XXX PROLOGUE

agents confirmed Rivera's hunch: Bill Maxwell and Tony weren't the men's real names. They were not Canadian, nor did they live in the Philippines. They were, the agents suspected, Americans from Roxboro, North Carolina.

Rivera introduced the DEA agents to the witnesses he had inter- viewed about Lee's last days. The agents showed them photos of the two Americans, Rivera told me, “mingled with seven or eight different photos of seven or eight different individuals.” Some of the witnesses identified the two Americans as having met with Lee. Others didn't. But after those sessions, one of the DEA agents faxed a report back to the States. The next day, the two men were arrested in Roxboro.

Rivera was pleased with the arrests, but he also expressed frus- tration about his own continuing investigation, which he resumed after the DEA meeting. A local accomplice had allegedly helped supply the murder weapon and vehicle to the suspects, but Rivera still didn't have enough information to track him down. He pointed out to me that the NBI hadn't gotten any credit for the arrests, while at the same time suggesting that such credit was unneces- sary. “We were not included. We were happy about that, it's no problem with us. We have nothing to gain with being famous.”

But something else was bothering him: There was someone, or something, much bigger behind the crime that remained shrouded in mystery. Why would the U.S. government send agents across the world to gather evidence against two Americans for the mur- der of a Filipino woman? Overseas murders, no matter how tragic, typically don't fall under American jurisdiction. Why not just ex- tradite the pair to the Philippines, where the crime occurred, and hand them off to the NBI?

I had the same questions. Perhaps it was related to something more fundamental about the case that I still didn't understand: Why was Catherine Lee important enough for two men from North Carolina to fly across the world to kill her?

Rivera had an answer, although at first he was reluctant to tell me. The crime, he said, was the work of “the Mastermind.” At