Behind all these events, Russell was appearing in the internal briefings of every nation on Earth with increasing clarity, becoming harder and harder to ignore.
Kingpin closed the briefing compiled specifically by the intelligence agencies and set it on his desk.
His gaze shifted from the holographic projection to the presidential executive orders before him, which he had signed time and again.
The contents of these orders were largely identical.
Fully cooperate with the technology sharing plan Russell was promoting, recruit mutants into federal research institutions on a broad scale, and provide them with unprecedented policy support and preferential access to resources.
Over the past few days, he had signed more than thirty such orders, each changing this country's relationship with mutants in some minute but irreversible way.
Although Russell had never instructed him to do this, Kingpin had a keen sense of his responsibilities as the American president Russell had helped put in power.
Whatever Russell wanted to accomplish, he would carry out without hesitation. Whatever decisions Russell made, he would support without reservation.
Yet Kingpin was not entirely at ease.
His fingers kept tapping against the desktop, the rhythm betraying a faint but persistent irritation, as though some variable he could never eliminate continued to trouble him.
Rayloz.
The name kept resurfacing at the center of his thoughts, like a tiny thorn he could not pull out.
Russell had given him only three days. Those three days had now passed, and he still had not found the target.
It was not for lack of effort. Over the past few days, he had mobilized the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and every other resource at his disposal to conduct search after search across America.
But Rayloz had left no trace that could