lot of trouble,” the detective said, “and I don’t just mean our efforts.”
    “Trouble?” she asked. “Let me tell you about trouble. Trouble, real trouble, happens when a bunch of ideological or religious lunatics get their hands on enough money to buy a nuke, or some new bug, or to set up a serious lab to make serious gas. That’s trouble.
    “I’ll handle the mother.”

    Off Fort Drum ( El Fraile ), Manila Bay,
    Republic of the Philippines

    It wasn’t the mother of all coastal fortifications. Rather, it was the multi-great grandchild . . . on steroids, with two twin